It’s hard not to be taken in by the allure of driving a train through infinite space. Maintaining, expanding, and improving your locomotive never gets old, especially as the rails unfurl into the cosmos. Voidtrain can certainly hook you with its premise and well-made crafting systems. However, it’s held back by repetition in everything outside the train, from the overly similar station layouts to the one-note arenas. A diamond in the rough, then, but one that’s still worth the ticket price for fans of the genre.

After Shredder’s Revenge, Dotemu returns with another loving ode to classic beat ’em ups. Marvel: Cosmic Invasion features an excellent roster of both beloved and obscure Marvel characters, backed by a satisfying and richly designed combat system. It doesn’t exactly tread new ground for the genre, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is yet another strong entry in the ongoing renaissance of classic beat ’em ups.

Demonschool is unapologetically an unofficial indie take on Persona. Its colourful pixel art and well-designed battle system give it plenty of charm, fast, simple, and consistently enjoyable, but the developers may have aimed a bit too high. Although it aspires to be a 30–40 hour epic, it simply lacks the mystery, character depth, and overall variety needed to support that length, causing the experience to drag about halfway through.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond reaffirms that, even almost 20 years after the third game, the Metroid Prime series remains a one-of-a-kind experience in the medium. Its striking art direction elevates the entire adventure without relying on photorealism, while the sense of isolation, exploration, discovery, and environmental adversity, all supported by excellent audio design, delivers a superb return for Samus Aran that is guaranteed to excite longtime fans.

Fans of the series will be delighted by the significantly improved UI, which makes city-building as addictive as ever. The visuals are gorgeous, packed with detail and enhanced by excellent lighting effects. Still, one can’t help but wish for more coherence between the various gameplay systems, as some feel undercooked, suggesting the game may have been released a bit earlier than it should have been.

The original Syberia is, without question, a classic of the genre. This remastered edition, however, is oddly lacking in quality-of-life improvements. The audio suffers from mixing issues, and the visuals are inconsistent, with particularly underwhelming cinematics. While the reworked in-game graphics do help modernize the experience, they’re not enough to elevate this release into a truly definitive edition.

For anyone growing up with Hero Quest, Dark Quest 4 is an easy recommendation. The developers show real love for the classic tabletop experience, delivering charming aesthetics and a wealth of content, from diverse heroes to a generous lineup of quests.

Dispatch proves that the episodic format in gaming is far from derivative, it just requires the right content, a timely and consistent release schedule, and, of course, strong writing to make its cliffhangers land. This essentially visual-novel experience excels on all fronts, keeping us hooked each week and making us genuinely care about its characters. It ensures we think twice before every decision, no matter how big or small their impact on the story.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 delivers one of the weakest campaigns in the series, with a disjointed story and a lack of the bombastic set pieces fans expect. Its multiplayer, however, is far stronger, offering fast-paced gameplay and a solid variety of well-designed maps.

Still the high point of the "Tales Of" series, Tales of Xillia returns with improved resolution, smoother performance, and smart quality-of-life enhancements, making this remaster the definitive way to experience a classic JRPG.

Football Manager 26 introduces a bold UI overhaul that aims to fully modernise the experience, but the move comes with significant caveats. The new interface often overcomplicates basic actions, and in its current state the game suffers from numerous frustrating bugs and crashes. The improved match engine and the well-developed TransferRoom help offset some of these issues, but overall Sports Interactive still has plenty of work to do to convince us that this redesign was truly necessary.

Neon Inferno could have been a pleasant discovery in a 90s arcade booth. Its standout feature, allowing players to shoot both on the 2D plane and into the background, gives the game a much-needed sense of personality, elevating a bit an otherwise fairly ordinary (though certainly decent) run-’n’-gun experience.

An excellent return for Kirby, delivering an utterly enjoyable adventure packed with a wealth of modes and a fantastic multiplayer experience. On top of that, it offers impressive visuals and easy-to-grasp gameplay without sacrificing challenge. Fans of the series will be more than thrilled with Air Riders.

he sim racing genre is not only fiercely competitive but also quite niche. As such, RENNSPORT’s release is somewhat perplexing, as it clearly lacks content, with an alarmingly small selection of cars and tracks, while its physics also leave a lot to be desired.

Who knew power washing could be such a relaxing and genuinely fun experience? PowerWash Simulator 2 once again proves it can make the most mundane task oddly satisfying, inviting players to spend hours cleaning everything in sight, and loving every minute of it.

Once Upon a Katamari returns as weird as ever and remains faithful to the previous games. While some serious repetition in its levels and a problematic camera hold it back, these flaws do little to diminish the relaxing and uniquely delightful experience that Katamari continues to offer.

The Order of the Snake Scale tries to capture the spirit of classic survival horror, but in doing so its real "achievement" is to remind us that even the best of those games came with serious caveats, ones that later evolutions of the genre left behind. It has a nice atmosphere in places and a decent plot, but it's ultimately weighed down by outdated gameplay and visuals that feel less nostalgic than simply subpar.

This new iteration of Death on the Nile includes some clever puzzles, but unfortunately, the positives end there. The incredibly slow pace will certainly turn many players off, while the addition of a parallel storyline feels disjointed and lacks the quality of Agatha Christie's original narrative. All in all, this adaptation of one of the most famous whodunit mysteries is, unfortunately, one of the weakest.

Truck Driving does the bare minimum to even be considered a game.

The simplicity of the first Dragon Quest might be a hard sell for newcomers, however, the second entry is a true classic, with the new visuals elevating the experience while staying true to the original design. Additionally, some well-thought-out quality of life improvements help modernise both games.

The new Hyrule Warriors offers a great combat system and excellent visual design, alongside a large variety of missions. Fans of the first game will find plenty of content to reimmerse themselves in Hyrule, though they may be left a bit disappointed by the lackluster storyline.

An overall improvement over the first game, Tormented Souls 2 stands as a heartfelt ode to the golden era of survival horror. It pays loving homage to Resident Evil and Silent Hill (among others), offering a satisfying variety of clever puzzles, diverse environments, and unsettling enemies. Hopefully, in time, some of its debilitating technical issues will be ironed out.

Painkiller delivers fast-paced action and a roster of memorable, uniquely designed weapons. However, those -arguably- well-crafted aspects struggle to keep the player’s interest after a few hours, due to the repetitive enemy design and overall lack of variety.

The Outer Worlds 2 is an unquestionable improvement over the first game. With a much better-written story, more memorable characters, richer combat, a greater variety of environments, and excellently designed dungeons, it stands as one of the best RPGs, if not the best, in Obsidian’s impressive library.

Silly Polly Beast definitely has its rough edges, but it’s hard to deny the passion behind it. The fact that it was created by a solo developer is admirable in itself, especially given its pretty aesthetics and the creative use of multiple camera perspectives to present the action. With a more balanced difficulty and a more coherent story, it could truly be a diamond in the rough.

Keeper is an undeniably beautiful game, if nothing else. Its focus on detailed, distinctive environments is remarkable, and its unexpected duo of protagonists proves surprisingly charming. It could benefit from deeper gameplay, as it leans a bit too heavily on simplicity. Be that as it may, its unique journey remains a truly memorable experience.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger offers a great representation of the Digimon that longtime fans will surely appreciate. It’s a definite improvement over its predecessor, though some shortcomings remain, particularly its reliance on backtracking and boss fights that drag on due to excessively large health bars.

Pokémon Legends: Z-A definitely has its shortcomings, most notably its insistence on omitting voiceovers and limiting exploration. Nevertheless, this spin-off will keep fans satisfied, thanks to a highly engaging combat system that brings the excitement of Pokémon battles vividly to life.