Crimson Desert’s best moments come when you think about the game it could have been, were it not for its overabundance of clunky mechanics and its painfully sluggish controls. Riddled with glitches and systems that don’t work, Pearl Abyss’s first single-player game can rely on its sublime open world, or its core management system borrowed from BDO, to occasionally lift us out of our frustration.

While full of good intentions with its impressive hordes of mutants and some remarkable panoramas, it may be that the impression of having already played Days Gone a dozen times in the last 5 years comes to your mind very quickly.

Milestone is bringing improvements and more content to its supercross game, but it's not sure that this will be enough to satisfy fans. As for the newcomers, they should not be discouraged by the title's demands. The career mode has been effectively revised, but remains rather classic like all the other activities offered. However, the track editor is quite convincing. Anyway, the sensations are there, it's a pity that the graphics are still from another era.

While fans of the series will certainly enjoy having all their heroes back in a colourful game faithful to the original material, the others will probably be harder to convince. Except for the story and the anime side of the title, the production is rather unremarkable with regrettable inconsistencies. The turn-based combats are quite repetitive, but are fortunately compensated by the regular addition of new gameplay elements. If you're a fan of the series, you are likely to be seduced by the enchanting universe of Fairy Tail and its characters. Otherwise, you should probably wait for a more appropriate price for the experience.

In the end, despite some big design mistakes, Recompile remains a very funny title that will offer a wonderful trip in a very colorful universe to its players. The flaws and the too great facility of the title are, without any doubt, compensated by its enchanting atmosphere and its more than pleasant game feeling. Far from being a must-have Metroidvania, Recompile will nevertheless be the kind of title that, although it doesn't offer anything new, will keep a small place in the memory of the players who will have the courage to launch into its adventure.

It's tough not to consider Astral Chain something of a small disappointment, especially when you know Platinum Games' talent for beat 'em ups. We not only highly commend the fight mechanics in this latest title from Takahashi Taura, but also its universe — original and supported by a high-class artistic direction. However, the overall game is pulled down somewhat by a structure of missions that doesn't match the studio's desire to mix the beat 'em up and investigative genres, and further by large approximations and other technical problems — all of which have a significant impact on the enjoyment of the game.

Dedicated to the WorldSBK 2022 championship, SBK 22 is a lighter version of MotoGP 22. It has the same components, without the historical mode. There are fewer bikes and fewer tracks, for a slightly reduced price. If you own MotoGP 22, unless you are a Superbike championship fan, you may wonder why you should add this redundant title to your game library. But It is indeed a very good simulation with real driving sensations.

The only big new game for the Nintendo Switch this end of year 2020, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is a little disappointing. As enjoyable as any self-respecting musou, Omega Force's title is technically flawed, limited in content and largely under-exploited story-wise. We may have expected too much, but this new title in the universe of Zelda Breath of the Wild was meant to cover an important part of the story, and it seems botched on many points.

Hell is Us is another title that would have been better suited to being a movie rather than a game. Rather than focusing on Souls-like action or puzzles to offer solid gameplay, it attempts to combine these two radically different genres, and the result is disappointing. Finding an audience looking for both of these experiences at once is difficult enough, but they have also been treated superficially, even clumsily, because of this ill-advised compromise. It is therefore unlikely that they will satisfy the majority of players. This is all the more unfortunate given that the overall production is of fairly good quality and the atmosphere is sometimes incredible. Hell is Us confronts us with the horrors of war in a way that few games dare to do, but its message risks being lost in the wanderings of the gameplay.

Fans of the series will appreciate to rediscover the characters and universe of Narcos, as the game will remind them of the events and places of the first season. The graphics are good, provided that you don't get too close and don't mind about strange camera angles. The targeting can sometimes be problematic, but the strategic aspect and the third person real-time actions are quite effective. We liked being able to switch sides between Narcos and D.E.A but, unfortunately, the game is too repetitive.

Full of good intentions, Soul Hackers 2 never really convinces: its limited gameplay and redundant environments make it an experience that shows its limits very quickly, and it should take you a couple of hours before you get to the bottom of it. Lovers of Japanese turn-based games can still try their luck to fill a hollow tooth, but it doesn't offer anything substantial enough to quench their MegaTen thirst.

With Youngblood, Machinegames clearly had a card to play by offering co-op alongside their excellent reboot of the Wolfenstein series. Unfortunately, this spin-off stumbles by proposing an adventure stretched to the maximum — the fault of a superficial leveling system that forces players to chain 'fetch' side quests in order to access the scripted content, which is then limited to just five missions. A few good gameplay ideas, a more open level design (thanks Arkane), and a reduced price prevent Wolfenstein: Youngblood from being a shipwreck.

Empire of Sin is a rather seductive mix of turn-based strategy inspired by XCOM and Prohibition-era thug management games. The game experience is varied enough and the city of Chicago lively enough for the player to have a good 20 hours of fun, but don't expect to invest much more in it as the situations you will face during the fights, in the management of your empire and in the relationships with other gangs will repeat themselves quite quickly, giving the feeling that you've gone around pretty quickly and not really making you want to restart a game after reaching the end credits.

Mission accomplished for Robocop: Rogue City. It's a pretty good game for fans of the license and 80s action films. Everything is faithfully reproduced and even enriched, while offering a gameplay that makes good use of Robocop's particularities, both as a cybernetic policeman serving the city and as a killing machine. In this context, it's quite amusing, even pleasant, to follow Alex Murphy and his little phrases before a big massacre. However, the game won't be of much interest to other players. Its content won't appeal to them, it's too short, too repetitive and too poorly produced to justify its price tag.

The excellent atmosphere and the cinematographic ambitions of Twelve Minutes are not enough to make it an unforgettable experience. Underneath lies a sloppy point & click game, serving a disjointed plot with far from captivating stakes. As for its time loop concept, it induces too many inconsistencies and repetitions in the course of the adventure to be fully satisfying.

Bravely Default 2 isn't a bad game but, unfortunately, it never goes beyond the stage of a nice old-fashioned turn-by-turn experience and the game is pretty dated in many ways. The Brave and Default systems are still doing the job, while the Asterisks ensure the diversity of builds by allowing players to experiment to the fullest. But here we are, after this successful déjà vu background, there isn't much left for this second canonical episode. The game has a lot of difficulties to work correctly, the artistic direction, except the villages, leaves to be desired and the annexed content is of a deep boredom. As for the scenario, it's almost the same thing as BD1: those who made it know what we are talking about.

For those who are just looking for an exercise guide to work out, then Let's Get Fit is what you need. It offers different tools and programs to meet different profiles, and different expectations, whether it is to ensure your well-being or actively try to build muscle. However, it fails with its very irregular tracking of movements, and its minimalist feedback on performance. Moreover, it does not look enough like a game, which can be a serious flaw when the main difficulty is to keep the motivation and interest of the aspiring athletes.

For all its faults, Enotria: The Last Song is a pretty decent Souls-like, but it doesn't know how to use its ideas, which deprives it of any chance of standing out. Rather than promoting radically different styles of play, the configurations are limited to offering a little optimization at best. Combat balancing problems and its limited lifespan are also major black spots, in a genre rich in titles of far better quality, for a not-so-different price.

You just can't be lenient with Ghost Recon Breakpoint - the feeling of failure is too strong on all levels. The "Realistic Division" formula is too imperfect, making it a bitter pill to swallow for fans of tactical shooters, and bland for fans of loot-shooters. Each of the ideas and mechanics cannot even deliver half of what is expected from a game of this kind the scenario falls flat, the staging is a disaster, and the progression is limited.

Very stylish and with high-quality staging ideas, Romeo is a Dead Man is nevertheless a merely adequate game that we would find difficult to recommend wholeheartedly. Despite everything, beneath this thick layer of flaws, Grasshopper Manufacture manages to convey a kind of touching sincerity that makes it impossible to be completely angry with it. A video game B movie that is as frustrating as it is endearing.

Warhammer 40000: Boltgun is a nice retro FPS that takes elements from 1993's DOOM by making the fights more nervous and in a recent packaging, which makes it enjoyable to play. Nevertheless, you shouldn't ask too much of it, because basically, it's just about liquidating dozens of enemies in a succession of arenas. Only for the trigger-happy.

Inspired by Pixar, Bugsnax offers us a gameplay that is both strange and surprising and that could well touch any generation of players. Made for the general public, the game developed by the studio behind Octodad is colorful in many ways. Between quirky humor and creatures to collect (and to eat), Bugsnax remains above all an adventure game with narration and quests to follow. It will not be enough to just put your brain down but also to think about the different "puzzles" that will be offered to you to capture the bugs half food half insect. That said, even though Bugsnax offers a real mix of quests, adventure and collection, it could be quite confusing and not everyone will like it. One thing's for sure: the game is original.

With Rage 2, Id Sofware and Avalanche combines their expertise to create a FPS in an open world with exciting but repetitive fights. If the superpowers and weapons unlocked in the Arches allow you to have fun for a few hours, the big lack of stakes changes everything. You can count about ten main missions, mixed with mandatory micro-objectives, before seeing the end of the adventure, i.e. 6 to 8 hours in one go. It is possible to complete all the secondary objectives of the map in order to gain more power, but without any real goal to achieve. What's the point then?

We'd probably have preferred to wait for a more accomplished version of the magical sport in the next Hogwarts Legacy, but “Quidditch Champions” at least has the merit of existing. With a lifespan shorter than watching all 8 Harry Potter films, the latest title from Unbroken Studios and Warner Bros Games seems to be a foretaste of what fans can expect in the near future. With its free-to-play packaging, it's a complete experience where you can play every role on a Quidditch team, for less than 30 euros.

The title has many qualities, especially aesthetic. However, once the graphic slap is over, the various flaws of the game present themselves to the player. The sublime artistic direction and the worked out narration are extremely attractive, however, the slowness and repetitiveness of the game means that it will certainly not be appreciated by everyone. But for the player ready to take his time, Haven is a true meditation exercise because of its relaxing and minimalist side.

Fallback is a funny little twist brought to an old-fashioned genre. With only one difficulty mode, three levels, and characters that all look the same, it can be finished in one evening, but the experience is pleasant. However, we cannot get rid of the impression that it is a prototype for a broader and more ambitious game, or that it was destined to be much larger.

Daemon X Machina is clearly trying to replicate the formula of Armored Core, but it suffers from an uninteresting plot and weary dialogue. On the other hand, it offers a careful artistic direction and advanced personalization of mechas. Unfortunately, as the missions progress, Daemon X Machina loses its rhythm and the interest of players, due to too many similar objectives and a blatant lack of inventiveness related to the repetition of quests. It's a shame, too, as it's a title with such a beautiful color palette and controls that are so accessible.

It was a good idea to adapt Dragon Ball Z in a game that was not only based on combat, but also on the adventure aspect. In addition to playing Goku, being able to play other Z Warriors while customizing their attacks and traveling through the rich universe offered by Akira Toriyama's work is quite fun. Unfortunately, the poor execution and the large but superficial content greatly spoil the enjoyment. The side quests are basic and uninteresting, so we'll tend to focus on the main story. Luckily, the soundscape, the cinematics and some fight scenes make up for it, along with the fidelity to the original work. Nevertheless, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot isn't the great adaptation we were all waiting for.