Sayonara Umihara Kawase+’s mental gymnastics are every bit as sadistically soul crushing as they are cunningly compelling and this two-spirited nature poses a serious entry barrier.

I'm not sure just how much of my love of Legend of Grimrock is because of a sense of nostalgia, or a consequence of great level design. The game offers intricate maps and some classic crawler action, and it's as good a second time through as it was the first. Having this game on my iPad for play on the go is this retro 'crawler fan's dream.

I can't see this lighting up the iOS sales charts, and I struggle to see how people without a wireless gamepad will be able to work through it, but otherwise, it's a decent, entertaining classic action JRPG to add to the collection.

The Ark of Napishtim is still great, in short. Long time fans of the series will appreciate the visual upgrade and first time entrants to this chapter should find themselves at home, especially if they have appreciated some of the other entries in recent years.

For people who are looking to build a JRPG as a hobby, or a youngster not quite ready to learn proper coding, the RPG Maker 2003 remains a spectacular tool, all these years later. It provides a platform that allows genre fans to indulge their creativity, and makes the tools so easy that anyone, regardless of programming skills, can create something.

Any good wargame should provide a sense of historical authenticity to the player, and helps enlighten them about the military strategy of the era. Gettysburg achieves that with clear authenticity and understanding of the tactics of the era, and while the iPad doesn't lack for quality wargames on it, this is another one worth adding to the playlist.

Perils of Man provides a solid point and click experience that will immerse you into this fantasy story and definitely racks up enough game time to make the small price tag worthwhile.

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.

Shovel Knight is yet another fantastic indie addition to the continually growing Vita catalogue. It might lack Vita-specific extras (and is therefore a pointless purchase for people who already own the game on some other platform), but for old-school retro platforming fans who might have missed out on this fantastic title so far, it's a must buy.

Cube Creator 3D was an interesting attempt to bring the Minecraft experience over to the Nintendo 3DS. While not offering anything overly new, it gets the interface right and makes use of the hardware well.

As a paid product, The Charnel House Trilogy fails to deliver on its promised horror.

What Tamsoft nailed was the core action brawler gameplay loop. This game plays every bit as well as anything else Tamsoft has created, and the Hyperdimension coat of paint over the top is just gravy.

There is nothing that redeems Excave II: Wizard of the Underworld.

The Weaponographist is a solid game to play if you're ever in the mood to dwindle a few minutes or hours off the boring day you're having. The pick-up-and-play quality, easy-to-understand nature and lightweight gameplay all come together to make The Weaponographist an easy recommend for everyone.

The game is unforgiving when it comes to the AI, and some players can learn from this while others will be destroyed constantly, which is unfortunate. With some tweaking here and there and adding difficulty levels, BRAWL could be amazing.

The gameplay is fast paced and satisfying, and the short game length means you won’t get too attached to your player character. I would say that Quarries of Scred is built to promote short play sessions, but the sheer addictiveness means it’s hard to stop playing once you start and the sheer difficulty of the gameplay only adds to this.

A truly fine racing game, and for PlayStation 4 owners this will be the first next-generation racing game of worth for serious revheads to sink their teeth into. Racing beginners, or people who are used to racing games where powerslides are enough to get around corners may feel very frustrated with this one at first, but I can't think of a racing game that is more worth taking the time to get to know, and master, than this one.

The gameplay mechanics and presentation values in Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today are solid, but the puzzles will frustrate a segment of the audience. Worse yet, the end does not pay off the effort to get there.

Monster Combine TD isn’t totally polished or totally original but it bears the markings of an eShop sleeper hit. If you’re in the mood for portable tower defence action with a comedic twist, Collavier has you covered.

While the graphics are nothing special and the controls may give you a hard time despite the game being controller-compatible, the story and gameplay are well worth an entire playthrough at least once.

Yes, it's had far more effort that's been put into its presentation than any other example of the genre I can think of, however by its very nature this is a very limited genre, and Infinity Runner just doesn't do enough to prove its merits beyond an iPhone time waster.

Hakuoki is a memorable, deep, and rich visual novel, and one of the finest examples of that particular genre that has ever been produced.

The great problem in creating a game that so emphatically invites comparison to a classic series is that it will be compared to that series. Elliot Quest never had a hope of comparing to those games, but it does a decent job as a modern homage to them.

It is sharp, witty, intelligent, and just the right shade of nasty -, and is a true inspiration for future open-world action adventure games.

It's clear that the same effort that went into historical research in other Assassin's Creed games did not happen here. Rather, it's quite obvious that the team did an afternoon's research on Wikipedia and called it a day.

Anyone who has fond memories of playing Dungeon Keeper will find War for the Overworld to be a nostalgia trip. It’s not as advanced as it could be at a technical level, but further fixes and updates could lead to an improved experience.

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.

The 3DS isn't the kind of device I would have expected to see such an intense, in-depth simulation game. A-Train 3D is by far the most complex, in-depth and involved game you'll find on Nintendo's handheld, and while it's a very niche title, it's also a very good one that perfectly executes on all of its many systems.