Lushfoil Photography Sim didn't quite end up being the photography escape I was hoping for. With a few bugs, a side step from photography to pick up collectables and a full photo album halting my progression, I couldn't help but lose my zen whilst trying to get lost in the game's stunning locations. The photography mechanics are perfect, with some particular attention to how holding a camera feels with the DualSense, as well as the levels being gorgeous themselves. However, I couldn't really get over the hurdles that took away from the photography experience.

Crossfire: Legion is an accessible RTS with a decent foundation to become a great game, but it’s held back by a lackluster campaign, poor pathfinding and shallow strategic systems. A stellar voice cast, excellent graphical performance and primitively fun gameplay can carry you quite a way, but not enough to reach the best of the genre. Hopefully, there’s more to come.

While it started as a solid ARPG, Trinity Trigger quickly began to disappoint. Its charming world didn’t matter because I didn’t care about anyone in it. Its combat had a solid base but a lack of variety in its encounters made it bland. Worst of all, Trinity Trigger’s final third rushes towards an ending that felt unearned, with an awful final boss that highlights how poor the party AI is.

Trolls vs Vikings: Reborn delivers dozens of levels and spruced up visuals that offer plenty to fans of the tower defence strategy genre. Unfortunately, the hangover of its mobile design leads to lengthy grinding for upgrades and a lack of depth in its gameplay variety, which taken together shudder its momentum. A decent tower defence that's been nicely packaged together, it's neither the best nor the worst in the genre.

Lasting a few fun hours, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a simple but effective Zelda-like adventure in a colourful veggie-filled dystopia. However, this salad dodger’s gameplay is derivative of dozens of other better games, and it doesn’t really do anything to explore its novel concept.

Gangs of Sherwood is a fun combat-focused action game that can be enjoyed with your own gang. That is if you don’t mind basic-level design, enemy AI that doesn’t present a challenge and sometimes stiff gameplay that can be frustrating. Robin hasn’t quite stolen from the rich and given the goods to the player, but they won’t be robbed blind either.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town continues the same charming cutesy aesthetic as its predecessors, although at times feels discombobulated in organisation. A decent enough farming management addition to the genre, the game features a depth of gameplay but is light on narrative. Prepare and expect to be in it for the long haul if you want to see any real results from your hard work.

A creative adventure puzzle game that leans into what makes LEGO so great, LEGO Bricktales is a fun and imaginative title. The PS5 version is a little unstable right now, crashing often in certain areas, making it feel a few bricks short of completion. With a patch though, this could be the most creative LEGO game to date.

If you like the Trails and Ys games, Tokyo Xanadu is Persona as if made by Falcom. That might be right up your street. On a good day, it means fun combat and likable characters, but on a bad day, it’s a painfully generic story peppered with some of the dullest corridor-crawling in the genre.

A few quirky characters and some turn-based battles struggle to hide that Starbites is a very middling JRPG far more concerned with silly banter than a compelling plot. It's passable salvage, but there's better out there if you know where to look.

One moment it’s cute and funny and the next it’s dry and drawn out. A peculiar mix of engrossing visual novel and average dungeon crawler, Undead Darlings ~no cure for love~ will please those who have the patience to push through its moments of drudgery. For everyone else, a purer form of each genre might be more entertaining.

You likely won’t want to replay it to see the multiple endings, but for a single play through, Whateverland is a charming, charismatic if rough around the edges point and click adventure. It stumbles a number of times before the credits roll but with multiple solutions to puzzles and quirky characters to get to know, this game is a perfectly fine way to spend a few evenings.

Biomutant had bags of potential but squandered this at release. The developers have now had a year to to come out swinging with fancy-pants graphics and dozens of wholesale changes the game needed. It could have been Biomutant 1.5. Instead, the game is still let down by all the same questionable game design, pointless side-quests and ghastly amount of narration that makes you want to blow your face off. The PS5 update brings framerate smoothness to make combat feel and play better – it’s really this new version’s only saving grace. Unfortunately, that’s not enough to improve upon our original verdict.

For a new IP a bit rough round the edges, there’s plenty to like with Penny’s Big Breakaway and her excellent array of platforming Yoyo moves. But hewing too close to the Sonic formula means it rarely feels unique or essential.

Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 is less of a monster truck racing game and more a celebration of the most famous of the colossal vehicles and the bonkers things they can do. Almost every game play mode feels underdeveloped, you can wrestle with the handling and lose, and the tutorial is very poor. On the other hand, you can race around a dog bone shaped race track in a truck shaped like a shark. It’ll please its intended audience but for everyone else, there are alternatives worth exploring.

Grit and Valor - 1949 makes a strong first impression thanks to its setting and the thrill of acquiring the high ground to massacre mechs. Past the initial adrenaline hit however, it fails to sustain a meaningful level of excitement due to a misfiring reliance on meta-progression and underwhelming strategy depth.

If you liked the Baldur’s Gate or Neverwinter Nights games from the 90’s and have been hankering for something similar and traditional yet modernised, Tower of Time delivers just that. You will need to have some patience with its slower segments to see it through to the top/bottom.

A charming bubble popping puzzle games that replicates most of what worked back in the 90’s, Rusty Spout Rescue Adventure is a fun if limited game. There’s nothing wrong with emulating the classics but when a game does this without bringing anything new to the table, it’s hard to see it as anything but inessential.

A competent, accessible, family friendly yet unusually dry quiz game, Papa’s Quiz offers up a few hours of party fun before the whole thing becomes stale. It won’t be challenging Jackbox for the party game crown but would fit right into a playlist of party games with friends and relatives.

Hirogami has a bright world to explore and some interesting gameplay ideas to fold over. However, the art of it all is a little lost when the developers' over ambition doesn't come to fruition in the game. It plays old, feels like it too, and despite being a throwback to the PS2 era, it doesn't have the tact and precision to pull off this nostalgia trip.

It’s not perfect and there is not much variety but when you do play it, you can’t help but enjoy it for what it is. I guess it must say something if I enjoyed playing this more than I did the Avengers game.

Not the deepest of racing games, but then it doesn’t claim to be. Can’t Drive This has one core concept, and it does it well. It’s just a bit lacking if you have no one else to experience it with.

Not Tonight 2 takes the pain and misery of a post-Brexit world into an America on its knees. It’s bolder than its original and provides terrific alternate ways to enjoy its fairly generic core mechanic, but it’s nowhere near as ‘political’ as it thinks it is. Turning America into Arkham City isn’t satire, and fans of the original may feel a little disappointed it doesn’t hit as hard as it promised it would.

By design, Postal: Brain Damaged is a relic of an era that passed about 20 years ago. It captures some of the best of the 2000s through lightning quick, buttery smooth and challenging gameplay, but also soils itself by relying on tired old tropes for comic relief and some rough edges with balancing. Postal Dude has a penchant for pissing himself and this Postal entry unfortunately can’t escape the dregs of his urine, but when did a little pee stop him causing havoc?

Odd design choices and an unsatisfying yet incredibly demanding gameplay loop mar a game that boasts the cutest plant people in video games. A crafting and survival sim with added base-building, Drake Hollow is not compelling enough to justify the demands it makes on the player or the lack of reward even when you manage to do what it asks.

Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open is a sweet ode to Malaysia but not very good at delivering impactful gameplay moments to support it. It's a number of ideas not fully realised with a subtle story of familial struggle, all whilst under the guise of a supernatural child's tale. It will click extremely well for some but not everyone.

Delivering a delicious protein of a cooking game sandwiched between an engaging story and retro horror presentation, Happy’s Humble Burger Farm succeeds at points. The horror and wider gameplay sully the burger with spoilt toppings, but the core of this sandwich is still worth a try.

The Invincible crash lands out of excellence as it’s overall technically flawed. However, the contents of the story, the themes it explores and the general art direction make for a great sci-fi title. If you can get over the less-than-stellar controls and bloated plot, you may just witness a shooting star, but maybe don’t make a wish on it.