The tactical elements still seem a bit unfinished. On the race track, however, MotoGP 21 delivers and meets our expectations. The best edition so far.

Nice and entertaining party game with 50 different activities and many characters to unlock. Lots of fun as long as you have friends next to you because it’s couch-coop only.

Pacific Drive is an extremely atmospheric survival game that draws its appeal from the exuberant inhospitality of the exclusion zone. Loneliness and threatening anomalies turn our old station wagon into our closest ally. If you like roguelikes and crafting, you'll find plenty to do in Pacific Drive

Blizzard certainly achieves its goal to remaster Diablo 2. With slick graphics and solid gamepad support Diablo 2: Resurrected is a more than enjoyable action-RPG. It, however, does show weaknesses in the inventory and user-guidance that come along with the 21 year old classic.

C-Smash VRS is one of the most original sports games for VR. The minimalist look may not appeal to everyone, but it goes perfectly with the game's electro soundtrack. C-Smash VRS creates a remarkable flow and also offers enough variety with its game modes. The ball physics of the virtual squash game can be quite tricky - if you want to show full physical commitment, you should have a sufficiently large playing surface.

Crayola Adventures is an Apple Arcade title that offers the player a lot of creative freedom. It is an experimental game in many regards, but one that has so much heart and soul that it‘s easy to fall in love with.

Another Crab’s Treasure proves to be a creative and playful entry in to the Soulslike genre. The colourful look makes it a stand out between all its dark and gloomy counterparts. Although it could do with a bit of honing, its core gameplay provides the (sometimes punishing) learn and repeat mechanic us Souls fans are after.

Stray struggles to leave the high expectations this game has built up over the last 7 years behind. The feline adventure through the suburban jungle is enticing in a lot of ways, but stumbles occasionally with its uncanny-valley protagonist and a slightly generic story. The highlight is the atmosphere it can build as players jump between rooftops lead by neon signs towards the goal of climbing out into freedom. Stray is well-worth playing, but won’t blow anyone’s mind in the process.

Like the first game, Figment 2: Creed Valley packs serious topics into a cute look with decent riddle- and adventure gameplay. The boss fights in particular are a real highlight and help to overlook small technical glitches and the like.

GRID Legends tries to speed ahead of the pack by including a story mode around a failing racing team portrayed by live-action actors. Despite superficial novelty, the game fails to really connect the events of the story to actual gameplay and leaves the player character out almost completely. Thanks to excellent and nuanced driving mechanics and an impressive amount of courses and vehicles, this can still be worth checking out for die-hard racing fans, even if it cannot quite live up to the best the genre has to offer.

While Ilfonic who previously worked on “Predator: Hunting Grounds” and “Friday the 13th: The Game” excel at recreating the look and feel of the Ghostbusters movies, the gameplay remains relatively simple and shallow. This isn’t necessarily a title you’ll sink night after night into, but instead one to pick up now and again to play a couple of missions with friends. While it’s a bit light on the content side, the developers have a history of supporting their games long after launch with extensive updates.

Wild Hearts does not revolutionize the hunting game genre, but with as few competitors, that is hardly necessary. The building system both in and outside of combat adds enough variety and depth that the simpler weapons and streamlined crafting are welcome. Sadly, technical flaws, such as blurry visuals and horrendous pop-in keep this otherwise great game from making a play on Capcom's throne. It is a title, however that we're eager to see expanded upon and further developed in the already planned title updates and hopefully eventually in a sequel. As it stands, it's a fun alternative to Monster Hunter, but cannot live up to those games' polish and sheer endless depth of content.

The Icelandic studio Myrkur Games delivers a fun and extremely well designed first game with Echoes of the End. The real standouts are the world and its inhabitants but the rest of the game doesn’t have to hide behind them. The game does suffer from extremely basic combat that only gets better if you invest your skill points in new and much more exciting moves that will make fights a lot more interesting. Puzzles are relatively barebones and don’t demand any creative solutions. If you still struggle there is a very handy and well implemented hint system though. Overall Echoes of the End suffers in many tiny aspects but the game as a whole comes together rather well.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is an adorable cozy game that focuses entirely on fans of Hello Kitty, Cinnamoroll, and friends. There's no stress here, just cute friends from the Sanrio universe and your missions. The Collector's Edition is a lovely addition, as it includes trading cards, a small guide, and posters for fans. However, it's quite expensive.

Despite being a F2P title, Astra: Knights of Veda doesn't push you nearly as hard towards microtransactions as some of it competitors. Instead, it manages to captivate players with its RPG gameplay loop as well as with its gorgeous presentation.

Dysmantle won’t surprise anyone with flashy gameplay or new and exciting ideas, instead it iterates on a long legacy of crafting and survival games and finds ways to improve almost all core aspects of that popular genre. Despite combat often being in the way of enjoying the exploration and the puzzle-like exploration of the various nooks and crannies, the game can entertain for many hours thanks to its sprawling map and exciting secrets. Especially at its low price and with the option for local multiplayer, this game is one of the first highlights of 2022.

The Wandering Village is a city-building strategy game that offers a creative story mode, a tough challenge mode and a great sandbox mode. Secure the future of the nomads on the back of the Onbu and experience fantastic biomes with nice music and their own challenges. The hours fly by and the great Ghibli-like animations draw you into the fantastic, dystopian world.

Curse of the Sea Rats benefits a lot from its nice looking cartoon graphics, the well done voice acting and by staying true to the Metroidvania genre at least in most aspects. There are also a lot of optional secrets to find with many references to game classics like Monkey Island, Worms or The Legend of Zelda. The major weak spot is the combat system, that largely fails of being satisfying and well balanced.

Fairy Tail 2 is made for fans who can enjoy the well-implemented attacks. Visually appealing and exciting, especially thanks to the many effects and the story moves along quickly. However, it's still somehow just typical JRPG uniformity that would like to have more individuality.

Fire Emblem Warrior: Three Hopes turns out to be an ambitious sequel to the previous game and is ahead of it in several aspects. However, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is not free of criticism. The automatic camera, for example, sometimes behaves a bit strangely in cramped situations, the mission design seems a bit repetitive after a dozen hours and the fact that the audio synchro is again not available in German could also annoy one or the other player.

Vanguard builds on the three pillars that fans of Call of Duty have come to expect. The problem: While the multiplayer mode plays great, the campaign is visually and acoustically well staged, but overall it's only "very solid" due to the weak AI and a far too predictable and short story. The zombie mode, on the other hand, is more beginner-friendly than ever, but the bottom line is that it disappoints, especially long-time fans, with an abundance of missing features. Provided that upcoming content updates improve the situation, there is still hope that the developers will make zombie hunters happy in the long run.

While it differs in tone from other games of the developer, it does have the same high quality we expect from Amanita Design when it comes to adventure gameplay and captivating atmosphere.

Hauntii is certainly stunningly gorgeous and can make you feel incredibly smart whenever you find and solve one of its many puzzles. Unfortunately the game demands you to find and solve almost all of those puzzles which isn’t always easy to do. The map doesn’t offer a lot of help and it can lead to pointless and frustrating roaming around. The slower Twinstick-Shooter gameplay on the other hand is not too challenging but offers somewhat relaxing action moments.

The probably most realistic skateboard simulation convinces in terms of handling and gameplay, but leaves a lot to be desired in terms of scope. Due to the relatively expensive price, it is not an unqualified purchase recommendation for the time being.

Yield! Fall of Rome is a 4X strategy game whose short rounds make it perfect for those who don't want to commit to a game for too long. It lacks a good introduction and variety, but it's still fun to play occasionally.

While Dynasty Warriors: Origins is not a complete reboot of the franchise it still offers enough new elements to make it a great starting point into the series. The big battles are still the strongest part while the main story is interesting enough. The story of the protagonist is rather boring though and the character often feels completely out of place in the retelling of the history of the Three Kingdoms. The main battles are grand and exciting but everything else can start to feel rather boring after a while. With that said it still offers a fun “Dynasty Warriors” experience on modern hardware.

If you have an Apple Arcade subscription and are looking for a tactical game that is easy enough to learn on the surface, but has quite a bit of depth beneath it, Three Kingdom Heroes might just be what you are looking for.

The characters in Atelier Ryza 2 have grown up, but haven't lost any of their charm. The basic principles of the typical Atelier formula have been retained and the developers added new gameplay elements. Unfortunately, they are not all 100% suitable.