Honestly, I cannot recommend this game enough, and has me super stoked for the Resident Evil 4 Remake coming in March, will that dethrone this for me as Game of The Year? Time will tell.

They may have copied the Nintendo behemoth in lots of ways, and the game may provide an interesting glimpse into how Pokémon might look with a more populated world, but anyone hoping this would displace (or even come close to) the venerable series will find themselves sorely disappointed.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a fun 3D platformer that any fan of the series will enjoy to play. You can tell this game wasn’t a hastily thrown together, cheap cash in. The 10 hour platformer is charming and F.U.N. and it will definitely have you singing Sweet Victory.

I cannot overstate how bland I found Neptunia: Sisters vs. Sisters to be, I was actually pretty surprised by how bored I found myself hour after hour. I can safely say that you’d be fine avoiding this one, and if you’re a fan of the series, you’d probably still do well to steer clear of this entry.

There’s not much to give an opinion on here, as much of the change implemented is visual and quality of life. It’s a welcome update, and if it’s been a while since you’ve played or if you’ve just never gotten around to it, now is a great time to do so. The Witcher 3 has been in a good place for a while, but these upgrades further cement it in it’s spot as one of the all-time greats.

Despite the sheer amount of words that have been written about the game – including by me, I’ll acknowledge as I pass the 1,500 word mark on this review – the reality is that it’s just a forgettable, mediocre game. It does plenty of things very poorly, but it also does one or two things well enough that you can’t say it’s completely and irredeemably awful. There’s no real reason to seek the game out, and there’s no reason (apart, maybe, from that stupid talking bracelet) to avoid it at all costs: Forspoken is just kind of there.

I realize I’m spending way too much time complaining about a game that’s only $5. But the fact is, this developer used to be a reliable source of fun, inexpensive retro-tinged games. As Slime’s Journey shows, lightUP’s games are still inexpensive and retro-tinged, but they’re certainly not very fun.

While there’s been no content added to either the PlayStation or Xbox versions, you’ll still have plenty to do here. There’s the main questline to engage with that’ll take you through multiple monster quest tiers, which is somewhat short compared to other Monster Hunter titles. But the online hub quests expand that out even further, offering up more story content that goes beyond the end credits of the game, and has a number of challenging fights for experienced hunters. There’s also a whole host of free downloadable quests to engage with, encompassing the free DLC that’s come out on prior versions of the game. All in all, you’ll be able to spend a lot of time exploring and hunting down giant monsters, which is pretty much what you want out of a new Monster Hunter game.

The Forest Quartet clearly has its heart in the right place, and any game that gets people thinking about overcoming their own demons is a good thing. But as a game, there’s just nothing interesting here.

It’s a lot deeper and more touching than its title suggests, so it’s worth keeping an eye on it, waiting for a sale, and then grabbing the when the price is right.

It’s a gorgeous, relaxing game that changes every time you play it, and it’s got a world that’s easy to get immersed in.

Session: Skate Sim is true to its name: it’s a true-to-life skateboarding simulator, so if that’s all you want to do, it’ll more than deliver.

Aka clearly has its heart in the right place, but it doesn’t have anything that goes a little deeper or that asks anything of its players, and without that it just feels like a cut-rate version of Animal Crossing.

It’s really too bad that the gameplay doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the inventiveness, because, as I said up top, Paper Cut Mansion is just brimming with ideas. There’s a huge gap, unfortunately, between coming up with something cool and making it work, and unfortunately it’s not a divide that this game is able to bridge.

If I had more time to play through Chained Echoes before the holidays hit, it most definitely would have made my top 10 list for the year of 2022. It’s every bit as stellar as you’ve likely heard so far, and something that is certainly worth checking out regardless of your platform preference. I’ve found it to be a perfect Switch experience, but I’d imagine that it runs extremely well on any console you might choose, and right now it’s freely available to play on Xbox via Game Pass. So definitely check out Chained Echoes, you will not be disappointed.

I think, in the end, it all comes down to how you look at it. If you look at Windosill and just see a game where you tap the screen a few times, move a train across the bottom, and finish it all in well under half an hour, it’s definitely not something I’d recommend. But if you’re looking for something that feels almost as much like a toy and/or a piece of art as it does a video game, Windosill might just deliver on that.

I’d go as far as saying that Bailey pretty much single-handedly makes Jurassic World Aftermath Collection a worthwhile experience. Without her, this is a decent (if a little slow-moving) stealth game. With her literally guiding you through the ruins of the infamous theme park, the whole thing becomes worth your time and money.

It is very hard to stand out in this much crowded racing genre, but Need For Speed Unbound pulls it off. The title is easily the best entry in years and sets a foundation that can easily be built upon. After many years of having an identity crisis, I can see the game evolving from here. With a consistent 4K resolution and 60fps framerate NFS Unbound showcases what could be the future of the series.

Everything in One True Hero has been done before – and much, much better – and you’d be wise to play one of the games it’s borrowing instead.

ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition still isn’t a game for everyone, but at least now it can be said it’s a game that some people might enjoy.

I’d say that the lack of a quest list might just be Time on Frog Island’s biggest issue. After all, we’re talking about a game that’s basically nothing but fetch quests, so for the game to not include a way of keeping track of your one task seems like a major oversight. Then again, maybe the makers of Time on Frog Island just figured they could get by on a cute premise and general aesthetic. To be sure, in some cases that may be enough, but in this case, it just means you have a game that has the right tone but none of the right content.

Unlike some games that try hard to be good-natured and relaxing but actually aren’t, Lil Gator Game is exactly what it looks like on the surface: a sweet, adorable game that never feels like it’s trying too hard to be either of those things, but that’s guaranteed to win you over all the same.

Instead of being immersed in the environment of The Callisto Protocol, I found myself thinking back and wishing more and more that I was playing Dead Space. There are promises of patches to improve some of the complaints around the actual mechanics of the game, but I don’t see anything on the horizon elevating The Callisto Protocol above mediocrity.

It’s an interesting take on a formula you’d think would be played out by now, done in a way that shows there’s life in the card-based genre yet.

If you just want a game that’s a joy to play, this is it. Between the beautiful colours, the relaxing gameplay, and the thrill of gliding and soaring through the world, there’s enough to make Wavetale well worth your time.

It’s neat to see someone capture the feel of a bygone generation as well as this game does, but absent any real identity of its own, it’s hard to see why you’d play this instead of going back and replaying the originals.

In setting out to combine two very different genres, it put itself in a situation where it had to be both a solid pinball game and a decent dungeon crawler. Instead, it’s only so-so at both halves of that equation, which makes it difficult to recommend.

Of course, if you just want more Portal, that might make The Entropy Centre enough for you. It’s not much more than that, but it also sticks so closely to the formula that it doesn’t do anything crazy that would make you dislike the game, either. It’s a well-worn path at this point, and The Entropy Centre never once strays from it.