A good city builder provides a constant balancing act between keeping your people fed, happy and healthy. That should be doubly so for a city builder set on an alien planet with countless unknown dangers lurking in every corner. Aven Colony does little to deliver the struggle of a space colony, or any colony really, and that is a missed opportunity if I ever saw one. Even if you’re not looking for that experience, there is little to recommend it as a regular city builder - it’s just too easy.

Nazi Zombie Army is obviously meant to be played socially. The single-player experience gets boring and frustrating rather quickly.

The mechanics of the TRI work well, allowing a unique puzzle experience, but the frustrations of finding my way around the later levels ultimately diminished what could have been a much more enjoyable experience.

There is fun to be had here, but aside from a few moments of joyous parkour, it's the sort of fun you can have in dozens of other open-world games. There is certainly some added fun in co-op with a couple of friends, but in a world where we get another open-world game every week, I just cannot recommend anyone go out and buy Dying Light 2 at full price. Especially not when it came out right before Horizon: Forbidden West and Elden Ring, both of which look far more promising.

In a way, it’s a shame that In Sound Mind has the fundamentals of survival horror down so well I can’t help but imagine how much more compelling it would be if it weren’t let down by its heavy-handed writing and dull enemies.

What My Hero One’s Justice 2 does right in this context is creating a gloriously epic display of combat on-screen – invigorating gameplay with the same clamour and panache the anime series is known for. Fights erupt with the same sense of danger and intensity when on the small-screen, with individual characters hosting a bevy of unique animations to lay a good smack-down on their opponents.

So if you’ve got friends, Shadow Puppeteer may be worth a look at for some fun co-op puzzle solving action. Otherwise, it might be best to create some shadow puppets of your own on the wall.

Miasma Chronicles is a perfectly passable game, one with an admittedly long campaign that fairly justifies the modestly-high retail price. The problem is that the campaign in question feels far longer than it ought, because most aspects of its narrative and dialogue fail entirely to bring the player closer to the characters they're playing as, a critical failing for any game calling itself an RPG. Decent performances from the voice cast almost manages to redeem the game's storytelling failings, but never fully. The combat is often excessively repetitive, and the killcam system often seems more interested in capturing footage of the foliage presumably for a nature documentary, than focusing on the far more interesting bleeding and screaming enemy flailing around on the ground. Hopefully Miasma Chronicles does eventually get a sequel, because it does manage to lay down a lot of potentially interesting groundwork, albeit without ever managing to fully capitalize on it.

There’s comfort to be found in Cossacks 3. Despite its problems, it manages to replicate what made RTS’ of yore enjoyable with its vast armies and settlement building. Unfortunately, questionable UI choices, a lack of variety and poor AI result in an experience that leaves a lot to be desired.

To be upfront, this by no means is the best thing that has been released to the heisting genre, but having said that, it is also not the worst *cough Payday 3 cough*. Crime Boss has a lot to offer and is fairly priced unlike a lot of the games we see today. Players also need to keep in mind that Crime Boss is receiving continuous support and improvements with 4 major updates planned for the future. The one thing that lets this game down is the writing and poor NPC design. If you are looking into purchasing Crime Boss, I would recommend getting a friend to tag along with you, as the solo gameplay loop can get boring very fast. With how dedicated InGame Studious is towards this title, I have no doubt it is going to get better over time, but currently, there is a lot of refining that needs to be done.

For all its flaws, Croixleur Sigma does manage to neatly toe the line of 'easy to pick up, hard to master' – a balance which many games from much larger developers simply can't seem to manage.

Sprinter will only take you a couple of hours to complete, and you can go back and try and beat the Gold times for each level, but you may not want to.

Cross of the Dutchman is fairly average in most respects, but that’s not to say you can’t have a good time while playing.

Ultimately, the lack of single-player content, such as the boss fights and time challenges found in Transformed, leaves the experience feeling hollow. I don't know what critics are thinking calling this superior to Mario Kart World. At this stage, even Kirby Air Raiders is a better time than this middling pile of mediocrity.

If the game had come with more variation it might have made things a little different but in its current form, Pac-Man 256 just doesn't have enough new material to keep it entertaining for very long. Then again, for five bucks, you probably can't expect much more.

In reality, there’s nothing new to be found in Next Jump: Shmup Tactics. It has very basic turn based combat, and a space traversal system that lacks the options and variety of FTL: Faster Than Light’s five year old method. It’s cheap though, so it could be worth a couple of hours of your time if you’re looking for a quick blast of action.

Marlo Briggs and the Mask of Death is an action packed, brain-dead, budget thriller and if you are looking for a cheap release for all that repressed adrenaline, you will definitely be able to find worse things to do with your money. If, however, you are looking for a challenge to your intellect or a test of your skills, look elsewhere. The only thing Marlo Briggs will challenge is your patience.

Get it if you’re a huge fan of the stealth/infiltration genre and need to play everything on offer in that niche. Just be aware that there are superior games out there that will undoubtedly serve better to satisfy your assassination fantasies.

If you want to play alone, I'd suggest passing on The Jackbox Party Pack, but if you want to have some fun with friends and don't have similar-style board games lying around, The Jackbox Party Pack may be just for you.

So, the visuals have a retro look, the jazzy background music is kinda cool, there are some Worms-style comical weapons and although there are a number of different game modes and a range of maps to play, the gameplay is still pretty much the same for all.

On its original release in 1988, Gold Rush! would’ve been an impressive achievement. By today’s standards, there’s nothing here that would attract someone new to the remake.

Project Temporality is okay, and that’s the feeling you get from all aspects of the game. It’s well made, and some thought clearly went into the puzzles and story, but not a lot of thought went into how much fun it is to actually play.

Completely Stretchy is a very finicky game, and unfortunately has a lot of jank to it - I actually ended up getting soft-locked from one of the quests, seemingly one of the major ones to acquire an item that furthers progression. This occurred due to the game not really liking when the player character is moved by objects besides their stretchy arm, so became glitched outside of an elevator as it lowered down, There was a button up above to call the elevator, but it didn't appear to work. I went back a few times after the fact to see if it resolved itself, and even tried glitching back into place to try continuing the quest, but unfortunately there wasn't any luck. The only solution within Completely Stretchy would probably be to start a new save file. The game is short at least, so there's that, but losing progress is frustrating, even in a short game. If the softlock were fixed somehow, then it would be much easier to recommend Completely Stretchy, but as the game currently stands, it is enjoyable but rather flawed.

Third Eye Crime is a well built title that serves as a time sink if nothing else and while it is forgettable in terms of gameplay, the story, art, and music may make it worth at least one playthrough.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed my time with The Keep. I wouldn’t go as far to call it especially memorable, but the accessibility of its gameplay deserves recognition for anyone not-so familiar with dungeon crawlers. It’s the sort of game you can dip into, kill a few monsters and hop out again with a nice sense of achievement. Admittedly there is an elephant in the room, Legend of Grimrock from 2012 does almost everything The Keep does, except better. That isn’t to say The Keep doesn’t have a place, as if you aren’t familiar with RPGs and would prefer a much more casual experience, it’s still worth a look. The spellcasting has a surprising amount of depth too, so maybe if you’ve already tried Legend of Grimrock and want to play more, The Keep will keep you satisfied.

Blood Bowl 3, at its best, never manages to even equal the quality of its predecessors at their lowest, but it would also be wildly inaccurate to say that there is no hope whatsoever for some at least partial redemption moving forward, as Cyanide Studio desperately attempts to salvage both the game, and their unfortunately-marred reputation. Hopefully the hard lessons learned here will result in a more faithful, and less monetization-crazed, future sequel, whenever they get around to working on such. In the meantime, longtime fans and newcomers alike would do well to keep their distance from this particular bloody field.

For many turn based strategy titles it is the combat that keeps you engaged. The Great Whale Road has some really great writing but ultimately that is not enough to carry the game. The combat is so intensely unrewarding that this is one story I’d rather have read in paperback format.

Is Inmates one of the better horror games I've played? No. Is it one of the worst I've played? Far from it. Inmates has two things going for it, absolutely nailing it on the aesthetic of the setting and pulling me in with a desire to know the outcome of the story. It's a short chore to work through, but one that I can say that I'm glad I did.