Still Wakes The Deep reminds me of John Carpenter’s equally implausible The Thing, an enjoyable schlock-horror set in the Antarctic. But if you can suspend your disbelief about this rigged rollercoaster, you’ll find layers of depth beneath the surface.

It has constructed a fascinatingly hostile and deliberately unstable environment. But the lack of strong characterisation, the clumsy interface and the sheer anarchy of the world are obstacles to truly enjoying being in the zone.

It acts fast but substitutes speed for intelligence and as much as it would like to be the new Titanfall, it doesn’t quite have the moves.

Though a little rough and ready round the edges, Atomfall’s nuclear fiction is an interesting fusion of ideas, albeit one that isn’t going to blow you away.

Not everyone will warm to Akka Arrh’s ascending difficulty level but at a mere €20 for the mind melt of this PSVR2 version, it’s cheaper than hallucinogenic drugs and probably less risky too.

Wizardry lacks the historical extras that made the Atari and Minter exhumations so fascinating, its bare-bones presentation exposing a game very much of its time that has long been surpassed.

Everyone’s a bit anxious, the pacing is all over the place and humour is in rare supply. Buffy, this ain’t.

Grasshopper makes games like no other, a superpower in which the sheer creative force outweighs the sometimes-juvenile side-effects. Romeo is a Dead Man may not always be coherent and is often not pretty but it nonetheless possesses something compelling – as if you can’t look away.

F1 24 takes the most appreciable leaps for the franchise in years but for all that it remains just an incremental upgrade for owners of the 2023 version. If you haven’t kept up to speed lately with Codemasters’ revisions, however, then F1 24 is the new model to get the pulse racing.

My initial impression was that this periodic monotony was intended to function as a meta-commentary on your job as a dogsbody. But my overriding feeling might just be classed as boredom. You get the sense that a more tightly wound plot with expanded gameplay to hook the player could have turned the Halibut’s tale into a story that could really reel you in.

You will want to keep playing just for the sheer pleasure of the sharp dialogue – by turns sarcastic and poignant but at its heart drolly funny. Less successful is the musical aspect that notionally underpins the whole expedition – the tunes at your gigs are pleasant enough but the mini-games that accompany them quickly become tedious. Reigns: Beyond shows the formula might be running out of legs. But priced at under a fiver it offers plenty of laughs even though it’s more of a game that plays you than you play.

WoW can rest easy knowing Throne and Liberty won’t steal its crown any time soon. But NCSoft’s RPG has a light touch that has clearly taken many lessons from its inspirations, brought some new ideas to the table and won’t constantly nag you to open your wallet.

If Fitness Boxing 3 gets you moving even a little bit more than usual, perhaps that’s job done. But you might just as well look up a few boxercise videos on YouTube and save your money for a new pair of trainers.

As likeably silly as it is, To a T feels like an extended episode of Sesame Street that drags on too long between the good bits. Takahashi has again delivered a singularly unusual design but one that lacks the gameplay loop that Katamari wielded so compulsively.

Eternal Strands offers minimal handholding and opens a vast world to explore, so you’re often left fumbling around in empty spaces to discover the path to your next quest. But even this padding just leaves you yearning for the next exhilarating encounter you know will be around the corner.

Herdling succeeds on the level of a wistful voyage, the idea that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive. Yet its gameplay elements are undermined by the awkward controls of the herd, who turn uncooperative at odd moments. Puzzles provide scant challenge compared to the Far games, and stealth sequences involving a giant angry owl outstay their welcome. This shepherding lark is not quite the dream job it first looks.

A steady drumbeat of patches has eliminated the worst excesses of the underlying code. But it will still take a long uphill march for Asobo to crest the summit of its ambitions. For now, this flight is just struggling to get off the ground.

The evocative presentation carries Nutmeg! a long way, particularly for gamers of a certain age. So add an extra star to the rating above if you’re a child of the 80s.

This one-man show has demonstrated a hugely imaginative game world, full of depth to be explored. But it’s too easy to see behind the curtain – and indeed to rip the curtain rail down altogether. The logic of the characters’ behaviour can fall apart at the slightest push, leaving your detective with more answers than questions.

It captures the futility of war in its endless cycles and the overwhelming feeling that you won’t be able to save everyone who crosses your operating table.

Aspyr offers a selection of concept art, lost levels, soundtracks and videos – all of which will be doubtlessly manna to fans of the original. But compared to more rounded remasters from the likes of Digital Eclipse, Legend of Kain might better have been left preserved in aspic than pulled screaming a quarter century into the future.

The high presentation standard set by Hogwarts Legacy has been maintained here, with customisable characters flying around on broomsticks at locations familiar from the books. Earn enough currency from in-game activities (no microtransactions here, thankfully) and you can unlock heroes or villains such as Harry, Ron and Draco. In contrast with Legacy, however, Quidditch Champions is very finite, with only a few competitions built in and nothing to do outside of the matches. The core of the game feels like barely controlled pandemonium that is often difficult to read and some positions just aren’t as engaging to play as others.

The pixel art simply can’t do justice to the Kratos we’ve formed in our mind’s eye. There’s also something deeply grating about listening to teenage American accents attempting to capture the complexities of a Spartan wrestling with his conscience. Perhaps if you could overlook Sons of Sparta’s lineage, you might see it as a perfectly adequate Metroidvania. But Mega Cat Studios knowingly took on the burden of that name only to fall short of the stellar God of War pedigree.

Much as Sea of Thieves took a while to hoist its masts to full sail, Skull and Bones may eventually vindicate itself. Ubisoft would do well to slough away some of the cruft, zero in on the naval warfare and inject more life into its scenic but largely empty outposts.

That’s not to say this 2024 do-over is unworthy of one playthrough, especially now a month after release that many bugs have been ironed out. It has entertaining moments of visual splendour jostling against creeping dread but ultimately is a glimpse of unfulfilled potential.

Stranded Kids doesn’t have a lot of longevity built into this compact collection of islands for players who focus on completing the challenges instead of noodling about.

Clearly, there’s a reasonably compelling hack’n’slash buried under the rubble of Lost Soul Aside’s B-movie ambitions. But you will repeatedly conclude that you don’t have the energy to sift its gold nuggets from the unattractive grit in between.

As a multiplayer co-op game, it fares marginally better but it’s hard to shake the sense that you’re witnessing a lot of sound and fury that signifies little. With a handful of notable exceptions, the mission quests blur into one another with their bullet-sponge enemies and dearth of game-changing upgrades in the skill trees...This hollowness at the core marks Suicide Squad down as a missed opportunity given Rocksteady’s pedigree and the vibrant personality on show in the down time between the lack-lustre shootouts.

At just €20, it justifies its existence as a showcase for the Switch 2’s versatility and as a succinct slice of fun in its own right.

Hirogami follows in the footprints of other successful papercraft videogames such as Tearaway and Paper Mario. While it nails the pleasing handmade aesthetic of those titles, the shapeshifting gameplay never quite pins down the precision required. It’s not a write-off, more of a write-down of a crafty idea.

Electrician Simulator turns on the part of the lizard brain devoted to making pleasurable connections but some of its design decisions have been badly wired and it feels a little too unplugged from reality.

Luminous doesn’t lend itself to long sessions of scuba adventures – it just doesn’t have the depth for that. But as an antidote to the pressurised atmosphere of modern life, it acts like a cleansing bath.

Despite the remastering, which improves the presentation and eliminates some bugginess in the original, there’s no mistaking The Devil’s Playhouse for a modern game. But its wit and sheer absurdity mark it down as a mischievous series well worth investigating.

Hotel Infinity may be too purist in its pursuit of abstract puzzles – would a few hints of human presence been too hard? – and the intellectual challenge errs on the side of facile. But this is one stay that will lodge in your mind long after you check out.