As a long time Lovecraft fan and someone who appreciates a good cosmic horror, Dredge is top class.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns has many of the elements that would make it a great special event story – it carries off its pulpy narrative pretty well despite the bland protagonist, and the combat is a competent adaptation of superhero action into a strategy format. However, the slow pacing of the narrative and battles, not to mention the wrong-headed approach to the home base and team building make Midnight Suns feel disjointed and torpid. This is one special event that won’t become a collectible.

While the story is a bore and a couple of difficulty spikes pushed my parrying skills to the max, Wo Long: Fallen Empire still manages to deliver a solid and lengthy action-adventure on par with their previous successes, but with a slightly different and more refined flavor. Tecmo-Koei is better at the soulslike genre than most, and I am a fan of what they do — I just wish the developers would have reconsidered that abysmal first boss. Being an homage to something famously hard was an incomprehensibly poor choice, and it’s a shame that the rest of the campaign will go unseen by the people who walk away in frustration.

In the end, I still enjoyed it enough to put in more than fifty hours in and still want to play more, despite all its problems. When it’s running as intended, it’s clear that this is the kind of game I’d like to see a lot more of — bloody, unpretentious, and gameplay-focused in a manner that’s eminently replayable thanks to strong core combat. That said, the good stuff in Wanted: Dead is buried under a mountain of problems — and when I say buried, I mean buried deep.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is the kind of thing I love to champion — a mid-budget licensed platformer with a few rough edges that could have easily existed in the ’00s. Sure, it’s not breaking any new ground and could use a little polish when it comes to level design and performance on the Switch, but the final product is a joyous ride from start to finish. For fans of the series like me or anyone else who can’t get enough of that yellow sponge, this undersea multiverse adventure is worth checking out.

The Forest Quartet is an experience that wears its heart on its sleeve. Pacing issues and character development aside, it was a joy to witness the unfolding of this jazz quartet’s haunting origin story, and it’s abundantly clear that The Forest Quartet was forged with love and intention. I’d happily stroll through the forest alongside Nina and listen to her crooning voice a second time if she were to request my company again.

It’s tough to say exactly who Colossal Cave is for. ‘Experienced’ fans who remember it might be overjoyed to explore its passages once again, now visualized, but the novelty will wear off once they’ve blazed through an adventure they likely know the answers to — it’s possible to speedrun the game in under an hour. Younger fans of adventure games may be curious to see a revamped version of how the genre started, but may become frustrated by the bizarre ‘logic’ behind the challenges. Ultimately, it’s a fascinating look back in time, but it doesn’t always translate to enjoyable play.

See, as suboptimal as many of Knights of Honor II’s macro design choices are, they add up to a vision of the grand strategy genre that, at the very least, provides a much different rhythm and feel from its contemporaries. Instead of the player securing their family line for future generations, or expanding an empire from the stone age to the space age, the player is given a modest patch of land and tasked with developing and defending it at all costs from inscrutable opponents that often feel like a swarm of angry wasps buzzing at the player’s stoop. Its core systems could use some elaboration, perhaps, but fans of this genre who need this particular itch scratched could do a lot worse!

Overall, Necrobouncer is a solid roguelike to start the year off. The soundtrack is a groovy synth and dance mix, the pixel art is beautiful, and I appreciated the script’s humor. It’s also a good starting point for newcomers to the genre, as the mechanics are easy to understand and the tutorials are solid. Each run unlocks new things, so the game constantly feels fresh and inviting. There may not be much to the overall plot besides eventually finding out what happened to our bouncer the night before, but the mechanics are so smooth that I didn’t need a story to keep me coming back.

Darktide has a lot going for it — a beloved IP, crunchy gunplay, and a gorgeous presentation. Sadly, it’s not the endlessly-playable showstopper some had hoped, instead offering a repetitious gameplay cycle made more apparent by slow progression and little mission variation. It’s clear Fatshark has further plans for their latest endeavor and it may yet reach its full potential after a few patches and expansions, but for now it’s best to set expectations.

WWAD‘s unconventional approach to combat sets a high bar of entry, but fans of the setting who’ve long hoped for a spiritual successor to Colosseum: Road to Rome – the wait may finally be coming to an end.

Lil Gator Game is a short but sweet experience about the importance of holding on to childlike wonder, in addition to being a solid open-world adventure and having one of the funniest scripts around. For players looking for something that harkens back to a simpler time and delivers delight in spades, they can’t go wrong with this one.

In short, Rise is a great iteration on the classic Monster Hunter formula, making things more approachable and getting rid of some of the series’ less desirable elements. They may have made sense in the past, but the removal of much busywork is a net positive in my eyes. It’s a shame that Capcom didn’t include the massive Sunbreak expansion with this release given that it’s already out on Switch and PC, but it’s not like this package is lacking in content or value. For hunters of any experience level, Rise is a great entry in a storied series.

While not pushing the genre forward, Syberia continues to develop and expand on its established gameplay loop and continues a story that began 24 years ago. I’m sure that returning franchise fans will enjoy it, and there’s a lot to like here for those who enjoy narrative adventures and interesting puzzles — it might even motivate them to delve into the previous entries and experience the magic from the mind of creator Benoit Sokal.

It’s cliché to say “I want to love Starfighter Renegade, but…” so I won’t, but the fact is that the frustration mounted too quickly and too completely for me to remember the joys of simply flying around and splashing space-bogeys in the opening levels. Maybe those with better reflexes and more patience will get something out of it — or at the very least, get past level 14 — but the rest of us should probably avoid this one.

Overall, The Entropy Centre is a decent puzzle adventure that suffers from too much friction and an excessive runtime, and the individual issues are detrimental to the whole. A leaner package with fewer puzzles per chapter and more emphasis on the plot would have improved things – it’s a shame it’s not more compact and memorable experience.

Samurai Maiden is entertaining enough – the characters are likable, the combat is high-quality, and there’s enough to unlock to keep players coming back for ages, and all of its flaws are things that can be ignored or worked around. In the end, it’s a charmingly upbeat experience about a schoolgirl cutting up zombies with a sword, and what’s not to like about that?

Overall, Victoria 3 offers a lot of play for those interested in grand strategy, with a number of detailed and complex systems to learn over time. It’s also a solid entry point for people newer to the famously complicated genre, but experienced vets looking for engaging wars or more historically-focused titles should either keep an eye on future updates or look elsewhere.

F1 Manager 2022 is a refreshing new take on F1 games, underscoring the intense out-of-racing dimensions to the sport, and the managerial modes are expansive and engaging. Still, the premise feels undercut by an unimpressive racing simulation. Therefore, the title’s path up the grid requires improvements in its immersive qualities — as much as playing manager is about putting in work behind the scenes, nothing is more satisfying than witnessing the results of all that effort on the track.

While a lot of Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway’s best and most improved aspects may be pulled from other racers, the quality jump between this one and its predecessor cannot be overstated. Slime Speedway is a confident, enjoyable and joyful party experience. The devs have finally hit the mark, delivering a great entry into the pantheon of mid-budget licensed games. Fans who are nostalgic for old cartoons and anyone with younger kids will definitely have a great time here.

One could argue that my boredom was an intended result of Flat Eye‘s ludonarrative theming, but I just don’t buy it and that diegetic UI just wasn’t enough — I’ll be taking my business elsewhere.

All-Star Battle R is an extremely daunting affair to jump into. Yes, the developers have done a good job of offering ways to ease players into its eccentricities, but at the end of the day, it’s still a game where a fashionisto who can zip and unzip any flat surface might find themselves facing off against a woman with prehensile hair. There are fifty playable characters here, and even though I completed most of the All-Star mode and collected a huge amount of unlockable content, I’ve just dipped my toes into what the game has to offer. Whether they’re fans of the manga and anime or not, this is worth a look for any serious fighting game aficionado.

Lovecraft’s Untold Stories was a low-key delight. Yes, the gameplay was sometimes stiff, but the sheer depth and the developers’ obvious passion for strange fiction showed through, creating a memorable experience. LUS2 has none of its predecessor’s style. With its lack of compelling narrative and overcomplicated crafting system, Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2 is as unfortunate a sequel as I’ve seen, dropping almost everything that worked about the original and expanding on what didn’t. It’s a disappointment, and I can only hope that if this franchise continues, the developers manage to rediscover what made the first one special.

This is the first installment of F1 since the reboot of the real-life competition, but it is also the first installment I’ve played that does not feel like a worthwhile reboot in the slightest.

I enjoy classic run-and-gun games, even with their old-school difficulty. Unfortunately, the lack of quality-of-life features, imprecise controls and poor color choices mean this one is currently a difficult one to recommend.

Despite the issues I had, I would recommend This Way Madness Lies to those who enjoy turn-based RPGs, or those who (like me) were intrigued by the sheer ridiculous nature of magical drama girls fighting nightmare creatures to save Shakespeare’s works. In addition, I appreciated how Zeboyd altered the standard turn-based style of combat and how the characters interacted with each other to create an enjoyable fling.

Those who had a PS3 during the lean years remember it fondly, and the team at Pikpok have done a fantastic job updating it to modern hardware. It’s still very much Shatter, but that’s hardly a bad thing, and anyone interested in a lively reinterpretation of this timeless gameplay will do well to check it out.

In the end, PGA Tour 2K23 is far from perfect, but also much closer than anyone could have expected. With EA Sports re-entering the video golf scene next year, I have high hopes that fresh competition and a little fine-tuning will encourage 2K to deliver a resurgence of excitement to golf game enthusiasts in the years to come.