Ninja Gaiden: The Master Collection is a fascinatingly violent time capsule that shows off the best and the worst of Koei Tecmo's fan favourite shinobi. It's as barebones a collection as can be, packing all three games together with a sprinkling of DLC, but it's still a fine showcase of brutal difficulty and white-knuckle thrill power that is inimitable by anything else on the market. Just don't expect anything more than that.

It’s beautiful, it’s charming and its insights are given greater punch by exceptional voice acting. Yet, despite ticking so many boxes, The Magnificent Trufflepigs never manages to find the sweet spot of player satisfaction due to some odd, clashing design choices.

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection is exactly what you'd expect a remake of Capcom's classic: It's painfully difficult to the point of parody, but it also features gorgeous visuals and imaginatively punishing design to create a beautiful knightmare.

Miitopia still retains its charm as it hops from 3DS to Switch, as well as a decent upgrade in the visual department. It's no 100-hour epic, but it's a cute and quirky little RPG that makes for an adorable distraction when you need to let your brain rest for a bit.

Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind are well-told and compelling mystery games presented in a loving remake that improves on the original titles while sometimes remaining a little too faithful to outdated designs.

Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind are well-told and compelling mystery games presented in a loving remake that improves on the original titles while sometimes remaining a little too faithful to outdated designs.

A half-hearted, boring attempt at a farming RPG, Harvest Moon: One World does nothing especially well. Even though it does show some initial promise, it quickly squanders that on poor farming mechanics, a bland open-world and lifeless characters.

Romantic relationships have their ups and downs, and players will likely go through the same experience with Maquette, which seesaws between satisfying and frustrating. Charming world design and bittersweet relationship observations are offset by a couple of opaque puzzles and patches of gameplay clunkiness (bad enough to force level restarts), which mar the overall sense of enjoyment.

A few balancing issues aside, Bugvasion is a fun diversion. It’s silly, colourful, and its tactical action has an energetic flow to it that hits a comfortable stride early on. It’s not rewriting the rules of the tower defense genre, but it’s hitting the right marks on a checklist of fun.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is a disappointingly brief and unengaging role-playing game in a format that doesn’t lend itself to engaging gameplay or deliver on a satisfying narrative. While there is potential under the hood, I can’t say I enjoyed playing very much at all.

Like its setting, The Shore is both rugged and stunning. While lacking finesse and complexity in gameplay, the Lovecraftian horror adventure is unquestionably impressive as an almost one-man indie effort. Standing out from other Cthulhu Mythos games, The Shore is stuffed with cinematic moments that establish the scale and otherness of its universe. It’s very brief, but that helps make a detour to The Shore worthwhile.

Fascinating for 15 minutes and boring for hours, you’ll be howling with frustration at this missed opportunity for full moon madness in Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood.

Fitness Boxing 2 isn’t a bad way to keep your body energised, but the few improvements it has loaded into its gloves can’t hide its flawed punching technique or its disappointing lack of beats to bounce around to between uppercuts.

Chronos: Before the Ashes is an interesting collection of ideas, but dead average implementation, aging visuals, and flawed gameplay make for an underwhelming package that barely rises above being just fine at best.

The Falconeer starts off as a fun, original take on aerial combat but quickly turns into a boring exercise in repetition that even a mysterious and interesting world can’t save.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity falters greatly in its narrative. The time-traveling aspect felt like a cheap and easy way to rewrite history without actually adding much to the established lore. That said, this did allow Princess Zelda to shine which ended up being a pleasant surprise. The gameplay is the main hook and it’s a bloody fun one at that. There is lots to love here if you can ignore the weak story.

Godfall hits the nail on the next-gen launch game head: All style, very little substance. Granted there’s some fun to be had but once the next-generation glitz wears off what’s left is a repetitive slog through levels that quickly get old.

Little Hope is a fun way to burn a couple of hours by yourself and a fantastic way to spend a night with friends but is let down by a disappointing conclusion, some uninspired performances, and general pacing issues.

There’s a decent game at the very core of G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout , but it’s buried underneath annoying controls, a bizarre focus on co-op play instead of multiplayer, and missions that feel like an endlessly repetitive grind. Still, it’s dedicated to its source material and it has its moments, but it doesn’t do much else to stand out from the pack. And now you know, because knowing is half the battle.

Airplane Mode is everything you’d expect from a well-crafted flight simulator where you’re not in control: Boring, hopeless, and a dangerous invitation into the depths of your own unhinged psyche brought on by a high altitude prison that you paid to be incarcerated in. It’s almost the end of the year, and I think I’ve just found the winner of the best horror game of 2020.

WWE 2K Battlegrounds feels like a missed opportunity at the best of times. What could have been a mad breath of fresh air until WWE 2K22 comes along, is instead a boring grind that’s all style and no real substance. Invasive microtransactions tarnish the few remaining bright spots of this game, barely allowing it be okayfabe.

Despite collecting three of Mario’s most well-known games, Super Mario 3D All Stars doesn’t justify their porting onto the Switch. With minimal improvements, few features that truly make it feel like an “Anniversary celebration” and some bafflingly lazy design choices, 3D All Stars feels like more like a quick cash grab.

Marvel’s Avengers is both a fantastic story and a dead-average grind for meaningless loot. When everything comes together, it’s a brilliant power fantasy with heart and a true passion for its source material. Those moments are fleeting though, held back by a range of technical issues, shockingly sloppy design, and no solid idea of what kind of game it really wants to be. Some assembly, definitely required.

Project Cars 3 will definitely have a place for those wanting a quick and easy racing game with a ton of customisation, cars, tracks and challenges. For more seasoned racing fans, or anyone looking for something even remotely different to what we have seen hundreds of times before, you will definitely need to look elsewhere.

Alan Wake makes his official debut in Control in full force, delivering a very large helping of lore and storytelling that goes down great with the overall game experience. If only he had a brought a small side of new gameplay mechanics as well, because the formula remains pretty much the same.

Bite the Bullet is a game of great ideas that are hamstrung by terrible controls, performance issues, and a flow of combat that’s at odds with the very gimmick that makes it stand out from the pack. All of that makes for an experience that bits off far more than it’s capable of chewing.

Mortal Shell is an excellent entry in the Souls-like space with some fantastic ideas around character progression and combat, but is unfortunately let down by a health system that discourages exploration and an element of tedium that unnecessarily pads out encounters.

Boring, generic, uninspired and every other synonym for painfully average, The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines isn’t worth the time it takes to say its name.

Dex is gorgeous to look at, has a captivating story to engage in and is downright frustrating when you need to fight your way out of danger.

There’s a lot of joy to be found in Paper Mario: The Origami King, but its shallow combat and monotonous nature makes for a glib experience that crumples under pressure.

Summer in Mara makes a great first impression with its pleasant visuals and laid-back music but ultimately fails to remain engaging for long due to repetitive quests, a hollow world and plenty of tedious mechanics.

As Marvel games go, Iron Man VR doesn’t quite hit the high mark set by the superlative Spider-Man, but it’s an often engaging and exhilarating experience to step into shellhead’s signature armour. Long load times, overused padding and poor writing mar what would otherwise be the ultimate Iron Man adventure.

A faithful remake that takes an average collect-a-thon of a bygone era and never really does much to improve it aside from some added content and spruced up visuals, Battle for Bikini Bottom is let down by its monotonous gameplay and loose controls.

XCOM 2 on Switch is a functional, enjoyable port that falls prey to some of the weaker hardware offered by Nintendo. If you can look past all the performance issues and long-ish load times, XCOM 2 continues to be one of the best strategy games ever published.

Project Warlock has its moments, but the retro good comes with some nostalgic bad. If you’re able to look past its flaws, there’s a chunky and satisfying first-person shooter that still manages to be a blast from the past when you get to grips with it.

Fly Punch Boom is the fighting game love letter to epic anime showdowns that you want to love, but its flawed execution and hyper-active QTE combat derails all the charm that this brawler brings to the table.

There’s a terrific experience to be had in The Outer Worlds, but blurry visuals, subpar resolutions and haphazard functionality make it an adventure that’s done justice on any platform but the Nintendo Switch.

There’s a good game buried within Those Who Remain’s many shortcomings, but it blunders the final hundred meters of its dash for survival like a sorority girl outrunning a slasher in a forest filled with tree roots. Repetitive scenarios of item-hunting tarnish the more ingenious puzzles you’re presented with, horror clichés sour an otherwise wonderfully tense atmosphere and a control scheme from hell drags a promising game back into the shadows, never to be seen again.

Someday You’ll Return is an occasionally pretty game with a splash of interesting ideas and visuals that are unfortunately let down by shoddy performance, abysmal storytelling and an overall lack of care placed into its presentation.

MotoGP 20 will tick all the boxes for what a game based on the most exhilarating racing sport on the planet should offer, but it’ll seldom exceed your expectations thanks to its sterile presentation and no-thrills approach on the track.

A competent remaster that gives a decade-old game a suitable level of spit-and-polish, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s campaign reveals a significant graphical overhaul but its corridor-shooter structure and worn animation give its age away. Nostalgic fans of the series might get a kick, but the barebones remaster isn’t a fantastic value proposition for anybody else.

Bridging film and video game, interactive movies are a niche format. However, with most of us having a lot more time on our hands during lockdown, now may be the time to give this hybrid genre more attention. Removing many of the annoyances FMV adventures are associated with, and featuring strong production values, The Complex is a solid entry point, even if it’s far more enjoyable as a choose-your-own adventure experience than film entertainment.

Foregone is a simple, well-designed action platformer with just enough roguelike elements to the keep the game interesting but lacks the interesting loot and character customisation that would take it to the next level. [Early Access score = 70]

Life Is Strange 2’s ending differs depending on how good or bad a father figure the player has been to Daniel, and it could be argued that this is what gives the game a semblance of replay value. That argument crumbles to bits when one considers what an arduous slog a lot of the game has been to play. While there are undeniable moments of power in Life Is Strange 2’s story, they’re strewn too far apart to make playing the game over again attractive. It’s a decent story, but as a gaming experience it disappoints, which is a real pity, given how good its two predecessors are.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue DX may be nostalgic to true believers of the original Blue and Red Rescue Team games, but it’s a more shallow experience for everyone else that makes for an entirely forgettable experience.

Its mediocre ideas result in nothing more than a functionality that spoils solid art. Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl – Gold could have been a unique take on the genre but unfortunately cashes out too early to make any kind of lasting impression.

While Warcraft 3 is still a phenomenal game to play today, Reforged is unfortunately a chaotic storm of failed promises, technical bugs and missed opportunities that makes a great game worse.

Monster Energy Supercross 3 looks and sounds the part, but it’s more likely to introduce a sensation of deja vroom than actual white knuckle excitement that befits a sensational sport.

With one of the most addictive turn-based battle systems you’ll find today in a JRPG, Tokyo Mirage Sessions was a blast to play. It’s just unfortunate that the story and characters were about as bland as flavourless rice cakes.

There’s no other game like Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, even if it does lose the plot when it celebrates the art of stories and the power that they possess.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels was shaping up to be a fascinating advert for Netflix’s hit series, but the overall quid pro quo bend of strategy ultimately makes it the shallowest of tie-ins. This is one Search Bloc party that you can count me out for.

Horror-adventure Close to the Sun pairs an emotionally-engaging narrative with arguably one of the most stunning and memorable game worlds of 2019. Pity about the frustrating gameplay choices and story decisions that ramp up in the final third of the game. They cast a shadow over the accomplishments that preceded them.

A middling collection of mini-games held together by an unfortunately lacklustre story mode, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is, unfortunately, little more than a distraction. While the throwback retro events add a much-needed bit of flavour, they're just not good enough to bring the series out of mediocrity.

There's an undeniable charm to Boet Fighter, with its peerless art and often biting pokes at South African stereotypes. Unfortunately, the joke wears thin, and its moral lesson has been better executed in other games. It's also a bit of technical mess, and worst of all, just isn't very much fun to play.

Moons of Madness is an engaging and atmospheric effort that feels like a Love(craftian) child of Half-Life and Dead Space. You’ll be playing more for the cerebral rewards than the scares, though. Despite its seamless merger of cosmic horror and credible sci-fi, the game doesn’t quite match its potential in the consistent emotional intensity of its execution. Plus, the ending feels rushed.

MediEvil is a loveable, charming romp through a classic action game that unfortunately suffers because of overly stiff controls and combat that often feels imprecise and impractical.

A quirky love story of life, death and bureaucracy, Felix the Reaper is as effortlessly charming as it is relentlessly challenging in the puzzle department.

If you were waiting for a Dark Souls inspired game to set your heart aflutter with vampiric themes and pulse-pounding combat…then you might want to wait a bit longer, as Code Vein definitely isn’t that game.

Episode 4 has some truly engaging moments, but the issues that have plagued earlier episodes persist. By now, it’s likely that only the diehards – those who forked out for a season pass – will see this through to the end.

Daymare 1998 is a competent survival horror game that borrows too heavily from its influences to do anything interesting or unique and thus suffers from poor writing and uninspired gameplay.

Greedfall is an ambitious RPG with several unique mechanical hooks, character builds and combat encounters that unfortunately buckles under the weight of a bloated and tedious narrative that often turns everything into a repetitive chore.

The Sinking City both sinks and swims. Delivering a good mystery within a picturesque yet grotesque hellscape, while also held back by visual ramifications and tricky combat engagements.

WRC 8 presents a complete rallying experience with its team management and career components. But while the driving does deliver a fun time, it's frustrating on a technical level and there are the visuals won't distract you from that fact.

Pillars of Eternity on Switch is the same fantastic CRPG with great writing, strategic combat and interesting lore but unfortunately dips in quality due to some below par performance and a less than handy translation of the game’s menus to the Switch’s controls.

While the attempts to inject a bit of life into the series with a semi open-world mode and a track editor are laudable, the game itself is just too familiar. Newcomers might appreciate what the MXGP 2019 has to offer, but anyone who’s played any previous game in the series will just feel like they’ve seen it all before.

The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is that kind of slice of classic cake that brings with it the pros and cons of a bygone era, but at least it’s the kind of game that makes you lust for the nostalgia-tinted days of funnelling coins into an arcade stand and engaging in some cathartic mayhem. Easy to pick up action, retrotastic visuals and a chance to feel like a hero with a power fantasy that works delightfully well on the Nintendo Switch.

Saviours of Uldum offers up some interesting new mechanics and cards but rather than cleaning up the dirty patches prefers to make what was already clean shine even more.

Anno 1800 Sunken Treasures disproportionately delivers on both sides of its title. Players can continue to enjoy the established, structured and intricate gameplay, while also searching the seas for interesting and quirky objects to showcase on their new and vast landmass.

Wolfenstein Youngblood is a disappointingly bland shooter that fails to capture the intensity or passion of New Order and New Colossus, delivering a humdrum experience plagued by uninteresting design and grindy gameplay.

Occasionally interesting ideas and untapped potential don't make up for a woeful lack of content. It's short and it's shallow, but its biggest crime is that it's dull.

Stranger Things 3: The Game is a great adaption of the series that maintains the mystery of the series but unfortunately misses a lot of potential the unique setting provides.

Eagle Island is an enjoyable rogue-like game and an unenjoyable Metroidvania that is fortunately pulled up by the fun combat system, beautiful art style and addictive dungeon crawling.

Graveyard Keeper is an ambitious life simulator that boasts gorgeous art and some interesting mechanics but unfortunately fails to meet the standards of the genre due to some overly complicated tasks and poor balancing.

Life Is Strange 2: Episode 3 still has a problem with pacing and may put off players who aren’t diehard fans of this series. But for those willing to forgive some of its more mundane passages, this episode delivers a pretty compelling denouement and hints at better things to come.

Monster Jam Steel Titans is a very fun car trip leading to a disappointing destination. For all the excellent mechanics and the trucks themselves, there is only so much gas in this single-player tank to cover an empty world and a limited number of races.

The Sinking City is a great game for fans of Lovecraftian horror and delivers some stellar quest writing but unfortunately stumbles due to overused and uninspired mechanics, a bland protagonist and general lack of life.

Good but not exceptional, Warhammer: Chaosbane is a solid and confident slice of medieval melee action. As Gothic as it is repetitive in the endgame phase, it’s still an enjoyable romp in the same vein as many an action RPG from yesteryear.

Cricket 19 won’t be winning any awards nor pioneering new things, but it is a fun game to pick up and play. It’s simple, intuitive and makes cricket accessible to just about anyone.

Refunct is a unique experience that despite the lack of content manages to communicate its themes through simple yet satisfying mechanics.

Whispers Of A Machine is a solid Point & Click adventure underpinned with some intriguing choice mechanics, boasting a solid, if not revelatory plot. Worth seeking out.

Undead Horde is a satisfying hack and slash RPG that is perfect for anyone on the go, offering a good amount of customisation and gameplay.

The team mechanics put an interesting and unique spin on kart-racing, making Team Sonic Racing undoubtedly fun, but it’s missing the magic that made Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed a firm favourite.

Vambrace is a successful evolution of the mechanics that made Darkest Dungeon such a hit, but despite its beautiful art style and interesting setting, the repetitive gameplay and lack of meaningful achievements make the experience for more tiresome than challenging.

Simple mechanically, yet sophisticated in its story, Draugen is a brief exploration of grief, trauma, and mental illness wrapped in a compelling mystery that only occasionally drops the ball.

Rage 2 tries to do so many things in such a small timeframe that it forgets to do anything original or inventive with its many unfocused components. Its combat alleviates these issues in short spurts, but it's not enough to weave a cohesive thread through this confused trip through a familiar wasteland.

Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is a decent package, and while it does show its age in some mechanical instances, this slice of nostalgia is still a great appetiser for the next big chapter in Fairburne’s European safari.

Days Gone has moments where it reveals its brilliance, but they’re buried under a litany of uninteresting and repetitive missions and numerous technical issues.

Curious design decisions and a confusing, cumbersome control scheme help destroy the immersion, but there's a certain charm to Immortal Legacy's ambition that makes it easier to overlook its problems. It's an occasionally fun VR first-person shooter adventure that's worth a look, especially for its budget price.

The Mystery of Woolley Mountain certainly serves up rewarding mental challenges, but they’re paired with a constant challenge of another sort: the game’s unsophistication in almost every other department. Stilted in its art style and comedic choices, it will test your nerves as much as your brain.

Xenon Racer harks back to the simpler days of arcade racing. It includes all one might need and expect from a game of its genre. Buts it starts to choke thanks to a compromised handling of the vehicle. The races are unappealing, despite you being in a drop-dead set of wheels.

Life Is Strange 2: Episode 2 is a disappointment. While it contains a number of revelatory moments and a couple of scenes that pack real tension, thanks to its lousy pacing and absence of agency, only the most committed fans of this series are advised to pick it up. Here’s hoping Episode 3 picks up the pace.

With sumptuous hand-crafted visuals and a throwback LucasArts approach to puzzle-adventure gaming, Trüberbook is a treat for genre fans. Well, in part anyway. It’s a pity that all the goodwill the game generates is drained by an unsatisfying story that doesn’t bother to answer even half of the questions it’s raised.

The Wizards: Enhanced Edition wrestles with the limitations of PSVR and never wins, deeply undercutting its enjoyable spellcasting with inaccurate motion tracking. These issues are only made worse by uninteresting missions and repetitive combat, making the initial splendour of this spellcasting adventure fade very quickly.

The Occupation's clever real-time investigations and immensely engrossing story are undone by its dedication to inducing tension by restricting saving, which is exasperated by uneven technical performance.

A new twist on the old formula, The LEGO Movie 2: The Video Game offers up some new mechanics and gameplay but fails at delivering an experience that is either memorable or fun.

Degrees of Separation is a visually gorgeous and charming game that, while having some innovative mechanics, devolves into tedium due to a poorly paced story and repetitive puzzles .

Jump Force is a stunning explosion of iconic manga characters across decades of publication, all wrapped up in a single package of over the top brawling that is decadent on the outside and ultimately hollow inside when cracked open.

Anthem may look like a slick blend of action and exploration all wrapped up in some shiny armour, but beneath its surface lies a game that is riddled with bugs, shallow world-building and a paint by numbers approach to its design.