Urban Trials Tricky ends far earlier than I thought it would – there’s only a handful of levels and I breezed through them all in a matter of hours, but perhaps it was because of the exploit I’d discovered for all of the Trick stages. I would have wanted further spaces to play around in, since the real strength of this game was just letting players ride and bounce around the creative and incredibly vertical zones. The physics and level design stand out here, considering that Tate Multimedia has had a few games in the series under its belt already. I would hope that future games in the series have better events and scoring systems which effectively test the player’s understanding of the mechanics. What is available here is a fun game, and I certainly didn’t hate the time I spent with it. But it could also have been so much more.

F1 is my preferred format for racing, and I would argue that Codemasters as given more respect to the F1 license in building it up over the last few years than anyone else. F1 2020 is on the cusp of being a top-flight annual licensed sports game like 2K's NBA, EA's FIFA and Sony's MLB The Show, and it has managed to get there without nickel-and-diming consumers to anywhere the same extent. This year's edition might be iterative on the track, but the off-track improvements show that Codemasters hasn't yet run out of ideas yet either.

The Last of Us 2 epitomises everything about overly-produced, mass market-friendly content that many of us are becoming exhausted with. SWERY, knowing full well that his game will be castigated on Metacritic and widely mocked, has satirised every mainstream expectation of a video game in Deadly Premonition 2. There’s nothing that suggests that anything within this game is not an entirely deliberate, surrealistic subversion of expectations, and while Deadly Premonition 2 is not for everyone (and potentially offensive to some), games as an art form are better off having works like this to exist in parallel to mainstream entertainment.

Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is the most charmingly twee thing on the Nintendo Switch. It is bright, colourful, wholesome, sweet, and, for people that remember the original on the Game Boy Advance, nostalgic. Story of Seasons encapsulates the desire that many have to retreat to a "simpler life" of wholesome work and earned reward. It's also a magnificent parallel - in an industry that is so drenched in extreme, unquestioned violence, sex, anger, terror, drugs and "serious themes", this game is a rare retreat and opportunity to reset. It's a reminder that it's okay for games to be warm-spirited... and that's a sadly rare thing these days.

Horror is an intensely difficult genre to get right. You need to draw players in and immerse them in the experience to the point that they have an emotional connection to the game, and then hit them with things that are not just grotesque, but also deeply unsettling. Horror needs to engage the brain as it engages the more visceral reactions, and that's very hard to do. Infliction: Extended Cut doesn't get there. It's simply too pedestrian and rote to really work.

There are plenty of titles out there with a strong moral conscience that try to communicate with players by making "difficult decisions" the core gameplay loop. This includes This War of Mine, Papers Please, Reigns, Not Tonight, Beholder, Ministry of Broadcast, and plenty of others besides. Yes, Your Grace is guilty of not adding enough to this philosophy of game design, and thus I suspect that it is destined to be one of the lesser-remembered examples of the "genre." With that being said, there's still a lot to appreciate about this one, and it's wrapped up in such a lovely package that, if nothing else, it makes for an excellent lazy Sunday afternoon experience.

All of this puts me in a difficult spot with Assetto Corsa Competizione. On the one hand, it’s my favourite racing experience, hands down. It just handles beautifully. On the other hand, from features to gameplay modes and with regards to almost everything that doesn’t specifically involve racing, Competizione is substantially behind its peers, making this a racing experience that only the most hardcore of hardcore racing fans will get much out of.

I wouldn't bet money on us getting another take on Go on Nintendo Switch, and even if we do, I wouldn't bet on it being a focused teaching tool for the game. As such, Being Stronger While Playing! SilverStar Go DX is mandatory stuff, despite its warts. You don't need to be a professional Go player, but it is one of those things where having a basic knowledge of the game is a good way of showing that you've got a level of interest and respect for other cultures, and it's a useful stepping stone for a broader understanding of Asian thought and culture.

You need to have a high tolerance for crass to enjoy Hakoniwa. This game is less "fan service" than it is an actual perversion, but if that kind of eyes-wide humour appeals to you then Hakoniwa is very, very funny. You'll probably only play it once because jokes are never as funny when repeated, but for that first run though, there's a sense of glory around the game; this thing offers a kind of joyous, unbounded creativity that it's impossible not to sit back and wonder at just what kind of process went into the making of it.

This is the kind of game that's so easy to overlook. Lacking things such as overwhelming charm of a Chocobo Mystery Dungeon, the exquisite fan service of an Omega Labyrinth, or the sheer depth of a Siralim, One Way Heroics Plus lacks an X-factor that allows it to stand out. If you are a roguelike fan and give it a chance, however, it has its merits. Those merits are buried deep under poor optimisation for the Nintendo Switch, sure, but they're there, and for the persistent and patient, this is an enjoyable, rich, challenging example of the classical roguelike.

Death Come True is, ultimately, a story of romanticism set against a pragmatic realism. This review will make a lot more sense after you've actually played the game, and I'm certainly hoping that there will be people that jump on here down the track to discuss their interpretation of events with me. If Danganronpa argued that Kodaka is one of the genuine thinkers around video game narrative, Death Come True has solidified it, and while this is a much more modest and experimental work in scope to that visual novel series, it's still inspired stuff and it does have a haunting quality that will remain with me for quite some time to come.

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.

Having not played the original Brigandine, I don't know if this new one does justice to the legacy of the original. I do know that original is well-respected (and quite rare, therefore expensive), but I'm comfortable saying this: developer Matrix Software has done something special with Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, and this effort deserves to have a legacy all of its own. The Switch is by no means short on great tactics experiences, but Brigandine might just be the best of all of them.

There's plenty of merit to Demon's Rise as the developers have delivered a game that is nicely balanced and blends a rich tapestry of gameplay elements together in a surprisingly nuanced manner. Purely on the basis of how this game is presented you just would not expect that going in. The total lack of effort in the writing kills it, though. How am I meant to enjoy a fantasy game if there is nothing to draw me into the fantasy?

It's got all the right ideas in there, but it's so timid in exploring any of them that it comes across as altogether too safe to be good horror.

There's not much else to say beyond what was in my review of this game on PlayStation 4. The Switch port is a high quality, highly functional version of the base game, and while there are some totally expected visual downgrades, this is offset by the fact that you can now play Railway Empire on the go without having to lug your laptop around. When it comes to the kind of experience a simulator offers, the portable form factor really is is the ideal way to go.

The Museum Archives are by no means the perfect collection - they're the wrong ports in that the NES ports rather than the arcade originals are in there, and there are many compilations that have more games in them. With that being said, there's not single dud game in this collection, and whether they're as well known as Pac-Man or as obscure as Dragon Spirit, they're all genuine all-time classics. You buy either of these collections and you'll be coming back to them for years to come.

The Museum Archives are by no means the perfect collection - they're the wrong ports in that the NES ports rather than the arcade originals are in there, and there are many compilations that have more games in them. With that being said, there's not single dud game in this collection, and whether they're as well known as Pac-Man or as obscure as Dragon Spirit, they're all genuine all-time classics. You buy either of these collections and you'll be coming back to them for years to come.

Building on Mimimi Games' success with Shadow Tactics, Desperados III is mature, confident gameplay design, and while it might not look like an AAA-blockbuster, it certainly has the level of refinement and quality that is a rare thing indeed. It could have been a little more in places, but it's a solid, intelligent depiction of a beloved part of America's narrative heritage and aesthetic, with some excellent and creative tactical puzzles to sort through along the way.

There are other XCOM-likes available on Switch, and you could argue that titles like Mutant Year Zero represent a step forward for the genre that has now left XCOM itself behind. The intensity of this game’s narrative, of the resistance against overwhelming odds and the way that the game gives you reason to celebrate even the small victories does make it worth another look, though.

The lack of creative innovation from one Kairosoft title to another becomes exhausting if you play more than a few of them, and Magazine Mogul is an incredibly shallow experience. It's a pick-up-and-play delight, and it has an appealing theme, but where Game Dev Story is so well regarded because it established Kairosoft, Magazine Mogul is really starting to wear out the welcome. It's frustrating because all Kairosoft would need to do is throw caution to the wind and make just one serious simulation game with this set of production values and the company would completely reinvent itself for the better, I feel. The focus on unrelentingly casual experiences is nothing more than a game of rapidly diminishing returns for the company, and I just can't see even the most hardened Kairosoft fan caring about these new releases any longer.

Persona 4 Golden is a genuine, bona fide work of art, and one of those games that show the potential for the video game format to offer more than cheap thrills. It's one of those games that you get the feeling will be remembered as a masterpiece well into the future too. With most AAA blockbusters falling out of the public discourse just a few months after release because they offer nothing but passive entertainment, it's games like Persona 4 that we continue to discuss. Even in comparison to its own sequel, it seems to have the combination of characters, narrative, and ideas that help it to continue to be worthy of thought. We'll still be talking about Persona 4 fifty years from now, and hopefully, it remains as accessible as this new PC release has allowed it to become.

I really loved the moment-to-moment movement of The Last of Us 2. I enjoyed plotting my way around, trying to minimise the amount of combat I needed to get into. I loved the rhythms and structure of the game, and as one of the final big shows for the PlayStation 4, it makes me wonder why we’re even bothering with a “next generation.”

All three BioShock games in the collection contain all the DLC from their original releases and as far as packages go, are as complete as they come. Purely from a content perspective there’s plenty to go around, and most of the time spent is engaging, too. I personally find all three games to be far more interesting as historical artefacts rather than for pure consumption, but it’s nice that they function well as both. And so if you’re just arriving at the series on Switch my recommendation is – if you can stomach the often very graphic violence – definitely play BioShock 1, if you loved the first then consider BioShock 2, and only if you like flying cities and have a yet unsatiated bloodlust, then play BioShock Infinite as well.

Who knows if this one will find the audience that it deserves. Unfortunately, it's one of those indies that appears just derivative enough to overlook, especially when, for many people, Wargroove has been all the Advance Wars action they've needed over the past year. But Warborn has its own merits. It's a sharper and more dynamic tactics strategy game, and what initially seems like limitations with a small number of units and game modes proves to be this game's great strength by allowing it to deliver the kind of balance that even the best tactics games struggle with.

But perhaps 2D platformers aren't the future for her now. Perhaps it's some for something a little more narrative-focused rich in the worldbuilding, to play to the properties' actual strengths, because after five 2D platformers, I'm now getting tired of being teased that there's more to all this, but never actually getting the promise of a fully realised Shantae fantasy.

I do need some kind of narrative focus, and with Ys: Memories of Celceta, that's pushed so far to the periphery that I really struggle to connect with it as some others have. The action is great - it's shallow, but that's not a criticism when it's this smooth and enjoyable - but I just can't get past the lack of context.

Pinball Lockdown costs pennies, and you get five tables for a price lower than a single Pinball FX3 table, but you also get what you pay for. Aside from a nice aesthetic, this collection of tables suffers from amateurish design, physics that greatly lack for inspiration, and, for a game that relies on precision and reflexes, completely unforgivable technical issues that inhibit the player's ability to master either. Sadly, this game isn't even worth the pennies.