Submerged: Hidden Depth didn’t quite hit me as strongly as its predecessor. It is a more rounded and proficient take on the vision, but ultimately it is also the exact same vision as its predecessor and, this second time around, the impact just isn’t the same. However, it is still a beautiful, emotional and poignant bit of art, and we should all be sending our politicians copies to play. Otherwise, we’ll all find ourselves travelling around our crumbling, drowned cities soon. Just like Miku and Taku do here.

Team Sonic Racing is a decent kart racing game. It’s very unfortunate that Sumo Digital decided to fixate solely on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. The lack of SEGA’s wide variety of franchises makes the game feel very samey throughout, and only fans of Sonic will get a kick out of the use of the IP. On the plus side, the team elements of the game works really well and that offers a unique way to play a kart game. It’s not the best or most interesting racing experience out there, but there’s some entertainment to be found in Team Sonic Racing, particularly for younger fans of the blue hedgehog.

Penarium benefits from good level design and simple mechanics that are the definition of 'easy to learn but difficult to master.' The setting for the game is a devilishly entertaining one, and Penarium is challenging without feeling cheap, which makes it a great deal easier to be forgiving of the game's difficulty curve.

On the Nintendo Switch, and particularly in handheld mode, it actually looks really nice in capturing that grim-Mars wasteland. Sadly, open worlds age far worse than most other approaches to game design, and while I can quite happily recommend HD remasters of JRPGs that originally appeared on PlayStation 3 - or even PS2 or PS1 - because it's the unique and timeless narratives that people play them for, open worlds lose their value rapidly.

There's not really much else I can add to those two reviews for this Nintendo Switch release, but Goichi Suda and NISA bringing these two visual novel classics together to the Nintendo Switch is a good thing. Both are magnificent examples of what can be done to give games a literary quality, and going forward, no study of crime fiction or noir could be complete without considering The Silver Case up there with the likes of The Big Sleep or Chinatown. Japan actually has a very deep tradition in noir storytelling, and this is an excellent introduction to it.

The “remaster” is good because the game itself is, but given some of the work we’ve seen in remakes and remasters in recent years, this one is far too pedestrian for its own good. I can’t help but wonder just how incredible Tales of Bersaria could have been if it was given a full-on remake to bring it to parity with the most recent new game in the series (Tales of Arise). That could have been something truly special.

I can't stop screencapping because it is all just so adorable or hilarious, or both. Now I have a folder with hundreds of cat-loving screencaps that nobody will ever see again. I feel like Floofybutt hoarding goodies he finds on the island. I have a cat problem and I'm proud of it.

It is something Ubisoft needs to learn about its games on a very fundamental level: when the company isn't sanitising its narratives and characters to target a Call of Duty-sized blockbuster, it makes better games.

Few games in the world are as multilayered in their appeal as Senko no Ronde 2. It’s positively exceptional, melding a fighting game into a 2D shooter then using that as the basis for a visual novel. That story goes on to become the fabric of every mecha fan’s dreams, featuring the best tropes of space operas along alongside more substantial commentary. It’s a pleasant reminder that story-driven games don’t need to rely on the RPG format.

And the inclusion of Pac-Man Vs. is an absolute masterstroke of brilliance. That is a rare retro game, and finally having it readily available on a modern console is something that anyone who enjoys local multiplayer should get excited about.

Supermassive Games has brought the Dark Pictures Anthology back with style and panache. Directive 8020 suffers from being a little too generic in concept and letting itself down with gameplay elements that are at odds with the cinematic quality, but the game does work as popcorn horror and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

The developer deserves props for doing something genuinely interesting in a staid genre. Shadows: Awakening is familiar enough, but it has some enjoyably unique mechanics that help to elevate it, and a world to explore that's genuinely captivating. It would be great to see the developer get a chance to do more with this franchise.

When Need for Speed: Heat is producing its promised fantasy, it’s a wonderful game which I’m always happy to keep coming back to. Ghost Games have improved their engine and systems to make the city and cars feel better than ever, and Heat’s core gameplay loop is designed to last. Occasionally there are the moments which require suspension of disbelief, and it’s possible for the more misguided elements to build tedium in an otherwise strong entry to the series. Heat is a marked improvement on the last few Need for Speed games, however, and I hope that further refinement will see the series better deliver on its legacy.

Born of Bread looks like a game that will be easy to love. The art in screenshots looks lovely, and Paper Mario-inspired titles are always welcome. It’s a lovely formula that lends itself to a lot of joy. But the developers completely misfired on this one. It comes across as a flat fan project that had original art assets dropped in at the last moment, rather than a cohesive creative work with its own identity, and, sadly, it’s one of the dullest games I’ve played this year.

While Convoy could easily and mistakenly be wrote off as another 'clone', one of the most challenging and grittiest indie titles of the year would be missed out on. If Mad Max: Fury Road turns out to be half this good, I'll be set for life.

If you can handle the uncomfortable controls, you’ll be able to immerse yourself in some good old platformer shooting fun.

I feel that more could have been done to explore the colonial theme, as GreedFall tends to rely too heavily on the personal responses of De Sardet to make grander statements, but nonetheless, Spiders has one again crafted a universe that is fresh enough, and offers a compelling narrative. It is only held back a little by the fine tuning that was needed around the combat mechanics, but then that's par for the course with this developer, and the grander ideas have always make the minor technical issues worthwhile.

I’m still surprised that Nintendo ever thought that there would be an audience for Yo-Kai Watch 2 in the west, but boy am I glad that they did.

Don't come into Opus: Rocket of Whispers expecting some sort of hardcore survival simulation or captivating pushing-buttons experience, or you'll probably wind up disappointed. No, Rocket of Whispers is something much better: a game that uses its simple game loop, repetitiveness and all, to tell a familiar but sincere story about loneliness and coping with grief.

If you’re a fan of clever puzzle-platformers and have a co-op partner who is the same, then Biped is bound to bring you hours of delight. If you can quieten that whisper in your brain going “but why can’t you just jump”, then the game’s inventive puzzles and clever iterations on its mechanics will easily win you over. It’s almost sad that Next Studios doesn’t seem to be interested in sticking with this genre, or outputting something else that’s happy and co-op based in the near future: they’ve certainly proved with Biped that they’re very good at it.

Sometimes, when I review a game, I expect to be an outlier. And my gut tells me that will be the case when this review is published, and I feel free to check out other review scores. But I cannot in good faith give a game that I want to like a good score; I have to rate what’s in front of me. And what I see is a lack of character growth, a lack of accessibility, and a lack of clear graphics. An interesting narrative only carries so much weight. It quickly makes one exhausted.

Nintendo Switch Sports is well-made, with the gorgeous, “lifestyle” aesthetics that have always been characteristic of this series. The motion controls work well, and in local multiplayer it is good fun, as Wii Sports was 16 years ago. However, it lacks the zeitgeist quality that Wii Sports had, and I just can’t see this resonating to anywhere near the same degree. I don’t think there’s any scenario where Nintendo could recapture the magic that made Wii Sports such a mass culture phenomenon, and as well as Nintendo Switch Sports is made, it doesn’t get there.

Despite being a wonderful mix of eclectic and refreshing ideas, Cloudbuilt's difficulty relegates it as a hard sell to all but the most dedicated speedrunners and challenge gamers.

The Adventure Pals is a welcome addition to the platforming genre, holding its own due to its quirky story, colourful graphics and accessible gameplay. I fell in love with the game and didn’t want to put it down. It's not the most essential, original, or unique that's ever been made, and it has some technical issues, but these are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things.

Despite its flaws, Catalyst is a worthy concept of the game, and the improvement from the last one to this shows that it can mature into a quality game franchise, beyond its concept. The sense of scale and the way the world has been designed for travel makes for a fantastic experience.

Let It Die is of exceedingly high quality for a free-to-play title; it’s dozens of GB in download size and looks and feels every bit an example of a higher-end game from Japan. It’s also far too reasonable on the microtransactions and asking players for money. It’s possible to speed up progress through the game by paying real money, or preserve a favoured character that's just perished but the incentives for doing that are low, particularly when anyone who is inclined to enjoy a roguelike is not going to have any issues with a grind, or re-starting games from scratch after a character dies.

It's rough around the edges, but it's an intense and even emotional experience, and still one of the better examples of a zombie survival game.

Rather than struggle with its limitations, however, Kingdoms of Amalur embraces them and is quite confident about being that "single-player MMO" experience, without pretense. It is a joyfully lengthy, grindy quest that gets away with it because it's also quite beautiful, snappy, and coherent about it. This "Re-Reckoning" doesn't do anything more than test the waters for a potential future for the franchise, but I do think it deserves one. It has been a real pleasure to have the opportunity to re-experience this game.