A visually stunning and hugely enjoyable open-world racer that captures the beauty of Japan, but lacks depth in its driving disciplines and only scratches the surface of the country’s car culture.

First and foremost, Dragon's Dogma 2 is for players, who simply want more Dragon's Dogma. There is a new playable race, some playable vocations have changed, and a new biome has been added. Apart from that, it plays pretty much exactly like its predecessor. The story is nothing to write home about, side missions are very generic, the pawns have zero personality and can get annoying with their endless, repetitive chatter. On the plus side, the combat is more over the top than ever and motivates players to try out all vocations, skills and spells. The endless amounts of battles and low enemy variety, however, will feel stale after some time.

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance is an audiovisual marvel and feels magical to play. Sadly, it is held back by its bloated structure and repetitive fights that never quite manage to challenge you up until the very end.

Sonic Racing Crossworlds is a game of extremes, initially causing frustration with its chaotic races, sensory overload, and often unfair item system. However, players who push through the steep learning curve will be rewarded with an uncompromisingly fast and rewarding racer that brilliantly captures the feel of classic 3D Sonic turbo stages. Despite the flawed item balancing, its fantastic track design, motivating tuning options, and the dynamic Crossworlds mechanic make it a challenging and ultimately satisfying experience for dedicated Sonic fans who value pure, unfiltered speed above all else.

The Oblivion remaster could be so good if it didn't bring the same bugs with it as all Bethesda games. Again and again, the foundation shines through the new facade, and unfortunately, it's just as dilapidated as it was almost 20 years ago. The remaster is playable, but a little more love and especially time would have done the new edition of Oblivion good. Not to say that it would have been necessary.

A fantastic combat system and memorable bosses are held back by tedious level design. Nearly every stage is double the length it should be and gets visually stale even before then.

Borderlands 4 offers - who woulda thunk - more Borderlands. Frantic gunplay with improved movement, entertaining weapons, spectacular boss battles and a crude sense of humor, which doesn't always hit the mark and takes turns with the comparatively serious, dark main storyline. During our review, the game lacked polish and took a few rough hours before it started to pick up its pace. The large, open world has almost zero transitions or load screens. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, it also requires somewhat up to date hardware. The endgame is meant to entertain users for many weeks and months via events and increasing challenges for bigger and better loot. That sounds promising in theory - release will show how it works out in practice.

Paper Trail is a clever puzzle adventure game that lets you change whole levels while using the art of origami folding to solve puzzles. This is exciting and fun at first, but wears a little thin over time, especially during long sessions.

Reanimal is a captivating horror adventure with an intense creepy atmosphere and a cinematic look. It provides variety in terms of gameplay, but leaves a lot of narrative potential untapped.

Indika is first and foremost an arthouse project and a political statement, rather than a classic game that is purely for entertainment. In terms of visual design, it is often related to Eastern European film classics, such as those by Andrey Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr. Personally, this is worth a lot to me and I look forward to analysing, discussing and interpreting aspects of the game with other players. This makes it easier for me to forgive the stumbling blocks in the gameplay. They make the experience of this remarkable game unnecessarily bumpy. Indika is a diamond in the rough that will sparkle all the brighter if you have a knack for Eastern European art. Everyone else may be left irritated or even bored.)

The story of King Arthur in the dark suffers from the poor execution despite its great atmosphere.

Last Epoch convinces despite a weak story with its action-packed time travel and diverse skill system.

The label ‘okay’ was invented for games like SpongeBob SquarePants: Tides of Giants. It's a solid game for a younger target audience, which represents its brand well and offers some funny ideas. However, there is little that is truly compelling here, especially since many of the mechanics have already been implemented better elsewhere. So, while you'll have a nice time in Bikini Bottom, you won't feel any real excitement.

A chaotic yet charming pirate adventure that blends Like A Dragon-style madness with engaging seafaring gameplay. The start of the game however is a bit slow, before the story gets interesting.

Kirby Air Riders suffers from the difficult task of outwardly conveying its true nature. Those hoping for a fun-racer in the vein of Mario Kart World might be quite disappointed. While the comparison is obvious and superficially accurate, Air Riders relies heavily on a unique gameplay experience. It rewards players who overcome the challenging initial hurdle and have the enthusiasm to delve into the mostly simple, yet complex, systems and mechanics. There's no doubt that casual gamers can enjoy the title. However, if you want to take a few relaxed spins, you'd be better off with the plumber's latest racing adventure.

Even if it has great looks: the interior of the latest instalment of the Civilization series is not very inspiring. Some good ideas are counterbalanced by a lot of bad ones. The biggest problem: it no longer feels like a Civilization-Game! Here, the developers have definitely made too many radical changes.

Bears in Space and its colourful visuals, weird gags and minigames, as well as its retro sci-fi setting, goes in a direction similar to High on Life. However, the jokes are a little more on the family friendly side. There's no blood, you only spill the oil of hordes of robots. The game options allow you to tweak everything from incoming and outgoing damage to aim assist settings to the amount of challenge you want to put up with in platforming sections. This makes the game more accessible to younger and less experienced space adventurers. With a good 15 hours of play time, Bears in Space can feel almost a little too long.

The First Berserker: Khazan is an interesting Soulslike that focuses on dark anime, high difficulty and playful freedom. But the wow effect fails to materialize.

Crimson Desert is an entertaining open-world action RPG that offers a unique gameplay experience and, thanks to its vast scale, keeps you occupied for a long time, but fails to truly impress in almost every respect. In this case, less would have been more.

Fabledom is a relaxed and pretty building experience that is perfect for beginners. However, the game also runs out of steam quite quickly.

A solid remaster mostly focused on improving the first Soul Reaver. It leaves the weaker sequel further behind, resulting in an uneven package.

A solid successor that provides more accessibility with many convenient functions and carefully adds mechanics. The new engine also lets the battles shine in a new light. Great effects, nice lighting and beautiful backgrounds create a real sci-fi flair. However, the pure focus on destroying the enemy makes for very uniform games with somewhat too static space battles. In addition, mechanics such as culture, secondary factions or mobile orbits play too small a role compared to the mass production of gigantic fleets.

Tales of Kenzera: ZAU offers a fresh scenario with the African realm of the dead, which the action platformer combines with an emotional story, dynamic battles and challenging jumping passages. However, Tales of Kenzera occasionally stumbles when it comes to the learning curve and controls, and the story could use a little more subtlety sometimes.

Monster Hunter Stories Remaster succeeds at bringing the 3DS original to new platforms. The combat system remains simple while offering deeper customization. Sadly, both the game's difficulty and story execution hold it back from achieving greatness.

Dead Take is a bold game that tells a relevant story about abuse of power in the entertainment industry that is worth hearing. Its greatest triumph is the outstandingly acted and staged FMV sequences, which create an oppressive, voyeuristic tension that lingers long after the game is over. Here, the game unfolds its full, uncomfortable force and becomes a powerful indictment. Unfortunately, the gameplay framework cannot always support this brilliant core. The puzzle mechanics are often too conventional and seem disconnected from the psychological depth of the narrative. Especially in the first half, the game relies too heavily on worn-out horror clichés and slow pacing, which weakens the otherwise dense, surreal atmosphere. Despite these weaknesses, Dead Take is recommended for players looking for a horror experience with substance and a provocative message. Can Dead Take spark discussion despite its weaknesses? Absolutely!

Visions of Mana brings the world and creatures of the Mana games to life in ways much better and more beautiful than ever before. The world is more accessible and freely explorable, there is more to discover, the five playable characters can be upgraded and customised through many advanced classes. A weak PC port and some storytelling and gameplay lengths make the game less enjoyable than it could be.

Ara: History Untold doesn't really do anything new, but it takes good ideas from so many games and combines them in a meaningful way that fans of Civ, Millennia or Humankind will definitely have fun with. However, some of the many systems – such as diplomacy or combat – aren't really polished. The game certainly has the potential to patch itself up, but at release it's not enough.

The Thaumaturge combines an unusual setting in 20th century Poland with tactical turn-based battles and a supernatural plot revolving around hidden demons, sometimes exciting decisions and tricky (social) problems. However, the plot and characters tend to get in their own way and stumble over the stiff presentation.