Even though your arms will tire of using pickaxes and rope thingies to climb up some truly imposing cliffsides and mountains, Horizon Call of the Mountain never loses its sense of scale, wonder, and sheer beauty.

The biggest disappointment - outside of the narrative, uneven combat, and characters - comes from the expectation and promise found in the art direction, combat, and Soviet-era Russian sci-fi style. There’s a school of thought that when it comes to a review, you should discuss the content of a game versus what it doesn’t have. The logic is sound, if all criticism comes from a place of unmet expectation, that would be unfair. But when something looks this good, you can’t help but wonder what’s missing. At least in those rare moments when the game shuts up long enough for you to think.

Ultimately it's the setting, art direction, and non-verbal cinematic storytelling where Somerville excels. But even here there are long lulls and a few sections that begin to feel bland. Like when you’re in a cave system trying to avoid attention in a way that feels like a homage to Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. And outside of the emotional notes touched upon when it comes to trying to reach your family in an oppressive situation, the ending and final act are too obtuse and abstract to make any sort of lasting impact. Somerville is a visually impressive, relatively short cinematic adventure held back by its ambition.

The fact that there are several difficulty levels and the ability to fine-tune Sonic’s speed, jump height, and even damage recovery as part of the in-game options is not a great sign and is indicative of the mish-mash feel. In the end, the lack of focus and consistency makes Sonic Frontiers feel unfinished - even if playing in the solid 60 frames-per-second performance mode is great for capturing and conveying a sense of speed and scale. But even here there’s so much pop-in that you lose out on a true sense of awe when it comes to the environments and structures born from the mysterious Cyber Space. Another average, but ambitious, outing for the blue hedgehog.

Those diehards mentioned in the opener above will be happy to know that the level grading system is back, and locked to the higher difficulty setting, which ties into those that want to learn the intricate and subtly deep nature of things. For everyone else who’ll still be scratching their heads at the ludicrousness of it all, from go to whoa, at least you can rest easy on the idea that it’s okay to mash your way through here, and that for Bayonetta, this is all pretty standard stuff -- OTT served with a side of sass, sexuality and style.

Visually the characters, animation, and cinematics benefit greatly from the use of performance capture, and it doesn’t take long for the physical ticks and mannerisms of the three main players to do that thing where they no longer feel like characters in the story - but, real characters. This is the best the franchise has looked from a purely cinematic level. In the end, New Tales From The Borderlands succeeds because it lives up to its namesake and presents the best Borderlands storytelling since the original Tales.

When the game sings in its strongest moments, however, it’s a joy to play. Solving environmental puzzles, discovering workbenches to upgrade your gear, uncovering hidden Codex entries, evading the enemy in rewarding, stealthy ways that empower the player’s sense of agency, and in unfolding the next bit of connective narrative tissue, A Plague Tale: Requiem is great. Excellent even. But it’s fleeting, and Asobo crashes you down to Earth just as quickly as you might have felt on top of it, driven largely by hard-fail scenarios and situations, bolstered still by antiquated or arbitrary gameplay systems.

On the cynical side of things. NBA 2K is a billion dollar enterprise, it doesn't do things by accident. It chose to put MyCareer front and centre, to put MyTeam right below it, to bury the ability to simply play a game of basketball in layers of menus. The shame of it is that I genuinely think it's the best representation of basketball ever. But they make you work so hard to see that, and I just don't know if it's worth the effort.

Ultimately the new Saints Row is a disappointment, especially if you’re a fan of the series. The co-op mode, although highly problematic when trying to establish a game, was commendably solid once up and running, and fun for a while. The new location and characters don’t really land and the sloppy nature of just about every aspect gives the impression of yet another game released long before it was finished. And even though this might sound like a random aside, when a Saints Row game with multiple radio stations features only a handful of memorable or recognisable tracks - to the point where you don’t even notice driving around in silence - you know there are issues.

After each episode, you even get a chart highlighting the path you’ve taken with spoiler-free hints at the breadth of outcomes and scenes available. And even with all of that, each new twist and turn feels unexpected. As a slice of brand-new interactive choice-driven narrative drama, As Dusk Falls impresses. But it’s an experience held back by its photo-filter visuals and interactivity that never quite feels like an extension of its many dramatic moments.

In the end there’s a great game at the core of Diablo: Immortal, and it’s one that looks, feels and plays, exactly like a Diablo game built for mobile should. In expanding the scope to include a robust system of MMO activities, ways to play, and adding many simple progression systems that all feed into each other, what makes Diablo and other games like it so special was lost along the way. Despite the free-to-play mobile design and stingy end-game rewards, I still wanted to keep playing. The tragedy is, Diablo: Immortal didn’t want me to. It wants nothing more than for me to sign-in, play for a few minutes, log-out, and come back tomorrow.

There’s value here for the matriculant willing to put in the effort, but you’ve really gotta want it. And even as a Fire Emblem diehard I found it a bit of a slog. Repetitive and more often than not caked in superfluous activity, Three Hopes is a mash of ideas drawn out beyond its measure, and if you take into account the option to play through each House’s own campaign, the target audience thins to a specific tine, and you might be confronted with an intimidating wall, looming convolutedly large.

As a classic RTS experience, there’s a lot to like about Starship Troopers: Terran Command - especially in terms of translating the look and feel of the action scenes found in the iconic movie into little slices of strategy. Outside of a few pathing glitches and a couple of animation bugs, the biggest problem here is that the default difficulty feels a little too easy in addition to there being not much on offer once you complete the campaign. Without a fleshed out skirmish mode or even something like a co-op mode to take on the Arachnid together, it’s something of a one and done experience. Still, it’s good to do your part because... service guarantees citizenship.

Describing the game as chaotic in action is definitely apt, and for sheer speed this is one of the fastest ‘Mario Sports’ games to date. In a way, that goes against what you kind of expect to see from Nintendo, but in execution Mario Strikers goes all in on the fast and dirty game of Mushroom Kingdom soccer.

It is an absolutely stunning game with a great story and an excellent presentation (as well as beautiful audio), but it didn’t quite reach the top of the mountain it set out to climb.

As much fun as it is to see Nintendo Switch Sports bring back some of that Wii magic, that party room vibe, it’s hard not to look at this as anything but a missed opportunity. Having all progression and customisation locked to online play feels like a missed opportunity, and although we couldn’t test the online stuff during the review period it’s hard to see how the Wii Sports formula would substantially improve on the same-room formula.

Outside of a few mostly inconsequential panel-based vignettes scattered around, and levels that take you from a small town through to a backwoods swamp and then through to industrial and supernatural locales, Forgive Me Father’s narrative is mostly a mystery. In the end it’s hard to look at this as anything but a missed opportunity, where the mix of old and new doesn’t quite come together. The horror aspirations amount to little more than set dressing. Fast-paced shooting is where Forgive Me Father settles, a place where enemies move in predefined patterns and strafing is just about all you need to do to survive. As fun as that can be in doses, there’s little incentive to keep going once you realise that’s all there is.

Through excellent world building, great characters, and a branching story, you’ve got a great slice of locally-grown sci-fi well worth digging into. Or, pointing and clicking through. And even though it’s held back a bit by its not-that-great inventory system, and a few cumbersome puzzles, the story is where it shines.

It’s just very easy and bite-sized in the grand scheme of it all. None of the cool ideas are ever fully fleshed out and it tends to feel one-note after a while. I get it if you’re a crazed brick collector, as that’s what these games are designed around, but as a gaming experience outside of co-op, I found it, as Vader would say: “all too easy”.

And if it's racing with a story that you're after, The Crew and Need for Speed franchisers have you well covered with their mix of outlandish, goofy storytelling and arcade style racing. Perhaps if Legends cut the story entirely, pared down the overly long career mode, and simply focused on being a multidisciplinary arcade racing game, it might find that niche it once occupied on the shelf, back when it was simply known as TOCA.

At any rate, what’s here is fun and it’s Nintendo and there’s co-op for families or friends, but it’s all just so incredibly lite-on. And I say this with full appreciation and love of the likes of Super Mario Odyssey and Luigi’s Mansion 3 and Yoshi’s Crafted World -- there’s no challenge outside of 100% collection of items and in beating Treasure Road times, the rest is simply a cakewalk, and unfortunately all the bad doggo Awoofys in the game can’t make me think otherwise.

There’s a franchise-in-waiting here, it just needs more than a few tweaks and hell of a lot less forced character.

As an action-adventure, an RPG, a narrative, and open-world sandbox, and a way to simply spend time exploring a breathtaking world – it falls short. Engaging at times, thrilling too, but also disjointed, clunky, and unfocused in ways we didn’t expect.

As a Rainbow Six Siege spin-off it’s fun to see all of the gadgets and mechanics of that game make their way over into the co-op space. The gun-feel is also on point. The ease at which you can throw out a recon drone or line up a head-shot through a wall is endlessly satisfying. And with all of its tactical stealthiness, Extraction plays unlike anything else we’ve seen in the co-op space. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to give the experience a true identity it can call its own.

What we get when all’s said and performed in step with The Gunk’s level design, is a fleeting experience really only good for the Achievements (your first G is a whopping 50, and this rarely lets up), or for a chilled and relaxed romp through an alien world whose FernGulley storyline is face-slappingly on-the-nose. I mean, it’s actually quite fun, despite Rani’s overly contextual Mepsipax design, which is entirely at odds with everything I’ve gunked at you here, but it did suck me in.

When viewed through a cinematic lens, White Shadows becomes an easy experience to recommend. The wonderful art direction, cinematography, animation (for the most part) and other elements do come together to create a cohesive and visually surprising journey. There’s variety here, quite a bit of it considering the very short runtime. So even though it doesn’t quite emerge, fully formed, from the shadows of Limbo, Abe’s Odyssey, or Another World, White Shadows certainly makes its mark. However fleeting that might be.

Tavern Master is a pretty simple and straightforward game at heart. There's not much in the way of frills, and it would likely benefit from some injections of personality. If I was playing backseat designer, I'd love to see the addition of conversations with regular patrons or some extra narrative dressing around the special events. At present, while on Tuesday you play host to a wine tasting and on Friday there's an executioner's meetup, the only real difference is for the former you have to put cheese on the menu. Still, with the sun rising over the castle walls, the stream gently gurgling in the background, and the birds chirping away in the nearby woods, it really is a lovely spot for an executioner's meetup.

There’s an upgrade system to offer up replayability and variation, but there’s just not enough about the world, characters, and story to elevate it above anything more than a fun tech demo to put your new GPU through its paces.

With Back 4 Blood available on Xbox Game Pass on PC and Console there’s reason to jump in if you’re looking for something new to play with friends. The look and feel is familiar and the action is engaging and chaotic when played with a group. For a while that is. Thanks to the sameness that permeates across most levels and backdrops and the predictability of the pace, it doesn’t take long for this Left 4 Dead spiritual successor to wear a little thin.

The themed levels are fine, but leaning into more SEGA history would have definitely added to the celebratory feel of Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. A fine return to monkey-in-ball form, by the way of past glory and frustration.

Gravity-defying loops and curves sit alongside integration with real-world sections and plenty of room for breaking race lines, if you’re the overzealous type. And the deeper you go into the game as it’s meant to be played, with fully upgraded cars, the more a hidden level of depth emerges and a truly challenging racing game materialises. It’s just a shame it’s largely hidden from the outset.

As fun as it is to venture into a location called ‘Call of Battle’, a bombed out city with retro-FPS vibes, there’s nothing new it brings outside of aesthetics. Without any sort of detailed traversal or environmental interaction it all feels like you’re running around an overworld in an early 3D game from the late '90s. And with that one could argue that No More Heroes has always been about style over substance. The series’ unique blend of action and over-the-top self referential insanity is here, but one can’t help but wonder if that’s enough? Wonder how great a Suda51 joint could be if the mechanics and feel matched the virtuoso style on display.

In the end the impressive, but static, visuals and sound design do a lot to put you into the universe. But, at best Aliens: Fireteam Elite is what you play in the arcade before jumping into the cinema proper.

To summarise it in a way that should make sense, The Ascent features a mix of systems and mechanics that don’t play all that well with each other. Exploration suffers too, with certain Side Missions being locked to the main story without any word as to why.

Where the story engages, the characters feel believable, and the monsters look and act and behave as diverse as the world itself. When it all comes together, Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin feels as epic and engaging as any other entry in the long-running series, albeit in turn-based RPG form.

With everything above said, there’s an obvious draw here in it just being a Mario game, which alone will pull people to it. And there’s some fun to be had, and Nintendo gets a lot right with it, we just need the gimmicks and party favours turned down. Invincibility Star isn’t a number, so dialling the game up to that just isn’t something we can tune into on the reg. Especially given golf on its own merits is a game of strategy and patience, that can still be fast and fun without needing addressive rolling rocks impeding your path all the time.

An ambitious open-world action-RPG from a new studio that does a lot, but doesn’t do a lot very well. In the end it’s finding new weapons and gear, alongside using new mutations and abilities in combat, that resonates. With less filler and more Kung-Fu killer, this could have been so much more -- with less.

In some ways, the whole Lovecraft angle plays out here -- too big to conjure, fathom or even understand, Returnal is difficult to want to wrap your head around, and that’s largely because it hangs its space hat on that death loop (again, different game, same platform). If you’re a glutton for punishment, don’t mind a grind and will happily deal with unfathomable RNG forces at cosmic play, you will absolutely get something out of Returnal, but if like me, every time you die, a little piece of the part of you that wants to play more, dies too, then you might find yourself not return(al)ing to this in a hurry.

A bigger budget, more player-agency and a more expansive world are all that's holding this back from being groundbreaking. And a lot of learnings will be taken from this latest outing.

Monster Truck Championship is fun and challenging, but frustration, a one-note near linear course masquerading as variety, and not nearly enough in terms of options and engagement leave this a bogged experience.

The hardcore JRPG lovers looking for meaty Switch representation will froth over this, but as a new entry in the field, Bravely Default II only displays acid rain level nostalgia. It’s the dinosaur they just added feathers to, to make it seem like something new, but really, it’s all the same skeletal system we’ve known and studied already for so long.

For a title devoid of action, outside of a couple of stealth sequences and a ‘run towards the screen from the giant monster bit’, The Medium might commune with the spirit world... but it fails to communicate all that well with the player.

For a first outing, Counterplay has achieved something that's undeniably striking in the visuals department, though that's marred by sameiness and the odd, isolated framerate hitch. We also have an addictive loot game and a surprisingly deep RPG upgrade system here, though it's hamstrung by fisticuffs that don't nail down those all important fundamentals. I wouldn't label what's here as a complete Godfall, but certainly a sizable Godstumble that'll need a decent patch. Postpone your excited, just-gotta-PS5 leap of faith towards this.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is beautiful and the added power of the PlayStation 5 hardware has led to the materials found throughout the arts-and-craft world to look and often behave like the real thing. The blend of fantasy with everyday objects gels wonderfully with the soundtrack too, giving the experience a feel that is more than a simple riff on classic 3D platforming.

Croteam have delivered the goods when it comes to the Serious Sam series before, and some of that is peppered throughout Serious Sam 4. From hopping into a giant mech that also happens to be a Pope Mobile to a gun that fires giant cannonballs that can mow down anything in its path. Played in co-op with unlimited respawns and you could even go so far as to recommend it to fans looking purely at that side of the game. But then you remember that the cannonball gun doesn’t show-up until several hours into the campaign, right near the end, and that you had to use a piss-weak pistol for a lot of the time. Shooting at the same aliens from Serious Sam’s of old - in environments that are, well, even uglier than a one-eyed reptilian.

What we’re presented with throughout the campaign and as a whole though is as they say, rough around the edges. A scrappy mech with inconsistent and sometimes unpredictable movement. Perhaps the machine of choice for a squad of Polanian fighters looking to take back a village or two from the overwhelming size of the Rusviet army but not something you’d want for a full-scale invasion.

A solitary experience, directionless and without contextual form. Gorgeous, yes, and presented as an ambitious and familiar package with an equally resonant soundtrack, but oddly empty.

With more time in development for avatar physics off the board (specifically in crashes), a new system for basic movement in the game, and some direction in a videogame sense, this would be as revolutionary as Skate was with its Flickit controls, but right now, it’s just not where it *could* be. Hopefully the content the PC community pours in finds its way to console, but as it stands, Skater XL is just too barebones and difficult for the everyday person to likely want to play.

Carrion is ultimately fascinating, engaging, and short and sweet. By putting you in the role of the alien threat it imbues you with a strange supervillain-like sense of playing in an insect farm. A playground where your prey often moves around sans limbs. If you’re a fan of sci-fi horror sub-genre then Carrion is worth seeking out.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer is more re-release than remaster. A game that admittedly was rushed to market in 1999 to ensure it hit shelves in time for the film’s release. So, the almost-there career mode feels a little undercooked in 2020 and the lack of polish to the AI stands out. But, it’s simple premise – recreating the excitement and thrill of Star Wars Pod Racing is a winning one. For pure high-speed thrills in a galaxy far, far, away, they still don’t get much better than this. And, getting to hear Watto hum the Cantina Theme is probably worth the price of admission alone.

The closest thing to Beyond Blue currently out in the wild is the brilliant Subnautica, but where they differ is that one is an absolutely open, alien sci-fi fantasy and the other one is Subnautica.

Minecraft Dungeons has a few bright spots, in its release form it’s highly polished with solid visuals and effects. Outside of the static nature of the environments they’re diverse and cover the range of locations you’d expect to find in this style of experience – from snow-capped mountains to volcanic caves and fortress-like structures. Minecraft Dungeons’ fantasy look is on point. And with the game being moderately priced and a part of Xbox Game Pass – this alone lessens the ‘fun for a few hours’ blow that is Mojang’s take on Diablo. An entry level take on a well-worn genre that after a few hours will have you heading for the exit.

In a sense Mafia II is more like an interactive version of Goodfellas than an open-world mob experience that could only exist as a videogame. Vito’s rise is full of twists and turns that are always interesting even when they dip into stereotype and a facsimile of the classic cinematic mob epic. The expansions do flesh out the open-world setting of Empire Bay in interesting and meaningful ways, but in the end Mafia II: Definitive Edition remains an experience where the engaging story towers above all – sitting alongside the skyline of the impressive but only skin-deep Empire Bay.

Too often Half-Life: Alyx feels like baby's first VR shooter and for many — especially those who purchased VR hardware to play it — this isn't a dealbreaker. But trading off the Half-Life name for an introductory course to VR relegates HL: Alyx to spin-off territory when the characters involved and the story it tells could be so much more. Alyx Vance deserves better, and so too do VR gamers.

As much as one might bemoan Resident Evil 4’s use of quick-time events, the fact that playing Resident Evil 3 can make you pine for their return when all you’re doing is watching - is probably all you need to know. As a remake Resident Evil 3 is an impressive visual feat and another RE Engine showcase. It’s a shame then that the actual game portion wasn’t given the same overhaul.

In the end it’s worth noting that when viewing a remake or remaster what needs to be taken into consideration is the source material, how it looks, feels, and plays. That is, in addition to the work carried out to recreate moments, update visuals, and change any of the presentation. To do otherwise would be silly, a terrible game with a wonderful remaster doesn’t warrant a high score. In the case of Warcraft III, the inverse to that is also true. So, what we end up with is something in-between. A classic reborn, in a package that doesn’t warrant all that much in the way of celebration.

A niche will exist for this, and I seriously hope Jed and Jordan successfully infiltrate their bank accounts in the positive, but for all its worth, Speaking Simulator loses itself too early and pushing through the whole experience is as draining as an android’s solar battery during a an overcast day. I can’t fault an Indie duo doing new things, and as far as risky game design goes, this is right up there. Unfortunately the novelty wears off far too quickly and you’re left with a shame pile title likely to keep collecting dust, unless you’re really in to Katy from HR.

Fending off waves of zombies and walking along linear pathways broken up by the odd surprise of seeing an undead tank. As in a tank tank, not a heavy zombie to take out. It’s a shame because this in turn will factor into the need or want to replay it all at a higher difficulty level or simply to level-up rankings to unlock skins, perks, and other elements. ‘Let’s do that again’ plays an important role in the perception and longevity of a co-op game, and on that front Zombie Army 4: Dead War falls short.

In the end, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is still worth celebrating. For one it’s different from the usual "fight fight fight" setup of past DBZ games, with a focus on telling classic stories from the series. The ability to explore the world is especially wonderful for fans, and King Kai’s fantastic jokes make you yearn for a new Netflix stand-up special. Still, as a fan, I was left wishing there was more depth and activities to make the world feel more alive. Overall, it's a decent role-playing experience faithful to Dragon Ball Z that’s action-packed and entertaining. A game tailor made for DBZ fans. Nothing too groundbreaking, except for the attacks breaking the ground.

Shenmue III is still surprisingly charming, and an earnestly emotional journey for fans of the series. Ryo’s lack of interest in the opposite sex and his unwavering need to go to bed early and practise his martial arts training diligently each day, make him pure in a way we rarely see. It doesn’t leave much room for excitement, but it ensures that Shenmue III is every bit the sequel it set out to be.

It has its pitfalls, and definitely serves up it’s fair share of frustration, but the point of the game is admirable, and with refinement in the control and camera departments, a beequel would be a very welcome addition to this hive.

There is fun to be had here, but in light of what else is out in the racing/driving wild these days, leaves Heat eating proverbial dust. There’s no question Ghost is a technically proficient developer (outside of car physics), but too much emphasis on a ‘story’ over more robust driving and driver-agency makes the game feel half complete on one side, and half over done on the other.

Even if it ultimately means we might only look at certain aspects of its design or specific puzzles versus the story and setting to remember and recall as time goes on, Superliminal is still an experience worth seeking out.

Technical issues aside, Moons of Madness is an experience that we felt compelled to stick with until the end credits rolled – on the strength of the mood alone. Something it has in spades. And it nails the pacing, striking the right balance between moments of quiet, tension, and revelation.

Without any remastering or touching up done on the visuals, not including the best looking and best sounding versions of these games is baffling.

Perhaps if SEGA chose to remaster and re-release the first two GameCube titles, which defined and perfected the core Super Monkey Ball formula - before it’s slow dive into obscurity thanks to Banana Blitz and other titles - we’d be hailing this as a minor masterpiece. Instead what we’ve got here is a HD misfire of a motion-control misfire from over a decade ago.

I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to all but the most rabid fans of Hideo Kojima's work. And even then, I feel like this game may cause some of them to balk and question their devotion. It pains me to say it, but Konami may have been a necessary evil for him, a check and balance against his crazier, more self-indulgent impulses.

There's always an argument to be made for keeping an old game's “quirks” intact to preserve nostalgia, but there's still a line where useless things ought to killed off for good. That said, I have to acknowledge that only the die-hard fans of the hard-dyin' Dan Fortesque will enjoy this. The timeless Tim Burton-esque charm and the fine Lazarus job done on the visuals can only go so far. In the end, these old bones just creak too much.

Beyond the silliness of it all, repetition, precision and ogling at so many sets of twins while they pine about cats somehow makes Bus Simulator a joyous ride; a fareing good time. At least, something worth the ticket price.

So much of Terminal Reality's love shines through, even though this isn't a mind-blowing remastered effort. Don't eye this in the store and zip into your Ghostbusters overalls expecting a super sexy visual transformation – like bookish Dana Barrett to the siren-like Gatekeeper. You instead should power on your pack with the knowledge that this game is just oozing authenticity like an open New York City sewer does “bad mood slime”.

In the end though it’s the improved combat, minus a few camera issues and frustratingly difficult boss encounters, the progression and build possibilities, and the wonderful level design that go a long way to make up for the lack of narrative drive. Or interest in what happens to the world. In this regard The Surge 2 is an improvement, but an experience that still feels like it’s a few more brutal dismemberment finishers away from finding the right plan to research and build its full potential.

Daemon X Machina goes that extra robo-mile, with one of the best player creation tools we’ve seen in a long while.

One look at the score and you might feel that the The Dark Pictures Anthology has a long road ahead to prove itself, but as is the case with the anthology format - it’s one spectacular or memorable story away from becoming a cult or out-right classic. The format, setting, technology, craft, and interactivity on display in Man of Medan bodes well for the future. What we’ve got here, although replayable, doesn’t quite invoke the sense or feeling or general incentive for you to go back to re-watch or re-play. A so-so debut for a promising series.

The game itself, if you follow the heavily developer-directed path laid before you, has roughly 20-25 hours in it, and there’s more content yet to come, so balances and new content could sharpen the experience, but out of the gate it’s simply a schizophrenic collection of two key genres that, in principle, should gel, but here they kind of get in each other’s way.

In the end Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus is enjoyable, but it’s also a bit of a let down when it comes to the actual combat. Truth be told I was expecting more of an XCOM-style experience with unit management and perhaps even some base management. The simplicity of individual encounters means that Mechanicus can be frustrating, where simple mistakes can cost you the entire mission. Again, these painful lessons in failure help you learn what works and doesn't. Like, say, bottlenecking your units when the enemy has a powerful AoE weapon.

In the end Wolfenstein: Youngblood isn’t so much a misstep as it is a side-step, inessential but rewarding once you look past the confusion and simply take up arms and do that thing that this series does so well - kill and take-out entire squads of Nazi super soldiers in style. Now with an invitation that reads, plus one.

The simplicity of 198X is endearing, and how it presents a compilation of sorts of an era is something that leaves a positive if not lasting impression. The story, although simple in its presentation does leave room for growth. We’re keen to check out the second part of the tale, and if the team Hi-Bit Studios can connect both the narrative and the individual games in a more meaningful way - then it has every chance to live up to its premise.

In the end Elsweyr unfortunately errs on the side of more of the same. Even with dragons, a fun new class in the Necromancer, and some great writing found in the side quests and the strange cat-people that make up the land. The main story is mostly a let-down, until it finally kicks into gear as you storm a castle. As a whole there’s not much surprise to be found, and in terms of what makes up a new place to explore in The Elder Scrolls Online it’s mostly cat and paste.

If you like lateral thinking, great [branching] storytelling and excellent voice-acting, and can look past a drab, repetitive sheen that is less gameplay heavy and more set-dressing, you’ll still find a gem in this H.P. Lovecraft love letter to the sea, left in an old bottle to wash up on your shore.

Even though My Friend Pedro falters when it strays the furthest from the action-movie ideal of its premise most of the time you’re still a stone-cold killer with a suite of guns and a knack for shooting at bad dudes whilst upside down spinning in mid-air.

A great foundation that is mechanically sound and will delight in the early hours. Stick around too long, however, and Chaosbane reveals a dearth of classes, enemies and environments. Also a weak endgame.

As a blend of intrigue, mystery, sci-fi, and horror – Close to the Sun may not be the turn of the century BioShock that pre-release media might have suggested, but there’s plenty of electricity and power to be found in the story it tells.

Contributing significantly to the disappointment are the sound effects - with the guns and explosives sounding particularly underwhelming.

Days Gone is contextually broken, its gunplay is deplorable, its ‘open-world’ premise is a joke and its narrative consistently overrides that open-world ‘design’ goal. It’s pretty, in parts, but it’s broken across the board because it’s disparate in what it wants to be, and that’s because it fails to be Days Gone. Instead it just mimics, brokenly, games already gone.

Dangerous Driving ends up being a Monotonous Bore. An arcade racer that doesn’t do anything particularly new or different. And really, when the crashes look like simple physics experiments from the late-90s that can trigger from the slightest of scrapes – it was destined to fall short of hitting its lofty Burnout spiritual successor goal.

My Time in Portia has its moments though and getting through the early milestones hint at the larger picture and more player freedom. As it stands it’s is a ‘life sim’ that could do with a little more of the former.

For all the interesting lore and intrigue of the world, most of it is hidden behind layers of library entries that players shouldn’t have to read through.

No matter the many moments of fun to be had with the impressive size and scope of the environments to explore and explode within – there’s a disjointed feel to much of Crackdown 3. A feel that ultimately means it fails to reach the charming heights of the original.

In the end New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe is a welcome addition to the Nintendo Switch library, a fun and entertaining platformer with charm and every now and then – that classic Nintendo feel. But due to the success of the platform, it also finds itself competing with many stellar indie platformers in a way that Super Mario Odyssey never did.

Hidden within Travis Strikes Again there are a few fun, unexpected, and outlandish moments. Some of the dialogue in the text adventure story sequences can be amusing, as are reading the fake classic game reviews you can collect. But even these are limited to only a handful of moments when you’re not in direct control of either Travis or Badman, and even they quickly begin to exhibit the same dual-traits of boring and over-played. In a game where you use toilets to save, fight with a lightsaber-like weapon, assassinate strange and odd characters in a world chock-full of pop culture references and absurdism – that’s strike three and four.

The series just needs a massive boost, and adding a new physics playtool in different types of weather just isn’t it. What you play a Just Cause game for will determine whether or not you grab this and how much you’ll actually invest in it from a time and gameplay perspective, but as a product that is more than just the fun, silly physics experiments part of itself, it’s difficult to glow at it beyond the “sickly” fun I mentioned in the intro. At the end of the day, what we need from Just Cause is, well, just cause; purpose to play beyond tethering baddies to boosters, each other and exploding barrels. As fun as that is.

Fallout 76 is fun to play; the simple loop of scavenging and exploration and crafting and progression works well when you’re in a group. Alone, it gets pretty old pretty fast - especially when dealing with bugs and glitches and performance woes. Ultimately it’s disappointing that the size and scope of the multiplayer doesn’t match the impressive West Virginia you get to explore.

11-11: Memories Retold, however, is still a game worth more than a look-in, and at roughly five-to-six hours, you’ll gain a deep and respectful look at one of the world’s most jarring global conflicts, from the perspectives of the individual.

Combat that leans a little too heavily in the direction of counters isn’t the only issue here, but it’s the most prominent and one that bleeds into all the other shortcomings.

For all intents and purposes, Call of Cthulhu should have been amazing. Every element is there and it’s clear the studio had lofty ambitions, in as much as it’s clear they were working to an incredibly tight budget. Give this studio a bigger budget and a project they believe in, and I’m confident they’ll break myriad ceilings but Call of Cthulhu isn’t the breakthrough I thought it should have been. And it’s not helped that it has emerged in the year of polish by way of a number of other Triple-As, lead ceremoniously by Red Dead Redemption 2.

In the end though after, say, 15 or stages or varying length, the action does begin to feel a little repetitive with design that feels decidedly old-school thanks to the complete absence of environmental interaction and movement that is as floaty as watching synchronised figure skating with hundreds of skaters instead of two. But yeah, Warriors Orochi 4 is still a lot of fun to play. A blast even.

In the end Space Hulk: Tactics also has the appeal of its premise and works better as an experience played with others whilst also designing missions and various layouts. Much like the origins of Space Hulk it feels true to the tabletop roots of the series - but also lacking in its limited scope.

Shadows: Awakening feels different enough, thanks to integrating the idea of character and class swapping into the core design of both the mechanics and story. But even so the by-product of this is more micro-management and loot scrubbing duties placed on the player, that isn’t helped by an overall pace that feels too slow.