As a whole, Mercenary Kings is a case study in the perils of Early Access. The need to provide a steady flow of content to early buyers has birthed a glut of superfluous systems and a swollen set of missions – the wrong sort of substance to accompany Robertson’s style.

As an enigmatic whisper of a narrative concludes in delightful, uplifting fashion, you’ll likely be left wanting more.

Banished is a rare technical achievement, pure in design and of purpose. Its many deaths almost always feel fair, and the battle up to self-sufficiency is gripping. But the absence of a long game beyond this early toil makes it hard to find reasons to settle down here, except for the views, especially if you’ve established yourself on these frosty plains before.

This may be the age of the single-screen brawler, but TowerFall is among the most feature-rich of its kind.

It’s a thoroughly successful evolution of the twitch shooter, broadening its scope both upwards and outwards as well as expanding its toolset.

As an open-world game, Second Son feels emaciated. There’s little to do in the way of side missions, and what is here becomes repetitive, unlikely to sustain interest beyond a single playthrough. Approach it as an action game that just happens to be set in a nonlinear environment and it makes more sense, but its not-inconsiderable achievements take effort to uncover.

If it’s a demo, Ground Zeroes is the best demo ever; if it’s a prologue, it sets up the story so well you’ll spend the next year thirsting for revenge; and if it’s a tutorial, the systems it teaches are so intriguing that the prospect of spending an entire game with them is irresistible. Ground Zeroes is a resounding success in every respect bar its price tag, but value is relative. Fourteen hours in, we’re still learning.

Though the necessities of catering to two different audiences mean that it perhaps never quite reaches the heights of either of the pair’s best individual outings, as the credits roll, you’ll likely experience a hollow feeling, the emptiness that only the best stories leave behind.

It’s surprisingly tactical.

Basic combat is dismal, turgid stuff, yet accounts for almost all the action.

Though the stage design is carefully plotted to the last pixel, there’s little room for deviation – and none for the ultimate three-star prize. As such, it’s a case of brute-forcing the solution over dozens of repeated attempts, a process that feels less engaging here than in some of its peers.

Arzest has laid an egg here, but not of the golden variety.

On a console where tried and tested ideas continue to dominate, it would be wrong to entirely dismiss an experiment like this, even if the result is only fleetingly worthwhile.

For all its little tweaks, Dark Souls II is, foremost, a game made for Souls players. It is a game that asks everything of you and gives so much back, keeping its cards close to its chest, and revealing them only to those prepared to die and die again. It is made to be played for hundreds, if not thousands, of hours as you try new builds, explore PVP and experiment with covenants, all the while slowly peeling back the layers of its lore.

Sadly, the technical turbulence that has blighted previous episodes remains – the QTE-powered action beats, though well staged, are hobbled by pauses and awkward transitions, even on PC.

Sadly, any gains made here are squandered by woolly controls, a dearth of feedback and infuriating inaccuracy even with aiming assist dialed up to maximum.

So, yes, their irreverent take on the medium may have a few technical shortcomings, but you’ll usually be grinning far too much to care.

Bold and distinctive. [March 2014, p.102]

Lords Of Shadow 2 is clunky, ugly and deeply misguided. It’s a game that sees the lord of the damned as a vehicle for rat-powered linear stealth, and that takes a future-Gothic London setting and then sets the action in tower blocks and sewers.

Thief is far from the disaster that many feared it would be, and fans who take the time to customise their settings ahead of their first playthrough will find a rewarding world here to pick clean. Nevertheless, it’s still difficult to shake the feeling that, for all his dexterity, Garrett has stumbled in his attempt to gain access to a new generation.

It’s a B-movie game in every sense, but approach it with sufficiently lowered expectations, and you may just be pleasantly surprised.

Sadly, that fresh new take on combat is hamstrung by a camera that can’t keep up with the elaborate effects, animations and blistering speed.

Tengami’s world is as rich and stimulating as any you’re likely to find on iOS, but there’s something missing. Like an origami crane, it’s an admirable piece of craftsmanship, but the result remains rather flimsy and lightweight.

EDF was never about careful aiming or strategic cover or any of the other things that drive modern shooters, though – it’s about superior firepower earned through RPG grind, but 2025 has made the happy grind gruelling.

A sensitive update for a series many thought would stay stuck in the past.

During Tropical Freeze’s most exacting sequences, you may yearn for Mario’s reliability, but the bludgeoning force of Retro’s presentation is enough to carry a powerful, if traditional, platformer over the finish line.

Yet even with another cliffhanger to keep you on tenterhooks until Episode Three, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see audience interest starting to wane, particularly if Telltale continues to treat us more as viewers than as players.

There’s a great twitch game beneath this hostile exterior, but Ragequit can’t afford to test players’ endurance on so many levels if its niche shooter is to thrive.