Regardless of your relationship to Call of Duty, your feelings about military shooters, your investment in the rebooted Modern Warfare saga, or how much or little you like to play the new Call of Duty online multiplayer every year, the Modern Warfare III campaign feels more like an indicator of a series in decline than a misstep. Microsoft, which recently completed a purchase of Activision, is banking heavily on the future of Call of Duty, and the annual release schedule is unlikely to slow down any time soon. As a long-time player, though, I find myself thinking that it might finally be time to step away. [Campaign Review Score = 40]

The first time you’re given the chance to surf down a sand-covered mountain in Atlas Fallen, it’s invigorating. You immediately want to do it again, and you can. Anywhere there is sand, you can surf, and slide, and leap great distances while admiring the stunning horizon. A moment like that doesn’t exist for the game’s combat. And when lacklustre combat makes up the bulk of Atlas Fallen’s loop, it makes it that much harder to work up the motivation to continue exploring everything else the world has to offer.

A half-dozen hours with Hi-Fi Rush so far, and I can’t stop smiling...It’s a game that’s easy to love, difficult to put down, and just an utter delight to spend time with. What a great way to start 2023. [Review in Progress]

Perhaps Colossal Cave is best left buried, remembered only by those for whom it opened eyes to a new medium. And another thing: instant vending machine hot chocolate really is quite disgusting.

There is still a fundamental enjoyment to be had here; Supermassive still has the formula down pat, but an underwhelming story and a lack of ideas closes ‘season one’ of The Dark Pictures on a decidedly downbeat note.

Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch bites off more than it manages to chew. It has the makings of a grand immersive adventure and a detailed life simulator, but it doesn’t excel enough in any of its core elements. Between the lack of a fully actualised world, flawed controls and technical glitches, I had to work hard to feel invested. There’s a certain charm to its overall style and environments, but its issues greatly hinder the horse fantasy it wants to foster.

There’s a real tonal dissonance in Sonic Frontiers. It wants to be a fun platformer. It wants to be a high-speed exploration puzzler. It also wants you to feel a sense of power as you take on towering bosses, and save a world from certain destruction. But in striving for success on multiple fronts, it achieves none of these goals – instead arriving as an ambitious but lukewarm adventure-platformer pockmarked by deflating choices.

Even in its early access state, Disney Dreamlight Valley nails the cosy game formula. It’s such a treat to play, and offers a refreshing, peaceful refuge. It recaptures some of that elusive magic and wonder I felt from the Disney franchise as a kid, and it has brightened my world at a time when I needed it most. I can see it being my companion for a long time to come. [Early Access Score = 100]

The DioField Chronicle is a competent tactical RPG that will keep you amused until the repetition sets in. The progression systems are solid, the moment-to-moment gameplay is engaging, and you may even find moments where some of the characters grow on you. But its world does not feel grounded or real, and the only consistency I felt in its story was in predicting which overused political intrigue trope it would employ next.

It’s always tricky to evaluate an unfinished Early Access game that is designed entirely around a linear, single-player campaign. On the evidence thus far, Gloomwood understands its lineage as an immersive sim, and appreciates why Thief remains so beloved as a pure stealth game some twenty-odd years on. But whether it can emerge from the shadow of Thief and find its own identity very much remains to be seen. [Early Access Review]

If you find yourself in the right frame of mind, the unhinged nature of Saints Row can be cathartic, particularly if you find yourself in a good series of missions where the writing and humour aren’t too manic, and the action isn't too humdrum. In the end, Saints Row succeeds in recalling and refreshing the affable personality of the dormant series, but this reboot is simply a return, not an evolution.

Essentially, Midnight Fight Express’s approach to enemy behaviour echoes the approach of challenging retro arcade brawlers, but its more grounded fighting mechanics don’t feel suitable for the pace. And it’s this off-kilter balance between your character’s own ability, the effectiveness of environmental weapons, and the aggressiveness of the enemies that is ultimately to the detriment of its longer-term gratification.

In breaking away from tradition, Dinkum has the potential to be something truly great. It should certainly reckon with its ties to Indigenous Australia before development advances – but there’s magic in this adventure that makes it certain Dinkum will escape the shadow of its predecessors, in time. [Early Access Score = 80]

Wiping the floor with your stupendous army can be fun, but is it as fun as being a clever underdog or meticulous planner? There’s great satisfaction in winning a battle that is challenging, but fair. Songs of Conquest was the experience I was actually looking for when I purchased HOMM 7 recently. It’s bewildering that something as simple as a creature cap, and a few other significant tweaks, could transform an intensely familiar genre experience into a new game that I was excited to learn all over again. [Early Access Score = 100]

It’s a shame that the weirdest thing about Weird West is how boring it can often be.

A Memoir Blue isn’t a story that’s unworthy of being told. Rather, it doesn’t make full use of its chosen medium. Video games have the power to create an affecting emotional experience by making their audience active participants in the world. In A Memoir Blue, the interactive elements aren’t impactful, while the narrative is too metaphorical. Aesthetics aren’t enough to make up for that.

With lacklustre combat, serious flaws in visual design and clarity, and a complete absence of synergistic team-based gameplay, Babylon’s Fall is a disappointing attempt at a live-service game.

While I don’t believe it to be intentional, Martha is Dead seems to buck that relationship between the horrific and the comedic by steeping players in a narrative so hopeless, so nihilistic, so stripped of identity, that it almost begins to play a game of emotional ‘chicken’, daring you to flinch first.

That’s the problem with Shadow Warrior 3. For all it’s hay about subversiveness and whacked out combat, there was never a moment during its campaign where I didn’t know exactly what to do, the basic shape of what was to come, and the exact way I’d solve those problems once I got there. The game has a linear, flat trajectory all the way through – and its inability to truly bring its own world to life is a key failure in what could have been a far more charming, interesting experience.

Pupperazzi struggles to go beyond the obvious premise suggested by its witty name. Other than photographing a lot of dogs – so many, many dogs – there’s almost nothing else to do. While it remains charming and silly throughout, you’re not able to form any sort of lasting bond with any of these dogs. Your interactions with them are too fleeting, too inconsequential. That cute little pug I found snoozing under the picnic table doesn’t have a name, and she’ll be gone the next time I drop by. I can send you a photo of her I took, I suppose, but we both know you’re just going to delete it.

Battlefield 2042 is trying to be a distillation of what the first-person shooter genre has become in recent times, while also not committing to any single vision, let alone one that Battlefield can claim ownership of.

Despite a couple of the Russian levels breaking some new ground, for the most part Vanguard remains a series of narrow shooting galleries that you’ve seen and played countless times by now. Ultimately, like most Call of Duty games, you spend an awful lot of time crouched behind a waist-high wall, waiting to shoot a man in the head as he peers over his waist-high wall. That’s possibly a pointless criticism, but having just suffered through Call of Duty: Vanguard’s vacuous and derivative campaign, such a banal observation feels like the most fitting conclusion. [Campaign Score = 40]