In the hot seat at Number 13, survival typically takes precedence over morality, but developer Cavalier delights in letting you feel the sting of your actions. [Issue#425, p.121]

Stories such as this are still rare in games, and the visual-novel format Toge Productions employs gives them the space to unfold with delicacy and nuance. [Issue#425, p.120]

Even if Call Of The Elder Gods is never as thrillingly weird as you'd hope, Myst-lites as wide-ranging as this are hardly a Dimetrodon a dozen. [Issue#425, p.118]

Mina is at its best when it's channelling Zelda, less so when it lens into Soulslike territory or becomes ascetic in its early-'90s sensibilities, trying too hard to retain a link to the past. [Issue#425, p.116]

Phonopolis' few flaws are easy to forgive in the face of the artistry with which this terrible, magnificent place has been put together. [Issue#425, p.114]

When Legacy of the Dark Knight finds its focus, there's still plenty of zen-like charm to enjoy here. And if you crave the chaotic? Well, beanbag begins. [Issue#425, p.112]

If there was any chance of coming away from this frictionless journey feeling deflated, then, Good-Feel ensures there's no danger of that. [Issue#425, p.110]

These mechanics are supposed to be more immersive, but they're little more than busywork designed to placate any suspicion that you're only truly playing a game if you've nudged a character around with the analogue stick. [Issue#425, p.108]

Zero Parades does succeed, but it's a qualified success. [Issue#425, p.106]

When Forza Horizon 6 manages to get out of its own way, its magic is that it was two compelling fantasies to draw on. Being a world-class race driver is a pleasure we can get elsewhere - although this makes it accessible to those who might fear Gran Turismo's sterner sim - but it can also satisfy the humbler dream of being on holiday in a fun new place. Whether Playground has captured the authentic Japanese experience, we can't say, but it's certainly got that last bit nailed. [Issue#425, p.102]

The final result is surprisingly unvaried and well-behaved. Within the space of 20 hours, it makes what is ostensibly a fresh version of Bond feel like he needs another new shot of life. [Issue#425, p.98]

It's as intoxicating as it is intoxicated and thus, for those who partake, perhaps best enjoyed with a glass of wine. For comfort, naturally. [Issue#424, p.121]

When The Cosmic Abyss plays more like a walking sim or a first-person horror, it's excellent story really shines through, but its overdesigned systems tend to get in the way of its otherworldly ambitions. [Issue#424, p.119]

You've seen most of what it has to offer before you've even unlocked all of the sculpting tools. [Issue#424, p.118]

Barring a couple of all-too-short sections near the beginning, Will: Follow The Light is a bewildering and arduous journey. [Issue#424, p.116]

In its wake, Dosa Divas can often only muster the kind of anti-capitalist polemic we've heard many times before. [Issue#424, p.112]

Tomodachi Life proves beguiling and boring in equal measure. [Issue#424, p.110]

The weapon animations remain gorgeous to the last drop, but what about the other two-thirds? [Issue#424, p.108]

Here is the rare deckbuilder that doesn't feel like it's merely aping the giants of the genre. [Issue#424, p.106]

Things pick up considerably in the game's final third, when the excessive exposition has at last been laid to rest and you've learned how to best work with the disobliging visual language. [Issue#424, p.104]

Alien worlds scarcely come more mundane than this. [Issue#424, p.102]

If the future's to be sustainable - let alone bright - we may need to reduce our reliance on single-use game design. [Issue#424, p.100]

Pragmata has an original combat system, some smart toys and tight engineering, yet its rhythm and structure are a touch too singular. This is no mere 3D printout, but an exercise in the pristine and clinical nonetheless. [Issue#424, p.96]

Even more than in Returnal, the Roguelike elements here seem to exist more for flavour than systematic depth. And in that they complement the unmatched action, and the incredible visual, audio, haptic experience. It will be hard for Housemarque to come back stronger than this. [Issue#424, p.92]

Even as it wraps up within four hours, Mixtape feels like an exemplar of the form: generous, indulgent and expertly curated, a crowd-pleaser with just the right number of deep cuts. If it doesn't persuade you to make one of your own, it may well convince you to call up an old friend to reminisce about the moments you spent together. When the world simultaneously sucked and felt so full of potential. When you were bored and rudderless and didn't realise how good you had it. [Issue#424, p.114]

There's scant variety as Nutmeg runs through the same handful of sequences repeatedly, and little tactical leeway within your deck. The beautiful game is thus made less so as the rose tint softens its essential texture. [Issue#423, p.121]

Indeed, perhaps Pokopia's finest accomplishment is that it caters equally to all kinds of player: those who love to build freely, and those who crave more direction. If you're the kind of Pokemon obsessive who plays every entry and spinoff, you'll find plenty here to delight. And if you're an older or lapsed fan, or Pokemon has passed you by completely? Well, ditto. [Issue#423, p.118]

People of Note is a gratifying, if ultimately ephemeral, hodgepodge of ideas - a pleasant distraction but hardly an instant classic. [Issue#423, p.116]

Screamer becomes repetitive, overly simplistic and needlessly verbose, a hybrid vehicle for narrative and racing where the only thing less engaging than the off-track drama is the driving itself. [Issue#423, p.114]

It's not just that it's frustrating to fail but, knowing there's no satisfaction in overcoming that frustration. It says a lot that after stepping away from this game we reinstall the original Super Meat Boy to blow off steam. The real Bob-Omb Battlefield is surely next. [Issue#423, p.112]

Konami has backed a game here, then, that's far from designed just to make a quick buck. Though, tentacles crossed, we hope it does that too. [Issue#423, p.110]

Like a conversation made entirely out of pleasantries, it ultimately rings false. [Issue#423, p.108]

True, the early response to Reunion seems to suggest plenty of players are content with seeing Arcadia Bay's finest together again. The rest of us might wish we too had a rewind. Or, failing that, a particularly potent case of storm amnesia. [Issue#423, p.106]

It's one of the freshest and most imaginative shooters we've played in a long time. [Issue#423, p.102]

For players to get more out of this world, Crimson Desert requires a greater sense of purpose - a reason to remain invested in persevering through its most testing moments, to press on for hours in the faith that it will attain some kind of shape. [Issue#423, p.98]

Control is also stodgy and unreliable. [Issue#422, p.123]

The Kratos we know would most likely growl in disdain. [Issue#422, p.122]

It's a process as intuitive and satisfying as any merge-based puzzler... [Issue#422, p.121]

The final riddle's convolutions are forgiven by its payoff... [Issue#422, p.119]

Until these closing stages, though, Relooted doesn't match its cast's bold determination and flexibility. Despite well-laid plans, the execution isn't as slick as it might be. [Issue#422, p.116]

As it stands, High On Life 2 makes a good case for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, then bleaching the tub. [Issue#422, p.114]

The problem is that, in the areas where Esoteric Ebb differs most from its clearest inspiration, it's imitating something else. [Issue#422, p.112]

Like the wings of your Rathalos in the opening, there's a majesty to this sequel, even if it doesn't really soar. [Issue#422, p.110]

This is certainly the MOST tennis Camelot has served up, if not the smartest or slickest. [Issue#422, p.108]

While it's diverting, Planet Lana II never feels essential as a sequel, mechanically or narratively. [Issue#422, p.106]

There are some good laughs here, along with sporadic moments of showstopping spectacle. [Issue#422, p.102]

So perhaps, we conclude, it's the right balance of the two styles that pays the biggest dividends, tagging each other in at intervals, oscillating between tension and release - after all, it's only when one character goes absent for too long that the game strains. [Issue#422, p.98]

With just those three levels, though, Rage feels a little slight - more a toy than a full game, even if there's plenty of room to perfect your scores.

Whether or not it warrants that DX suffix, Ratcheteer feels just as much at home away from home. [Issue#421, p.123]

Every element of I Hate This Place is perfectly functional but nothing stands out, and it ends up feeling like a slasher with no blood, a haunted house with no ghosts, a zombie with no teeth. [Issue#421, p.122]

It occasionally uses those worn tools to achieve something profound. [Issue#421, p.120]

There are pleasures in these moments, and plenty of charm (see: 'A Human Touch'), but the adventure itself never quite satisfies out wanderlust. [Issue#421, p.118]

As we play, we realise that Pathologic 3 is rich in a large variety of relatively shallow systems. [Issue#421, p.116]

If you can forgive the over-reliance on certain tropes and endure some short spells of tedium, this is a genuinely grisly, surprisingly deep hybrid of survival horror and FPS. [Issue#421, p.114]

Embellished with delightfully grotesque aesthetics and accompanied by some wonderful tunes... [Issue #421, p.112]

For all its simplified inputs and friendly onboarding, 2XKO may fail to convert those who already harbour skepticism toward fighting games, or indeed toward League of Legends itself. [Issue#421, p.108]

While born from the stuff of Little Nightmares, Reanimal transcends the confines of another sequel, leaving a uniquely devilish stain behind. [Issue#421, p.106]

Conversely, the game's reliable constant, its combat mechanics, begins to petrify through repetition. [Issue#421, p.104]

Cairn, then, is an awe-inspiring journey and a careful character study that captures the thrill and torment of climbing. Yet its flaws are central to that core act. While assist modes and optional visual aids help, the complexities behind the intuitive surface can grind together with unpredictable results. In creating such intricate systems, the developers gave themselves a mountain to climb, and almost reach the peak. [Issue#421, p.100]

Nioh 3 is ultimately less of a leap from its predecessor than Elden Ring was from Dark Souls 3, but that's to be expected from a direct sequel versus the introductory act of a new franchise. [Issue#421, p.96]

If there's surprising strategic depth alongside the amusement of the premise, though, the package itself is on the miniature side. [Issue#420, p.107]

If not quite a giant leap for the 3D platformer, Big Hops is an accurate title after all. [Issue#420, p.106]

This is a story about finding your voice, but it also grapples with an uncertain time, when some outcomes are beyond our control or experience. [Issue#420, p.104]

TR-49 is may things simultaneously, to the extent that it can be overwhelming, causing the brain and heart to race - a remarkable feat for something so apparently simple. [Issue#420, p.103]

There are bold ideas floating around Unbeatable's ether, but for the most part it feels like an underpowered B-side. [Issue#420, p.102]

At first glance, this appears to be a game with a clear and confident vision, but playing it for a period of time reveals how much it's split between underdeveloped mechanics. [Issue#420, p.100]

The short levels, played to a time limit that rarely exceeds five minutes, may be ideal for speed runners, but this lightweight arcadey romp lacks the substance that many might need to keep returning to it. [Issue#420, p.98]

All these transgressions against convention add up to the most engrossing deck-builder of the past couple of years. [Issue#420, p.96]

If you can push through the lukewarm welcome and remain patient, though, you'll find something vivid and exciting here. [Issue#420, p.94]

Like Borderlands, the promise of fresh guns, equipment and powered-up skills offers an incentive to press on. But unlike its parent series, the combat in Legends means it's not worth doing so.

Despite the game's lofty sky-mindedness, this is all about mastery rather than freedom. Thankfully, mastery brings with it plenty of its own rewards.

The controls are excellent and the visuals might be a touch more rakish, but what really matters is that Radiangames has found a hectic pace that lends the blasting a kind of cumulative drama. In doing so, this until now polite series has picked up a bit of an attitude.

If the nostalgic, arcade sensibilities of Cosmic Heroes may not hold us as long as Absolum's Roguelike depth, then, mastering our favoured dynamic duo - to borrow a phrase from a rival universe - just might. [Issue#419, p.122]

Horses is a fascinating work, capable of moments that lodge in the memory, such as the late-game sequence when the projector's whirring finally stops and the tired clomp of footsteps registers to our ears like the sound of freedom. [Issue#419, p.122]

The town-building arc new to 0 resonates because you're renovating an idyllic town you see being reduced to ash and rubble in the game's opening hour. [Issue#419, p.121]

The story, meanwhile, is weighed down by needless convolution and stilted dialogue, even if its meditations on breaking the boundaries of human consciousness are admirably ambitious - and novel given that Huxleyian mysticism is well suited to the intimate and changeable perspective of a firstperson videogame. [Issue#419, p.120]

So why, despite jokes about this not being the golden age of comics any more, does Dispatch feel like a retrograde step? [Issue#419, p.118]

At its best, to play Hotel Infinity is to draw out a magic circle (or square) in the middle of familiar space, and the last thing you want is for external reality to intrude on that, whether it's the fear of ridicule or the sharp corner of a sofa you didn't move quite far enough. [Issue#419, p.116]

The island and its minigames, side conversations and beautiful backdrops hold their charm, and part of us earns to remain in Demonschool's world. Unlike Faye, though, we begin to resent that demons keep tearing us out of it. [Issue#419, p.114]

If we're at a point where one way to make COD feel "new" is to revive ideas from more than a decade ago, that is perhaps a sign that the series needs a break, or at least a hard reset. [Issue#419, p.112]

To put it in gastronomic terms surely familiar to Air Riders' star, we're left with the feeling of having visited an all-you-can-eat buffet. There's an array of options available, but tucking in to any one of them is unlikely to satisfy, because at the game's core is a soggy souffle that collapses almost before we can get the fork in. After two decades in the kitchen, was it too much to hope that this otherwise talented chef might have come up with something a little less...lightweight? [Issue#419, p.110]

The game feels somewhat tormented by its turgid dialogue and a one-note plot, both given preference over the raw thrills of doing kickflips in hell. [Issue#419, p.108]

For most of its runtime, Routine is an extremely well-constructed horror game where even the tiniest detail has a big impact. Even if you've been following it since 2012, it has been worth the wait. [Issue#419, p.104]

With that, a largely flat Metroid is further degraded, from disappointing to a little bit embarrassing. Nintendo games have tested our patience before, but rarely in so many ways at once, and not without a core brilliance that makes such transgressions forgivable. Whatever ideas swirled in your mind back in 2017, you can't have been dreaming of this. [Issue#419, p.100]

The enthusiastic shouts that greet immaculate performances may be too generous a reception for Symphonica, but this disarmingly good-natured game is certainly worthy of appreciative applause.

While Once Upon A Katamari is too similar to its predecessors, then, a lot of the new ideas simultaneously also work against the classic sensations of fun and flow. [Issue#418, p.123]

Too often in Forestrike, you lose because you do what the game invites you to do. [Issue#418, p.122]

We can only guess that Possessor(s) needed more time than Heart Machine had left to give. Hopefully it hasn't run out altogether. [Issue#418, p.120]

This stylishly rendered open world displays little sense of fun or character. It's a series of beautifully drawn cardboard boxes populated by unthinking automata, one that commits its genre's gravest crime: inviting no curiosity to explore it. [Issue#418, p.118]

And as it brings the melancholic undercurrent that has defined its parent series to the surface, Age of Imprisonment succeeds on two fronts: as a classy Warriors spinoff and a surprisingly vital piece of Zelda history. [Issue#418, p.116]

This is the fundamental flaw in Bloodlines 2. Troika's original game was not only about being a vampire but living as one, it's balmy LA nights riddled with chances to fulfill that fantasy. Bloodlines 2, in comparison, has no inner life. [Issue#418, p.114]

There's little variety in the 400-square-kilometre American midwestern locale where everything takes place, and roads rarely feel optimised to test your handling skills. [Issue#418, p.112]

Arise has embedded itself deep in our skull. [Issue#418, p.110]

We can't help wondering if a narrowing of scope, instead of crowbarred-in construction mechanics or a baffling option to interact with NPCs that function like in-world AI chatbots, may have given this fiction real room to breathe. For now, there are too many winds blowing in different directions. [Issue#418, p.108]

Had a few more risks been taken, this too might eventually have been considered a classic. [Issue#418, p.104]

More than once we extract on our knees, the dregs of life draining out as we hit the button. [Issue#418, p.100]

To The Sky also emphasises that this is a game to be enjoyed in groups, with co-op for up to four people, and it's true that it is more enjoyable alongside others. [Issue#417, p.123]

Upgrades are disappointingly basic... [Issue#417, p.121]