There's a plot in here, but it's all a bit rubbishy, full of stock-standard fantasy tropes and dialog that reads like it was written by an intelligent but under-read tenth grader. All told, the game has a very amateur feel to it.

The separate co-op missions are well worth checking out.

There are a handful of decent ideas here, but nothing within is original. And there's a serious lack of excitement; of tone and transition.

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

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.

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.

It's pretty much unchanged from last year, however. That's the deal with NBA 2K21. If you can find a way to deal with the new shooting mechanism and you don't mind some pretty bad storytelling, NBA 2K21 is great… because it's largely unchanged from last year. Or the year before. Or the year before that.

It’s a shame that the two sides of The Spectrum Retreat don’t really come together, creating a cohesive narrative adventure filled with engaging puzzles to solve. But even though the Penrose Hotel quickly becomes boring to walk through, there’s still a lot to like – from the art direction to the story and the often-wonderful puzzle design.

As a Star Wars fan, Battlefront II is disappointing. As a Battlefront (2015) apologist, it’s sad to see that familiar sins have popped up again, and questionable design decisions mar the fun parts: the campaign, split-screen versus, Heroes vs Villains, Starfighter Assault, and those rare fair fights on Galactic Assault. There’s a good game buried somewhere beneath too many cons. I just hope that Motive, Criterion, and DICE can right the starship before too many players launch their escape pods.

With an expansive story and memorable mechanics, it’s hard not to view Kingdom Come: Deliverance as one of the most interesting RPG releases in years. One where the difficulty is often a barrier to progress and some of the design choices become frustrating experiences in repetition or flat out giving up and moving on to another activity. Or reloading an earlier save to do more sword training. Rough around the edges sure, but the ambition often shines through.

Gorn can be completed in roughly two and a half hours. That runtime is padded out with an Endless Mode and chasing weapon unlocks by appeasing certain in-arena objectives. What I really wanted to see was the asymmetrical Party Mode multiplayer that's in the PC version. The basic gist: mates on controllers can team up and try to do you in using gladiator avatars who all handle like drunk Octodads. Fingers crossed this shows up in an update. For the respectable asking price, I don't think the above situation is a deal-breaker. If you were to go out on a (severed) limb for a speculative purchase, I think you'd find Gorn represents the nicest and red-iest slice of PSVR we've seen in some time.

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.

The real lesson here is to stop releasing unfinished games, whether that’s server woes, optimisation issues, immersion-shattering bugs or, as is additionally the case with Battlefield 2042, an undercooked core gameplay offering that would have benefited from at least another year in the oven.

Creativity is all well and good, but it needs a more receptive canvas than what Scribblenauts Unmasked offers.

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.

You could finish Deadlight in a single sitting and forget about it completely by the next day. Not because the game is actually bad – it's mostly quite enjoyable – but it's too slight and unimaginative to make a lasting impression. It has some nice ideas and sections, but more than anything else it made us want to go back and finish Shadow Complex for a sixth time.

You'll find moments of driving glory nestled among a lot of filler or arbitrary 'story', and it's these nuggets that make you wish for the series to return to its successful past. Or, if you're like me, you'll just look at the game as another entry in a respected series that perhaps takes too much unnecessary precedence over EA's better arcade racing franchise, Burnout.

Calling a game hard usually errs on the side of fact rather than opinion, and there’s no mistaking the spike in Songbringer’s difficulty after the first few dungeons. So, it’s worth mentioning if only just to list that as one of its undocumented features. And to highlight this aspect of the experience for those that tend to struggle with top down combat that requires a fair bit of skill. In the end Songbringer is an exciting, if familiar, take on the old Zelda formula that for the most part plays as good as it looks.

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.

It's easy for many to dismiss Shoot Many Robots due to its repetitive nature, but seriously, what modern day shooter isn't repetitive? Those that stick with it and delve a little deeper will find a diamond in the rough offering hours upon hours of shootery fun.

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.

Even though Rise of the Triad is a buggy experience that’s slowly getting fixed with each subsequent patch, it still stands as one of the best examples of a classic title being given a facelift for the modern age.

Whilst its hordes of mindless, generic, evil kamikaze AI make for great target practice, there isn't much else on offer if you're a veteran third-person gamer.

Wreckateer is, surprisingly, the best of the first three 'Winter of Arcade' releases. It's not a particularly ambitious or exciting game, but it meets its own fairly modest goals with only a few hiccups, and shows that full body motion controls can be fun, even when they don't always work the way you'd like them to.

The first episode touched on it but this one really hammers the idea home and despite the bad taste buying three separate episodes for the same DLC may leave in some people’s mouths, this episode works well.

City of Logistics Managers may not get the heart racing or the imagination firing to the same extent as City of Gangsters, but it would be a more accurate title. It's as if City of Gangsters is ashamed about its administrative predilections, as if it wants to hide the true nature of its operation behind a less reputable -- more exciting, more dangerous -- veneer. City of Gangsters is itself a front; in the back room there resides a serious tycoon management sim. Like a reverse mullet, it's all party at the front and business at the back. It shouldn't be embarrassed about the mullet though. City of Logistics Managers is an excellent game, even if it may not be the one you're anticipating.

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.

Okay, so technical issues aside Batman – The Telltale Series is worth checking out. If you happen to live inside the Venn diagram of people who enjoyed Rocksteady’s Arkham series and like to play Telltale-style adventure games, then it’s a must. Or, if you’re simply a fan of the comic book series.

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.

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.

At the end of the day, Resident Evil 6 is packed to the gills with features and absolutely looks the part, no one can deny that, but its lack of gameplay identity leaves it as empty and vacuous as the higher brain function of any one of its zombie inhabitants.

Outside of the story, exploration, and puzzles, combat can play an equally big part in the overall story. But underneath the shiny new visuals, Outcast remains pretty much the same. Which means controls and combat that was fine if a little clumsy in 1999 is even more so today. But just like then, it’s quickly overlooked for what is an adventure quite unlike any other. An impressively realised world filled with character, moments of sheer triumph, and charm. Outcast: Second Contact is well worth a look for both fans and newcomers alike.

Indeed, Frozenheim feels like it’s playing things too safe across the board. It’s not simply that it needs more content. It’s more that it needs more surprises. [Early Access Review]

With City of Brass there’s a feeling you’re playing a home port of an arcade game, where short spurts of action, strategy, and fun doesn’t translate to a sit-down to play for an extended length of time videogame. It looks fantastic but there’s not a lot below the surface. But by keeping all power-ups and progression tied to procedural generation, there’s just not enough to keep you coming back time and again.

Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games includes a great variety of mini-games that are highly fun to play, as well some of your favourite characters from the Mario and Sonic universe. This game is the perfect title to pull out when you have a bunch of friends over at your place.

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.

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”.

Considering the game’s fraught development history and arguably ill-conceived premise, The Bureau is practically a best-case scenario. It may not be a game that anyone asked for, but perhaps that has, in a way, strengthened the final game, forcing it to reel itself in a bit and focus on being entertaining rather than revamping an old IP. It succeeds admirably as an enjoyable sci-fi shooter, and that’s good enough for us.

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.

There’s something about it that keeps you coming back, whether that’s the fun exploration or simply going on a quest to clear a few houses of infestations and then loot all the cupboards and drawers for goodies. But above all that it does nail the combat side, where headshots feel great as does getting up close with a machete. Gruesome and fun zombie-apocalypse survival, but also bug-ridden and poorly optimised.

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.

The London 2012 videogame won't be on your playlist for very long, but if you're a fan of the genre, I'd rate this game as one of the better games of its kind. It'll also help you get swept up in the excitement and euphoria of the 2012 Olympic Games, which is what these types of games are all about.

This isn't the kind of game that you'll return to once completed, but as something a little different to the usual shooter formula it offers surprising satisfaction.

The saving grace then is a big one: the amazing, still fluid, tremendously enjoyable trick system. The conversion might be Dana Scully but the foundation trick system and level design whips out an excellent welcome speech for those that missed THPS 1 and 2 or for those wishing to relive past glories.

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.

But story is what you pay for, and ‘Realm of Shadows’ will certainly leave you in a position of wanting to see more. The episode ends in a position far more confident than where it begins, and with equal focus placed on both Bruce Wayne and Batman, we’re probably in for quite a ride.

This review is based on the Xbox One version of the game, which inexplicably ran very poorly in action-heavy scenes. Considering that this is a game that works on mobile devices, the frequent stuttering and pausing was unwelcome, but never quite enough to really ruin the experience.

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.

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.

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.

Gear.Club for Nintendo Switch does offer split-screen racing, but again the core racing isn’t all that fun. The best bits are outside of the racing, collecting and upgrading cars, and remodeling and arranging your garage. Which, in case you were wondering, isn’t a good thing for a, you know, racing game.

Downpour is a pretty solid horror game, if not an exceptionally original or nuanced one. If it weren't for the crappy combat and frustrating exploration it would be a bit easier to recommend, but Vatra has captured the Silent Hill aesthetic well.

It just feels generic. It feels like they took what the original developers made and added a shiny gloss to it, ignoring what made it special to the time period it originally existed in. There's nothing that feels special about Nexiuz, neither changes that make it feel comfortable on its new home, nor any additional features to warrant a special purchase.

Even if it ran beautifully, Gotham Knights still feels pretty much unsalvageable. There’s a lot of game to be found in Gotham Knights, a lot of by-the-numbers repetition, and many meaningless tasks that make you think the project began as a live service game like Marvel’s Avengers. And simply shifted focus to become a co-op thing sometime during development. But then again, that’s adding justification to mechanics and progression systems in a game that doesn’t care to explain why you need to craft new gear all the time. There’s no “endgame” or persistent world to support the repetition either. The good news is that there’s quite a bit of story to dig into, and you do get to go head-to-head with several notable villains. But you’ll need to overcome a lot more than the death of Batman to see it through.

What SimCity offers is so much potential for so much expanded and persistent gameplay that its mindboggling. All I can actively offer you is what the game offers you upon firing up, and in that sense it’s a fricking addictive affair.

Combine the linear environments, combat mechanics and cut-scenes and it feels more like watching an animated show or even reading a book about it all. If you can get past all this and even find the right stride with the combat mechanics it does make for an interesting storyline and the game gradually expands slightly.

There’s still a lot to like about The Pact, it continues this season’s trend of improved animation and performance for the series. And with origin stories and background out of the way, it means that new ideas can take the front seat – as realised in the depictions of newcomers Bain and Harley Quinn. It also ends on a cliff-hanger, which will no doubt make the wait for Episode Three feel that much longer. Overall, a good but not great episode.

As a pure action-brawler Redeemer’s appeal is limited. Like the classic arcade game Double Dragon II there’s a sense of fatigue that becomes hard to shake after a few hours, something that very few games in this genre manage to overcome. But, if you’re a fan of punching things and stringing together combos and takedowns in a violent action game, then there’s a lot to like here. Any hey, any game where you can, mid-combo, rip the arm off a mutant and then proceed to beat it to a pulp with both severity and a severed appendage -- is worth checking out.

Through it all there’s just something about We Happy Few that keeps you coming back. It could very well be the quality of the writing, the characterisation, and the setting of a post-war London trying to forget its shameful past through medication and dystopian control. Or it could be that, and the weird blend of ideas and styles. In the end, whether that’s enough to excuse some of the bland fetch-style quest design or the repetitive nature of traveling from one side of Wellington Wells to another, comes down to personal taste.

Mad Riders has the feel of something whipped up between bigger projects to keep the teams at Techland energised. That's not meant to be an insult, mind, as it feels like the sort of game that would have been fun to work on and design, which carries over into the experience of playing it.

Ratchet and Clank Q-Force proves that after ten years, there is still life in the old Lombax yet that is worthy of consideration – if only there were more mission objectives and levels to enjoy.

Add to this a less-than-likeable Frey who barely manages to endear herself upon the player, and even less likeable NPCs and a bland, bland game-world I have no desire to learn more about, let alone live in (take me back to New York and my real-world troubles there, please), and you have a game that just… lacks.

RaiderZ feels unpolished and unfinished, plagued with a stagnant, passionless player base and a stack of now obsolete design tropes around questing, story, player progression and crafting.

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.

It is fun. A hell of a lot of fun, actually. But the inverse is, unfortunately, true when your team isn’t work together, or you’re being dominated by an opposing team that has its shit together.

King's Bounty 2 lives up to its name in the sense that it delivers abundance. Like an ultra-compressed version of Skyrim, it feels full of things to do even if it doesn't necessarily excel at any of them. The combat is solid. The role-playing is solid. The questing and adventuring and writing and everything else are solid, too. It's comforting and familiar and simply does what it does without a great deal of fuss. In many ways it feels like the ideal pandemic lockdown game. I'll happily load King's Bounty 2, pull up the covers and settle in for the weeks and months to come.

No matter the art form, there’s always room for a good sci-fi story. The Station, from a team of veteran developers who worked on titles like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and BioShock Infinite, offers a great sci-fi ending. One that is both memorable and, in a way, fun. The only real issue is that outside of the narrative there really isn’t much to the puzzle solving and exploration. Reading emails, listening to audio recordings of conversations, and taking in a space bedroom or two. Stuff we’ve seen and handled more intuitively before.

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.

Sonic Forces isn’t a bad game, nor the worst Sonic title in years. In fact, it’s quite fun and keeps up the series tradition of bringing a sense of speed to the forefront. But compared to say, Super Mario Odyssey, you get the feeling that it’s just another example of a fun and shallow Sonic game in a long line of fun and shallow Sonic games.

Fuse is what happens when someone had a great idea that got greenlighted in a meeting 4 years ago, before executives and VPs stripped it down during development until there was nothing left but a shell. It’s what happens when a developer, full of creativity, showmanship and excitement, feels like they need to play it safe because humour and wit aren’t apparently marketable properties in an industry that no longer feels comfortable taking risks.

Comic book characters, just as any work of literature, can be timeless. What Deadpool fails to acknowledge is that he does not fall in this category. While the likes of X-Men and Hulk have served, at times, as allegories, there is just too much toilet-driven humour in Deadpool to come off as anything more than droll shtick.

War in the North is also quite a lengthy game, which although sounds great on paper does work against the overall experience.

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.

Cities XL 2012 is even less of a complete title than its predecessor was. When the removal of a core gameplay feature isn't replaced with an effective replacement, what you're left with is a broken game. No effort has been taken to bring C:XL to "2012" standards in the way of a graphics overhaul, and it still runs like a dog with 3 legs to boot.

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.

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.

Riptide brings absolutely nothing new to the experience of the first game. If anything, it just piles on new frustrations.

A great game for Ferrari and racing fans alike, with enough challenge to really test those familiar with the genre, but unfortunately lacking in a more approachable set-up, even for those of us who found the history of Ferrari utterly alluring even after just a few hours of play.

There’s plenty of good to be found, but Payback doesn’t seem all that interested in rewarding and promoting that side of the game. And in the end, delivers open-world racing that confuses and confounds moments after it surprises and delights.

Only worth playing in co-op, where the fluid controls, half decent mechanics, some basic teamwork, and mindless action elevates what is decidedly mediocre into something that although average, can be a lot of fun.

There isn't even an opportunity to crack some skulls, as the Red Skull himself plays a brief scripted cameo, giving way to other lacklustre character steroetypes to flesh out the basic "evil guys take over the world" style storyline.

It’s a shame there appears to be components of the Kinect-only version of Ryse in the final product, which would account for the design that bounces between overly easy and challenging.

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.

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.

Developer Nihilistic seems settled on the idea that bringing Resistance to the Vita is an inherently bold and innovative move, and that doing anything truly interesting beyond that is unnecessary. It's not a strictly bad FPS, but it's so damn perfunctory, so set on ticking the absolute minimum number of boxes and moving on, it's largely boring and forgettable.

The strategy core is different enough and executed well enough to provide quite a few hours of engaging combat and strategy alternating with the slower ponderous movement across a larger world of interconnected islands. It's a shame then that the learning curve, which initially seems quite steep, is extended well beyond the patience of most people across a laboriously slow campaign.

This is very much a game that Warren Spector wanted to make, not the game his fans wanted him to make; the real fun comes from soaking in the contents of the man's mind, the ideas that govern the world he has created and the ways Disney memorabilia have come together into something grand, rather than from the simple experience of playing through it.

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.

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.

We have been spoilt in subsequent years, which isn't Doom 3's fault. The unfortunate truth remains that it is more of a chore to revisit than a joy.

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.

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.

Dark Alliance’s problems go beyond enemies zipping around arenas and ragdolling randomly at breakneck speed into walls. Though, a lot of that can be quite funny. It fails to do basic things like scale difficulty for solo and group play, or do the normal thing of not giving ranged mage-like enemies drastically higher physical-defence ratings than large hulking brutes. There are so many things half-baked, broken, glitchy, or simply baffling it’s almost commendable.

It’s a tragedy to see Lords of Shadows 2 arrive in this form. Rather than focus on what made the first game so much fun, the designers seem to have totally misunderstood what gamers wanted from the sequel, and delivered something that was utterly alien to the first game.

Ninja Gaiden isn't a perfect experience, but it's accessible for newcomers and boasts an addictive gameplay formula that goes a long way to forgiving its detractors.

Datura reeks of under-utilised and squandered potential, making the end result even more disappointing. If you're looking for a moving and immersive title to add to your collection Datura isn't it. Spend your money on Journey instead.

With no real championship mode, and a limited number of tracks, the appeal begins to wear thin after a couple of hours. Perhaps the biggest mistake that World Series makes is with re-imagining a classic party and same-room multiplayer experience into a game with a focus on online competition. Some types of games just don’t work all that well when forced into the mould of a character-driven, loot box collecting, quick match system. Playing Micro Machines World Series with four players in the same room is undoubtedly fun, but this option is relegated to a secondary mode with no customisation or incentive to come back when all you have are limited options, and unbalanced vehicles.

Even with all of this new stuff, bug fixes, and improvements, Destiny still suffers from a lack of a real endgame. After completing the campaign, Adventures, and Raids (and acquiring all that juicy loot), once your power level hits the current cap, there's not much else to do. Aside from starting fresh on a new character. Due to Destiny's core system and design this doesn't offer too much in the way of a new experience.