Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is a perfectly functional game, but those unfamiliar with the IP should probably watch or read the series instead — the lack of depth and content makes it hard to recommend to anyone except perhaps for the most hardcore of fans.

Guilty Gear Rev 2 is a fine update to Revelator that takes an already superb base game, adds some great characters into the mix and refines the fighting engine even further. It still has certain accessibility issues that any game this complex is bound to have , but there’s still nothing quite like Guilty Gear on the market when it comes to delivering high speed battles mixed with awesome visuals and great music.

It’s ironic that a story about the value of discipline and restraint would feel like it needs more time in the editing room, but that’s the new God of War – promising but aimless. I like the new Kratos, but I hope his next adventure is more focused than this, and I pray that it actually gives him something interesting to do.

I appreciated that Penny-Punching Princess brought some new spins to the action-RPG genre and using money as a tool to fight is a fairly novel idea that could be explored more. The calculator is also a thematically brilliant idea in a game about capitalism and debt. However, the combat mechanics are problematic and play falls prey to unnecessary frustration and repetition.

Rogue Aces is a true accomplishment, a game that updates a formula from the very earliest days of home computing and makes it feel vital and engaging. While it may not be easy, it’s accessible to all levels of players, and goes to prove that there’s seemingly no classic genre of videogame that a few roguelike elements can’t improve.

Light Tracer is cute and clever, challenging and frustrating, and ends up as a platformer that fully exploits VR’s ability to draw players into its cheerily devilish world. I’ve previously given Oasis Games a hard time for the mediocre quality of their releases, but I’ve got to give it to them – they’ve finally hit on a winner with Light Tracer. It’s as good as any platformer on the system, and once again proves that there aren’t many genres that won’t work perfectly well in VR.

Sadly, while I enjoyed coming back to Raiders, checking out the new character and playing through the new levels once, my original assessment still stands — the multiplayer/replay premise of the game doesn’t make a lot of sense, and I can’t help but feel that the IP would be better served by recycling the assets into a different project. People who’ve put the time in, know what to expect and want more content will get it with Hades Betrayal, but it’s tough to recommend it to anyone.

Even if Extinction had released as a ten or fifteen dollar digital download, I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone – life’s too short and filled with genuinely great games to waste on terrible experiences like this one. Given that it released at full price, however, it almost feels like a deliberate and calculated insult towards any game that ever earned its price tag. It is an aggressively terrible game that should be avoided at all costs.

While Time Carnage has little in the way of innovation or originality, it nails the fundamentals so well that it’s a pleasure to jump in. There are plenty of other games that let players grab a couple of guns and blast away at zombies, robots, and dinosaurs, but the ones that manage all three and do it in this kind of style are few and far between.

Five years from now, I’m not sure how much I’ll remember about The Adventure Pals. The quirky main characters will probably come to mind, but not much else. Platorming fans won’t go wrong checking it out, but it’s solidly in the middle of the spectrum — not great, not awful — and as such, it’s smack-dab in the middle of that good category that vanishes from memory.

By the time Masters of Anima was over, the repeated battlefields were as tired as its cliche story, and I had spawned and relocated countless units in battle. Thankfully, the minor changes from level to level, were just enough to keep the campaign from overstaying its welcome. Playing commander was engaging for a while, but I don’t see myself returning to explore Spark any time soon.

Minor quibbles aside, Epistory is a solid typing adventure. The story mode is around five hours long, and a leaderboard offers plenty of opportunities to test typing skills against the rest of the world. While the plot never builds to the kind of interesting levels that the introduction suggests (in fact, an end-game twist is something of a headscratcher) the gameplay is so well-made that it’s hard to fault the rest.

I’m hesitant to call Burly Men At Sea an example of ‘style over substance’ because it’s all style, but one’s opinion will ultimately boil down to how one feels about the type of game it is. While not a blockbuster that everyone will enjoy, it’s a neat little project that works well enough on the Switch and kept a smile on my face throughout.

Ultimately, there’s no argument that this is the best game adaptation the franchise has seen, and it’s an undeniable improvement over its predecessor. However, the amount of rehashed material might be galling to players who want new content — those who’ll be happy with simply killing titans in a more polished fashion are the ideal audience here.

It’s hard to say whether Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth is better than Mask of Deception since they’re essentially one story split into two halves, but I found the entire tale thought-provoking and its characters lovable and (mostly) funny. It’s a visual novel worth playing, and now that I’ve reached its end, I’m a little sad saying goodbye.

Hardcore baseball fans will probably buy The Show 18 just for updated rosters (what other choice is there?) and those addicted to Diamond Dynasty have plenty to dive into here. It may not be surprising or greatly changed over last year’s version, but it’s still a solid game with plenty of content — I just can’t get over the removal of Season mode, though. Solo players — heads up.

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet is a perfect game for anyone looking to get a taste of what MMOs feel like without wanting to dedicate hundreds of hours of their lives to the experience, and perhaps more importantly, it has an ending.

Starpoint Gemini Warlords is an impressive effort by Little Green Men, especially in light of its crowdfunded origins and community-driven design. That they’ve managed to expand the scope and scale of their game to encompass a whole other genre outweighs the concerns raised by poor balancing and a less-than-smooth final result. All the same, those concerns remain, so those who are willing to put up with the rough edges are the ones who’ll find themselves most satisfied.

Supposedly Wonderful Future is all about looking at a complicated what-if scenario, seeing how every new invention has the possibility to both help and hinder humanity, and then coming to a decision that everyone can live with. Then, it’s suddenly about a man offering truly idiotic reasons for wanting to kill himself before watching him do it. It’s a terrible ending to an otherwise fascinating, thought-provoking experience.

Neither the storyline nor the final puzzles delivered the type of reward I enjoyed with similar titles. For fans of the genre there’s plenty of challenge to be had, but those seeking something that compares a little less directly to Portal should probably hold off.

Although Moss is relatively short at around four hours long, it was firing on all cylinders at the end, the final portion of the adventure brings the beautiful score, lush visuals, and tight, varied mechanics into a unified whole that’s pushed at a frenetic pace into a satisfying climactic end. I found myself completely exhilarated and thrilled.

Local multiplayer lacks the narrative trappings of the campaigns, but serves as a solid extension of the core gameplay. Online multiplayer, however, is where Strikers Edge falters. After several attempts to evaluate it, I was never successfully matched against an opponent. So, for six-eyed folks in search of a frenetic couch co-op game, look no further. Strikers Edge is an underdog to root for. The rest of us might be better off renting Dodgeball instead.

When I got over the controls I dug into the season, gradually evolving the skill of my team’s characters was well done, and improving my standing was addictive. I’d even say that winning a match of Thetaball is as gratifying as its peers like Rocket League or #IDARB. Perseverance will reward with Thetaball. It’s got a bigger hump to get over than most other games of its kind, but its base is solid — the dev just needs to zero in on the best parts of the game and start iterating.

Being a text-based political game, Shape of America probably has fairly limited appeal at best, but it’s great to see developers taking risks on unique ideas like this and delivering them in a package of solid design and storytelling. I’m looking forward to episode two.

One of 2018’s more notable indie releases, worthwhile as a charming homage to retro action/adventure titles and as an ambitious exercise in restrained game design – it’s the world’s most agreeable game, chopped up into a hundred bite-sized pieces. I want to complain that it’s over too quickly, but then Minit makes a constant case for brevity being the soul of wit, so I guess I should shut up.

Anyone looking to smash through the game’s 705 shortcuts, billboards and jumps is a true glutton for punishment, but Burnout Paradise was never made to test players’ skills — it was made to be an escape, which is why the poor difficulty curve is so forgivable. It will always be a pleasure to return to the warm sun and speedy shenanigans of strangers in this familiar place, even if just for a few minutes.

Symmetry is a beautiful and deadly puzzle of survival that successfully emphasizes the loneliness and tension in this most dire of situations. However, the collision issues that affect the player’s controls and text notifications that are too difficult to read can turn this gripping experience into something intensely frustrating in an instant. For those willing to push through these rough edges, Symmetry is a unique experience that should not be missed.

Sine Mora EX looks amazing, plays like a dream, and has a story that will leave players feeling bad about themselves and the world. That third thing may not sound like a selling point, but it’s so strange that I couldn’t help but be impressed by the audacity the developers had to include it. Horizontal Shmups don’t come smoother or better-looking than this, so it’s an easy recommendation for anyone with an interest in the genre.