Short on puzzles and scares, Layers of Fear 2 ultimately feels like an overly dark walking simulator. You’ll have covered a fair bit of ground by the time you reach the credits, and avoided some pretty unusual hazards, but the unfair deaths you’ll have suffered along along the way will leave a bad taste in your mouth. And the game’s story doesn’t quite pay off, either. Layers of Fear 2 is a swing and a miss for Bloober Team in my eyes, unfortunately.

Edengate: The Edge of Life is a well-presented title, with decent visuals, a nice soundtrack and solid voice acting. It’s just a shame that as a game driven by its narrative, the tale being told here doesn’t quite hit the mark. And with the gameplay also being extremely basic, there’s little here to truly warrant a recommendation. Still, if you’re after something easy to play with an unoriginal but interesting premise, you can do worse for its budget price.

There is no doubt that Hack, Slash & Backstab contains all the ingredients to make a very fine solo experience, but it’s just far too tough to do anything other than frustrate you.

Minecraft Story Mode Season 2, Episode 3: Jailhouse Block isn’t awful, it’s just so disappointingly middling. Furthermore, the series has started to hit the same familiar beats as season 1 which, given that the first two episodes felt so fresh, is a little worrying. Hopefully Telltale can pick things up for the remaining episodes and do justice to Jessie’s journey.

Caveman Warriors isn’t so much a bad game then; it’s just one that’s a bit bland and exceedingly niche.

I, Zombie [feels] almost like a flash game, nothing more than a momentary distraction.

Othercide has its moments but its core gameplay is so repetitive that, even with its turn-pushing twist, you’ll have to fight the grind to get any fun out of it. Its art style may be beautiful, but it doesn’t make playing the game any more enjoyable.

Had the campaign run a little longer, it might have been a little easier to recommend Zombieland: Double Tap – Roadtrip. Shooting your way through zombies is entertaining, and when you’re having fun it’s easy to overlook the game’s technical downfalls. But when so many other, much better, twin-stick shooters exist, paying full-price for this just because it ties into a somewhat-popular movie franchise is quite a hard sell.

With the last couple of entries in the WWE 2K series being particularly strong, AEW: Fight Forever always had its work cut out to impress. What’s been delivered, however, falls below even our tempered expectations, with sloppy gameplay, dull visuals, and a serious lack of modes. Chances are you’ll get a little fun out of it if you’re an ardent AEW fan, but there are better wrestling games available whether you want to the action to be a more accessible or not.

With the Dualshock 4 in my hands and Fast Striker on the screen, what would be a whimsical appeasement of the past instead transforms into a regurgitation of old tropes.

If you’re after a short horror experience with a grim story, you could do worse than Trenches. Leave the jump scare enabled and we dare say you’ll jump out of your skin on multiple occasions, which is somewhat entertaining. It’s impossible to wholeheartedly recommend, though, what with its basic gameplay. Once you’ve played through it to completion, there’s very little reason to return.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling Hot Garbage, well, hot garbage. But it’s certainly not great, and it’s somewhat tarnished my otherwise excellent experience with Journey to the Savage Planet. By all means, give it a go if you’re desperate for a new area to explore – you can’t really go wrong with its £6/$8 asking price – but don’t expect too much. And be prepared to get very frustrated.

While there are hints of fun to be had if you search hard enough, I don’t think Strafe ever makes the small moments in between worth scavenging.

Mighty No. 9 had an incredible amount of potential. The pedigree of talent behind the project justifies fans’ expectations for a platformer that is full of personality and high-quality action. This game has neither of those things; sure, it works, but the game feels completely lifeless. Characters lack the charm and depth that they need to be memorable, and the story is underdeveloped and plain.

If you like games that don’t hold your hand and let you figure things out for yourself, you should perhaps give Die Young a try. Even more so if you also have a taste for adventure. The world presented to you in this fight for survival is truly vast and varied, with rewarding secrets to be found in various nooks and crannies. As you approach the end of Die Young and strive to achieve the best ending out of the three available, however, be prepared for things to take a turn for the worse. While there are many frustrations to be experienced throughout, it saves its most severe for last.

Gensou Skydrift isn’t a terrible racing game, but its awkward controls and iffy drifting mechanic heavily reduce the fun that can be had from it. Add into the mix poor visuals and a dire campaign, and unless you’re happy to race online you should probably avoid it. Hopefully the option to remap the controls will be delivered in an update, because that would definitely make it more of an interesting proposition.

With all of its issues, it’s hard to recommended Daymare: 1998. Some, however, will be able to grit their teeth and enjoy it – it’s not all bad. It’s a slice of old-fashioned survival horror, with a modern twist and some original features thrown in for good measure. Those original features aren’t all great, however, and the unevenness of the overall package – though reflected in the game’s budget price – makes it very much a love/hate affair. Though maybe “love” is too strong a word. Perhaps tolerate/hate affair is more appropriate.

The best word I can use is probably ‘clunky’, but putting it rather bluntly, Dungeon Punks controls as well as a dead horse.

I wish I could say more good things about The Jackbox Party Pack 7, but overall I was disappointed by this selection. I’ve come to expect that one or two of the games might not be great, but with three of the games here being complete duds, this is probably the poorest Party Pack yet. In its favour, The Jackbox Party Pack 7 is presented as nicely as any Jackbox game always is, and it remains as easy as ever to play with friends. But when six better games in the series exist, this one’s a hard sell. You can play Quiplash elsewhere, making Blather Round the only worthwhile title – but I’m not sure it’s worth buying the entire game for.

For the price of two cups of coffee, you’ve got an indie platforming adventure that offers up several hours of entertainment. Flat Kingdom may be a little clunky, sure, but it’s not broken – and if you’re a fan of simple side-scrolling platforming, you might find something to enjoy here. It’s not going to light your world on fire in any way, but there are certainly worse games out there.

Neon Blood will likely grab you from the outset thanks to its interesting premise and attractive visual style. Unfortunately, poor localisation, unrewarding combat and some other issues pull the whole experience down.

Twin Robots is over in a couple of hours, and its lack of personality means that it’s unlikely to stay in your memory for much longer than the time spent playing it. Given that the PlayStation Vita version also lacks the local multiplayer functionality that the other versions offer, what you have here is an inferior version of a game that is, on all accounts, undeniably lacklustre.

Kong: Survivor Instinct looks rather nice, and its 2.5D action-adventure gameplay is somewhat enjoyable despite being quite basic. It's just a shame that there's so much clunky human-on-human combat, which is not fun in the slightest, and that manipulating its gargantuan monsters is simply a case of gathering collectibles.

If you’re dedicated to Warhammer 40,000’s world you may get some joy out of this but Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr is anything but to-die-for.

If you want a slow-moving, brick-by-brick resource gathering sim, then this might be yours. But if you’re looking for something with deep complexity, endless creative options and rich world-building, you should probably look elsewhere.

When played in multiplayer, it just becomes too hard, too drawn out and too stressful. It's just not fun. But even then, unless you're prepared to to get to grips with RiftStar Raiders' unintuitive controls, you're probably best off steering clear.

While The Beggar’s Ride does a lot of things quite well, and has some creative and interesting ideas behind it, it just doesn’t do enough for me to get past its one huge flaw – the terrible controls.

While we can appreciate what Modus Studios was aiming for with God of Rock, we struggle to recommend it to anyone but the most ardent of music rhythm or fighting game fans. It’s a unique concept that sounds like it should work, but ultimately it’s neither fun as a music rhythm game or entertaining as a fighting game.