This is a fine debut. Backbone uses its seductive looks to enrich a conceptually thoughtful and carefully plotted-out world, and delivers real surprises within a genre that is all about adhering to time-honoured conventions. [Issue#361, p.116]

Scarlet Nexus' overstuffed story might be fixated on the human brain - and when you skittle a line of Others with a train, you'll be glad of that - but in these moments it recalls where its heart is, too. [Issue#361, p.114]

Absorbing. [Issue#361, p.112]

Once you get past the surface, the environments are lacking in engaging activities, largely consisting of requests to hunt a certain amount of monsters with gradually diminishing returns. [Issue#361, p.108]

Performance issues, some ugly world assets and the story's pacing issues undermine the entertaining combat. [Issue#361, p.104]

Where other games treat romance as a reward or an optional curio, Airport dares to put love at its centre. For that, at least, it deserves praise. And a treat. Perhaps even a belly rub, too. [Issue#360, p.123]

A co-op game that's alternatively tense and funny, and occasionally both. [Issue#360, p.122]

A superior bit of stuff and nonsense, it makes a bigger splash than you'd think. [Issue#360, p.121]

Offers the most blissful vision of rural Britain since "Everybody's Gone To The Rapture." [Issue#360, p.120]

In this game of strong beginnings and - at last - a comprehensive ending, the journey between the two needs more spring in its step. [Issue#360, p.118]

It encourages you to really TRY, even though no one else besides you will see the outcome and the game will happily continue on either way, because creation doesn't need to be about having something you can show to people, but about the process of DOING it. This is where the real joy lies. And even in its darker moments, Chicory is absolutely dripping with the stuff. [Issue#360, p.116]

Below Zero excels when it commits to its free-flowing open-world sensibilities. [Issue#360, p.114]

Most baffling of all is the way each match concludes. [Issue#360, p.112]

The moments that make Biomutant worth playing, intermittent as they can be, exist not in spite of the game's muddled identity but because of it, sitting right at the junction between its janky mechanics and outright bonkers fiction. [Issue#360, p.108]

The result is one of the sprightliest blockbusters since Insomniac's own Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and a lesson in pacing from which Sony's forthcoming PS5 big guns would do well to learn. Sure, you might find it starting to slip from memory even as the credits are rolling, but in the moment? For the most part, it's rather riveting. [Issue#360, p.104]

This month alone, we have far better alternatives. [Issue#359, p.123]

This once-forgotten game deserves its redemption arc. [Issue#359, p.121]

It's hard not to forgive such contrivances when the mask-making process itself is such a joy. [Issue#359, p.119]

Sometimes a lazy afternoon's worth of slow-release serotonin is all you need, and this soothing backrub of a game delivers on that promise. [Issue#359, p.117]

Dig beneath its cutesy surface and you'll find a small but tasty crop that's well worth harvesting. [Issue#359, p.117]

There's always a place for classic concepts executed well, and despite being somewhat rough around the edges,that's precisely what R-Type Final 2 delivers. [Issue#359, p.116]

Why take such efforts to unearth them in a remaster that goes above and beyond in so many ways, only to leave basic flaws intact? A puzzle for future generations of podcasters, perhaps. [Issue#359, p.114]

Why take such efforts to unearth them in a remaster that goes above and beyond in so many ways, only to leave basic flaws intact? A puzzle for future generations of podcasters, perhaps. [Issue#359, p.114]

While that means Soulstorm works - accidentally or otherwise - as a metaphor for the struggle of the working classes, all that toil rarely makes for a particularly engaging game. [Issue#359, p.112]

A remarkably sure-footed followup. [Issue#259, p.110]

Returnal is by turns a gloriously dynamic action game and a dark slice of psychological horror. [Issue#259, p.106]

It's a loud, mindless end to a game that features many stunningly crafted elements but rarely puts them to memorable use - a letdown after RE7 rescued the series from the convolutions of Resident Evil 6. [Issue#359, p.102]

If you're still wondering whether to give it a go, we politely refer you to the title. [Issue#358, p.120]