With a brand new but convoluted UI, slowdown and framerate drops during match highlights and a severe lack of polish overall, Football Manager takes a huge swing and unfortunately doesn't hit the mark this year. The fundamentals of what makes this series great are present, but buried under the weight of everything that needs to be fixed.

Whilst it's clear to see what games have inspired Wreckreation, the game itself pales in comparison to its forebears. A hollow attempt at both arcade fun and badly shoehorned in "live service", Wreckreation is a game as shallow as its unnecessarily large map.

This desert revenge adventure loses its way in the heat and the bloodlust. Whiplash inducing story inconsistencies, mind-numbing combat and stealth, alongside a complete lack of real exploration cause Blood of Mehran to suffer a fate worse than death - exile into a barren and unending trial of tedium. At least the landmarks are nice.

It’s a sum of bland parts, from the vastly over-used story cliches, to the lacklustre gameplay.

A shoddy life sim, with little to nothing of excitement to offer even the most ardent of genre fans.

Short, shallow and a waste of an interesting setting, The Life of Buzludzha is difficult to recommend to anyone other than those obsessed with Bulgarian communist monuments. A niche indeed.

Whilst the market for something neon-soaked and high octane may be lacking, Cyber Clutch: Hot Import Nights isn't going to be the game to reignite that spark. Shallow content, lacking multiplayer and just overall poor performance will see this one up on the blocks.

Otherwar unsuccessfully pulls off being a tower defence game or bullet hell, and instead is just my hell. Slow waves of enemies, long periods of downtime, and a broken in-game economy that doesn't make working towards anything feel fulfilling.

Spy Drops desperately wants to be an authentic homage to the original Metal Gear Solid, but fails in almost every aspect. Riddled with issues, from the camera, to the AI, to the level-breaking glitches, there's simply little redeeming quality to this low-effort copy. Just do another re-run with Solid Snake himself and save yourself the pain of this.

The Edge of Fate is a desperately disappointing follow up to The Final Shape, offering little to nothing of value to the overall Destiny 2 experience. A forgettable story, lifeless new locations and joyless mechanic additions, this is a sad indictment on Bungie's current place in the industry.

Tomb Raider IV-VI just feels like a collection of relics from an era when we didn’t know any better. And honestly? Some relics are better off staying buried.

Glover returns with very little fanfare and sadly, it's not going to win a new audience with a lackluster remastering. The physics-based puzzles are still fun to attempt, but there's so little else here, one could argue it should have stayed back in the 90's.

Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator tries to capture the chaos of an emergency response but fails. Clunky gameplay, stiff graphics and a tone deaf portrayal of mental health leaves it feeling like a missed opportunity and not a life saving experience.

Offering little value outside of wasting your time, Shieldwall is a painfully dull and hellish slog through each of its levels. Broken AI, abysmal combat and utterly tedious waiting around for currency starves this army of any hope. Even the might of Caesar himself couldn't have overcome this arduous war of attrition.

Stilted combat, an unruly camera and poor localisation undermine the positives that DISORDER brings to the table. For the asking price, there are many other games doing the same things, only better.

Much like most Star Wars product these days, Jedi Power Battles is a nostalgia driven cash-grab that fails to improve the game other than reflecting some surfaces and modernising the controls. It's inconsistent, frustrating and, most egregiously, gave Amidala Force powers. That bad feeling you have about this? You know it to be true.

Despite a compelling central premise of combining RTS castle building and third-person action, Eyes of War is sullied by its severe lack of content, underdeveloped mechanics and a host of technical and presentation issues. In a couple of years this may be a fortress worth defending, but as of right now it's a settlement in disarray.

Like an unopened box of Celebrations full of only Bounties, Chocolate Factory Simulator promises much and is visually appealing, but delivers very little else. From the laborious process of actually making chocolate to the tedium of upgrading your only source of 'help', this is one factory Charlie would probably send all of his grandparents to visit instead.

Suffering from an abundance of technical shortcomings, poor design choices and lifeless story, Liberte is a revolution that's failed to so much as spark, never mind ignite. The bones of this roguelike deck-builder store some hidden potential, but they're buried under the rubble of a disastrous start to life on PlayStation.

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is too little, too late. Instead of innovating, it instead takes ideas already popularised and doesn't even pull them off properly. Lacklustre visuals and a flat future aesthetic don't do anything to bolster its chances, not when better contemporaries are available.

There are butts, there is a minimal amount of boxing and there’s an abundance of bare scarcity to Bare Butt Boxing. What it attempts in slapstick presentation and cartoon fun, it slips straight onto its butt with, thanks to barely passable gameplay, stifling cosmetic progression and a lack of anything to help it standout. Bare Butt Boxing might bare all, but perhaps it should cover back up.

Considering the resurgence of the Turtles franchise of late. It’s disappointing to see the brand reduced to this. If Fisher-price produced a game titled ‘My First Beat-em-up, this his would probably bit it. Stick to the pixel perfection of Shredders revenge for your Turtle Time.

An earnest effort at recreating the puzzling contraptions of an escape room mixed with an Outlast-like antagonist, Scholar’s Mate falls victim to the most insipid storytelling, boring gameplay and obtuse puzzles. While it may look the part of a horror game, the only true terror will stem from the fact you could have just gone to a real escape room, and gotten more value for your money.

A rollercoaster of such highs only to be undone by flying straight off the tracks, Parkitect: Deluxe Edition has too many game-breaking issues to recommend taking a chance on. Its building gameplay, visual and sound design set it to a rip-roaring start, just so the technical performance and save-deletion issues cause this entire ported rollercoaster to derail.

Visually lacklustre, poorly designed, riddled with bugs and painfully dull, Favela Zombie Shooter is a turgid entry into a genre that’s on the cusp of yet another resurrection. Let this one shuffle quietly into the night.

A cheap clone, Difficult Climbing Game is attempting to cash in on the popularity of a much better game. Short, unfulfilling and lacking complexity, this pale imitation is best left falling down.

Marred by dysfunctional controls, tired turn-based combat and an abysmal story, Crown Wars: The Black Prince is a dire knight. There are glimmers of the game that could have been within its broken and fractured armour, but this warrior is wounded beyond repair. There are simply too many other games in this genre that are more deserving of your time, and money.

Lunar Lander Beyond attempts something of a reboot of the Atari classic with a modern wrapper. But underneath the shiny hood, the gameplay is virtually unchanged, difficult, and dull, and the extras have done nothing to implement a reward system that might keep newcomers trying to develop the skills needed to enjoy it.

Project Downfall’s clunky and contradictive gameplay is the least of its worries when it’s also abysmally copying games that do the same much better. The disingenuous attempt at edginess and lack of originality make this worth nobody’s time.

Failing to trigger even a basic form of tension, Anthology of Fear neglects to live up to its name. The exploitative use of mental health themes, boring gameplay and technical frustrations culminate in a case simply not worth wasting your time solving. Exorcise your demons by playing one of the many better predecessors that this title rips so egregiously from.

Dreamworks All-Star Kart Racing is really trying to play with the bigguns but just isn’t doing enough differently to justify why anyone should care, especially if you’re a Switch owner. Name recognition can only get you so far and not even everyone’s favourite giant green ogre can save this one.

The best frag grenades are cooked and as such, Modern Warfare 3 needed a lot more time in the oven to create something explosive. This is the series at its lowest point with uninspired missions on repurposed maps and a story that feels moot after the conclusion. Not to mention an online mode that feels closer to a DLC pack and a Zombies mode that whilst in theory was promising, overall feels incohesive and lacking a stable direction. There’s no bad luck, only bad plans and this one was operating without a blueprint.

Down and Out is the knockout for all the wrong reasons and you’ll be happy to stay down instead of persevere. Poor inconsistent controls coupled with terribly monotonous fighting and an asset-flip world just make for an overall poor experience that not even VR can save.

Boti: Byteland Overclocked is ironically the opposite of its own namesake in being overclocked. Full of game breaking bugs, freezes, clipping, the list goes on – you name it it’s in there. Whilst having some small enjoyable elements within the game, It’s difficult to get past its state at review.

Green Hell VR comes along with all the same challenges of surviving in the tropics you have come to expect from the game. However, the PSVR2 controls haven’t improved the experience, and unfortunately exploring the lush landscape is a boring chore as you only have a few small areas and terrible loading times.

Another measly and unfulfilling dinosaur addition, the Jurassic World Evolution 2: Prehistoric Marine Species Pack is an overpriced and underwhelming offering. You can stick to the base game with little concern on this one, save your £6.49 for an old-school classic game instead.

TellTale and Deck Nine have laid the foundations of what could be one of the best in both of their catalogues. The introduction can feel like a whiplash if you’re entirely new to The Expanse, but the characters and world help you settle in nicely. The level design and overall presentation are a step up from the cel-shaded roots, though the characters don’t look the best comparatively. Overall, a very promising first episode.

Killsquad’s attempt at a twin-stick shooter unfortunately falls flat in almost every aspect of its design. The competent but bland combat, aesthetically interesting but boring presentation and poorly balanced mechanics lead to a functional but ultimately lifeless video game. It’s not bad, it’s just not a lot of fun to actually play.

Whilst visually appealing, Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow has infuriating depth perception, technical issues and a story that doesn’t offer much engagement to see you through the end. There is a good game in there somewhere, but at present Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow unfortunately feels unfinished, unpolished and unrefined.

What could have been Daedalic’s chance to break into mainstream has ultimately backfired. A waste of a license, riddled with performance issues and just downright ugly gameplay, Gollum should be cast into any nearest fire, let alone a wasted trip to Mount Doom.

Transformers: Beyond Reality is a missed opportunity that has little to offer gamers or Transformers fans alike. If you want your Transformers gaming fix then stick to Transformers Devastation or the War For Cybertron trilogy.

Wartales is a mix of great ideas tempered by some questionable design decisions. I really want to love this game, and there is plenty of fun to be had, but I can’t help but feel like there was a missed opportunity to make a good game a true great. For fans of the genre I do recommend picking it up and giving it a go, but I really hope that the game gets expanded upon in the future to let it live up to its full potential. [Early Access Provisional Score = 60]

Crime Boss: Rockay City is exactly what we thought it would be. A turgid waste of a solid central idea with a cast stacked with actors who sound like they’d rather be anywhere else or are just purely hateful. There’s a little delight in falling into b-movie nostalgia, but it’s few and far between. There’s very little here to recommend because very little of it works, if anything at all. Well, the title is fun to say at least.

Small pockets of appealing visuals can’t paper over the vast number of issues with Task Force Delta – Afghanistan. A tasteless and out-of-touch set-up, incredibly poor AI and an unbalanced health system result in a rough and decidedly sub-par first person shooter.

Another oddball, off kilter FMV game from Kimulator’s Films, Sheesh-Man is a step in the right direction for the developers. It’s still rough and struggles to tell a coherent story but there’s enough outlandish gags in here to make it worth an hour of your time.

It’s a tonal hodgepodge, almost completely unfunny in every attempt, but a half-decent metroidvania structure is Clunky Hero’s saving grace. Don’t expect to find magic in this fantasy land, but you can enjoy the game for how it plays.

When the best thing I can say about this game is that the stock music that was chosen is at least thematically appropriate, you know the rest of the game was bad. A desperately poor title, Quiz This United Kingdom: Bronze Edition is the bottom of the barrel in terms of quiz games and is yet more trophy-bait shovel ware infesting the PlayStation store.

A short, oddball FMV game that’s like a time capsule full of dead memes and forgotten pop culture, There Is A Genie In My Szechuan Sauce Remastered sure is something. Behind the rough editing, shoddy camerawork and cringeworthy acting however, there’s a few snippets of hilarity that some might find entertaining.

With immature humour or impenetrable jokes that lack context, John Fart: Text-iverse of Crazyness will generate more cringing than it does laughter. Sloppily shot, poorly edited and with a narrative that makes little to no sense, this FMV game is among the worst of 2022.

Castle Renovator is a game plagued with nauseating technical problems, tedious gameplay design and frustrating building mechanics. There’s no salvaging this mess of a castle, perhaps except in the eyes of those already too deep into the medieval mire.

Confused puzzles, a convoluted story, poor use of lighting and no real scares makes Charon’s Staircase a good reason for taking the escalator instead.

New Tales from the Borderlands is a sequel that seemingly forgets everything that made the original so special and shoehorns in a story that simply doesn’t keep you engaged. Whilst it’s visually lovely and feels like it’s a Borderlands experience, it’s all style and no substance. Without heart or humour, this feels like a cash-in, and for a sequel to one of the greatest narrative games of all time? That’s just not good enough.

Hell is the most apt word in the title ‘One Hell Of A Ride’. Rubber banding, rough visuals, an abrasive structure full of unnecessary padding, aggressive track design and a lack of modes outside of a single player campaign mean this game struggles to get off the starting line. There was potential here, but it stalls and chalks up a DNF.

Another drop in the vast ocean of action RPG’s, The Last Oricru brings nothing new to the much-treaded waters. Worse still, it lacks the refinement and polish to make it a barely passable romp, feeling as rough around the edges as Alpha Protocol did back in the day.

Cario squanders an interesting art style by painting it onto a simplistic arcade game with the bare minimum amount of content required for it to be considered a ‘game’ at all. It’s the best trophy bait to hit the store in months, maybe even this year, but it’s still desperately sub par.

Maze Blaze is a vibrantly colourful game that is painfully uninteresting to play. Endless possibilities translate into endlessly monotonous corridor hopping with uninspired or even functional shooting mechanics. You’ll probably want to set this maze ablaze after you’re done with it.

This is most egregious and content light trophy bait clicker to hit the PS4 to date. Stroke The Dog is an abomination, preying upon trophy hunters and dog lovers with the cheapest of cheap asset flips. This is little more than a single stock image of a dog, some royalty-free music and, inexplicably, a cat sound effect. Easily the worst ‘game’ I’ve played in my lifetime, and I hesitate to call it a ‘game’ at all.

While the opening 30 minutes might convince you otherwise, The Fridge is Red is an uninspired walking simulator with little actual game to engage with. A cool retro art style and sense of atmosphere dissipate out of this open fridge into the ether of a bland, empty and lukewarm room. This fridge is sadly more grey than red.

Expedition Zero hooks you in with its first hour of tense atmosphere and excellent world design, only to fling you away with horrendous combat, counter-intuitive survival & exploration mechanics, and a barebones story. This expedition simply isn’t worth embarking on, but maybe one day there’ll be an adventure worth going on.

An asset flip of a game you can play for free in a browser, Hover Racer is a poor, uninspired and content light anti-grav racer. If the creatively devoid track designs and lack of polish don’t put you off, the incessant screen ripping (even when played on a PS5) probably will.

While Arenas of Tanks is undoubtedly better than Petite Games’ previous tank battle game, this title still has a number of issues that sour the whole experience. Bugs, exploits and a lack of engaging content mean that the otherwise enjoyable combat is left languishing between the rough edges. Maybe third time will be the charm for Petite Games and this series.

Rough, goofy and deeply perplexing, “I’m in Love With Your Dead Grandmother” is among the worst FMV games on consoles. Its only saving grace is how obvious it is that the creators are having a good time making it, giving it a charming sincerity.

Mechanic Battle has an internal battle of wanting to be a halfway average game or a terrible excuse for a cash grab. Either way I hope the lessons learned from the making of this game is that you get as much love as you put in, and this one is still waiting for their parents to come back with the milk.

To summarise, there’s not a lot to Black Death: A Tragic Dirge and what is here falls between poor or simply adequate. Trophy hunters will be happy with an easy to unlock Platinum but anyone else will find a visually pleasing but thematically bland and uninspired virtual diorama to explore that lacks direction or purpose.

Yet more PlayStation Trophy bait that deserves to be buried in a land fill, Round Invader Rush is barely more than a tech demo. There’s about 30 seconds of content to be found here and even that is uninspired. This game is just a Platinum trophy with a price tag with no redeeming features.

I’d describe Bocce as the least enjoyable way to played with some balls. It looks shoddy, sounds awful, has unpredictable physics and a lack of content. It’s functional at least but when that’s the best thing I can say about a game, you know it’s a massive disappointment.

It’s short, lifeless and lacks substance but for 10 minutes, zipping around a Martian landscape in Space Explorers: Red Planet is strangely entertaining. This isn’t a ‘good’ game but of all the low-budget titles flooding the PSN Store these days, this is certainly one of the better ones.

A dry, poorly thought out and mercifully short clicker game, The Bronze Age is yet another “trophy bait” title from Webnetic. Without a single redeeming feature, the only people who will find any enjoyment here are shameless PlayStation trophy collectors that want to see a number go up.

A desperately sub-par clicker game that’s little more than a reskin of Webnetic’s previous games, The Wine Story is two minutes of ineffectual clicking without reward. Trophy hunters will be happy with the rapid Platinum trophy turnaround but without any real artistic merit, achievements made here will feel hollow.

Repetitive, uninteresting, and lacking in substance, Jumanji: The Curse Returns contributes nothing new or dynamic to the game board genre apart from a dose of movie nostalgia. This game didn’t feel suited to the Switch console, and likely best played on a mobile device because it is short and sweet, but not much else.

Built on mobile game design, Robo Wars has gameplay a toddler could master and a slide-show of boring “levels”, if you’re generous enough to call them that. The use of time-gated loot box structure for progression (with no actual microtransactions) only sullies the experience further. There are apps with far more interesting countdown timers available basically everywhere, which are probably much more worthy of your time… and money.

Don’t fall for the similar name, Bus Driver Simulator Countryside is nothing like its popular predecessor. It is bland, it is ugly, and if it is meant to be an accurate depiction of driving around Russian suburbs, it is offensive to Russia. Don’t wait around for this one, seek alternate routes of enjoyments.

NeonLore as a concept is an intriguing one. A combination of mediums – a game that’s less interactive than a walking simulator and audio books that benefit from a visual component to set the vibe – is a unique prospect. It’s such a shame that the developers couldn’t really follow through in terms of quality. It looks the part, sounds excellent and understands what makes the Cyberpunk theme so special. There’s just far too many rough edges and easily avoidable issues that mar the experience.

A short clicker cum incremental game that’s desperately short on personality and purpose, Steam Engine is 20 minutes of waiting for a platinum trophy to unlock. It’s surprisingly among the better titles that RandomSpin have released on PlayStation consoles but it still feels like cynical trophy bait that very few people will get any enjoyment out of.

Whilst it may seem like an intermission before Bloodlines 2 comes out, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong isn’t engaging enough to fill the gap. Lacklustre gameplay, unsightly character models and a sense of “You should know this already” are enough to put off the new players. Maybe for the fans, but that’s only if they’re coffin up the money for it.

An animated short that has been transformed into an interactive comic book game, The Jekoos on PS4 is a project that constantly feels at odds with itself. Poor quality audio, a dire lack of content and absurdist humour that telegraphs its own punch lines amount to a very disappointing package.

While it gets the absolute basics right, Alienzix is plagued by poor design decisions that make it a thoroughly unenjoyable experience. Short, bland and frustrating to play, there are plenty of other shmups that are more worthy of your time than this.

In Nightmare is a pale competitor to other titles of the horror-adventure genre. Stealth that’s preferable to charge through, puzzles that are the blandest of time-wasters and a narrative of dark themes burdened with typos and poor delivery. Real nightmares threaten your sleep with terror and fear, whereas In Nightmare only threatens to bore or frustrate you to death.

A shooting game devoid or personality and quality, Clay Skeet Shooting is among the worst shooters on the PS4. It’s functional, sure, but it’s far from enjoyable.

What could have potentially been a good hybrid of walking simulator and multiple choice adventure is instead buried under boring gameplay and eye-straining visuals. Ashwalkers squanders any narrative replayability by being an all-round drab experience that is as uninspiring as the wastelands it’s set in.

Music Racer: Ultimate looks awesome and sounds great, but it flatters to deceive with mind-numbingly bland, unengaging gameplay mixed with some shockingly bad level design and poorly thought out structure. When the solution to making your game more fun is to only listen and look, but not play, it becomes the video game form of “should have been an email”.

Epic Chef leaves much to be desired when encountering a game breaking bug that stops progression completely so early on. It has potential with unique cooking experiences, but don’t expect to be the next Gordon Ramsay anytime soon if you hit a game ending glitch.

While Dragons In Space is a functional shoot-em-‘up, it’s short, unattractive, bland and boring. Its tiny asking price is reflective of the fact that it’s one of, if not the worst shmups on the PS4.

Nothing more than trophy bait, Disco Cannon Airlines is a collection of random Unity assets thrown together to form some semblance of a game. Without a win condition, leaderboard or motivating factor, the content of this game lasts less than a minute. Even then, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything entertaining within those sixty seconds. Avoid.

A modern, “retro-inspired” title in the shape of Shovel Knight and Ghost ‘n Goblins, Sword & Bones is clearly a small team’s love letter. Once that veil drops, however, it just devolves into a needlessly hard platformer that doesn’t feel like persevering with.

Even for a series renowned for reusing material and rehashing a tired formula of mindless yet oddly satisfying gameplay, Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires is a hollow package. If this is all the series has left to offer, it may be time to let the Three Kingdoms war themselves into oblivion. A bland, shallow title with little to offer even those who enjoy the repetition of Musou gameplay, Empires is as regurgitated as a game can be.

A painfully dull, short and unimaginative clicker game, The Ketchup Story is a cynical cash in on the PlayStation trophy hunting community. There’s no discernible artistic merit to be found in this title that is little more than a Platinum trophy with a impulse buy price tag.

The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna is a short walking simulator that may take the words ‘Walking Simulator’ a bit too literally. With a hollow story that feels unfinished, long pauses between any narrative development and repetitive design, it’s difficult to recommend this game when there are many others in the genre that do much more with a similar runtime.

While it’s the best game yet from ‘The Voices Games’, Ayleouna is still a sub-par experience. During its surprisingly short 15 minute run time, there’s slim glimpses of potential that shine through. There’s just too many rough edges, poorly thought out design choices and unimpressive visuals for this gravity bending platformer to make anything other than a bad impression.

A dire lack of features, peculiar physics, grating music and camera angles which make accurate play feel impossible, 8-Ball Pocket is amongst the worst pool games on PlayStation consoles. This might be the only native billiards game on PS5 right now but you would do well to swerve this for older, better games.

Despite a few positives, Phlegethon is a poor example of the retro inspired FPS genre and can’t hold a candle to the 90’s classics its attempting to emulate. This is a step in the right direction for Random-Spin Games as its certainly better than their previous titles but uninspired design, poor AI and half-baked mechanics mean this as an ‘also ran’ in a genre filling up with quality.

Failing to stack up anywhere near it’s contemporaries, Blackwind is a hollow exosuit complete with unengaging combat, mind-numbing exploration and puzzle elements, repetitious presentation, poor story and baffling design choices. There are plenty of potentially great ingredients to this package, but unlike the age-old adage, the sum is certainly no greater than the parts. A meek gust of breeze as opposed to the promise of a gale-force wind.

Santa’s Workshop is the video game equivalent of a lump of coal in your stocking. Lacking any of the features that make the idle clicker genre’s best so moreish, it’s a thoroughly hollow affair that’s trying to cash in on holiday spirit with an experience without artistic merit and entirely devoid of intelligent game design.

While Battle Rockets is an inventive use of the PSVita to facilitate local multiplayer Shmup battles, it’s just not very fun. That’s especially true of the single player content. The offensive abilities, different for each character, will keep the multiplayer fresh for a little while. In the end though, this game is far too bare bones and lacks depth or longevity.

Ultra Mission might be remembered as the very last game for the PSVita, but it’s not a memorable game in and of itself. A budget top down shooter that’s clunky and shallow, it’s an hour of content that’s quirky but has a number of design issues that make it a forgettable farewell to Sony’s handheld.

Designed to be watched on YouTube and not played, DEEEER Simulator is a tragic attempt to recapture the bizarre ragdoll madness of Goat SImulator and others like it. With virtually nothing to recommend, avoid this disaster as far and wide as you possibly can. Even if it is on Game Pass.

Probably the worst third person shooter available on the PlayStation 4, Lady In A Leotard With A Gun is half an hour of ugly, shallow and facile game. More of an unfinished tech demo than a product that should have ever seen the light of day, the only people that will find any enjoyment in this game are shameless trophy hunters and even that will be short-lived.

It had a chance, and with plenty of nods that will please fans The Edge of Reality should have been the ultimate Doctor Who gaming experience. Instead, dull puzzles and a surprisingly flat atmosphere – along with a dreadful use of the Weeping Angels – leaves The Edge of Reality somewhere that should have remained undiscovered.