This is a beautiful, serene and relaxing experience and I loved every second of it.

It’s different, it’s creative, it’s stark, and I loved every second of it.

For those who have played and loved any of the tabletop games over the years that have been based on Lovecraft’s mythos – the tabletop miniatures game that Cthulhu Tactics itself is based on, for example, or Arkham Horror, or the legendary Call of Cthulhu pen-and-paper RPG, Cthulhu Tactics does a remarkable job of capturing that same aesthetic and sense of overwhelming challenge. This game is well and truly worth a look.

The team writes intelligent, worthy scenarios and narratives, and then they do the best they can to build gameplay to support that concept.

For a first attempt at a kart racer, All-Star Fruit Racing shows that the team behind it is talented, and they know how to make a genuinely fun game. There’s a lot of joy involved in playing this one, and it’s an ideal party racing game, particularly on the PlayStation 4, where there’s no Mario Kart equivalent to reach for. If it wasn’t for the infuriating AI, I’d even argue that All-Star Fruit Racing takes a step forward in a genre that Nintendo itself is almost painfully conservative about.

Kandagawa Jet Girls is a joke in the same way that Senran Kagura and The Bad Touch song that I quoted at the top is: it relishes in being brazen to the point that it knows it's going to draw some eye rolls. It also knows that many of its fans will enjoy both the brazenness and the eye rolls from the puritans - it's edgy like that. But, really, it's great. It's an excellent blend of "kart" racer and jetski playground, and it is built with a level of precision and eye for detail that I think will surprise and impress many. In other words, it is yet another hit of the kind of breezily entertaining experience that, like so much of Takaki Kenichiro's work, deserves more respect than it's going to get.

For all I know I’m the only person left on the planet that cares about Snow Bros. and Toaplan’s legacy in single-screen platformers. Nonetheless, it is a bit of arcade history and this is preserving a property that was almost lost. I’ve had an absolute blast playing through this, the new levels are great, and now there’s an outside chance that there might be all-new Snow Bros. adventures on the horizon.

I do appreciate the effort that went into Remorse: The List. The developers had a strong vision and did their best to execute on it. On a technical level, I also found it to be quite impressive for the Switch. There are much bigger games that struggle to lift to this visual and mechanical quality on that hardware. But, unfortunately, at the end of the day, this is a horror game where its enemies – which it relies on far too much to carry the experience – are more likely to make you giggle than sweat. That’s a death knell for any horror experience.

As a story-focused first-person adventure game, NERO is quite remarkable. It’s surreal, heartfelt, bittersweet, and thought-provoking, and that should have been more than enough to carry it without the need for shoehorned-in “gameplay”. As it is, it’s a very good game, but it would have been so much better if it hadn’t tried so hard to avoid the “walking simulator” criticism and just ran with its strengths.

I had a really challenging time playing Once Upon Light, and it was enjoyable for that, but at times I felt some levels were too cluttered with content. Hardcore puzzle fans should have an enjoyable experience, but this one isn't really something that more relaxed players will get into.

Mind Zero is still a very entertaining game, it's just that when you deliberately compare yourself to the greatest, you're inevitably going to disappoint. Were Mind Zero to stand with its own narrative drive, and free of the comparisons to Persona, this game would have appreciated for what it is, rather than what it is not.

That is not to say Fantasy Hero: Unsigned Legacy is a bad game. Far from it, there are moments when it is fun and most of its mechanics come together. The problem is that the overall experience is rather short, and very little about the game is memorable once you put the Vita down.

Late Shift is definitely a step in the right direction for choose-your-own-adventure film-games. Consider this: when reviewing a game or a film, we often look at content, characters, and (voice) acting. Late Shift stands up to each of these elements on its own to a certain degree. Some of the content verged on deep but never quite made it, the characters were solidly average, and the acting was surprising, in the best way.

I really would have enjoyed combat with more depth to it than this. Saint Seiya: Soldiers' Soul is a great way to learn about or remember the anime, and a variety of modes and collectibles add mileage to the game. At the end of the day however, it is also meant to be a fighting game, and the combat is simply too bland to really get the most out of the experience.

The game can be fun to play for a few hours here and there but repetitiveness filters through to the presentation, too, with reused music and visuals that become draining after a while.

The low percentage chances of getting the really good slimes are where the microtransactions might have come in handy for the less patient, but with a bit of patience you’ll end up with the powerful team that you’re looking for, and there are certainly enough levels on offer to keep you playing for quite some time.

Do this game again, but shift the focus so that everyone can enjoy it without relying on others being online, and then we'll talk.

I think it is safe to say that Snoopy has avoided the movie-tie-in curse. What we have here is a game that is solid in its design ideas and has implemented them effectively. Yes there are some slowdown issues, but considering who the game is marketed towards, I don’t think they’ll be taking too much notice of that. It’s an enjoyable game, filled to the brim with fun and imagination.

What’s most important is that the game works without giving me the slightest bit of motion sickness, and as a fan of trash B-grade science fiction, I was really able to appreciate the inherent silliness of it all. There might not be much depth here over the long term, but for some short bursts of frenetic action, it absolutely has the lightgun genre nailed.

It is a very clever little puzzle game that tries to add something through commentary that lifts it well beyond standard puzzle platformer fare.

If a player who stumbles upon this title on Steam becomes inspired to make serious educational reform after watching their students get dehumanised into tropical fruit, No Pineapple Left Behind will have all been worth it.

I came away from There Came An Echo quite sold on its unique approach to inputs, and that is both surprising, and really quite inspiring. Because it plays so differently, the game requires that you take a very different approach to playing it, and while I don’t think this is an innovation that’s going mainstream any time soon, having a voice controlled game on the PlayStation 4 makes for a unique, interesting, diversion. Throw in production values well beyond what most indies can achieve, and a plot that will get you thinking across its last few hours, and you’ve got a genuinely worthwhile little experiment here.

I can appreciate why a developer would want to try its hand at a Souls-like. It's a hugely popular genre that doesn't have that many entries at this point in time, and there's a veritable goldmine of unique settings and concepts to explore. A horror-themed Souls on an abandoned space station, circling a black hole, is appealing on every level. Unfortunately, this genre is also incredibly demanding, technically and creatively, and while I admire the ambition of Cradle Games, with Hellpoint they've shot for the stars but well missed the mark.

NBA Live 16 has a lot of really solid pieces that are starting to come together. These disparate parts still need smoothing out and the game itself still has room to improve, but those looking for a more arcade-like NBA experience with a variety of modes should enjoy what the game has to offer.

The game is still very playable, and that same old loop around farming up some veggies in order to afford the adorably cute animals is as entertaining as always.

With nothing to do other than explore and combat enemies, the fact that both systems are insultingly simple means that Fairune has no value, whatsoever.

This is a console that does not need lesser local multiplayer experiences to bolster it up.

If lastability and replay value are the sacrifices needed for tight and innovative design, then Attack of the Earthlings signals a welcome change in a saturated genre. I for one welcome our new insect overlords.