I feel bad that I can't give this game a better score or review, but I can only do so based on my own experience, which unfortunately wasn't very good. It could just be that my game wasn't working properly, but it felt buggy and at times frustrating to play. It's a shame I wasn't able to reach the end, or had the patience to work through everything it had to offer. I don't know if it's just me and if anyone else has shared the same experience, but it would be much better if there was clearer direction, more hints for when you're stuck, and smoother controls. However, it should be noted that other reviewers seem to be having a better time and luck with this game, so it's probably something that's gone wrong for me or something that I'm doing wrong.

As a fan of detective games, DETECTIVE: Scene Crime was without a doubt the worst experience I've had at playing detective. This game has no intrigue, no world building, no soul, It’s just an uninspired example of lazy game development. Sure there's a unique variety of cases, but if each case can be solved before a single clue is found, it's not even worth me putting on my detective cap.

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is a crushing dissapointment given the pedigree of developer going into this. I am frankly baffled that a developer like Nintendo would think that any of this was a good idea. Slightly above average mini-games presented in a corporate wrapping that has all the appeal and flare of a wet school trip in the middle of November. I know this will seem hyperbolic, but this is probably the worst Nintendo game I have ever played.

There is a lot that could be said about Hearts Of Iron IV: Graveyard Of Empires. But in the end it all boils down to one key problem; it just isn't fun. Far too much time is spent doing nothing and waiting for things to tick along. And when things do happen you either have to rush to get them to work. Or they simply don't. And you are left feeling you've wasted your time. I know that HOIV is often called a "map painter". But this is that at its worst, as most time it feels like waiting for paint to dry rather than painting.

Yars Rising is a game of missed potential. An interesting idea and a unique spin on remakes ultimately undermined by poor execution. Everything on offer here is done much better in many other games. And the few highlights the game features have nothing to do with actually playing it. Look up the character designs online and listen to the soundtrack on YouTube, and you'll have experienced the best Yars Rising has to offer.

Shines Over: The Damned is not the atmospheric and uneasy horror title I hoped it would be. It's not much of anything actually, offering no scares, no story, an eerie soundtrack that leaves as quickly as it starts, and some rough visual design. Despite it's brisk pace, I can confidently say your time is better spent elsewhere playing any other horror video game.

Dead Man's Diary has the building blocks of a good game but sadly chooses to be too simplistic. It may provide wonderful visuals of a world abandoned but lacks in almost everything else. The Narrative needs more focus within the game's desire to be an adventure game with survival mechanics. And most importantly, a main character that doesn't make me want feed them to the mutants every chance I get.

Adventure Quest 8 Bit Dungeons and DoomKnights needs a lot more baking in the oven before it could reach its maximum potential. As an idea, its great to bring back the use of retro gameplay mechanics, and design. However in this title, we see not only what happens when its done with little regard for playability, but also a sad lack of story loop. Instead it packs itself with mini games, nostalgic memorabilia, and a hype train speeding towards its final destination to mediocrity.

Humanity is a very complex thing to define. Everyone has their own take on what it means to be human, but my personal take is that it involves living as your own individual being, striving to be your true, best self, not merely wanting to be a parasite or a carbon copy of someone else. Under this definition that I've pulled out of my ass, CRYMACHINA isn't very human, or very good. I wanted to like CRYMACHINA, I really did, but like some busted DIY project, none of it's various parts come together to form a cohesive whole.

Rune Factory 3: Special is far from one of the best games of 2023, or even within the farming game genre. Many of the core mechanics are there, but the proper execution is lacking. However, there are certain highlights to it that prevent it from being completely written off, mainly the unique characters you'll meet. Farming fans will get more out of this than anyone else, but they've no doubt played much better.

Deceit 2 simply tried to fit in as much demonic and horror-related elements into the simple concept of a mafia-style game and ended up giving birth to an incohesive mess. All hope is not lost as the game does show small glimpses of potential but unfortunately, it is not enough to make up for all of its issues. All in all, this confusing experience is incredibly forgettable and bland. The game itself is underwhelming while the content is overwhelming, it's an incohesive paradox of a title that lacks any proper synergy, leaving new players puzzled and returning players disappointed.

Xixo Game Studios' Enchanted Portals has given us some of the magic of Cuphead but not much else. Though its art style and boss fights capture the essence of its inspiration. The sluggish gameplay and mechanics completely let it down alongside its dull story and choice of presentation. With some polish Enchanted Portals could be the challenging platformer it wants to be. But currently it only achieves this for all the wrong reasons.

Deadliest Catch: The Game tries to make sure that it captures the spirit of deep sea fishing. It does have some success because the process of fishing is accurate. Unfortunately, the main appeal of Deadliest Catch: The Game isn't present. The lack of danger breaks the immersion and reveals the game as nothing more than a crab-catching simulator. Without much of a story or goal behind it, it's unlikely you can get much enjoyment out of this game.

Liberté is a deck-builder rogue-lite top-down game set during the French Revolution with a twist of a body horror eldritch monster lurking around. Liberté is a game with great ideas that are never fully fleshed out. The story concept is really great and the art is amazing but the game itself is a buggy mess which gets way too grindy to be enjoyable. The potential is there but sadly yet to be realized.

Barbaria VR has a strong core that will appeal to fitness enthusiasts and medieval combat/rts enjoyers at the casual level. Given the unique nature of the game, it is worth adding to most VR libraries; and a must buy for those who have enjoyed titles such as "dungeon master' and 'Clash of Clans' as well as 'Gorn'. However, if graphics, story, and sound design are important to the player, one should perhaps wait for a sale or further development of the title. With light promises of further content, it is at least worth keeping an eye on. [Early Access Provisional Score = 60]

PERISH is one to four-player co-op FPS game with hints of rogue-lite. The game can be really fun and is mostly great to play with three to four other players. At the same time, the game crumbles under its many problems of bad matchmaking, bugs, bad objectives and bad enemy spawning. This game can oscillate from fun to frustrating throughout the experience. Buy it on a sale with your buddies.

Clunky Hero isn't a bad game per se. It's mostly just very clunky. In its story, its audio-visual presentation, its choices, navigability, and gameplay, the game takes its name a little too close at heart. It's a mediocre Platform Metroidvania at best, and there are simply many other games that do Clunky Hero's job better. [Early Access Provisional Score = 50]

Kandria has a great premise, a fitting soundtrack, and impressive visuals. It’s unfortunate that most of that is ignored since you are forced to spend time through precision platforming. Rather than drawing strength from other aspects of gameplay, Kandria wants you to solve puzzles. The adventure sounds great on paper, but turns out to be a frustrating experience that isn’t worth embarking on.

Despite having a solid story plan, it is hidden behind awkward gameplay and slow paced speech. The game is not unplayable, but it is obvious that this was initially a PC game, with little effort given in creating more fluid controls for console. There is no way of keeping track of the story either. Therefore once you've solved the difficult puzzles, it is easy to have forgotten the relevant names and locations needed to proceed.

Insomnis is a slow walking simulator that carries itself through its atmosphere and jump scares. The gameplay of the game takes a backseat to the story. But the story is not the best. Even with its very short running time, the game manages to be repetitive. If you enjoy jum scares with a shallow story and interesting atmosphere, then Insomnis is the same for you.

Disappointment. That is the singular word this game leaves me with. Somewhere, buried under a pile of glitches and bugs, is a competent, beautiful game, but I am just not patient enough to wade through all of it to find that game. Normally I'd consider a glitch or two as just an annoyance that I can look past, but I legitimately didn't want to finish this game because of some of the glitches. Supposedly there's a patch coming that may or may not address this, and if it shows up, maybe this is worth checking out. As stated, this game without the glitches would easily gain another two points on its score. If you're patient and don't mind constantly resetting the game, there's something enjoyable deep, DEEP inside, but I am not the person to dig it out.

Hokko life falls flat in almost all it wanted to do. The game is slow and needlessly grindy. The quests, along with the grind, end up being buggy. The core gameplay is simplistic, mindless and boring, while the loading screens are also irritating. If you are looking for a good Animal Crossing clone, this is not it.

The current state of the XIII remake is vastly improved from the state that the game was released in back in 2020. With that said, this does not feel like a proper current-gen experience and is certainly not worth the £34.99 asking price. Whether you are a fan of the original, or are brand new to this title, you would be much better served picking up the original version for less than a fiver on Steam.

For a casual management game, Paragon Pioneers knocks it out of the park. The game is easy to pick up, is almost stress free, and allows you to take breaks. Anyone who wants a game that you can play in short bursts can’t go wrong. But long waiting times aren’t a great fit for players looking for a more intense experience. It’s hard to review previous knowledge if you haven’t been playing for a while, and there are many complex mechanics that are hard to come back to. Casual players will enjoy this game, but those who want more intensity should look elsewhere. [Early Access Provisional Score = 60]

Postal 4 doesn’t do anything better than its counterparts. The gameplay is a mix of bad and mediocre and almost all the attempts at humour fell flat. Perhaps there's some guilty pleasure to be had if you're a die-hard Postal fan, however you're better off going back to Postal 2 or Postal Redux as you will likely find this too tame. When the game has been optimized and fixed it may have some entertainment, but for now this is a hard miss.

This title just doesn't bring enough to the indie market for the price it's being sold at. If at all possible, my final suggestion would be trying to get a mobile version up and running. I really think Eggcelerate! would crush it on the IOS and Android markets. However, as it stands now, the Winter Expansion doesn't really add enough to justify paying $8 for it, the base game feels more like trial-and-error than a test of skill, and there's little to no reason for me to beat the allotted time in this time trial racer. Pick it up if it seems fun, but I would recommend waiting for improvements.

Of Bird and Cage is an interesting idea fatally flawed in almost every aspect of its execution. It ultimately fails to reach even “so bad it’s good” status due to poorly thought out and implemented mechanics wrapped in a visual and narrative tedium. Too clunky to appeal to gamers and too incoherent to impress newcomers, it lands nowhere and looks sloppy while doing so. The few moments where everything clicks into place are few and far between.

The usual Early Access caveats still apply to Orbital Bullet, but all things considered it’s a remarkably robust and enjoyable game experience despite still technically being in development. It’s not going to reinvent the genre, but it does what it does cleanly and impressively, and delivers a genuinely fun romp across its procedurally-generated worlds. With more content and updates likely to come as it nears its official release, you’ll certainly want to get in on the ground floor with this one (and then fight your way to the top). [Early Access Provisional Score = 80]

Sanity of Morris is an unfortunate case of an idea with promise that suffers due to the developers' lack of expertise with horror titles. It's clear that this game wants to be both scary and intriguing to players; however, throughout its 4-hour playtime, it fails to consistently scare or entertain with either gameplay or story.

You know, I still don’t get how Lovecraft is included in this. The only connection I’ve spotted was the shape of a man’s nose on the loading screen. If the developers didn’t claim such credit, everything would be so much better. One cannot help but view this as a means to draw attention to a mediocre game. Such a pity, since it’s got great flow. A nice parody could be made, as I stated before. But alas, the developers are as serious as ever. I never thought that I would complain about that.

The main point of a grand strategy game is to make interesting decisions and eventually conquer the whole map. Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIV remembered the latter and forgot the former. Thin diplomacy and little control over battles — the two main aspects of this game — mean that you rarely feel like your actually in charge of your kingdom. It's not an obviously bad game, it's just surprisingly dull. It’s a coin-operated puppet show, and one you’ve probably seen before.

When compared to its peers, Millions of Minions does little to stand out. A few strange design choices and the lack of an engaging combat loop and item economy leads to a rather underwhelming experience. With a few changes, the game could be improved into something worthy of a decent first attempt.

Picklock has a good game hidden within it. But unfortunately, it’s hidden well among the poor control scheme and localization. The parts of the game I enjoyed, like the music and light comedy of the story, lead me to think that this game could have been a good addition to the stealth genre. But fittingly, this is a game that will likely fly under the radar.

Tennis World Tour 2 is a game that could have been something special but holds itself back with its gameplay. In contrast, I was impressed with the menu's overall layout, the music that played as I got ready, and the speedy load times; all of that went away as soon as I had to start actually playing the game. One can hope that future tennis games will find the perfect balance between capturing the essence of the sport and providing fun gameplay to the consumer at home, but Tennis World Tour 2 could not do either.

Outpost Delta manages to stand out thanks to an enjoyable combination of Metroidvania and Twin-Stick shooter mechanics. Unfortunately, instances of poor design and numerous glitches keep this sci-fi romp from achieving its full potential. At a price point that is significantly higher than comparably better games in the genre, it is difficult to recommend Outpost Delta to anyone other than Metroidvania junkies. That said, if some time can be spent optimizing the issues, I believe Outpost Delta can be a decent addition to the genre.

Dull, expressionless character art and contrived strategy combat make for a bad impression right off the bat. I can respect what Pendragon tries to accomplish, but for a game that heavily relies on its procedural story telling and replayability, there is barely enough content here to justify a third run. The writing truly shines in the final battle between Arthur and Mordred, but the dialogue during the main chunk of the game is too interchangeable and devoid of personality to be engaging. Ironically, the attempt to tell a different story every time makes every playthrough feel the same.

Plastic Rebellion’s gameplay premise is very promising. It encourages constant player involvement, setting it apart from traditional Tower Defense titles. Unfortunately, it is let down by inexcusably broken core mechanics that will prove immensely frustrating. There’s an undeniable charm to the presentation and gameplay (and jank) that ultimately makes the game reasonably enjoyable for most of the play through, despite its glaring problems.

To Summarize, it's hard to recommend Blazing Sails at its current price point. It isn't a bad game by any means, and it is in early access which hints plans for expansion later. However right now there simply isn't enough content. It'll be interesting to see how it develops in future, but a game of this genre depends on having a large community and that's something Blazing Sails is struggling to acquire. [Early Access Provisional Score = 65]

The dream of a Super Smash Bros. game full of our favourite indie characters is one we will have to keep having. The premise, when announced, sure did pique a lot of interest. But the final product is genuinely one of the most disappointing games I’ve played in a very long time and doesn’t give me any desire to play this game again. Maybe a game can be redeemed as the combat gets tighter, with new characters to add different gameplay elements. But the foundation here is so bad that it seems irredeemable. Clunky, floaty, and shallow battles; poor frame-rates, muggy graphics, unpleasant UX, janky menus, and a complete lack of style mean that there is very little good to say about Bounty Battle, which sure is sad.