I think the VR format is utilised very well, the visuals and atmosphere are brilliant and the horror is effectively done. But at the same time, it is dragged down by gameplay frustrating things and some design around puzzles that do not work in a satisfactory way.

It's passable, all the way through. The matches are okay in terms of entertainment value, the game feel is okay and the developers have done a decent job of building their own hero party based on the fact that Blizzard is behind, but there is also a lack of intrinsic value here and given that they have borrowed so freely from Paladins, Overwatch and even Lawbreakers and thus failed to build their own identity, there is no reason for me to continue playing - when I can continue to enjoy the originals instead.

If you've been dying for monster trucks and to do tricks and race with them, Monster Jam Showdown fills the need quite well without being directly exciting or revolutionary in any way. It's pretty fun and it's above all stylish and ultimately a perfectly fine racing game with cool vehicles.

You're hardly reinventing the wheel here, and were it not for Braking Point and the new LiDAR-scanned tracks, it would in all honesty be hard to recommend F1 25 to anything but the most dedicated. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, my final conclusion is much the same as last year. Does there need to be a new F1 every year? No, absolutely not.

Curse of the Sea Rats has many fine qualities that make it a good game and if only some of its shortcomings had been cleaned up, it could definitely be a game that should not be missed.

This could easily have become a real hit of the best double-A kind if the game had received just a little more time, a slightly bigger budget and more polish. Unfortunately, the experience is also muddled by bad combat, clumsy directing and several problems of the technical and visual kind. Still, it's not hard to gleam the diamond in the rough here, and hopefully the developers at Reflector will be given more opportunities in the future after their debut, because there is definitely a lot of potential here.

Ultimately there are a lot of things about Zenless Zone Zero that I enjoy, but unfortunately a lot of my own experience stumbles because of the genre it has chosen to embrace and the playability it then tries to adapt to.

If you're craving a shot of Resident Evil right here and now, you can get some entertaining hours out of BrokenLore Unfollow. But personally, I'd rather wait for Resident Evil 9 to come out. BrokenLore Unfollow feels mostly like a mediocre copy of better games.

I wish Wanderstop's actual gameplay elements had been given an extra coat of paint, a little more focus. It's not that I'm demanding that the game prioritise differently than it does, but even if you fall in love with the therapeutic, calm, and introspective atmosphere, you'll probably end up getting bored before the end credits roll, and that's a shame.

If you're looking to keep a cute digital critter, you can't do much better than Weyrdlets. The design of the creatures blends that perfect mix of dopey and cute to make you feel like the worst person in the world when you aren't chucking treats and toys at your pet. On the other hand, as a game the overall experience falls quite short, with a slowness to it that could turn you off depending on how attached you become to your pet.

On one hand, I think WayForward has done a great job bringing this older title into the modern day with top visual and audio prowess. On the other hand, it lacks a lot of the class and refinement that makes modern games such a joy and thrill to play.

What could have been a perfect sports game instead becomes a begging little brother that always seems to need more money.

If you're looking for a casual party game to enjoy with friends or kids, it's easy to recommend in those scenarios. However, for returning players or if you're looking for something to play solo, I don't think there's enough here to make the remaster worth buying.

My play sessions, which have lasted roughly twenty or thirty minutes at a time, have all ended with me realising that I'm not having much fun in the end. It's a bit too simple and quickly becomes mostly repetitive. So even if the content that is available still works and each short dose offers a game session where reflexes and patience are properly tested - everything falls into oblivion the second I switch off.

Runny Bunny is the essence of simplicity in game form. It lacks some finesse and visual presentation to make it really fun to pick up for a few long moments. At the same time, it's certainly not boring when you do.

The Accolade Sports Collection is a strange collection. There are far too few games, with at least one that is completely unnecessary, and there's plenty of room for many others to have been included. None of the games have aged particularly well, and the controls feel ancient for the most part.

Volgarr the Viking II feels like a pretty niche game in that it's mainly trying to appeal to those who want this kind of challenge in this suit of pixels, and the whole combination feels absolutely retro in every way imaginable in just the right way. So, if you know you're that gamer, it's certainly worth checking out, but for me it didn't really stand out.

It's a viral success that says more about us than about itself. We no longer want to arrive. We just want to watch the journey. We want to watch everything go wrong, preferably in real time. And in that way it feels like a game for our time.

Blood Strike is a decent battle royale that's good enough to kill a few hours here and there.

DC Worlds Collide is a game that does some things right for fans of the DC universe and the gacha genre. It offers a reasonably fun and addictive collecting experience, with a wide range of well-known characters and automated battles that make it accessible to casual players. At the same time, the game has some obvious flaws. The childish graphics, lack of voice acting, automated battle mechanics, and sometimes frustrating monetisation model prevent the game from truly reaching the top tier.

Tron: Catalyst feels like a concept brimming with promise—a narrative twist here, a combat mechanic there—but it fumbles the execution. I'll admit, my anticipation may have made the fall feel harder than the game truly deserves. Still, too much feels off: from storytelling to traversal to tone, everything leans toward flat and cold.

As it stands, Fort Solis is an atmospheric experience with impressive graphics and a slow, but interesting central narrative. But as a game it falls short on many parameters, with low interactivity, shoddy quick time events and exploration that rarely feels rewarding. I can only imagine that the actual game parts were added mostly as an afterthought, and that's too bad, for what ultimately could have been pretty special just ends up being rather bland.

Elrentaro's Wanderings doesn't really have any major problems other than it's a pretty simple adventure moulded in a template we've seen before. It mixes some relationship sims with dungeon crawlers and lots of dialogue sequences between fairly anonymous characters and it chugs along pleasantly without being directly fascinating.

What we ultimately have here, what you're being asked to invest in, is the cover band version of Ad Astra. It's a gaming experience that feels as though it's been held together with duct tape, and only in fleeting moments does the narrative emerge that made me forget these otherwise obvious shortcomings. It's a shame, and I take no pleasure in sending a talented studio back to the drawing board, but I cannot recommend Aphelion, not even to those who pick it up "for free" via Game Pass. It simply isn't worth your time.

Among other roguelikes, I can't say that Dust & Neon stands out in any way, as it relies on its charming theme and aesthetics while unfortunately never being particularly entertaining to actually play.

Fort Solis is an atmospheric experience with impressive graphics and a slow, but interesting central narrative. But as a game it falls short on many parameters, with low interactivity, shoddy quick time events and exploration that rarely feels rewarding.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has fundamental design issues everywhere you look. This is a case of Rocksteady making the wrong decisions from the outset, and while they've executed their vision with technical sophistication and attention to detail, make no mistake; Suicide Squad is polished and 'gorgeous,' but scratch the surface and give it more than 30 minutes and it all falls apart.

On one hand, it's so simple and easy to pick up and play, with such a wonderful presentation, great cooperative support, and a great degree of charm that it becomes very, very easy to love. But at the same time the gameplay often feels too predictable, the customisation systems disappoint, and even after acquiring every Gold and Red Brick available I still cannot figure out who this game is aimed at. With the recent remaster and even the relative recency of the original PS4 launch, it's hard to point a finger at this game and call it a must-play, especially since compared to pretty much every other Lego game available it lacks in almost every metric.