Need for Speed Unbound feels like two steps forward, one step back. While the story progression serves as a nice motivation to get better cars and take risks with the police, the newest part of this once-beloved series still falls flat in some regards. Visual presentation is sub-par for a game that advertises itself as game built for the next generation of consoles. While gameplay is fun and taking a lot of inspiration from Burnout with its heavy reliance on drifting and boosts lee, there are a few issues as well. Police, while initially invigorating, quickly becomes a chore as chases drag on forever and can, in the worst case, reset player progress of over an hour. This is undoubtedly a step in the right direction, but “Need for Speed” is still not quite at the best it has been.

Mundaun especially knows how to convince with its artistic look, which is completely hand-painted. A folkloric horror fairy tale from Switzerland that you may not forget that quickly because of its calm nature.

Outbound successfully blends cozy exploration, light survival mechanics and creative base-building into a relaxing road-trip adventure. While the overwhelming amount of crafting stations and the slow early-game pacing can occasionally hurt the flow, the beautiful art style, satisfying progression loop and charming camper customization create a unique and atmospheric experience for fans of the genre.

Be a superhero girl and save Metropolis. DC Superhero Girls: Teen Power is a typical action adventure, which was surprisingly fun to play. Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl and her friends need to face a new threat: Robots and evil toys. The storyline is quite close to the original series on Netflix, same as the artstyle of the characters. The music of the the game is neither bad, nor good, quite average background music. The cutscenes in comparison are really lovely, all voiced over and with cute animations. The biggest surprise was, how different it feels to play each superhero or supervillain. Each character really has her own playstyle. Sadly we also have some critics: since mostly younger kids will play this game, why do we need an ingame social media called “Supersta”, where you need a certain amount of followers and likes to unluck some of the sidequests? The game would have had enough content without it. Instead they could have programmed a local multiplayer, so the parents could help on difficult missions, some of them are quite tricky. Especially the fly ability feels a bit clunky and hard to steer. Overall DC Superhero Girls: Teen Power can be recommended to all DC fans and fans of the Netflix series. If your kid wants to play it and your kid is still quite young, we recommend to play the game with him or her, since some missions are quite hard and it could be frustrating otherwise.

Ride 5 makes another small step into the right direction. The overall atmospheric career is a solid foundation, but also lacks additional production-value in its presentation. Ride 5 however does deliver on the track with very playable racing-gameplay, that not only challenges experienced players but also gives newcomers a chance to succeed.

Hell is Us impresses with its dense atmosphere and, to a large extent, its blend of action game and classical adventure. Initially, the lack of the excessive hand-holding of many other current games is appealing. However, later on, or for those who simply don't like puzzles or have trouble finding their way around, this enticing approach becomes increasingly lost. Overall, however, it's still a good action-adventure game that has a lot to offer, especially for old-school gamers and adventure fans.

Trains and Explosion! "Battle Tanks" combines the unlikely combination of Trains and Rogue-Likes to a sometimes grindy and hard but most of the time entertaining Genre-Mix-Up. Tchoo tchoo!

Copycat is a short, emotionally powerful game that leaves a strong impression despite its brief playtime. The storytelling is impactful, but the limited choices can feel restrictive. While the experience is memorable, some themes and emotional intensity may leave players with mixed feelings.

Solo Leveling: Arise is a convincing, easy-to-play action game with a slick combat system and great presentation. However, the sometimes miserably long grind, the gacha mechanics and other weaknesses prevent Jin-Woo from reaching the highest level in this version of his gripping adventure.

Caravan SandWitch definitely has its heart in the right place and impresses first and foremost with its interesting world and pleasantly relaxed atmosphere. However, uninspired missions and various technical errors hinder this charming adventure game from fully developing its undoubted potential.

The combat system is outstanding, and the barrenness of the game world can be considered stylish. However, the uninspired story, off-the-shelf characters, and a lot of downtime between battles are annoying. Lost Soul Aside feels like a sturdy and well-oiled skeleton that someone forgot to flesh out. So you constantly swing between enjoying the challenging monster duels and being annoyed by the many incomprehensible shortcomings that suggest the game should have just been finished at some point.

RoboCop: Rogue City surprises with beautiful and varied level design, fun shooter gameplay and nice detective quests. However, this is offset by wooden character animations, performance slumps in cutscenes and sound problems. The story stays too close to the movies and fails to add a memorable chapter to the RoboCop universe.

Mother Machine unleashes the Gremlins on the world and brings a sweet change into the gray everyday life. Even if the single-player mode quickly becomes repetitive and not particularly exciting, the multiplayer mode makes the game all the more worthwhile. If you're looking for an entertaining game for a group of friends, you'll find it here.

In some regards Slitterhead is fantastic. It offers an engaging story told through the perspective of several characters, a simple yet fun combat system that excels through the ability to possess different people at any moment and super cool monster design in the Slitterheads. Unfortunately a lot of the other aspects feel very underbaked. Stealth isn’t engaging at all and sometimes kills all the momentum the game had going, the controls are always snappy enough for what you want to do and some aspects of the presentation feel very oldschool. As a package the game is a lot of fun though and offers a glimpse into what the developers at Bokeh Game Studio are able to do in the future. That is certainly bright and hopefully brings more somewhat unique titles like Slitterhead certainly is.

In summary, Payday 3 shows promise with its solid core mechanics, but suffers from server issues, matchmaking problems, and a lack of content at the time of the review. Character progression is slow and frustrating, and there’s a need for improvements and additional content to enhance the overall experience. Subscribers to the Xbox Gamepass may find it worth trying out, but the game falls short of its potential.

If you love Tron then you will probably quickly fall in love with Tron: Catalyst. Characters, missions, world and lore are oozing with love and care for everything that Tron is. Unfortunately most of the gameplay can’t hold up to that. Combat is middling, the upgrade system is boring and while the time travel via your Glitch powers are exciting they are also extremely linear and narrow. This goes for the many dialogues that you’ll have as well. While freedom is suggested it doesn’t actually exist. Still: Tron: Catalyst is Tron to the bone and if you’re into that you will find a lot to love.

The idea for Drag x Drive is clearly inspired by Rocket League. Nintendo makes a unique and entertaining sports game out of it, that delivers a neat use of mouse and motion controls of the Joy-Con 2. But although it's much more than a clone, the game can't nearly reach its apparent template, especially concerning adaptability and other individualization options.

Directive 8020 delivers entertaining sci-fi horror with strong atmosphere, improved gameplay flow and impressive presentation. However, its predictable story, simplistic mechanics and weak German voice acting prevent Supermassive Games from reaching the heights of its best interactive horror experiences.

Princess Peach: Showtime benefits a lot from the idea of wearing different costumes, giving Peach a high variety of special abilities. Like usual for Nintendo games, the game brims over concerning loving details. The very low difficulty level and the partly inappropriate performance prevent the game from a higher score.

Concord isn't a bad game. It's a solid hero-shooter with appropriate gunplay and movement. With the right squad by your side, the 5v5-matches are solid fun. Yet again, Concord plays it very safe and doesn't stand out in any department against free-to-play-competitors like Valorant or Apex Legends.

Spirit City: Lofi Sessions is a game that can be easily integrated into everyday life. The game can help you to work in a more structured and productive way without forgetting to take the necessary breaks. It's cute, fun and offers a variety of different music and sounds and if that's not enough, you can even integrate YouTube.

Build on the rocky foundation of Dynasty Warriors 9, Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires is inherently flawed, both when it comes to its technical aspects as well as its gameplay variety. With only siege battles throughout the entire campaign, you’d think that the streamlined combat and barebones graphics would be enough to break the game’s back but they didn’t. Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires manages to cleverly link battles, relationships with other officers and empire-management together into an addictive gameplay loop that works despite all its glaring flaws. The game can be a lot of fun, even if pleasure is as guilty as it's always been with the series.

Sniper Elite: Resistance delivers Rebellions patented action-stealth-experience. While the gameplay remains intense and enjoyable, the presentation and the handling need an overhaul for the next parts of the series.

Killer Klowns from outer Space - The Game is a solid asymmetrical horror shooter that lacks polish and sometimes liveliness, but not humor.

My Hero Academia: All's Justice offers fans of the anime series in particular an exciting gaming experience that impresses with its fantastic presentation. Unlike Deku & Co., however, the gameplay fails to transcend its limitations.

Silent Hill f shows some good approaches and, in some parts, even presents itself as innovative for the series, without losing sight of the essence of Silent Hill. But the unintuitive, schematic and too sluggish combat system significantly dampens gameplay and immersion. The game, particularly due to its atmospheric strengths, is far from a complete failure. Unfortunately, "Silent Hill f" hasn't become the hoped-for, more or less consistently successful series comeback.

Deliver Us Mars proves, that its predecessor has not been just a flash in the pan. Developer KeokeN Interactive delivers a nice sequel with a twistful story, a pleasant heroine and a comparatively diversdye gameplay. At least, if you're a fan of Deliver Us the Moon, you need to get the sequel as well.

Star Overdrive is a fresh take on the action adventure genre and it combines puzzle solving, fighting with high speed hoverboard action. In the end the mix was maybe too much to handle and it would have benefited from focusing on just one gameplay element.

Grimoire Groves is a successful mixture of roguelike dungeon-crawler and cozy game. While the graphics are absolutely cute and adorable, the story is unfortunately not, it lacks depth and variety. The game is fun for a few hours, but then quickly becomes grindy and monotonous.

Finally a game for larger groups which is easy to connect and ready to play right away. All you need is some friends, enough space and everyone setup with a smartphone. The minigames are diversified and you can even play bingo against your granny. The game overall is a nice way of passing the time, not more not less, and makes the most fun when played in larger groups.

As an unique blend of role-playing game and strategy in a 1920s prohibition setting, Empire of Sin is most definitely an ambitious title. Sadly, some balancing issues, a very poor tutorial and a spreadsheet-nightmare of a user interface are holding the game back from ever being as fun as it wants to be. Empire of Sin is by no means beyond redemption, but it is also a far cry from an offer that we can’t refuse. Strategy veterans will easily exploit the poor AI, while more casual players will hit a brick wall trying to solve the obtuse economic puzzle that the game so poorly explains.

Arietta of Spirits is a cute, sterotypical action adventure, which tells a meaningful and emotional Story about friendship, family and death. Arietta fights together with her new spirit friend Arco for a better world and try to defeat the monsters which hunts the little island. Eventhough you can play through the story in about five hours, you can choose different difficulty levels and enjoy the game again.

If you want to experience the two Another Code games in a more or less completely new manner, the Recollection is a great opportunity for doing that. But new puzzles, cutscenes or voiceover can't hide that Another Code Recollection does not look and feel like a high value current game production.

MotoGP 23 is a solid successor fort he racing-series, but has a lot of flaws, that prevent the game from hitting a mainstream-appeal. Presentation outside the races is bland, the career-mode lacks overall depth and the racing-gameplay is still too difficult to attract fresh players.

Short game fun for the puzzle in between, which is fun in the family, but lacks long-term motivation and new ideas.

Wario Ware: Get it together delivers a nice bunch of characters within fast paced and creative mini games and challenges. But especially for solo players the game will run out of air in just a few hours. Even with co-op and competitive modes included, the game does not offer long term fun like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or funracer king Mario Kart 8 do.

While drawing you in with an original setting, interesting art and a fun, albeit shallow combat system, Helvetii quickly deflates as the rogue-like elements harm the game more than help it stand out. The reason being that there simply isn’t enough variations to make each run feel distinct, making for an incredibly repetitive experience. The foundation is solid, but Helvetii either needed more content to make runs feel unique or ditch the rogue-like elements to deliver a more hand-crafted brawling experience and deepen the combat with new moves and abilities.

Tamagotchi Plaza has refreshing minigames, some of which we haven't seen before. Unfortunately, the motivation to play quickly fades, and a touch control option would have been beneficial for some games.

SPYxANYA: Operation Memories is a short-term very cute activity for fans of anime with children, which unfortunately mainly suffers from the repetitive gameplay and lack of story.

The minigames luckily do ramp up at least a bit in terms of challenge and offer a fun little distraction if you don't go in expecting anything groundbreaking. However, we can't overlook the steep pricing when comparing price vs. amount and quality of content. So only the most ardent Pokémon fans as well as smaller kids might really enjoy this for longer than a handful of hours.

While Akimbot doesn’t do much to iterate on the Ratchet and Clank formula, it does a good job at capturing the fluid movement and combat. It’s lacking a little in depth and true variety and instead focuses on a rather mundane story and surprisingly unlikable characters. With some more variety and depth in the selection of weapons as well as more intricate level designs, a sequel could fill a much needed gap in modern gaming though.

Gangs of Sherwood is the definition of a one-trick pony. Its colorful and entertaining battles weaving the abilities and attacks of up to 4 players together are not just unique but also very fun to play. Sadly anything outside of combat fails to really leave much of an impression. The setting in a science-fantasy version of Nottingham definitely had potential, but little of it actually was used effectively. Instead the final product hides its most fun parts behind a wall of generic mediocrity. Those willing to stick with the game and bringing friends along will still have a wonderful time despite obvious flaws.

Schleich is a German brand that specialises in making little plastic figures for mostly kids.Eldrador Creatures: Shadowfall is based on a line of these figures and would be primed to be turned into a genre that is easily digestible for young gamers. Yet the developers turned the license into a surprisingly deep and for the most part breezy and fun turn based tactics game. While the technical aspects are mostly middling it can still be a very entertaining first foray into a new genre for young and old alike.

Being the first big box-simulation after 14 years, Undisputed certainly does a solid job to reestablish boxing in gaming. The boxing-simulation may be a bit rough and pure around the edges but delivers in the ring with great atmosphere and intense bouts.

Empire of the Ants isn't your typical RTS-game. Instead it's a wonderful looking experience, that drags you into the life of insects. Despite the great presentation, the game itself suffers from lackluster controls and camera-issues.

Underneath its technical disappointments lies, at heart, a good game. Given the high performance of the PSVR2, the implementation disappoints.

Little Nightmares VR: Altered Echoes successfully brings the series’ signature horror atmosphere into an immersive first-person VR experience. Its chapter-based structure keeps gameplay varied with stealth, climbing, and chase sequences. However, the snap-turn camera system can break immersion during tense moments. Overall, it’s a strong VR entry for fans, though its dark visuals and controls have minor drawbacks.

While being a solid experience it is somehow stuck in between arcade and simulation. Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 isn't really one nor the other and thus makes it hard to recommend to either casual and core gamers.

The parkour and combat systems are worth developing further. Unfortunately, the developers fail to embed this groundbreaking approach into a convincing overall concept. Great moments are repeatedly thwarted by a lack of polish, a dull game world and an incredibly sluggish story.

AI Limit is a good debut from the young team at SenseGames with an interesting sci-fi world full of mysteries that motivate you to keep playing, as well as a tactically challenging combat system. However, various problems prevent the Soulslike from reaching its full potential.

This prequel ironically feels smaller in scope and ambition than the first game in the series. Road 96 Mile 0 suffers from similar issues when it comes to relying too much on clichés of an evil regime. Some of the choices put before players are downright insulting and boil down to whether we think oppression is "okay" or not. Despite its flaws, it offers some really interesting character moments in the last third and offers some world building that was missing from the original Road 96. Newcomers find a good entry point here, while returning players will find some innovations gone, while other things like the environments have been largely improved.

Flintlock: Siege of Dawn is solid action-adventure-fun, but barely manages to deliver anything really special. While the combat-system and Not's quick movement is the key strength of the game, bland story, characters and enemies harm the overall impression.

Code Vein 2 delivers a more accessible take on the Soulslike formula, combining decent anime visuals with a forgiving combat system and a story-driven time-travel twist. While the game offers solid boss fights and deep character customization, technical issues and uneven level design hold it back from greatness. It may not redefine the genre, but it remains an enjoyable experience for Soulslike fans with a taste for anime aesthetics.

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is great where it really counts. Building traps and setting up elaborate killboxes using a variety of traps and status effects is incredibly satisfying. The 3rd-Person Action is serviceable but does not excel. Unfortunately controlling the menus on a controller is an absolute pain and feels very slow, imprecise and often just plain bad.

Simon the Sorcerer Origins is not a perfect adventure, but with mostly beautifully designed puzzles and typical Simon humor, it is a worthy successor that clearly breathes the spirit of Adventure Soft's originals.

Little Kitty, Big City has a lot of problems with its controls and other technical aspects. In the end those problems did not bother me too much though. Guiding the Kitty through the city, meeting cute little animal friends and just doing what cats are known to do was very pleasant and fun. The game is never too challenging or also never puts any animals at risk, which makes it perfect for a cute little romp over one or two play sessions.

Dragon Quest Treasures is a solid but not really exciting spin-off of the Dragon Quest series. Eric and Mida are recruiting monsters to find treasures all over Draconia. Graphic and storyline feel old and outdated but at least it's fun to play for some hours, even though the tasks get repetitive after some time.

The Daima expansion for Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot ventures into fresh territory with a charmingly youthful cast, a lovingly crafted demon realm, and a more dynamic ground-based combat system reminiscent of classic brawlers. While its atmosphere and gameplay innovations shine, the DLC suffers from its two-part structure, ending just as the story gains momentum, and is occasionally frustrating due to unbalanced boss fights and frequent enemy hordes.

If you need an excuse to get off of your couch while still playing a game then Just Dance will get you to do that. It offers a wide array of pop music from the last decades and when it works it works almost flawlessly. Unfortunately we had issues with the Controller App every now and then where the app wouldn’t connect or just not pick up our movements. It’s easily fixed but still a bit of a drag. On top of that the menus are a sensory overload that should be able to be navigated a lot more easily.

Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster enhances the graphics of the original in a proper style that is true to the nearly 30 years old classic and delivers good gamepad controls. That's fine for fans of the LucasArts classic and retro gamers who want to revisit the game. But except for them, the game is too far away from a current game production to make it a worth buy for everyone.

Overall Chronicles of the Wolf can be a ton of fun. If you like the genre or the older Castlevanias you are going to have a great time with this game. The gameplay itself may not be revolutionary but it is more than solid and entertaining. Unfortunately that entertainment will get bogged down by a tedious amount of backtracking and too many places that will instantly kill you without a warning. Sometimes this means that it will set you back five, ten or more minutes which is just plain annoying.

In a world where the genre of simulators is as broad as jobs are in the real world“Quarantine Zone: The Last Check manages to stand out. The core gameplay loop of checking for symptoms and getting rid of infected as well as managing your checkpoint is fun, engaging and addictive. Unfortunately the rest of the game suffers from rather weak graphics and sounds as well as hard to navigate menus that dull the general enjoyment of the game.

Shadow Labyrinth is a good Metroidvania with a well made, atmospheric setting, nice presentation, cool designed bossfights and appealing platforming that does not suffer, but also does not really benefit from the Pac-Man crossover. Because the fixed difficulty level is a little too high, we can mostly recommend the game to purists of the genre.

Evil Dead: The Game gets enough things right to be enjoyable for a week or two, especially if you’re nostalgic for the franchise. However, it doesn’t offer enough content and variety, especially on the survivor’s side to entertain for a long time. The meager single player challenges hide some neat unlocks but are ultimately more tedious than fun and don’t even come close to make this a viable product for those looking for a purely offline experience. As an online 4v1 asymmetric survival game it brings just enough new to the table to warrant a recommendation without really impressing in any particular area.

The basic idea of Live A Live with umpteen different characters and settings, and partially various mechanics is great. But despite its charming retro-kind graphics and music a great idea alone does not make a great game. Overall Live A Live is a solid JRPG, nothing more, nothing less.

The fascinating and addicting core mechanic of arranging a backpack as efficient as possible to fight in turn based combat is marvelous. It carries a lot of the weight because most other aspects of Backpack Hero are mediocre at best. Navigating the menus is slow and unintuitive, the city building is mostly boring and the font for dialogue almost hurts our eyes. Skipping the story mode and just doing quick runs might be the way to go to get as much enjoyment out of the game as possible.

With Atlas Fallen, Deck13 delivers a fine and highly customizable hack-and-slay-like combat system. There is generally a great gameplay-flow, too. But with its partly blank game world and weak story the game can't fulfill the highest demands for an action RPG.

Riding a futuristic hoverboard on a desolate and alien planet while listening to atmospheric tunes feels awesome, is a ton of fun and doesn’t get old. Otherwise Star Overdrive is a mostly fine bag of different elements. Combat and platforming are not outstanding, take a while to get used to but ultimately work just fine. The puzzles and the implementation of new abilities is fun and brings a good amount of variety. Crafting and leveling up your character does feel either overcomplicated or too barren though. Overall it is a fun experience especially if you allow yourself to be taken along with the interesting and loneliness-inducing story.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code overall does a good job combining elements of adventure games, visual novels and mini-game-based action titles, with a minor lack of being too less demanding. The cases could be very suspenseful, but for this, the storytelling is too lengthy. In the end, not least the game lives from its exaggerated characters and its, in parts, twisted humor.

Even after more than 20 years Fatal Frame 2 still offers a surprisingly fresh take on combat as well as a very creepy and dense atmosphere. This is paired with a very strong and emotional story about twin sisters that are lost in a forsaken village deep in the Japanese woods. Unfortunately this remake runs at only 30FPS on every console it will be available on which gets in the way of having fun. Pair that with a lack of genuine horror moments, a lot of predictable jump scares and obnoxious film grain and Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly REMAKE becomes a diamond in the rough for fans of the genre only.

Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream is a double-edged sword, so to speak. On the one hand, it captures the fast-paced action of the anime hit excellently in the multiplayer battles. However, newcomers to SAO may have their fun spoiled by the old-fashioned elements and repetitive missions.

Despite a very rough start and many technical issues is Sonic Frontiers a game that we thoroughly enjoyed. It may very well be an odd form of Stockholm syndrome, being enchanted by the cringe-worthy voice acting, the absurd story, all mixed with some of the best gameplay flow the sonic games ever had in the third dimension. As soon as some of the big boss battles hit, the game shows that it’s much more than just a cheap imitation of Breath of the Wild. A full recommendation however isn’t possible with the technical state the game released in. A few patches are desperately needed for fix some of the glitches and underwhelming textures and animations.

Men in Black: Most Wanted is pretty much what’s on the cover. A fairly generic VR shooter with a pretty well done MIB coat of paint. It’s far from a disappointing VR cash grab, but falls short in terms of new ideas and technical prowess. For fans, it’s safe to grab, but everyone else can wait for a sale.

If you have never played Yakuza 3 before and want to experience it for yourself then Yakuza 3 Kiwami & Dark Ties is probably the way to go now. It feels modern and the newly added things and story beats fit perfectly fine into the game for the most part. Unfortunately the games engine starts to really show its cracks by now and the amount of reused “new” content is starting to reach a critical point.

Endless Ocean Luminous is less a game than an experience. If you want to explore the diverse ocean life in a very relaxed manner, you might be strongly tied up to the atmosphere. But if you want to be challenged at least at a minimum level, this is nothing you need to play.

Miasma Chronicles could have been a great tactics game, because it has anything, it needs for that. But the game throws a wrench in the works with its bad balanced normal difficulty level, that should be too difficult for most gamers, while it's too easy below that level.

Ghostwire: Tokyo turns out to be a huge disappointment. Despite its fascinating setting and its interesting plot, the open-world-gameplay turns out to be boring and monotone. The overall game lacks variety and depth.

Dolmen is a solid yet at times flawed Science-Fiction- Soulslike, that lacks the polish and the pure impact of Elden Ring, Dark Souls and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While it brings interesting gameplay-ideas to the tables, the overall experience is harmed by either bugs or strange design-decisions.

Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is a true and worthy successor to the first major video game adaptation of the anime and manga series. The battles are presented in a spectacular and highly impactful way, though the remaining segments—especially exploring and interacting with NPCs—come across as a bit too static for our taste. Nevertheless, fans of the franchise can dive in without hesitation, particularly if they enjoy the arena fighter genre and want to once again experience the adventures of Tanjiro Kamado and his sister Nezuko.

Two Point Campus: Medical School feels like a smaller, less complex version of Two Point Hospital. If you feel nostalgic or if you are a huge fan of the series, it might be worth it but otherwise you might want to wait for a more creative, standalone add-on to this amazing simulation game.

Unfortunately, "Cygni" didn't really convince us. Yes, the game looks incredibly good and conjures up a real fireworks display on the screen. And yes, the snappy bullet hell battles are fun. Nevertheless, we felt that the spark of genius that is necessary for a game of this genre was missing. The balance between the difficulty levels isn't really right. The pacing within the missions isn't right for our taste either: "Cygni" keeps us stuck at certain points too often, and far too often these snapshots drag on too much. Then the action game is almost boring despite all its qualities. And the upgrade system and its options could also be more intuitive. All in all, "Cygni: All Guns Blazing" turns out to be a solid action game with some clever approaches and a first-class presentation. However, it is nowhere near as good as classics like "Gradius" and the like.

Chivalry 2 can be an incredibly fun experience when everything runs smoothly. The refined combat may not be to everyone’s taste with its new emphasis on defense over pure hack and slash, but to those willing to learn its intricacies, it still offers a very nuanced and tactical experience. The main issue here is the amount of content that is on offer. The two game modes can’t even be queued separately and are lumped together in a clumsy and buggy main menu. The maps are wonderfully design and detailed and can offer a lot of gameplay variety, yet the game feels like an early access title that somehow made it to store shelves. The lingering promise of future microtransactions is just the final nail in the coffin here.

While the story campaign starts quite interesting, it quickly looses a lot of momentum due to lots of boring standard quests, way too many battles which aren’t challenging at all and a general lack of surprises. On the other hand the dungeons and boss battles are fun, the upgrade system is full of possibilities, cross platform progression works well and playing through the campaign at an acceptable speed is totally possible without any micro transactions. The latter however become much more relevant in arena mode.

Inayah: Life After Gods is a good looking, classical Metroidvania that combines combat and pathfinding with varied use of gadgets. But platforming is too demanding compared to the weak combat. And also beside that the game is far from the perfection of games like Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Hardcore fans might love it, but there is no obligation to play it even for genre enthusiasts.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood might not be the best adaption of the franchise possible, but Cyanide still proves having notion of the pen & paper rpg. The core competence of the game is the spectacular and bloody beast action. Although there are some balance issues, poor AI and undistinguished graphics, the game is worth playing not only for Werewolf fans.

With its huge amount of compact and fast mini-games WarioWare: Move it! is an entertaining party game. Solo players can also have some fun in the short story mode, but only when you have at least a second set of Joy-Cons to play together or against others, the game is able to deliver a notable long term motivation.

Super Crazy Rhythm Castle combines a rhythm game with chaotic minigames to create a lovingly designed party game that is unfortunately more for experienced players and may appeal to less casual gamers than it would like.

If CI Games should solve the performance issues on PS5, Lords of the Fallen is nothing less than one of the best Soulslike games so far. The game might be very similar in some of its basics, but cleverly makes use of its dual-layered game world that makes Lords of the Fallen stand out from the often trite Dark Souls clones. When the slowdown problem is gone, Lords of the Fallen isn't just a worth buy, it is a need to buy for any fan of the genre.

When Metal Eden hits it hits hard. Arena fights are extremely fast paced and always require you to be on your toes. Thanks to a lot of tools of destruction it gives you ways to come out on the winning side of seemingly impossible combat situations. Unfortunately almost everything else just drags it down. A very odd game world, heavy framerate issues on PlayStation 5 as well as the use of AI for some voice over leave a very stale taste in your mouth afterwards.

WWE 2K26 still delivers entertaining wrestling action with plenty of content and familiar strengths inside the ring. However, the game is increasingly overshadowed by aggressive monetization, a slow progression system, and only minor gameplay improvements. While fans of the series will still find moments to enjoy, the lack of meaningful innovation and the heavy focus on microtransactions make this year's entry difficult to fully recommend.

Unknown 9 suffers from technical hick-ups and gameplay-imbalances. Stealth is fun, but too easy for veterans. Handling and combat turn out stiff. Yet again, Unknown 9 can be satisfying and motivating and delivers a fresh setting.

Harvest Moon One World lives up to its name and lets players travel through a world with different climate zones and challenges. There are countless plants to grow, which creates the typical farming pull very well. It would be a good game if quest givers didn't just fade away and someone would put more effort into the graphics.

Fitness Circuit concentrates on the essentials and offers us an appealing number of exercises. Unfortunately, there is no resistance option for building up muscles, so that overall the game can only be recommended to fitness noobs who want to get back into shape.

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince offers a mixed gaming experience. As someone who likes to collect monsters the breeding system caught my attention and it’s fun to catch and collect all the different monsters. However, the game falls short in terms of narrative depth, sporting outdated graphics and encountering performance issues. So I only recommend it to fans of the series and hope they improve their character writing and the overall game performance for the next title.

Ed & Edda: Grand Prix - Racing Champions is an entertaining, (maybe too) fast-paced fun racer. Although everything seems a bit generic and more depth would be welcome, this racing game for the whole family can bring you some joy in splitscreen with friends and family.

Despite its high ambitions, the game cannot hide its presumably small budget. Instead of the infinite freedoms of space, we spend seven hours in confined spaces. We shoot at an average level and successfully apply smaller VR elements. At least the story entertains well. Finally, technical shortcomings also lead to the price-performance ratio not being right.

Not unlike Realmforges’ Dungeons series, Starbase Startopia seeks to bring back an early 2000s classic with very little in terms of new ideas. While it is at times very fun, there simply isn’t much this title offers beyond the setting and the questionable humor. Even the latter seems like someone just randomly picked pop-culture references and ran them through a GLaDOS voice generator. The actual strategy game can be fun, especially with another person to keep you company, but unless you are starved for a new strategy-sim title, you can skip this one without missing much.

While Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League isn't a complete failure, such as other recent Live-Service titles, the game's repetitive design and missed story opportunities can't match the quality and staying power of Rocksteady's previous games. Combat can be fun in short bursts, but quickly becomes stale and even the above-average loot and equipment systems can't prevent a burnout on the extremely shallow end-game.