There have been quite a few boomer shooters in these last few years and to be honest, Dread Templar is not the best of them, falling just a tiny bit short of the likes of Dusk, Amid Evil or Prodeus, but it's still funny and entertaining, especially if you're looking for a classic FPS experience.

Dead Space remains one of the best survival horror games ever, and the 15 years that have passed are hardly felt at all in terms of structure, gameplay, combat-system and setting. If all remakes were like this...

Season: a Letter to the Future is strange. When everything works perfectly and you find yourself in front of one of the stupendous landscapes that make it up, which tell long stories without the need for many words, it is a work of art that leaves you speechless. The freedom given to the player to define the shape of Estelle's adventure and literally bring the season's sunset diary to life is a breath of fresh air, but not strong enough to take flight and the story ends up stopping after a few bars, interrupting a speech suddenly, giving the impression of having left something unfinished.

Very nice idea for a puzzle game. Graphics and sound are clearly limited, yet gameplay is king here and the experience is really addictive.

Forspoken is neither black nor white, it's a mottled gray of spectacular combat and magical parkour to be experienced within a dated open world.

If on the narrative side the differences compared to Three Houses may not please many, the many innovations made to the combat-system make Fire Emblem Engage a tactical JRPG of absolute thickness.

High on Life is a game that keeps its promises. Underneath a skin made up of over the top humor there is a biting irony towards a genre (old school FPS’s) which has far too many tropes to make fun of (and here not even one is left behind). The sometimes chaotic level design, combined with not exactly exciting boss fights, risks overshadowing the merits of the Squanch Games game, but a good sum of game mechanics manages to keep everything afloat, waiting for the next joke and the resulting laugh.

Blizzard renews World of Warcraft with a good expansion from several points of view; however who knows what qualitative peaks it could have reached with a pinch of extra creative courage.

A faithful recreation of the original game that came out in 1994. The original was considered the best in his genre for decades. This remake is "only" among the best today and it's an extremely good 4X game.

A fun and lighthearted spin-off, recommended for all Dragon Quest fans.

Crossfire: Legion may not be a terrible game but it's not a good one either. Its single-player campaign is entirely forgettable, the three factions are about as generic as they come and gameplay wise it's a bit basic, lacking the depth of other (better) strategy games. Blackbird Interactive has shown better in the past but sadly they didn't seem to be as inspired with this project.

A pure Need for Speed experience for the Z generation, blessed with a fresh style and a great soundtrack. The races are fun, the sense of speed is great, and the progression is real. The only pity is that Lakeshore City is a very lacklustre open world.

One should expect more from the extremely rich Warhammer 40k lore. Darktide has some good ideas but commits the ultimate sin for a game: it becomes boring due to its extreme repetitiveness.

A good remaster of a video game that suffers the weight of its age, superior to the original in every respect, but not free from defects.

Scarlet and Violet offer some great new ideas for the Pokémon franchise, ruined by a world that seems very rushed and unfinished.

Scarlet and Violet offer some great new ideas for the Pokémon franchise, ruined by a world that seems very rushed and unfinished.

A rich, complex and ultimately satisfying grand strategy game, one that will keep you company for dozens upon dozens of hours while you lead your favourite medieval civilization towards victory.

As a great fan of horror games, who sees one of the best moments in Dead Space, I do not hide that I ended my experience with The Callisto Protocol with a bad taste in my mouth. I found myself faced with a graphically remarkable game, with an honest albeit banal story and with a gameplay that works until you are confronted with the basic mechanics. On all of this, however, some conceptual and game-design problems have arisen. From an unrefined and substantially outdated user experience, to a disastrous Italian audio track, passing through the lack of a terrifying element, the cornerstone promise of The Callisto Protocol. In my memory will remain a game that I played from start to the end without serious technical or structural problems, but which will probably soon fade in my memory because it lacks a strong personality, a desire to stand out and the fundamental element for its genre: adrenaline.

A bold, brave and interesting attempt to translate the football mechanics in an old school action JRPG. The result is a fascinating, colourful and bizarre mix between Soccer Kid and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past which works in a sweet way until you have to play actual 5-a-side football: on the pitch Soccer Story fails to bring in actual drama and challenge, lowering the fun, the scope and the ambitions of the game.

A unique take on the tactical turn-based strategy genre, with peculiar RPG traits. The game is fun, well-designed and compelling thanks to its mechanics and a solid narrative. It's a bit too repetitive to become a masterpiece, but it's definitely a game worth checking out by anyone remotely interested in the genre.

With a good song selection, multiplayer up to 6 players and a renewed graphic engine, Just Dance 2023 is still an excellent choice if you are looking for a musical party game.

Sable is a difficult game to rate: if you think only of the quality of the work from an aesthetic and narrative point of view, the number at the bottom of the review should skyrocket. Exploration is everything here: the game really comes into its own when you take the liberty of setting your own course. Unfortunately, analyzing the work of Shedworks as a whole, one cannot help but notice how the technical limits weigh on a gameplay that is not particularly inspired, even going so far as to undermine the user's involvement during the game session.

A decent reintepretation of an arcade classic that shines for the single-player Neo mode. Multiplayer options seem tacky and are not very convincing.

As a debut title from a new indie team, it's difficult to imagine how things could have gone better: Gray Color Games has indeed managed to create a charming and well-crafted investigative adventure that every wannabe detective should really consider playing.

Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is a free-to-play shooter that innovates and renews the gaming experience of the previous chapter, adding many new features and changes especially focused on gameplay. The result is certainly good, even if it lacks in originality.

Gungrave GORE is a game out of time even if you look at it through the lens of nostalgia. Beyond a narrative context that has not been received, but in line with the two past games, everything from gameplay to level design is too old, even when it manages to entertain in a rather genuine way.

Evil West is not the most ambitious game of the year, but can still provide some fun thanks to its solid action gameplay and its many satisfying combat encounters with all sorts of vampires and monsters.

A wonderful way to celebrate Atari's history, with plenty of information and lots of games to play and re-discover.

Hotline Miami meets Escape from Tarkov and H.P. Lovecraft in a weird, but fascinating extraction game PVPVE. A strange mix which can be hard and frustrating, but also incredibly satisfying.

The Devil in Me still fails to make the big leap among the greatest champions of the genre, but as a narrative adventure with a horror background it works well.

Bigger, badder, better: Goat Simulator 3 is a very fun open world game with a surprisingly intriguing multiplayer mode. If you want to discover every single one of its secrets, you'll have to play for many... many hours.

A good mix between life-sim and GdR, Harvestella seems to be a game addressed to the less experienced players, rather than the expert ones.

Floodland is an intriguing city-builder that manages to be intuitive and also quite complex in its game systems, but sadly it's also filled with many technical hiccups that can slow down (and potentially halt) your progress. The foundation is solid and there is a good game beneath it all, but the game will probably need a couple of patches to really shine.

A brilliant take on narrative adventure games by Obsidian. Pentiment is an awesome portrait of XVI century Europe and a compelling game about the sense of history, religion, tradition and personal beliefs. Sometimes the narrative structure is constraining, but overall the writing is amazing, the style is great, and the bibliography become part of the game in a clever way.

Virtual reality is not new to the world of Among Us, but this official VR version still makes a good impression, even if at the moment it is a bit stingy with contents.

Tactics Ogre is back again, and it's in a better shape than ever. This new edition brings back all the deep gameplay of the original title, adding brand new mechanics which make the overall experience smoother and more contemporary.

A nice idea for a management sim that is partly hindered by a too much guided gameplay and a distinctive lack of originality in the basic gameplay.

An experience that is half convincing: on the one hand the open world mechanics don't work very well, on the other hand the classic levels are a lot of fun.

Fun to play and beautiful to watch, NHL 23 has pretty much everything to be a little gem. Everything except the contents, which are exactly the same of the previous edition: a truly wasted opportunity.

Star Ocean: The Divine Force is a promising new beginning for the saga, thanks to its combat system and the new exploration gameplay ideas that support a great cast and a meaningful story.

A survival horror with some decent ideas, but which fails to express itself to the best of its ability because of an action pace that is far too choppy.

An epic and exciting journey for a game that embodies the best of the new essence of God of War.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is a worthy sequel to the 2019 soft reboot, confirming the mastery of Infinity Ward in making the best chapters of the series. We are in the presence of an arcade shooter of quality and quantity, especially as regards the multiplayer modes, plagued by some technical and balancing problems but still incredibly fun to play.

A nice first-person roguelike that works very well both in single-player mode and during online multiplayer sessions.

A game that conveys in a very fascinating way the principles of magical thinking, folk horror and hauntology connected to the Italian rural tradition thanks to an awesome artistic work. Gameplaywise, though, Saturnalia struggles to offer solid survival horror mechanics and the roguelite elements are quite shallow, while the core of the narrative adventure is nonetheless gripping and interesting.

This game should be used as a training tool for politicians worldwide. A harsh, uncompromising simulation of global socioeconomic power struggle.

A love letter to horror that was perhaps not suitable for anyone but, precisely for this reason, to be devoured in one go if you like the genre.

A third chapter that does not differ too much from the previous ones but is expanded in terms of map and plot.

Bayonetta 3, despite some forgivable technical stumbles, sets new standards for stylish action, proving to be a real masterpiece.

Trifox is a tribute to the greatest 3D platformers and a game that knows its stuff just like the protagonist, smudges and fluidity on the Switch apart.

Gotham Knights is a dense and mostly enthralling action RPG with a competent (if predictable) story and the best Gotham City ever seen in a videogame. From a technical standpoint there are some annoying performance issues, and it doesn't look like the game was really meant to be next-gen, but the gameplay is solid and playing in co-op with a friend it's definitely an experience worth trying.

Apart from some nice insane gimmicks and a valuable graphic-artistic sector, New Tales from the Borderlands is far from the levels of its predecessor.

A simple and fun Action RPG, a little too hasty in the narrative but supported by well-characterized characters.

A first-class strategy game that succeeds the brave attempt to evolve further the almost perfect formula of the first chapter.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is what we hoped for: a reconfirmation. Asobo has built a sequel in an almost artisanal way that knows perfectly where he has to bet his chips, where he has to stop and where there was no need to put his hand. The end result is once again a surprise, but for different reasons. A Plague Tale: Requiem has what it takes to make it better than its predecessor. It is true, I may have shown a certain mild disappointment on the graphic aspect but, given the starting point, signaling a slight improvement, even though it may be below expectations, still places the game as excellent example. Also because, A Plague Tale (the series) is not that, it never was. It has always been a memory to go through, it has always been the story of Amicia and Hugo. A story that, I bet, will remain in your memory. In the memory of the video game.

Thanks to a few, well done innovations, PGA Tour 2K23 confirms itself as the best golf simulation available nowadays.

If you love retro FPS, always shed a tear when you hear about Blood and you like to slaughter the adepts of a bloodthirsty cult, Cultic is the boomer shooter you've been waiting for.

An action RPG that fails in almost any of its aspects: the resulting experience is unsatisfactory.

Without a doubt about it, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is the best asymmetrical multiplayer experience made by Illfonic and a good example of how to make good use of a famous film franchise. Hunting ghosts and haunting buildings is extremely fun especially in company, but in the long run it could be boring due to the presence of only one game mode.

Scorn, with its mix of puzzles, horror, monsters and exploration, is a unique and alienating experience that you'll love or hate.

Despite its limits due to a restricted budget, Valkyrie Elysium shines for an entertaining and well-crafted combat system.

While not revolutionizing the genre as its predecessor did, Overwatch 2 works thanks to a more modern competitive structure and is fun with its smoother gameplay.

An action-RPG without unnecessary frills, perhaps a bit anonymous and derivative, but with ideas capable of creating sparkling and noteworthy gameplay.

LEGO Bricktales is a game with a double personality: fun and inspired on one side, problematic and badly optimized on the other. But despite the obvious flaws it still manages to entertain thanks to its mix of brick-based constructions and puzzles.

Penko Park offers great entertainment in its wildlife park populated by bizarre and weird creatures.

A narratively well-constructed thriller, which helps us to forgive its shortcomings when it comes to gameplay.

A fresh new take in the Shovel Knight adventures which successfully embraces the roguelike trend and wraps it in wonderful pixelart.

Serial Cleaners is a decent sequel that inherits the strengths and weaknesses of the first chapter of the series, which does not innovate the stealth game genre even if it offers some interesting gameplay ideas and a rather convincing artistic style. However, its biggest flaw is an artificial intelligence that does not propose a sufficiently valid challenge.

Moonscars is a video game that knows what kind of atmosphere it wants to create, how to create it and how to dance on those notes from the first to the last minute of play. The combat system is simple but satisfying and, although it needed more attention from a technical point of view and the story does everything to keep the player away (at least in the first hours), the adventure manages to entertain from start to finish.

FIFA 23 is the perfect goodbye party for the EA Sports franchise. HyperMotion 2.0 is brilliant in portraying intensity, dynamism and hi-tense rhythm football. The gameplay is hectic and engaging, even though quite unbalanced in terms of offensive/defensive action and the goalkeepers AI is quite questionable. If you like offensive football and epic individual duels, FIFA 23 will provide hours of fun both in single and multiplayer, while the "new" Ultimate Teams works great.

Blind Fate: Edo no Yami does not fully exploit its full potential, resulting in an experience that cannot move from the starting line.

An action-RPG with brawling and brutal soul, but also weighed down by a few too many edges concerning the general cleanliness of the code.

Beacon Pines is an adventure that takes shape before the player's eyes, but the gameplay feels so much limited because of the narrative. Despite that, it tries to tell a meaningful arc that overshadows its shortcomings by delivering a coming-of-age story in which it is worth diving.

Almost two years in early access were apparently enough to rough out the edges and Prodeus 1.0 is an intense, fun and satisfying first person shooter.

The third chapter of the series brings a breath of fresh air to a formula that risks to bore, without twisting its essence.

A beautiful point and click adventure that dives into the English folklore with a lovecraftian vibe. Great writing, strong emotions, smart puzzles... it works on every level.

A tactical RPG where the tactics are not deep enough. The story and characters are believable and unexpectedly logical, but in a genre where strategy is an integral part of the experience you would expect to be actually strategic to win. This is not the exact case, sadly, but it's still an enjoyable experience, though.

NBA 2K23 is one of the best entry in the series so far, thanks to its devout tribute to the story of the sport and a few gameplay innovations. ERA MyNBA e the Jordan Challanges represent the best example of sport digital storyitelling in the world of videogames, while MyTeam and MyCareer suffer from the usual monetization policy, even if The City is far more engaging than the last year. On the court NBA 2K23 is a solid basketball experience, with a new shooting system that feels simple and consistent.

Grounded is a complete, well-finished and multifaceted project, capable of satisfying a wide audience both for its setting and for its mechanics. Perhaps the two-year preview had a "cooling" effect on the interest of the public, but they did very well to the final result. Net of some frustrating elements, such as a difficulty level that looks upwards if it can, and the lack of a couple of mechanics useful for those who want to enjoy the game with maximum ease - fast travel for example - Grounded it is a product that if it had been released today, without first knowing anything about it, would certainly be the center of a lot of attention. If solo is a solid game, challenging but potentially difficult to digest in its entirety, in cooperative the experience shows its best side and is able to offer many hours.

A spy story full of demented humor and surreal situations.

A porting with some nice improvements to keep up with the times, but still dedicated to a nostalgic audience of classic JRPGs.

A great hack 'n' slash that can stand proudly next to the sacred monsters of the genre.

An interesting narrative-based card game whose gameplay loops get repetitive too soon.

A glorious return for one of gaming's most beloved franchises, that provides fan with another satisfying pirate-themed adventure, some clever dialogue and memorable characters.

A short, fun and bizarre journey into the imagination with two great protagonists.

Isonzo is the third act of the WW1 Game Series franchise developed by Blackmill Games which, even without proposing major changes compared to Verdun and Tannenberg, proved to be a good tactical shooter that evokes the battles on the Italian front. Its biggest problem, however, is an imperfect technical optimization, but also the low amount of playable content such as maps and modes.

A fun shooter that shines thanks to a few tweaks to the original formula, as well as some new weapons, maps, and customization options that make Splatoon 3 the best chapter in the saga.

Metal: Hellsinger is a raw and old-style FPS with a frantic rhythm mechanics that make the rhythmic-musical element a valid support for an otherwise derivative gameplay.

A game clearly developed for fans, entertaining despite its repetitiveness.

A game with unexpressed potential, which is lost in a tangle of needless difficulties.

A graphic adventure mixed with role-playing game that has some imperfections but also several good ideas, a beautiful art style and a lot of charm.

Inspired, fun, colorful. Little Orpheus is an old-fashioned platforming adventure with an interesting story and simple gameplay for those who are looking for a few hours of fun without challenges.

Scathe has everything you can expect from a DOOM/DOOM Eternal emulator, but it has several structural flaws that make it a hellish FPS in which you shoot well but you don't have much fun.

Metacritic: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R is a mediocre fighting game, but a more than recommendable experience for those who don't miss a chance to shout "Hora Hora!" at the top of their lungs.

An action rpg that offers a solid combat system and interesting encounters (albeit with a never really demanding challenge), but fails to tell a story that can hold on to the player.

A deep and immersive narrative experience with a gameplay that shortly falls into a repetitive loop.

Lots of style and plenty of things to do in a game unable to fulfill its true potential.

An interesting formal adaptation of an adventure that, nine years later, still has a lot to say.