Jurassic World Evolution: Secrets of Dr Wu is a highly entertaining and worthwhile expansion to the main game, if you enjoyed Evolution. The five new dinosaurs are fun, the missions are some of the best in the game, and the Tacano Research Facility is a tight and truly unique level unlike any other - it’s about research and things going Jurassic World-level wrong, with an entertaining story to boot. If we’re going to be brutally honest though, in terms of actual newness there isn’t a lot in Secrets of Dr Wu. The expanded feeders and other changes make the game better, but they’re in the patch.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry is actually a game you might possibly want to play maybe. In fact, it’s not a bad adventure game at all - with quite fun puzzles, nice cartoony artwork, a decent length (not that that’s important, right ladies?), and there’s no silly mechanics (like paying for taxis and death) to get in the way. Even the jokes aren’t too offensive, with all the characters (especially the women) feeling like weird but relatable people - not just sex objects.

In the end, though, Space Race is a varied if not substantial update to Surviving Mars. None of the additions are truly essential and certainly not groundbreaking. If you like Surviving Mars, this DLC should be right within your courtyard.

Life is Strange 2 isn’t re-writing DONTNOD’s rulebook when it comes to gameplay, but the tale being told this time around is a far bigger statement than their last. And it’s only just begun.

Following the amazing Tomb Kings expansion, I wasn’t expecting to see yet another curve ball, but The Curse of the Vampire Coast mostly delivers it.

Call of Cthulhu is an undeniably fun adventure game with some great ideas, cool stealth moments, and it never devolves into a shooter like Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth did. However, it also wastes its sanity mechanic, and the second half of the game consists of smaller and smaller locations that seem in a rush to get to an abrupt ending. The first few hours of the game are fantastic, but the rest feels like the team were forced to cram around 20 hours of exciting adventure-RPG gameplay and story into just 4 hours. The story skips to the end, the characters change instantly, and then the credits roll without the name “Cthulhu” even being mentioned. A huge disappointment.

Running meaningful industries in your city is like playing a game within a game. Suddenly feeling like an entire county builder, it’s safe to say that the unstoppable force of Cities: Skylines just got a whole lot bigger.

The Conjuring House offers up some classic old-school Gothic horror, the kind that relies on the tension it creates along with the atmosphere that builds naturally. Sure, the gameplay itself may be a little dated, but the game does so much work in creating a legitimately unsettling experience that it’s easy to excuse the constant need for finding this or that. If you genuinely enjoy being scared or you want to make someone you care about suffer and not be able to sleep soundly for a few nights, then The Conjuring House ought to do the job pretty well.

If you enjoyed the first game, my bet is that you’ll really enjoy this game. If you’ve never played a Valkyria Chronicles game before and enjoy strategy and tactics mashups with some distinct aesthetics and gameplay flavor, this is the perfect game to jump into the series with.

It’s nearly unheard of for a company to pick up the rights to a game franchise and actually do the damn thing justice, but here we are with Star Control: Origins. The adventure is fun, funny, and all together engaging. I’m probably as surprised as you are that the game is actually this good.

A tale of two games, Frozen Synapse 2 is best when you’re battling it out like you did in the original. Thankfully, that’s a large portion of what you’re doing in this game. It just feels like the strategic layer could have been so much more.

A highly worthy adventure for Lara Croft, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider actually breaks out of the shadow of Uncharted by keeping the combat low and the puzzles high. If only the story was a bit better…

Two very good maps and a lazy, shoddy cosmetic system can’t justify the price point of Vermintide 2’s first expansion.

Far Cry 5: Dead Living Zombies maintains the level of general Far Cry 5 fun within a zombie movie setting, but does nothing really exciting with the concept. We have no problems with the DLC not having a sandbox world (although doing an Undead Nightmare with the main map would’ve been awesome), but the 7 linear levels on offer here are unimaginative, short, have no checkpoints, and could’ve been so much more. The idea of playing through terrible horror movies, which can change at any time Call of Juarez: Gunslinger-style, is fantastic, but Ubisoft wastes it. Hopefully Arcade map makers will do something with the concept, because this DLC is dead on arrival.

Dharma continues Paradox’s trend of iterating and improving the base game, but this expansion feels like it’s only for the most loyal of EU4 players. With changes and improvements to systems that feel a bit dense and additions that feel like content for content’s sake, it’s all starting to feel disappointingly stale. However, what’s present is polished and appears to be balanced well enough for this EU4 super fan. It’s just not a must-have expansion.

An interesting concept is let down by some pretty glaring gameplay flaws.

Two Point Hospital is so much more than just Theme Hospital 2. It may take Bullfrog’s classic as a base, but it expands on the concept to great a modern management-strategy classic in its own right. The game’s deeply strategic, with many decisions to make, and there’s always something to do - but the player never ends up feeling overwhelmed. Most importantly, Two Point Hospital is just tremendous amounts of fun. We may have some quibbles over the information it conveys, but all troubles fade away when you just start playing it. It could be the best strategy or management game out this year.

In the end, Aggressors is an interesting experience that should be of interest to anyone with a passion for Ancient Rome and 4X titles. It almost feels like a step between Civilization and a proper wargame, and it has the advantage of a very clear tutorial that teaches you the ropes in a quick and efficient manner. If you feel like that crossroads of casual 4X and anal wargame would be of interest to you, go ahead and give it a shot. Aggressors may just surprise you.

Unless Blizzard has some real story shake-ups and a phenomenally tuned raid on the horizon, I’m honestly expecting the sharpest player decrease to set in within the next few months. The expansion itself has some interesting ideas, but sticking to a World Quest grindfest is quickly becoming the norm, and the Island Expeditions aren’t exactly exciting.

Strange Brigade is enormous amounts of fun whether you’re playing in co-op or single-player, and you’ll more than get your money’s worth from it.

Shenmue is incredible- All open world games should be this good. Players hoping for a little more action and less Forklift Operating should check out the Yakuza series.

There’s a lot of great game here, with some fantastic ideas, but a lot of major problems are stifling the fun. If those issues are fixed, then Phantom Doctrine might be worthwhile. If you see a patch with the note “combat isn’t broken anymore”, then you may pick it up. Until then, hold off.

Capcom perfected the combat formula over countless releases, but it wasn’t until Monster Hunter: World that they stripped away what ultimately was never much fun to begin with. You spend less time spent preparing, and more time actually fighting. And sales figures suggest, as we all expected, that Capcom really had something special sitting under all that bloat.

In the end, Rise of the Republic is a capable expansion that acts as a bonafide prequel to Rome II, providing dozens of hours of fun to fans of the game and its time period. It even pushes the envelope further, adding new features to the campaign and making the fall of Rome a two-battle endeavour instead of a simple siege. Creative Assembly continues to surprise with their ongoing high quality support of Rome II, and Rise of the Republic is yet another notch on that increasingly busy belt.

Overall, WTF is a capable fast-paced game clearly aimed at fans of East/Gundam-style robot fights than more Western/weighty robot realistic representations. The game has a serious problem with feedback that never really goes away, but it should provide enough meaningless fun for anyone who’s really interested in the subject matter.

A pretty and novel use of the 40K license, brought down by uninspired design and plain bad game balance.

If The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit cost a bit of money, we’d still highly recommend it. The fact that it’s totally free means it’s elevated to a must-play, even if you have no plans on playing Life Is Strange 2 - and if you’re considering it, play this now. Any minor quibbles we might have, like some interactive points not being obvious, drop away when you remember that it’s free.

For us, and for anyone who thinks exploration of these worlds is the main reason to play games like Bioshock and that Prey was at its worst when it forced you to go back through previous locations - Prey: Mooncrash is hugely disappointing.