There are three stages to playing Georifters. First, your eyeballs get assaulted. Then, briefly, you get used to the hideousness, and you can focus on playing the game. This, unfortunately, is the shortest stage, and quickly gives way to boredom, as you realize there’s not much here worth doing for any length of time. Given all the excellent puzzle-platformers on the Switch, that means you can safely avoid this one.

The XCOM 2 Collection is a pretty welcome addition to the Switch library. It’s got a great reputation for a reason as being a key part of arguably the best tactical RPG series out there, and that reputation survives the game’s jump over to the Switch almost entirely intact.

Star Wars: Squadrons is a tight, laser-focused experience that knows exactly what it is and exactly what it isn’t. This focus causes it to be a little bit light on content, but with a launch price of $40, it is a much easier pill to swallow. I can say that the flight is just as enjoyable on hour 20 as it was on minute 1, and if you are looking for a gorgeous flight simulator, without the in-depth knowledge and practice that a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator demands, Star Wars: Squadrons is it.

To be sure, I wouldn’t say that Steam Tactics is a GOTY contender or anything. It’s far too simplistic for that. But when that simplicity is enough to keep me going back to the game again and again, even when there’s plenty of other stuff I probably should be playing instead, that’s more than enough to make the game worthy of a recommendation.

If I’d paid full price for it on release day, I’d be wondering why I paid so much money for a game that feels closer to EDF or Goat Simulator than anything else. Obviously, I had fun with it, so I wouldn’t say never buy it or never play it — but you may be better off waiting it bit for it to come down in price. Then you hop in, and start crashing cars and causing mayhem to your heart’s content.

It’s pleasant to see the game get more colourful as you go along, and the skins are undeniably cute. Don’t go into Monochrome World expecting something to reinvent the wheel — or, I guess, the marble — and you should enjoy it just fine.

It doesn’t matter how little action there is on the screen, it’s fairly common here to have everything slow to a crawl as the eponymous heroes do crazy things like moving from left to right. But that would be forgivable if Mushroom Heroes was otherwise a good game — and by “good,” I mean “fully playable.” If it were (or if it gets patched after this review is written), it would definitely be worth recommending to puzzle platformer fans, but in this state, it’s just a game that needs to be avoided.

To be sure, none of this will be that new if you played Slayaway Camp. But this is one of those cases where that doesn’t matter. It basically comes down to “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — only with the added bonus that everything that was broken when it came to Slayaway Camp is entirely fixed in Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle.

I wish I could wholeheartedly suggest checking out G.I. Joe Operation Blackout, but I don’t think a solid roster of playable characters and an enjoyable story is enough to put up with the lackluster gameplay.

Whether it is unraveling the mystery of the disc, trying to last over 20 seconds each room, or completing it’s Pokedex-ish compendium of discs, or completing the 8 hardcore challenges Disc Room packs a lot for a variety of players. It seems Devolver Digital has been a beacon of light in an otherwise dreary 2020, putting out another title which will likely land on my personal year end list. So let’s hope we’ll see “the scientist” cross over in another Devolver published title where he’ll be grabbing a crown.

Much like its predecessor, Caveman Tales almost certainly isn’t worth paying extra just to play on your Switch, but also like its predecessor, if you can live with the price you’re getting a perfectly tolerable time-waster in return.

Thanks to an insane number of hours spent playing previous NHL games over the last several months, I do know what a good hockey game looks like, and NHL 21 definitely fits the bill. The on-ice product is as fast-paced and free-flowing as the real thing, and there are enough options here to keep you occupied for months on end — which, given the circumstances, is exactly what you may need right now.

When a) you can see everything a game has to offer in 30 minutes, and b) you’re left feeling like you’ve played this exact game somewhere before, it’s hard to be too enthused about Tamiku. There’s an interesting idea here, and kudos to Joysan for nailing the retro feel so perfectly, but it’s hard not to feel like there should be something more here.

I can’t think of a better platformer released in the past several years. Crash 4: It’s About Time is an absolute must buy and it’s truly about time that Activision returned Crash to his former glory. Hopefully we don’t have to wait another 20 years before we get another sequel.

Golf Zero won’t be the best golf game or platformer you’ve ever played, but, if nothing else, it’s kind of interesting.

Here, nostalgia probably adds to your enjoyment, but even if you strip all that away, you’re still left with a pretty solid kart racer that adds one or two things to the usual formula.

On some level, I guess, Tamarin is sort of amazing, in that I can’t think of when I last played a game that was this much of an outright disaster on every level. I’ve played plenty of terrible games recently, but at least in those cases you could see what they were going for, and you could imagine what good versions of those games might look like. In Tamarin, the game is an absolute fiasco at a conceptual level. That doesn’t mean you should play it, of course, but the game gets points for effort, if absolutely nothing else..

Obviously, you could just play Nicole as a traditional VN, but that feels like it’s missing the point — and, moreover, if you do that, it’s not like the story or the characters are all that interesting. Which means your two options here are to either read through an incredibly tedious novel, or add to the tedium by turning the game into a life-sim/visual novel. Whichever way you choose to play Nicole, one thing is certain: it’s going to bore you.

In the end, it’s kind of telling that all the commentary around Crysis — and Crysis Remastered — focuses on the graphics. As shooters go, there are plenty of better options out there, regardless of what platform you’re playing it on. In terms of looks, though? On that front, this is still one heck of an achievement.

Even if it’s not an all-time classic, it’s still a very good game, and if, like me, you’ve never played it, the Switch remaster is an excellent opportunity to dive in and discover what you missed.

While I’m not usually a huge fan of tactical RPGs, I can totally see how fans of the genre would get a lot out of this game. Between the roguelike nature of the levels and the fact you’re basically creating your army from scratch, no two playthroughs of Othercide will ever be quite the same. Provided you’re cool with dying a lot, that makes for a pretty unique experience.

Prehistoric Dude is for when you want a Metroidvania platformer that doesn’t require a whole lot of thought — and when you want that, it’s just about perfect.

It’s the big things — like, again, the 8 main characters and the 100+ hour story — that really define Romancing SaGa 3, and on that front, the game is…well, it’s an acquired taste, for sure. But if you’re a fan of JRPGs and you want to see an interesting time capsule from the genre’s evolution, it’s well worth investigating.

Despite my qualms with elements of Spelunky 2, I still can’t help to get “one more run” in hopes of getting that elusive win (over 1000 attempts and still a 0% victory rate). Even if I’ve achieved a victory, there are plenty of secrets waiting to be discovered! Rescuing the Spelunkys might end up in my list of unfulfilled rougelike checklist, but at least I’ll have had plenty of fun while I was attempting it.

Mask of Mists is certainly nowhere near as good as its influences, but it’s still a pleasant way to pass an afternoon.

One thing about Urban Trial Playground that I remember pretty vividly is that I was getting pretty sick of it by the end, because it started feeling a little grind-heavy and all the levels felt the same. With Urban Trial, that feeling started to kick in somewhere around the second track. This is not an enjoyable game, and even if its predecessors didn’t set the bar all that high, Urban Trial Tricky comes nowhere close to clearing it.

Honestly, to me WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a good start for a new engine and possibly a new franchise from 2K. Many of my issues can be corrected with patches or game updates. The gameplay is fast, fun, and easy to pick up. I really wish the game wasn’t so microtransaction heavy as this could have been a stronger recommendation, but that could change over time depending on fan and critic feedback.

However you want to classify Metro: Last Light Redux, there’s no denying that it’s an excellent game. Both it and Metro 2033 feel right at home on the Switch, and combined, they make for a fantastic — and incredibly gloomy — experience.