An involving game, with interesting varied strategic options and challenges thrown at the player.

Gauntlet needs fun, badly.

Men of War: Assault Squad 2 won't be for everyone, but there's something endearing and impressive about its utter lack of concern for your well-being.

Fans of the first HAWX will no doubt derive a great deal of joy from another hearty dose of solid dogfighting, but then everyone else will feel the same sort of confused indifference towards the story and will quickly grow tired of shooting down wave after wave of jet fighters.

For a full-price game, though, Wahammer 40K: Armageddon feels lacklustre and slightly cheap, more of a re-skin of Panzer Corps than its own beast, and lacking the sense of grandeur that the setting requires. There’s a great turn-based 40K out there somewhere, but this isn’t it.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 will most likely receive a cult following for its kooky characters and general offbeat atmosphere, and the solid multiplayer options will keep many coming back. A word of warning, however - give this one a rent before you go the whole hog, as the baffling physics and numerous technical oddities are sure to kill this ride for many.

Costume Quest 2 has better quests and a more interesting story, and a better designed world. It’s still got the excellent writing, sound, and music that’ll keep most people happy, but it was the battle system that needed an overhaul most and it hasn’t had it.

All in all, Bejeweled Blitz LIVE is a great puzzle game on Live, and is one of the few games that is perfect for marathon online sessions, or just a quick five minute round to kill some time.

This is a must have for both fans and newcomers a like, but don't expect the second coming. This is a solid and improved version of East India Company, nothing more.

Same old same old, then - Alien Breed 3: Descent is not the sequel we were hoping for, dragging the series out rather than building on it. Still, for Alien Breed fanatics, the story will at least provide closure and more of the same.

It may not quite master its new perspective, but Trine 3 is still a charming, light-hearted romp that’s well worth your time.

A superhero game where heroes are quite fragile, Marvel’s Avengers is constantly in doubt of where it wants to go and ends up arriving nowhere.

Zero’s not a bad game. The opening train sequence is one of the coolest parts of the entire series, and while the character swapping mechanic isn’t the deepest gameplay addition, it adds a sense of cooperation missing from the other games. But its poor pacing and excruciating inventory management problems keep its unique additions from having the impact they should. The visual upgrades and improved control options help to make revisiting it a bit easier, but its flaws stand out all the more now, a decade-and-a-half later.

You won't be buying AvP for its single-player though, and if you are you may find yourself sorely disappointed. Rebellion has built AvP around its multiplayer, which is both well-constructed and surprisingly well-balanced.

Overall the game is well done and will be very much enjoyed by fans of the classic X:COM games and anyone who enjoys tactical combats.

A little more imagination and Galactic Assault could have been a far more valuable addition to the overfull alien battle strategy genre.

The Callisto Protocol is one of the year’s biggest letdowns. It is joyless, contrived and feels unfinished, as if the studio rushed it out prior to Dead Space Remake’s launch on January 27, 2023. Like Black Iron itself, I can’t help but feel the project was abandoned at some point. It feels so wrong for a game that looks and sounds this great to be so devoid of spark and quality control. It’s fitting that after traversing every tight nook and cranny, the only feeling left once the credits have rolled is that of having life squeezed from you.

So yeah, it's only for people who are really, really (repeat for a while) really into their tough platformers or those who love Rayne's exploits so much, they can't live without experiencing this.

If you like the idea of Resident Evil 4 crossed half-and-half with Silent Hill then The Evil Within is the game for you. Just be prepared to put up with 30 FPS.

It's very traditional, very solid and in gameplay terms doesn't offer anything new to the genre. Behaviour have, as mentioned, attempted to keep things fresh, but there's only so much they could do if their remit was to create a generic platformer.

Battlefield 2042 should have been a massive, triumphant return for the series but, as much as it scratches that itch for both small and large scale combat, it brings some unnecessary changes to its core formula while missing the mark with some of its ambitious new features. With enough support, the great first-person shooter underneath might fully surface in a few months’ time, but properly enjoying it at launch requires jumping through several hoops.

The Long Journey Home had so much promise but Daedalic forgot to make it playable. They focused on the big picture, on the huge epic universe, without realizing that it’s the small stuff that’s important.

A short, sharp cooperative puzzler with a fun time-spanning twist. The Past Within sees Rusty Lake go all out to make the purest kind of cooperative experience possible, and ends up doing a fine job.

There’s a lot to love with The Occupation. It’s got humanity, tension, and plenty of little touches that make finding that extra bit of information exciting without the usual violence you’ve come to expect from stealth games. However, its focus on no manual saving and real-time gameplay will be a dealbreaker. It’s not for everyone, but anyone craving consequence and narrative in their stealth game will find a challenge worth facing.

There are sparks of inspiration here and a beautifully realised setting, but beneath that veneer of intrigue lies gameplay that just doesn't cut it with the best. There's just about enough to enjoy in this broken version of 80's Seattle, just expect to be frustrated in digging out the treats.

When you finally begin to put the aerial maneuvers together and to great effect, as you’re dodging incoming falcons, stopping in mid-air to shake that tailing dragon, or barrel-rolling to produce near-miss fire.

Despite lacking the scripted set-pieces of a so-called 'AAA' game, Insect Armageddon does a remarkable job of showing what a focused team can produce on a minimal budget.

There's certainly a rich simulation in here for those that do so (and those already in the know), but getting there can be tough.