Trolley Problem, Inc will continuously confront your morality with a series of ethically probing questions and uncomfortable answers. The dark narrated humour compliments the experience with satirical anecdotes. This might be an insightful endeavour if you're curious about ethics, but its arbitrary minimalist structure and brief length amount to a forgettable experience.

Super Lucky's Tale looks and sounds pleasant, and its charming world and characters will appeal to younger audiences. However, despite getting the basics right, some gameplay and overall design concerns lead the game down a few wrong foxholes.

Lords of the Fallen filled me with excitement and hope. However, the end product was frustrating and loaded with errors. As such, though it scratches that Souls-like itch, it doesn't quite live up to the hype. Yet, I liked the two realms and the customisation options. Sadly, though, this wasn't enough to paper over the cracks.

Shantae and the Seven Sirens is an acceptable entry in a series that is known for consistency. However, as the genre continues to evolve, it feels like the simple pleasures of the franchise are becoming less enjoyable. Whenever the titular heroine returns, hopefully she has some new tricks to unleash.

Spiritfarer is a nice looking, but mostly dull, resource management game that tries to integrate a unique setting with base-building mechanics. Its characters don't get enough development time for you to care for them, while they demand material comforts. The glacial pacing and repetitive gameplay make this an experience that only a select few will enjoy.

Sci-Fi tropes aside, Hazardous Space runs with a unique blend of gameplay elements, which work to a degree, but feels shallow or unrealized in certain areas. Should provide short bursts of entertaining RPG gameplay, at least for the roguelike enthusiasts.

Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom is a rough game in some areas but the turn-based tactical gameplay is surprisingly involved and gives you plenty to think about.

NBA 2K21 marks a new low, which is really disappointing. At times, NBA 2K has been my favorite sports franchise, reinventing itself in ways that reverberated across the industry. But this year's edition feels incomplete and lacking. I would recommend revisiting older games before picking this one up; maybe the next-gen version will be more complete.

Rule with an Iron Fish is a decent offering if you're looking for a mobile-like experience on PC and don't mind the price tag, with a focus on simple and repetitive gameplay with subdued presentation.

South of Midnight features a striking setting with excellent music, and explores a world that is rarely visited. But its dull gameplay, uneven writing and repetitive structure don't exactly create a fairy tale ending.

Conarium's fascinating world is closely based on a Lovecraft story, taking players through ancient tombs abandoned for eons. The adventure puzzles are a bit too simple and its rough edges needed smoothing, but it is still a faithful adaption.

Goodbye Volcano High hits a few promising notes, put intended, with its good musical numbers, decent dialogue and nice art. However, notable issues and inconsistencies with the main story plus a few minor technical quirks keep this fantasy tale from reaching its full potential.

AEW: Fight Forever nails the gameplay mechanics, but struggles in several other areas, with a lackluster presentation and gaps in the roster. It doesn't hit the lows some of the recent WWE 2K games, but it also can't match that series' current high.

Has-Been Heroes is a solid tower defense experience that borrows attributes from Plants vs Zombies, while putting its own twist on the formula. Plenty of repetition and frustration - exacerbated by too many randomized elements - but the addictive and enduring gameplay shines through on occasion.

Nerve has some interesting ideas, but its admittedly unique mix of roguelike elements, speed, and strategy doesn't always produce satisfying results.

The smattering of flaws aside, NBA Playgrounds manages to be a fun multiplayer street hoops experience that is at least partially successful in recapturing the charm of NBA Jam. Player decks and lottery pick meter are subtle but effective elements to help give the game a bit of its own character.

Children of Silentown is a nice-looking but bland adventure game due to basic puzzles and mundane objectives, although its second half shows more potential.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie may have an original setting and good art style, but its uneven pacing and arbitrary gamification of player choice removes much engagement from the narrative.

Being able to Play As Anyone in Watch Dogs: Legion is impressive at first, but it becomes a detriment to the core experience that's in need of revitalization. The hacking and stealth infiltrations haven't changed a bit, and with repetitive mission design and numerous technical issues, this latest chapter finds DedSec in an identity crisis.

Tribe Nation has some decent design foundations, and its low asking price should appeal to fans of the roguelike genre looking for a specific type of challenging experience.

Cartel Tycoon gets the basics right, and its low price may entice some fans of management games. However, more could have been done with the setting and some of the mechanics. There are better options in the genre.

Ready or Not successfully imports the moment-to-moment gameplay and intensity of the classic SWAT franchise, but without much innovation and a host of major AI issues this tactical shooter was seemingly not quite ready to breach out of Early Access.

Lost Paradise has something to offer for fans of Yakuza and Fist of the North Star, but it never reaches the full potential of its source material. With some more time in the oven, this could have been a game for the ages.

Raccoo Venture is highly inspired by the classic 3D platformers of yesteryear but does not implement enough unique ideas to stand out from the crowd. There are some fantastic environmental puzzles that are thoroughly fun to solve, but they are far too short. The uneven difficulty, annoying secondary character mechanics, and a few bugs ultimately dilute the experience.

While it's crammed full of fan-service alongside good core combat and exploration, Ritual of the Night's technical instability and some discomforting design decisions keep it from rivaling its influences. It was clearly made for the fans, so those without an already-established fondness may find it hard to enjoy.

NHL 24 puts all of its pucks into the online play basket, so only players who fall into that category will find some excitement this year. The new controls and pressure mechanics leave something to be desired, and the complete lack of offline mode changes is baffling, as are the still incredibly slow menus.

Given its low price, Nobody Wants to Die may be worth checking out for the visual style and unique atmosphere, but the basic gameplay and underwhelming story make for a forgettable adventure.

The Political Machine 2020 doesn’t really capture the magic and madness of the US presidential race. It looks better, and can offer a few rounds of strategic election planning, but on the whole it’s a bit dull and lacking in variety compared to the previous version.

Death Stranding is less like a masterwork from a newly liberated veteran, and feels more like a debut effort of an imaginative and yet still unrefined game creator. Its convoluted story is propped up by a solid cast, and the very dull gameplay is just helped along by the well implemented multiplayer. It will only really appeal to fans of a very specific game subgenre, or those who enjoy unbridled narratives.

Outside of the excellent co-op play, World War Z is a mixed bag of issues. With no story to get invested in, the progression system is a total drag and there's little here you haven't seen done better before. However, as long as you have friends willing to join in, this shooter can be an intensely enjoyable time.

Though Frozen Synapse 2 struggles to effectively convey its new ideas, especially in the ambitious but ultimately disappointing offline campaign, the multiplayer remains a unique and engaging challenge for aspiring tacticians.

The Touryst is a leisurely puzzle/adventure game that should satisfy those looking for something very light to play on the go. Everyone else might find the experience too trivial and forgettable, apart from the unique visuals.

Ten Dates features a solid cast with occasionally great chemistry and believable dialogue, but it misses the opportunity to improve on its predecessor, with a rigid structure and unsatisfyingly short runtime split between two standalone character paths.

911 Operator successfully taps into some addicting resource management gameplay and effectively combines it with a unique emergency call center scenario. This foundation is solid, but repetitive mechanics combined with a lack of content and relative ease of progress leave this simulation feeling lackluster.

West of Dead is full of style and brooding atmosphere, but the clunky controls and a lack of polish overshadow a few of its original ideas.

Exoprimal offers some initially fun and chaotic multiplayer action, but it delays new enemies and objectives for far too long, and without a good reason. The dino enemies and the PVPVE systems don't end up being particularly interesting either, and given the high asking price, it's probably better to get your action fix elsewhere, at least for now.

Bright Memory: Infinite proves that smaller games don't always have to forego high quality visuals, but at the same time it also demonstrates that looks aren't everything.

LEGO DC Super-Villains distracts from its repetitive and formulaic gameplay with typical LEGO charm, great character interactions, and mirror-sheen polish. Ultimately, however, it’s just a nice coat of paint on a framework that’s on its last legs.

Despite its accessibility, Red Bow is not going to be for everyone. This isn’t just because of its darker themes, but its rigid, basic structure that shifts between item gathering and NPC interaction. Even at the $5 asking price, it’s tough to recommend to anyone but those who really fancy horror adventures with ample reading.

DIRT 5 takes the series back to a more arcade style but the career lacks variety, the vehicle handling is often sluggish, and the basic multiplayer setup is a discouragement. Without a rally mode, the only strong feature is the ability to make and share tracks, but that is not enough to stave off some technical issues.

Surviving Mars has the interplanetary foundations of a good strategy game, but it gets bogged down in its own complexity, micromanagement, and a surprisingly bland setting.

With appealing pixel graphics and some smart tweaks to the bullet heaven formula, Swarm Grinder is a lot of fun... until it isn't. The lack of variety in playable characters, levels, and weapons drags down the experience, but die hard fans of the genre may still enjoy the grind. Those prone to nightmares involving insectoid aliens who want to suck your face off should probably avoid.

39 Days to Mars is serviceable, but there isn’t a ton of substance here. Most of the ingenuity and overall appeal can be found in the charming art style and some of the creative cooperative puzzles interwoven nicely into the gameplay.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute is a fun shooter with some interesting ideas but with a difficulty curve more akin to trying to ram yourself through a brick wall. If you're a fan of the roguelike genre and rhythm games, provided you can get past the annoyances, then this could be a fun time killer.

While the bunker in Paradise Lost is interesting to explore at first, it is not packed with enough narrative content to match its ostentatious surrounds. This brief walking adventure quickly becomes frustrating as you wait for the mostly unsatisfying story to reveal itself.

Stronghold: Warlords is a slightly revamped version of the game that hasn't changed in decades. The new setting and diplomacy mechanics don't add enough flavor to a stale experience, that still has a few issues to work out.

With a slightly different driving model, that is less enjoyable, and a severe lack of new content, WRC Generations is not much more than a compilation of previous entries with a different coat of paint.

Moons of Madness needed to cut away all of the extra ideas on the periphery and figure out what it’s about. There are so many themes and concepts shoved into the adventure that they sprawl all over each other, taking up time and space, and failing to scare anyone.

Tokyo 42 offers a stylish, polished, well-presented open world that’s unfortunately just not an awful lot of fun to do anything in. A few nice touches put a spark in its heart, but they can’t light up the overall experience.

Cars 3: Driven to Win has the potential to be an enjoyable enough kart racer, with plenty of content and true-to-film art style. Unfortunately, frustrating AI and poor presentation, on top of a full asking price, keep this title from reaching a podium finish.

Having a high-concept idea is all well and good, but it doesn't matter what kind of story you tell, or the world you create, if the act of playing the game is so unpleasant. While occasionally putting the pieces together, often Observation left me bored and frustrated.

Despite some witty dialogue and a few poignant moments, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals is an unexciting talkie-walkie with conversation interruptions and dull gameplay.

Maid of Sker is a competent horror adventure where the player explores a well-designed 19th-century hotel. But its clumsy stealth, forgettable puzzles, and lukewarm scares prevent it from hitting the high notes.

The Free Ones puts the grapple gameplay mechanic above all else, which manages to produce enough thrills and momentum to carry the game to its conclusion, across chasms where story and presentation should be.

Although faithful to the 1997 movie, Starship Troopers: Terran Command as an RTS is not consistently enjoyable. Despite some good defensive sequences, its path-finding issues, bland missions, and excessive micromanagement bury some of the fun.

As nice as it is to see a long-dormant retro series return, Super Bomberman R's lack of creativity and unbalance issues result in it not feeling like the proper comeback it could have been.

Greedy Guns is a relatively humdrum and uninspired - if perfectly functional - Metroidvania-style adventure that makes an admirable effort to spruce itself up with light shoot 'em up elements.

The Sojourn is an average, middle-of-the-road puzzler, that struggles to be memorable after the first few hours. There are interesting ideas here, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. However, they both suffer from the same problem, which is unfortunate repetition.

The Evil Within 2 doesn’t have anything new to offer the franchise. It fails to be frightening, the narrative is a mess, and it only manages to keep its head above the blood water with some decent survival-action mechanics.

Peregrin's simplistic puzzles, technical quirks, and uninteresting combat hold back an adequate tale of a hero's desolate journey into a lost and fractured land.

Weedcraft Inc is a fairly typical management game at its core, but one that feels limited in scope and yet with too many busywork mechanics. It also offers little insight on the real world issues.

If you treat Where the Water Tastes Like Wine as a visual novel with added interaction, you’ll find a unique premise surrounded with a host of interesting characters and stories. As a video game, however, it is too stripped back to feel substantial and remain engaging through its lengthy run time.

Though GRIP offers up some exciting racing and vehicular combat on a really wild and creative set of tracks, a frustrating singleplayer campaign and serious technical issues with the online multiplayer make it difficult to recommend in its current state.

Despite the alluring and violent art, Happy Game is dragged down by simple and random puzzles, annoying screen flashes, and awkward interactions.

More frustrating than it is fun, The Last Guardian wastes its original story and charming creature under clunky controls, questionable design, and poor technical performance.

Mirage: Arcane Warfare has some of the most fun and exciting melee combat around, but squanders the unique mechanics on dull game modes with low player counts in a transparent effort to ape Blizzard’s recent smash hit, and this ultimately works against the strengths of the gameplay to the point of bringing down the entire experience.

Hood: Outlaws and Legends features an engrossing setting and some good competitive play when two well-matched, coordinated teams collide. However, there are balancing and technical issues that need addressing, and despite the lower asking price, there seems to be a lack of content for long term play.

FlatOut 4: Total Insanity is a valiant effort and a modestly satisfactory sequel. Its track design and relative speeds help make it a much better destructive racer than the last effort. However, it still requires tuning when it comes to stunts, visuals, physics, and vehicle damage.

Agent Intercept offers a surprisingly thrilling action-adventure, but even with some improvements over the mobile version, the shallow and repetitive gameplay ultimately holds it back.

Next Up Hero feels a bit more like an online app or a means of promoting Mixer rather than a fully realized game. If you happen to have the Xbox Game Pass, this might be worth giving a try, just don't expect much substance or variety.

Despite great visuals and hectic combat, Space Marine 2 stumbles on its repetition and generic missions. While co-op has limited appeal, the single player is boring and the competitive action is mostly an afterthought. And even devout followers may lose faith due to the technical issues.

Torchlight 3 is a passable action RPG with decently crispy combat and satisfactory classes. But the workmanlike boss runs, unexciting gear, dull story, bizarre Fort design, and multiplayer issues all keep it below both its predecessors and competitors.

Soulstice features decent combat with a few unique tricks, but it grows repetitive. With a dull story and lackluster presentation, it might mostly be of interest to DMC fans on a budget.

While the atmosphere in Fort Solis is excellent, backed by great visuals and understated horror, the ambiguous story, poor ending, and cumbersome interaction means that this walking adventure does not always put its best foot forward.

Occasionally, Road to Eden comes to life with fun, challenging combat and a smart implementation of stealth. But even so, the feeling quickly disappears as you remember that there’s little to enjoy after you’ve won. The game often seems empty and dull, with under-utilized characters and clumsy pacing, and not enough overarching mechanics to keep you engaged in the long run.

WrestleQuest has just enough charm and personality to make up for its more distracting problems. The constant references to the world of wrestling and fun appearances by legends make the stories of Muchacho Man and Brink worth following, but the gameplay could have used some additional refinement.

Cat Cafe Manager is a very relaxing game, once you get the hang of things it’s easier to fall into a systematic routine. The addition of everyday-life sounds made me almost feel like I was in a real cafe. Although I did enjoy managing my own Cat Cafe—and adopting as many stray cats as I could—I was really disappointed that the story ended quite quickly. It would have been nice if each villager had a personal quest that somehow tied with restoring the shrine.

The Medium is a flawed horror experience with an interesting story and a visually captivating spirit world. Fixed camera angles add excess clumsiness and the terrible framerate drops make it difficult to enjoy the split-screen views. With some glacial pacing and a lack of genuine scares or challenges, it fails to create a strong bond with either of its two worlds.

Fe feels like an experimental platformer trying to make an emotional statement. It leans heavily on the gimmick of using songs to interact with nature, but if you're not floored by this angle - there's not much else for you.

GRID is an average racing reboot with no real personality. Despite the short races, strong AI, two new street tracks, and the shift towards arcade, it struggles because of so many recycled tracks, poor damage modeling, and disappointing multiplayer.

The Pale Beyond has a nice art style and tries to balance an intriguing story and survival gameplay, but the two elements never find common ground, and the technical issues eventually drag the whole experience into the icy waters.

Ghostwire: Tokyo has an interesting setting, but a lackluster story, monotonous combat, and disappointing visuals make for a forgettable adventure that doesn't justify its next-gen-only status, or the full asking price.

If Double Dragon, Final Fight, Streets of Rage or Golden Axe were your go-to coin-ops on childhood trips to the arcade, 99Vidas might well resurface some fond, pre-millennium memories. But alas, nostalgia only gets a game so far, and once the thrill-ride is over, there’s very little reason to return for a second playthrough.

If visual quality is what Tequila Works had in mind, three years have been well spent on fabricating a stylish, truly wondrous environment, despite drawing obviously from previous adventure accolades. It’ll likely underwhelm if approached explicitly as a puzzler, but Rime’s brief tale manages moments of genuine poignancy. The PC port is in dire need of patching, however, if such charm is to survive.

InnerSpace features a unique game world with some nice moments of quaint exploration and set pieces, but on the whole it’s a bit too cramped and pricey to truly soar.

Lifeslide offers decent value on paper, pun intended, and yet the brief run time and wonky physics prevent you from fully enjoying the colorful but repetitive levels.

While packed with content, WRC 8 is a rally sim that struggles on the Switch due to poor presentation and the console's inherently unresponsive controls.

Lost Sphear is a middling JRPG that lacks style, tone, and substance. You can see certain ideas that are working hard to keep things afloat, but with a rough plot, bad cast, generic look, and combat that grows tedious, it fails to stand out.

Mashing up unique aesthetics and gameplay doesn't always yield a perfect result, and Ape Out tries to fit together two disparate ideas without successfully navigating the challenges of such an endeavor. Too many elements just don't work at a fundamental level, making it an uneven effort at best.

Alt-Frequencies has a unique hook in its gameplay and story, with plenty of potential, but it skews towards being an all-too-brief mobile game rather than a full fledged adventure puzzle.

Hitman 2 is a disappointing follow-up. Instead of working to expand on the elements that worked in the previous entry, there's been a misguided effort to simply add bullet-points to the back of the box. A bad story, less impressive levels, and superfluous new modes leave the sequel lacking an identity, like 47 himself.

Pinstripe is not an overly exciting or satisfying gameplay experience, but its art style and haunting setting will stick with you. The repetition from backtracking, simple puzzles and general shallowness of the mechanics are bound to leave fans of the metroidvania games bored and disappointed. However, this unique version of Hell and a man’s struggle to come to terms with his personal demons is both intriguing and haunting. The haunting atmosphere created by the visuals and audio, including chilling voice acting and a great soundtrack, should hopefully help Pinstripe standout from the lot.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide offers an authentic representation of the 40k lore, and while the cooperative action gameplay can be occasionally satisfying, it lacks content, has a few strange design choices, and suffers from too many performance issues.

There are fascinating and fun elements in Ultros, from the splashy visuals, the alien design, and the unexpectedly enticing gardening mechanic. However, most other facets of the gameplay just aren't up to par for a modern metroidvania.

Fall Guys has a decent foundation for creating some whacky multiplayer mayhem, but with so much of your success resting on luck, the lack of maps, and occasional server problems, the entertainment value rapidly dissipates.

Although it features moments of satisfying action and a few good end-game design tweaks, the majority of Outriders experience consists of conflicting design ideas, technical issues in multiplayer, and poorly implemented borrowed mechanics.

RAGE 2 held plenty of potential, but even considering how great the combat is, falls well short of that goal. The sequel is hampered by the same issues that cropped up in the original. The campaign is a non-factor and the open-world needed more life in it. Third time's the charm?

Twin Mirror is a teaser for an exciting adventure that it never delivers. There are some good ideas here, like the interesting Mind Palace world and a helpful imaginary twin, but they needed to be expanded. Ultimately it has a short and bland story, with minimal interaction, limited player choice, and a lack of memorable characters.