Headbangers: Rhythm Royale is a fun and unique take on the battle royal formula, but a lot of the rhythm minigames just feel way too similar.

At its heart Valkyrie is a straightforward, arcade shooter which lacks enough variety in its gameplay to stop it growing stale quite quickly, and, for the asking price, it’s perhaps only fully recommendable to the most enthusiastic of space pirates.

A fantastic concept that stays true to its vision, but just falls short where it matters - though will be popular with speed-runners.

It ticks all the boxes you expect from Assassin’s Creed, whilst also integrating a few new ideas into the mix that help to make the game stand out as a distinct entity.

The Chant is a little rough around the edges, but there're some smart ideas and a strong story that keep you hooked throughout.

Soft Body is a challenging puzzle-action game, with a colourful palette and beautiful soundtrack, but its repetitive nature stops it from being more than a niche curio.

After all the hype, controversy, and delays, the end results are satisfying. Some may be turned off by the shortness of the standard game, others may be turned off by the toughness of some of the bosses, but there are plenty of nostalgic and challenge-seeking players that will get a kick out of Mighty No. 9. There’s a hope in me that there’ll be a sequel, one that really pushes the formula forward, but for now, this is just another Mega Man game – make of that what you will.

Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 goes for a family-friendly approach that works, but can't compete with the fun of the Mario & Sonic titles.

A fun novelty buddy shooter that offers a pure enough experience but lacks real substance and character.

It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you’re a veteran of deck building you’ll find a lot to love in Vault of the Void.

It’s not a bad puzzle game by any means, and the virtual worlds add intrigue and wonder, but overall you won’t be going back after finishing the two-hour playthrough.

Unearthing the story at your own pace is wonderful. However, Ether One goes too far in that direction and puzzles become tedious exercises in trying combinations of different items you acquired in a completely different area.

An odd combination of George Orwell's 1984, puzzle platforming and comedy, which doesn't blend as well as you'd hope. As good as the setting is, it doesn't make up for the rigid platforming or out of place jokes.

Overall, the Raven is greater than the sum of its parts, with the strong start overshadowing the shortcomings of the 2nd and 3rd chapters. KING Art could be accused of putting more effort into the opening charge and failing to keep up the momentum with the subsequent releases but, as a whole, The Raven is still a very worthy adversary for adventure-loving opponents.

Sir Lovalot is a simple platformer that packs a lot into its less than 2 hour runtime, but struggles with water levels.

An addictive little colony sim held back by inconsistent difficulty and stingey tutorials.

On the whole, there’s not enough substance to make a second playthrough viable, so the value for money is questionable, yet the mystery as it stands is well worth investigating.

The Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series is a love letter to fans of the series, but by modern standards the games fall a little short.

Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn has a great game tucked away inside. But the time that has passed since the original and the extra additions tarnish the experience we fondly remember.

The striking is very satisfying, and the new submission system is interesting and creates a more level playing field than in the past, but the game is let down by poor wrestling and transition mechanics.

Alien Rage feels like a love letter to first person shooters from the very first moment you’re dumped onto a giant rock hurtling through space. It pokes fun at the genre in all the right places but, when it needs to get down to business and actually feel like a decent shooter, it does that well too.

Fat Princess is a fun, well made, but ultimately shallow four-player hack and slash with a cutesy aesthetic and amusing writing.

Lil Gator Game is a charming exploration focused 3d platformer, but is held back by Switch performance.

The final boss fight is challenging and worth the DLC, while the PvP arena will keep fans busy for some time, but ultimately the world of Ariandel is bleakly beautiful if unsatisfying.

This is a game built from the ground up for co-op, you’ll have more fun with more players. Magicka 2 loses something when tackled in single player.

It isn’t a perfect encapsulation of the sport, but it is the best one to have appeared on any handheld in recent memory, and one which makes fine use of the Unreal Engine to generate some high-fidelity looks on the Vita’s OLED screen.

Bore Blasters is a fun little time-waster, but it's not an experience you'll remember after you've moved on.

What it lacks in the kookiness of its similarly successful One Piece stable-mate it makes up for in bombast, explosions and simple speed and playability.

Very Very Valet is a decent, decent effort from Toyful – a quirky premise executed in an eye catching and genuinely funny way, with the positives nearly always outweighing the negatives.

It is strange to find an adventure game that you actually want to play through a second time right after completing it just to see what you could have done differently.

If you're looking for a tactical war game where you're sitting behind the controls of a steel behemoth, then this is for you. There's a lot to grasp, and it'll take a lot of time to learn, but it's worth giving a go.

Aokana is an entertaining Sci-Fi Sports Fiction story, that is ultimately hard to stomach due to a plethora of lewd and toxic moments packed throughout.

What the Bat is fun if you just want to kill half an hour, and its humour and variety make it colourful and unpredictable every time. [Meta Quest 2]

Peglin is the blend of Peggle and Roguelike I never knew I needed, but the luck factor and repeating layouts let it down a little.

Played with friends, Starship Troopers: Extermination is an enjoyable enough time-killer, but it really lacks the polish and panache of its most immediate rivals.

A decent stealth experience, but the AI tends to sour the experience, as does the occasional camera angle issue.

A kids RPG that’s kind of hard to hate, but the mileage may vary depending on how much said child likes to do as they’re told.

If you like the idea of running a farm, give it a go, but be warned that it will take up a lot of your time to get used to the basics.

A Fisherman's Tale has some fantastic puzzles and great level design, but the movement manages to ruin some of the puzzles.

If you enjoy sandbox games and want one that manages to add in quite a few mechanics and systems together, Happy Birthdays is a charming game.

A competent, though uncomplicated, puzzle effort, with a decidedly average storytelling style. The invisibility mechanic is also a wonderful idea, yet flawed in execution. Rain has moments of greatness, particularly in the way it is framed, but overall, it drizzles to a close.

This War of Mine wants you to care about the people who have been affected by the war, rather than soldiers on the front-line. Via conflicting thoughts the characters have, the cast’s paper-thin stories and an elementary crafting system, it never fully reaches its potential. But the moments where you’re racing across an outpost trying to dodge military fire and robbing someone blind right before their eyes; those are the points where this war does genuinely feel like mine.

The story could have done with a little bit more fine-tuning and the actor playing Conrad would have done a bit better if he hadn’t been channelling every single cheesy 80′s movie star simultaneously, but the gameplay, the bit that’s most important when it comes to an actual game, is enjoyable from beginning to end.

Old skool gameplay with some new style twists, Mighty Gunvolt Burst is a more accessible slice of nostalgia style gaming.

Despite some frustration with the camera and some platforming issues, A Hat in Time is a decent game that captures some of the magic of classic 3D platformers.

Street Fighter 2 remains a good game, whatever incarnation it appears in, but the new modes add nothing (and are bad) and it's far too expensive. A conundrum, then, and one only you can decide if you're willing to pay out for.

A solid first effort from the Romanian outfit, a good narrative just let down by some overly simple puzzling.

Occasional repetition issues aside, The Shapeshifting Detective succeeds with strong character dialogue, a well-used morphing mechanic and its atmospheric setting.

Don’t expect to be utterly blown away by Shin’en’s latest – but don’t sleep on its ability to deliver a subtly compulsive experience, either. For less than a tenner you get a full thirty stages to play through, with some delightful touches that, for the most part, outweigh the flaws.

It's not a bad game by any means, but I'm starting to feel fatigued by episodic games. The characters work well together, and there are some nice ideas, but I'm not finding anything beyond this to keep me hooked.

Shadow Warrior is a wild ride; crazy, hilarious and fun. It’s an old-school wolf in modern clothing that plays and feels just like the classic 90’s shooters we all fondly remember. Though it tries a bit too hard in some areas, it can’t be faulted for at least trying to elevate itself above other shooters.

It's great to have a basketball arcade game back in the public domain, but it falls short of the successful heights of NBA Jam.

A fresh take on the physics-based video games we’re used to, but gets tied up with awkward camera angles and tricky movement.

Morbid: The Seven Acolytes is an enjoyable adventure if you’re after a steep challenge, but the lack of certain elements limits the amount of options you have.

Aquanox: Deep Descent is an enjoyable blaster that will keep you engaged for the time it takes to get through the story. The multiplayer modes feel a bit bolted-on, but the deep-sea environments are top-notch, the story is functional if not thrilling, and the shooting feels satisfying throughout.

Last Stop does a decent job of hooking you into its story, but the ending lets it down. The journey of characters is more enjoyable than where it ends up.

Despite its colourful exterior and nice design, Mystery Castle suffers from a few too many repetitive levels to really excel.

Beat Slayer is an enjoyable enough game in short doses, but does nothing to move its genre forward or innovate on established ideas.

ADIOS is an interesting little game, but fiddly controls and annoying camera can quickly erode that fun.

There’s a lot to do in Biomutant on Nintendo Switch, and if you can get past the shoddy appearance, there’s a decent open world game in here.

SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell is a repetitive game, but one that has enough draw to it to give you that “just one more go” drive.

If you enjoy gameplay focused experiences and can tolerate some jank, Dead or School will be worth getting when it drops in price.

Tropico 6 on Switch has a lot of content and a highly customisable sandbox mode, however it suffers some slight performance drops particularly in handheld mode that makes the port difficult to recommend fully.

Gylt may not push the boundaries as far as its gameplay, but it finds a niche in the horror genre and has some nice moments along the way.

Costume Quest 2 may look appealing on the outside, but dull combat and repetitive quests mar a good storyline and some interesting ideas.

The VideoKid clearly loves the 1980s, and it hopes you do too. But strip away the nostalgia and you're left with a pretty basic experience. Unless you REALLY enjoyed Paperboy, you're better off looking elsewhere.

Ten years on, even with the aesthetically wonderful amiibo that can be purchased with this game, it's hard to see how the titular Chibi is suddenly going to become a wildly popular player in the Nintendo universe based upon his exploits here.

Spirit Mancer has lots of great ideas and some seriously awesome boss fights, but dull combat against regular enemies really drags it down.

Predator: Hunting Grounds is adecent asymmetrical online shooter, despite lacking the polish of bigger, more established games. Although there aren't a lot of modes, and load times to play as the Predator are too long, it's still a lot of fun.

A marmite-puzzler that some will adore, and others will despise. Despite that, it's a fun puzzler.

Super Daryl Deluxe isn’t that bad a game. You’ll face the classic trope of the RPG difficulty spike in each new area and maybe a menu bug along the way but for the RPG fans among you it has plenty for you to do and see that you’ll spending a fair amount with Daryl and a host of familiar faces.

Iron Danger as an experience relies so heavily on the time-travel combat mechanic that it doesn’t really present you with much besides that. Everything else is a little bit bare bones.

Football, Management and Tactics combines the best and worst parts of football management and strategy games, and that’s probably about it.

I hope they patch these issues out because the game itself with progression, content, and the lovely gameplay is well worth checking out. You can download it for free and check out the basics. Out of the licensed tables, I love the Back to the Future one and have been playing mostly on that one.

It isn’t the best first-person adventure you’ll ever play, but it does offer some fun in its combat and time travel mechanics to warrant your time.

Berserk could have been great, but instead it’s an average, repetitive romp that would have benefited from a bit more thought put into what makes it special.

An aesthetically-pleasing but decidedly empty puzzle game, Pneuma scratches an itch but fails to excite.

Sword Coast Legends is a decent CRPG let down by an overall lack of imagination and irritating difficulty spikes.

Legacy of the First Blade is a mostly underwhelming first DLC that has some interesting story information for long term fans of the Assassin's Creed series.

Glitch Hero is a nice way to teach younger gamers some programming basics, but the poor combat really lets it down.

Imp of the Sun isn’t a bad game at all, but with a few issues and so much choice when it comes to Metroidvanias it’s tough to recommend.

The Occupation is an inventive political thriller that does something new, but is let down by poor AI and some frustrating bugs.

#Blud is a gorgeous game packed full of charm with fantastic writing, but the combat and controls prevent it from being a must play.

Undisputed has a good swing, but in boxing, if you come at the king, you best not miss. Just like the irrepressible Canelo, Fight Night is still the reigning champ.

The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology is a pleasant enough experience though, and won’t out-stay its welcome.

A unique experience that gets tedious very quickly but also one that should be experienced by anyone craving some mindless (but perverse) fun.

Wanted: Dead starts off strong with plenty to learn and enjoy, but towards the end bogs itself down by trying to be difficult, forgoing what made it good to begin with.

The Assembly is a good idea with great building blocks for its intended exploration and puzzle mechanics but it feels somewhat undeveloped. It'll no doubt leave you intrigued yet ultimately pining for more. [Tested with HTC Vive]

Frogun is great if you like collecting every last coin, but some bad levels and checkpoint issues hold it back.

The Silver Case isn’t a bad game by any means, but it is definitely suited to a specific audience due to its story-heavy nature and difficult puzzles.

An interesting concept with a mixed execution. Never Breakup has some fun puzzles and mechanics, but navigating the stages is made tricky thanks to imprecise controls and a top down perspective.

Niffelheim is a decent 2D survival game that plays it all just a little too seriously to be called enjoyable. It looks pretty good, but the simple combat and finicky systems hold it back.

An enjoyable enough adventure through Warhammer 40K’s dark future that never quite manages to exhilarate you.

Chronicles of 2 Heroes: Amaterasu's Wrath has some great ideas and tasty platforming, but the difficulty will put some people off.

InnerSpace is a visually stunning game that ultimately fails to connect. It wants the player to explore and uncover its secrets, but places them in an environment that is deliberately confusing to the point of frustration.

Backdrops still aren't easy on the eye, Gared's tale has dipped and it doesn't have the tension present in previous episodes, but Mira and Rodrik's gradual transformations are a delight, and Asher's narrative finally steps up.

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg provides a nice RPG history lesson, but the combat and alchemy feel pretty outdated.

Cloud Gardens is a lovely relaxing game and beautiful to look at, but it gets repetitive rather quickly.