With a confusing setup, a really poor user interface, at times abysmal presentation, and a Career Mode that offers no meaningful progression, Fernbus Simulator should stay back in the garage and let the more capable sims hit the road.

Destiny 2: Lightfall offers an action-packed campaign that feels more like a filler story than an essential narrative. It also presents extremely well-designed levels, enemies, and combat loops, as well as several overhauls and improvements to the game's core systems.

Romancelvania is a great visual novel trapped inside a Metroidvania that bites off more than it can chew.

This re-release of the 2007 Wii horror game has echoes of what make this classic horror series great, but is stifled by a lumbering pace, cumbersome controls, and lack of genuine scares.

Blood Bowl 3 is the type of game that makes people say things like, “I’ll wait until it’s on sale” or, “maybe this will be good in a year or two.” Now, I don’t work in publishing, but it seems to me like that’s the opposite of what you want when you’re releasing a game that’s so blatantly predatory in its monetization. What I don’t understand is why the game was delayed for two years only to launch in this abysmal state. Maybe in another two years, this game will actually be playable. For now, stick to Blood Bowl 2 instead.

No matter how disappointed I am with the game and myself after each "Crushing Defeat," I find myself wanting to go back and play again, even if it's just to build up relationships with Liu Bei and Sun Jian, unlock their armor sets and weapons, grind for levels and new spells and, maybe some day, finally get to use that wizard's house key. It doesn't excuse the faults, and I will die (quickly and repeatedly) on the hill that it would be vastly improved by adding difficulty settings, but if you're a fan of the Three Kingdoms and (not or) extreme difficulty, Wo Long may be a good fit for you. And if it's not, Hell, there's always Dynasty Warriors.

Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe not only got me as giddy as a youngster in a candy shop, but was a solid reminder that, with a bit of pure imagination and innovation, Nintendo could still expand upon the worlds of existing IP, especially its pink pudgy ones.

Prime Remastered is a successful experiment in gaming perspectives and a paragon of how to improve on an already excellent game. I can only hope that subsequent Prime titles are given the luxurious remaster treatment. As of this writing, it's the most beautiful game I've played on the Switch, which is quite bold considering that I've also played Legend of Zelda: Breathe of the Wild. After all, the world of Metroid itself wasn’t anything original, but it was the new way of seeing things that made all the difference.

Scars Above is a fine game, but not a very memorable one, especially in a period when sci-fi survival horror is becoming a crowded field. Much like the planet you explore, Scars Above is devoid of life.

Clive 'N' Wrench might take inspiration from classic 3D platformers, but it doesn't take the best practices, resulting in a dated and at times frustrating gameplay experience.

It’s difficult to put into words my experience with this game. It offered a strange peace that was, all at once, a somber experience — one full of joy, sorrow, laughter, and regret. It explores the weight and comfort of memories, the impact they have on the world, and the importance of existence. It can be meandering at times, and some of the side characters’ voice acting pulled me out of the experience. If you aren’t in the mood for this kind of game — a walking simulator vibe with an emphasis on scrapbooking, bicycling, and photography — hold off on playing it and wait until the right mood strikes. When you go in with the right mindset, this game can get under your skin in the best way. Season: A Letter To The Future isn’t a perfect game, but it is a significant one, and one that I will carry with me for a long time.

An action-packed and emotionally-charged adventure through a breathtaking period in Japanese history.

Despite a few missed opportunities to really build on the great games it’s inspired by, Atomic Heart surprised me, with a remarkably inventive world that brings to life (the tears apart) the weirdest, wildest visions of Soviet propaganda. This is a game that’s been through over half a decade of development hell, and come out the other side as one of the best first-person shooters this generation.

Avalanche Software has meticulously re-created Hogwarts down to such minute details that it's sure to bring out the child in most of us — it is, doubtlessly, a gorgeous realization of the Wizarding World. Attending classes, taming beasts, exploring Hogwarts, and learning new spells could keep you occupied for hours, but it's nowhere near a groundbreaking experience. If you strip the Harry Potter IP away from Hogwarts Legacy, you're just left with another standard RPG that we've seen countless times before.

SpongeBob SquarePants nails the feeling of the source material and it does a great job of replicating the free and fancy fun of those old-school platformers. That being said, it's not a great game, at least if you're over the age of 12. It's lacking in challenge, it's rather short, and there's very little replay value. For the younger players who haven't been jaded by this wonderful and wicked industry, it's a serviceable platformer with authentic voice acting that gives players a chance to be part of their favorite show. For everybody else, it's a short distraction that had the potential to be so much more.

Jung’s theory aside, Persona 3 is all about the time we have, how we choose to spend it and who we choose to spend it with. In this light, the game’s true mechanics shine. The relationships that we forge can—and this is probably true in life—affect our ultimate outcome. And time? Well, it’s hard to think of a better way to spend 50+ hours than getting points for scarfing down takoyaki and fighting bad guys.

Forspoken is packed with flaws — be they outright missteps or simply middling executions — but there are definitely qualities to this game that can deliver an entertaining and sometimes thrilling experience. I did ultimately enjoy my time with it, all told and considered. There’s interesting lore here, and at times the story approaches compelling, but it was held back so much by odd design choices, an often bland world, and uneven pacing in both the story and moment-to-moment dialogue. On paper, it could and should be great, but nothing quite fits together to make a stronger whole. It’s crammed with so much, and beyond the combat and traversal, the whole experience just winds up feeling like something of a relatively enjoyable mess.

After a dozen or so hours in Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, I can safely say that it's the real McCoy. This is not a watered-down port to give Microsoft an easy first-party Xbox Game Pass release. It's the real deal and as feature complete as the PC edition, which is quite an accomplishment. A myriad of quality-of-life improvements makes the original game, while still a classic, very much redundant. The only reason to keep hold of the original is to preserve those big beautiful boxes PC games used to ship in. We're in a new age now, and Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is the perfect example of taking an ancient game and giving it just enough love to make it feel almost new, something that many other remasters and re-releases so often miss the mark on.

There are a lot of other things worth unpacking about this game (pour one out for Rob as I pitch a thousand Dead Space features), but as a cohesive whole? Dead Space Remake is damn good fun, with interesting ideas and appreciation of the greater franchise that most remakes lack. This isn’t some studio trying to massively reinvent an IP, but working to fit the best pieces together so it can grow anew. It's a fitting tribute to Visceral's best days - maybe not a perfect rendition, but few cover songs ever are.

Fire Emblem Engage is mostly a streamlined experience that gives you a taste of what the series has to offer, but doesn’t showcase its true potential as a strategy game. It lacks genuine innovation, and doesn’t quite meet the standards set by previous entries or establish a challenging and balanced system that reflects Fire Emblem's core identity.

Toy Soldiers HD is a fantastic tower defense game that fans of the genre should definitely play. It's easy to learn, hard to master, and there's a ton of replayability with the lengthy campaign, the extra levels, collectibles, achievements, and survival modes, which I've spent a lot of time playing. The controls for vehicles can be a bit stiff and the lack of co-op multiplayer is a big disappointment, but given how few decent tower-defense games there are on console, it's easy to overlook the very few shortcomings Toy Soldiers HD brings to the table. Now, when are we getting Toy Soldiers Cold War?

Overall, this DLC takes everything that made the base game of Vampire Survivors such a surprise success story and gives you more of the same, but with a more involved map and a theme to bring the whole thing together. If you're one of the many who has been enthralled with the allure of Vampire Survivors, you're going to appreciate the additional content that poncle has thrown in here, and with a price point set at less than $2.00, there's very little reason for any fan to stay away.

As far as simulators go, it's not the worst. To the game's credit, it does offer the dull, mundane day-to-day routine that a lot of actual police officers call a career. If you want to spend hours writing tickets and slowly progressing in a meaningless career in law enforcement, you can do it here without the risk of being vilified on social media. But it could have been so much more had the systems in play been deeper and more robust, not to mention, fun. Instead, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers is a bit of a buggy mess that feels half-baked and not ready for patrol just yet. Back to the academy with this one.

Although it does have some redeeming qualities, it’s hard to justify paying full price for a DLC that barely gives you access to its biggest new addition and introduces even more arbitrary difficulty spikes.

It’s a little disappointing, and really quite surprising, that River City Girls 2 shows very little impetus to improve on its promising predecessor. The girls have still definitely ‘got it,’ and still make this colourful and characterful journey worth it through some rough patches, but there’s a little too much reliance on the assets of the original to make it feel worth the rather steep asking price. The original game made a fan of me, while the sequel just about manages to sustain my loyalty, though that will definitely be affected by how WayForward deal with its woeful frame rate issue in the coming weeks.

A beautiful, touching piece of work that’s bound to stick with you long after you finish it, Blacktail is a world worth getting lost in.

It's Marvel meets XCOM meets Fire Emblem, which isn't something I knew I wanted, but now I have it, I want the hell out of it. Firaxis deserve a lot of respect for taking risks and trying something new, especially with such a high-profile property. The dialogue and a few technical hiccups mean Midnight Suns doesn't quite stick the landing, but the rock-solid core gameplay and fun character moments more than makeup for it.

Once you get down into the dilapidated yet impressive levels of the Hive and start swinging, Darktide is as great a swarm shooter experience as any, but it needs to improve much of the surrounding infrastructure to make that core combat experience feel rewarding and meaningful. Who knows? I may even come back in a year to re-review the game (which is something that should generally happen with more game reviews), but in the meantime it’s a simmering cauldron of potential that still feels a little raw.