Performances are mostly solid aside from the main protagonist, but the lacklustre script with a severe lack of character development aside from large amounts of exposition make it difficult to really care about any of them. Some of the endings are quite abrupt, leaving an unsatisfying finish. I find it unlikely that The Complex will win fans over to the genre, but those who do have a dedication may find something to enjoy.

Mediocre, yet imaginative, Crashlands is a game for those with a strong stomach for repetitive gameplay and oddball humor.

Overall, I do not like Demolish & Build 2017 for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it was so incredibly boring. Playing it felt like a chore, which I don’t think captures how it feels to really have a demolition job. For what could have been such a great idea, I feel like it was let down by its execution and its technical issues.

A great game, but with no value added it isn’t worth buying over the mobile version. Too expensive for a game that’s best played on a mobile screen anyway.

A lot of Caveman Warriors’ design feels outdated; it’s a title that relies on mediocre action-platforming, on top of average cartoon visuals and a simplistic combat system. It never goes out of its way to impress you, but it also won’t leave you wanting more.

A very generic RPG with city building elements and a dodgy control system.

Exhausting unfortunately is the word I would use to define playing Just Die Already for more than an hour and that’s a bit of a shame. Its art direction and sound track are both solid and contribute greatly to making the game feel unique. The actual premise of the game is a great bit of dark comedy. But the game’s loose structure and lack of meaningful objectives makes it a chore to play. I’d certainly recommend playing the game for a short burst of time but anything beyond that is just a recipe for boredom and exhaustion.

An admittedly wonderfully detailed passion project, but one that is mostly style over substance.

The controls are really slick, with the feeling of isolation very much apparent. But, the pace of the game accompanied with its limitations do weigh heavy on Breached.

Outriders is a boring game to play solo, with a lack of any real end-game content and bugs that may wipe all of your progress it’s probably best to wait for a sale for this one.

Reservoir Dogs: Bloody Days is a top-down shooter that excels at the minimum. The replayability may be lacking, but it's definitely worth at least one playthrough.

As a whole package, all the praise should be going toward the single player experience, and I'd never thought I'd say that about a Call of Duty game in a long time. But in all honestly, it’s true. As for the multiplayer, it makes for an incredibly mundane and subpar experience that almost parodies itself. Completely making it very difficult to recommend the game as a whole.

t's a shame about the game’s issues later in the campaign, because there’s a lot to like in One Dog Story. The art design is great, the story is interesting, and the combat is satisfying; but poor design and technical issues hold the game back from its full potential.

Sloppy controls, an aimless direction, and atrocious level design hinders Dynamic Pixel's newest entry in the Hello Neighbor series from reaching the potential that many believe it has. While a whimsical art style and great performance across a variety of performance are great to see, Hide & Seek results in a forgettable and frustrating experience overall.

An extremely unengaging gameplay and bad graphics mine what could be an interesting addition to the pirate genre.

Decidedly average attempt at a reboot of the franchise, with controls that just aren’t fun and load times that sap what was left of any real enjoyment from the title.

Raining Blobs is a game that falls back on the saturated colour-match genre, but hopes to garner interest through its use of Kawaii female characters. Unfortunately this leads to an uninspired and unoriginal experience that is easily beaten by the more established games in its genre.

Despite my gripes about accessibility, the game delivers so many options regardless of whether players choose the role of Commander or Officer. Ultimately though, Eximius will most likely have a handful of hardcore fans to keep it alive, at best. Grading would be far higher if I could see potential for growth that would allow PvP to flourish. My advice, if you want to shoot stuff, stick to the Crucible.

The game is an unfinished and sloppy mess. With the majority of balancing and tweaking yet to be done there are some questionable items in the game, such as the previous mentioned shield for the Space Marines which seems to be capable of blocking all projectiles fired towards it. The shooting mechanics are alright but third person cover has always been something I have detested, being able to see over walls whilst hidden behind it often leads to some unfair and one sided gunfights.

Block Buster Billy is a simple enough concept, and the game does what it needs to do, but the lack of anything exciting or new won’t bring people back long-term.

I Hate This Place has good ideas, but its execution misses the mark. A lacklustre story, not enough horror, and disjointed mechanics likely won’t appeal to survival horror fans.

Black Mirror has potential to be a decent horror puzzle adventure, but its technical limitations and pacing issues prevents that from ever becoming apparent. Its £25 entry fee is steep for the short experience you’ll be getting, and the end product feels like a shadow of its former self.

Anomaly has some interesting concepts, but it fails to entice me to explore it deeper.

Woven is not a fun game, but it’s certainly a nice story. There are concepts —particularly the body-swapping mechanic— that could have been enjoyable with the right execution, but this game doesn’t even come close to pulling them off.

Triangle Studios’ latest release makes a strong first impression with striking visual effects and satisfying shooting mechanics. Sadly, the appeal quickly wears thin, exposing its repetitive gameplay and samey environments. Good for a handful of short bursts, especially with friends, but it feels too much like an unfinished product to fully recommend.

DROS isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either, the game has a few more negatives than positives, but to be honest, it mostly has “neutrals” and is extremely uninteresting.

Space Commander is a competent game, with many features and some innovation, turning focus from piloting one ship to managing and controlling a fleet. It can be engaging but unfortunately not for long as it is just too simplified and lacks in variety, depth or challenge.

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is an underwhelming puzzle platformer. The eye-catching, whimsical environments simply aren’t enough to salvage the poor storytelling and frustrating controls.

Frustrating, and flamboyant in all the wrong ways, Planet Diver is a total miss. Though, if the developers were looking to actively make a crap game, then they couldn't have planet better.

A promising title that lets itself down over and over again.

NARUTO X BORUTO Ultimate Ninja STORM CONNECTIONS’s greatest feat is making me want to revisit the smash hits that CyberConnect2 has released in previous entries of the franchise, as it nearly fails in everything else it has on offer.

An interesting experiment that fails to nail either side of the experience, it uses Fallout trappings to good effect and can be fun with great environmental storytelling and West Virginia itself is gorgeous. The lack of NPCs and overall cohesion along with lacklustre PvP hinder its identity, however.

Terrifier: The ARTcade Game won't convince you to check out the movies. Its stale gameplay and frustrating issues can make it unappealing to even fans of the franchise. However, it's not a bad time with friends.

The Calamity Angels themselves are indeed angelic, but this wacky workplace adventure comedy could have used a lot more wackiness to go with them.

A basic action adventure game with a great style and a surprisingly engrossing story that is sadly backed up by repetitive gameplay that never evolves into something great.

Done before and done better, Rainbow Skies is a game that has taken a fairly bland concept to begin with and proceeded to not change a thing about it. If you're looking for an epic tale of heroes and rogues, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.

While Max: The Curse Of Brotherhood does have a good story, it has too many downfalls to forgive. The platforming just isn't up to par, and the checkpoints will have you throwing your controller at a wall in no time.

Once the novelty of being allowed to give someone testicular cancer wears off, it's a rather uninspired affair. Clicking for hours at a time will likely result in carpal tunnel syndrome, which is the price you pay for being such a dreadful sadist. Shame on you.

A frustrating, hard to control climbing game that feels ultimately shallow and impractically designed.

Blue Reflection is one of the few times where I would say that it would work better as an anime rather than a game. It has a lot of good ideas and systems at work but sadly none of them are fully developed and poor performance ruins the experience.

It’s unfortunate that Ubisoft decided to end with something so weak. The first two DLC were fantastic fun, but Dead Living Zombies fails to be innovative, with a very light coating on top of a glorified Zombie Mode. I honestly don’t know how they could have made this better, but I’m sure it was possible. A lackluster end to the season pass trilogy, and to my time with Far Cry 5.

Gripper on paper sounds like a great time, but the way it is carried out just doesn’t work. The game design itself just leads to frustration, instead of a fun experience.

A bland, soulless horizontal SHMUP that is extremely basic and by the numbers. Interesting boss designs don’t do enough to hold the rest of the game up. In such a crowded genre there are much better options.

Peregrino has several interesting concepts, but it struggles to offer novel gameplay and a reason to keep exploring.

Nira is only worth it for its low price - there are already games that do the same thing, but far better.

An intriguing concept that falls flat thanks to a repetitive mission structure, a lack of rover variety, wonky controls, and nothing to keep players engaged. Enjoyable for an hour or so, but by then you’ve seen everything Rover Mechanic Simulator has to offer.

Wildshade is a serviceable kart racer with an interesting core mechanic and purposefully built courses that reward careful attention. However, it doesn’t offer nearly enough to warrant its price tag and fumbles in other key moments.

A solid experience worthy of some small praise when it works, but Alder’s Blood: Definitive Edition is so marred by bugs that I cannot in good conscience recommend the game. God is dead and, so long as the game remains unpatched, God will remain dead.

At first glance, Skystead Ranch is a creature-collector title for Viva Piñata fans, but upon further inspection, it feels too unfinished with features that don’t work and design elements that don’t feel as cute and whimsical as its visuals.

A bloated and bland action adventure title, with a few standout mechanics, but none that can save it from being an underwhelming package.

Chains of Fury isn’t quite ready for release. While the gameplay is fun, it is held back by various issues that show its lack of polish and just not having all the content it should.

Confidential Killings - A Detective Game won’t offer challenging investigative puzzles or tedium-free clue gathering, but you do receive excellent visuals and an interesting cast of characters.

A bland, repetitive roguelike that had the potential to be something far greater. Scar-Lead Salvation is disappointing in almost every aspect.

Arctic Awakening starts with a captivating mystery, but fails to stick the landing. The poorly developed story, lacklustre voice acting, and technical issues let down its potential.

I couldn’t help but feel that the greatest time manipulation Aeternoblade II succeeds at was the 15 hours I wasted playing it.

An incredibly simple RTS, The Unexpected Quest is best left unexplored.

The Backrooms 1998’s jumpscare-heavy take on the Backrooms is an underwhelming entry in the horror space with poor sound design choices, lack of intentionality with its mechanics, and bugs.

Disappointing, but with a glimmer of hope down the line for a better iteration.

I really wanted to like One Troll Army, but the only people I would recommend this to are streamers, and even then it’s a gimmick you could play once and move on to something else. If they’d have made the non-streaming version more important, with failure states that actually meant something, this would be better, but as it stands this is a game for streamers and not the average gamer.

As simulator games go, Pets Hotel isn’t one I’d recommend. Too many repetitive jobs and lack of polish make this a chore to play.

Absolutely painful to play. It works, but is in no way a fun game experience.

Dream of Another tells you a story, rather than showing it to you. It can be beautiful, sad, funny, and provoking, but ultimately it was underwhelming. Or maybe I just don’t get it.

For an hour-long experience, the main thing I took away from The Search were cheap puzzle mechanics and quotes by American lecturer Joseph Campbell. If the game’s main themes were not as openly sermonising, then I could see the narrative being less tedious and players would get more out of it. But sadly, the extent of the story would have been much better suited as an essay, short film, or poem.

An adventure that is unintentionally comedic at best, and downright broken at its worst. Some fun moments during combat do shine through, but without some much needed updates, this is one to steer clear of.

Is Dead or Alive 6 worth picking up? No. Unless you really (and I mean really) need to know what happens in the next installment of the franchise. Yes, credit where credit is due with the gameplay, roster, and visuals, but everything about the game just has this air of ‘lacking’ around it. The soundtrack could have done a lot more, most of the design was just plain bad, the story felt thrown together at the last minute, and the length of the campaign just doesn’t justify the £54 price tag attached to the game.

Dreamians: Card Battle is fine enough, but is largely underwhelming. It lacks features found in other deckbuilders that smooth out the experience and just feels like it comes from the 2000’s era of Flash games, warts and all.

The gameplay is pretty good, but it is sadly sullied by a lack in all other areas. The story is almost non-existent, the graphics and audio are merely adequate, and there is a definite lack in replayability. A real shame, but there is potential for more in the future.

Oafmatch is not a bad game but it could've been so much more had there been a few improves to the games systems to mix up the formula. Along with the lack of real feedback to the player, Oafmatch is a hard one to recommend. It's a good match-three game just don’t expect to see this one through to the end.

Fantastic art direction can’t save Cronos: The New Dawn from its boring gameplay, and awkward story.

With a disappointingly short single-player and an unplayable multiplayer, CrossfireX doesn’t bring much to the table. Even with some interesting parts in the story, the shortcomings of the game are much higher in number.

Neptunia x Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars is full of fanservice and anime girls with big boobs, but not much more. Insanely long visual novel talk segments, and the story is so silly there’s not much motivation to keep playing.

Causality bludgeons freedom into a pulp and annihilates any semblance of player choice, denying any puzzle experimentation and making for one extremely unappealing game.

Lords of the Fallen feels like a passionless soulslike, relying on the same old tricks to make its experience “difficult” all the while failing to lean on its most innovative ideas.

Asterix & Obelix: Heroes is a serviceable game for what it is but lacks the passion and impact needed to make it fun for more than a short play session.

Unusual Things has a lot of cool ideas — from the awesome 80s setting to the fact that your dialogue choices influence the ending. The problem was the stagnation: outside of sex jokes and dark themes, the game never found its personality.

No online multiplayer, oddly narrow selection of properties, a lack of characters and imagery from the shows they used along with oddities like no voice work make it hard to recommend, there’s the nugget of a great kart racer in here but it all feels so half-hearted. A real shame.

Sweet Dreams Alex isn’t bad, but at times, it feels repetitive and doesn’t have an engaging story to make you want to continue playing.

Despite trying to present itself as an advancement of the series, Battlefield 2042 instead feels like a severe dumbing-down. The Battlefield Portal offers some familiar fun, but it’s just not enough to warrant buying the game.

Despite providing the foundations of an interesting multiplayer experience, Earthfall massively holds back on its delivery as a Left 4 Dead successor. It instead sits on a shelf amongst other co-operative horde shooters, unable to stand out as anything spectacular or bring anything new to the table.

Sugar Shack is another addition to the cosy genre. If you’re into simple, no-extra-frills restaurant simulators or are really passionate maple syrup, it might be your cup of tea.

Although the game has potential, it falls short overall due to a lack of proper care and clunky gameplay.

While DOOM: VFR can be a fun game to play, the lack of ultra-violence and short playtime overshadow the fun that DOOM: VFR provides, especially at it's current price.

The best thing about No Son Of Mine is that it’s functional and it tries to implement some good ideas. But it’s ultimately more frustrating than it is frightening.

Silent World may not be as broken as its English, but I think I’d rather take an advanced grammar lesson than limp my way through this uninspired, tensionless game again.

It’s a brick breaker with literally 15 pictures of women and an easy Platinum Trophy.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation is the mobile game you keep meaning to get back into playing - but have decided to just do the daily stuff until you get the time. Except it isn’t on mobile, and it isn’t a game.

Card Survivors isn’t bad, but it should’ve been so much more. It’s better as a mobile game than something you’d play on PC.

Computer Repair Shop is a work simulator with boring gameplay and some optimisation issues that aren’t at all justified based on how the game looks.

An interesting visual and audio design, ultimately let down by the shallow gameplay and poor controls.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a serviceable open-world first person shooter with some great sniping mechanics, yet it's low production values and lack of polish completely ruin what could be a very enjoyable experience.

This game has some enjoyable parts, like the art, story potential, and cyberpunk aesthetics, but it is ultimately underwhelming.

With a strong artstyle and a clever idea, ultimately the lack of in-depth systems and the huge limitations on the gameplay killed the interest I had in this title.

The final act aside, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals is an underwhelming experience, especially when compared to its predecessor.

Despite solid fundamental mechanics and satisfying controls, Blue-Collar Astronaut isn’t worth your time or money. While a few of the mission designs are inspired, most are either bland or frustrating, and the game’s attempts at comedy are smirk-worthy at best.

Kitchen Wars’ basic gameplay is subpar and gets boring quickly, as well as being nigh unplayable with an odd number of players.

Seeing Impact Winter through to the end will be a struggle in itself. It is a shame that Impact Winter is filled with both bugs and design problems as at it’s core there are the makings of a brilliant title. For now though it is one to avoid unless you are willing to deal with the problems.

This unique and charming take on the rougelike subgenre has a huge amount of potential, but is unfortunately marred by dull gameplay mechanics that are uninteresting and don’t work in their current form for what it’s trying to be.

Somewhere in there, is a decent game. I am a massive fan of this style of game despite what I had to say about Hatred. I just hope you can find the diamond that’s hiding in this particular goat anus.