Guacamelee 2 takes a very solid base of the original and adds enough to prevent this iteration from being stale. The new mechanics blend in seamlessly and adds to the experience. The humor hits, more than it misses and the visuals are vibrant like it’s predecessor. All in all if you had to choose only on metroidvania-style game to play in 2018, make sure Guacamelee 2 is high on your list.

Fill-a-Pix may come with some decent pedigree, but decent pedigree means nothing when the end result is so boring.

By itself, Gene Rain’s gameplay is only bad. Factor in plot, dialogue, and instructions that barely make sense at the best of times, and you’ve got a recipe for a genuinely terrible game — albeit one that will undoubtedly delight bad game connoisseurs.

If you’re a fan of the series then this is another solid entry. Will it be your favorite? That probably depends on the person, but there’s definitely something here for everyone who has liked any version up to WarioWare Gold. If you missed the tilt controls or wish we had another stylus version, this is where you can enjoy an encore of series past with the largest collection of migrogames yet! Me personally, I’m not complaining about WarioWare being back in our lives.

Musynx is unquestionably one of the most demanding music games I’ve ever played. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it (in fact, I wanted to throw my Vita across the room not too long after starting), but if you’re looking for a crazy challenge, you’ll find it here.

The bright splashes of paint really stand out against the black background, and they give the game a look and feel that make it seem like a relic from the early ‘90s. The gameplay, however, is of a much more modern vintage — and, unfortunately, it doesn’t compare well to its contemporaries. INK may be more visually appealing than its competition, but it doesn’t play nearly as well.

If you already own Madden 18 and you’re a casual football fan, you’d be hard pressed to find anything in here really worth the $60 price tag, especially when you can download the current roster via the community downloads. But if you’re looking for your way back to Madden or have not ever played the series, this is a great jump on point as the visuals are amazing and it’s a near perfect football simulation.

Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk succeeds as a visual novel generally and an otome specifically because it ignores its genre conventions in favour of telling a compelling story, with largely decent characters and enough content to keep you interested all the way to the end. I’m not sure what Aksys’ goal with the Summer of Mystery was, but if it was to showcase just how impressive and engaging the genre can be, I’d say it succeeded beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Super Skull Smash GO! 2 Turbo doesn’t try to break the mold that’s been around for several decades, but it doesn’t really need to. It promises players retro-infused platforming fun, and, by any measure, it firmly delivers on that promise.

If it had just stuck to the hidden object part of its name, it could’ve been one heck of a game. Instead, it’s half very good hidden object game, and half thoroughly nonsensical puzzle — and, unfortunately, those two halves don’t quite match up to being a worthwhile whole.

I’d say that this episode is a pretty great start to the finale of the series for Telltale. It’s been a long, and occasionally bumpy road, but this seems to be shaping up extremely well early on. The cliffhanger for this episode has me anxious to see what happens next, and the new cast of characters are more appealing than most of the hardened jerks that populated The New Frontier. It’ll be interesting to see where things go from here, but again, I’m not holding my breath for a happy ending.

I’d be lying, of course, if I said that I found the puzzles that compelling. And the fact that they almost always lead to more gore (albeit hand-drawn gore) is more than a little off-putting. But still, if you’re in the mood for a puzzle-platformer/word game that’s different from pretty much everything else out there, Haimrik may be an interesting investment.

This was an underrated gem on the Wii’s library, and its remastered version on the Switch is giving people a second chance to discover it. If you’re wise (and, obviously, you’re into inventive platformers), don’t miss out on it this time.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is an absolute must play for anyone who enjoys that genre at all. As for the Switch version, it is a bit of a mixed bag. If you only own Nintendo consoles and never use anything else, get it. If you are looking to play the game on the go and the Switch is your preferred gaming console, get it. If you have other consoles and you only use your Switch now and then, and want the best experience possible with Wolfenstein II, go a different route and experience it for the first time the way the developers intended.

I really wish I could say anything positive about Maximum Football 2018. After all, it’s clearly a labour of love, and you hate to say something bad about a game that people have so clearly put their hearts and souls into. But when the end result is something as bad in every conceivable way as this game is, your options for positive words are pretty limited. Maybe one day down the road this franchise may evolve into a worthy Madden alternative, but right now, it’s not even close to being a passable stopgap solution.

It’s one of my favorite Hideki Kamiya games of all time, and I was very happy to revisit Amaterasu, Issun, and the eclectic cast of characters contained within.

Given the game’s structure will usually lead to short playthroughs, these short sessions won’t feel that empty and with the amount of unlockables means I’ll be playing for quite the while before all the empty jars in the opening area are filled. With this summer having other similar platformers releasing (La-Mulana 2, Iconoclasts, Chasm, Salt and Sanctuary, Death’s Gambit, and Guacamelee 2), Dead Cells definitely will hold its own and it will be in contention to be one of 2018’s finest.

If you’ve ever wanted to play a JRPG but don’t know where to begin, Rainbow Skies serves as a pretty thorough intro. (And, of course, if you’re already into JRPGs and you need something to sink your next couple of weeks into, it’ll more than serve that function, too.)

This is a great set of 8 mostly classic Mega Man games and will certainly help get you reacquainted with the Blue Bomber leading up to his more retro return in Mega Man 11. The series started to tale off with the PS2 titles (horrible voice acting mixed with some questionable 2.5D designs), but I would love to see a resurgence in the X series like we did with the OG Mega Man series, just please do it in the 16 bit SNES style.

Super Destronaut DX is essentially Space Invaders for the present day, so your feelings on that classic will dictate entirely how you feel about this modern update.

Hello Neighbor is the kind of awful that doesn’t need much time to make itself obvious. It stinks pretty much from the get-go, and that stench only gets more putrid with every second you spend with the game.

The whole thing is disorienting and unsettling — a lot like the movie that inspired it. Neverout isn’t the easiest game to love, but I imagine that those people who do love it will love it a lot.

If you’re not super into mobile gaming but you want to recreate the experience on your Switch, then it might be kind of worth checking this game out, but it’s not going to be the end of the world if you miss out on it, either.

Where Zelda is all about combat and the story, Yonder is a much more relaxing experience. It wants you to simply settle into the rhythms of living on the island of Gemea — and it’s a testament to how good it is that, given half a chance, it’ll have no problem sucking you in.

It’s not quite the full spiritual successor to Burnout that we need, but it’ll certainly do the job until that arrives.

Tempest 4000 is a fantastic version of a true classic. However, no matter how stunning it looks, or simple it plays it’s definitely not for every gamer out there. Those looking for a legitimate challenge will find it here. Those looking for a deep story or engaging quest will not find anything like that. It’s a simple shooter designed after the tried and true classic Arcade gameplay. Being the Classic Gaming fan that I am, I had an absolute blast playing this, but it might be hard to persuade other gamers to take a look.

I’d like to say that there are some points in the game’s favour, but that would be a lie. Ice Cream Surfer is a bargain basement App Store game masquerading as a mid-priced indie game, and at that price you should stay far, far away.

Classic trilogy or not, the idea that you have to sink 40 or 50 hours into a game before it gets really good is kind of insane. By itself (or, I guess, going by the two games included here), Muv-Luv falls a little short of being a must-buy…though, at the same time, if you want to check out the third game (and I do after playing through Muv-Luv Unlimited), it’s probably unavoidable. So — buyer beware.