More a novelty than your next roguelike obsession, but it has enough creativity and left-field ideas to be well worth experiencing—especially if you're still pining for the lost potential of Spore.

Titanium Court is a brilliantly singular roguelite with a surplus of style, but you're going to need to love match-three to want to stick around.

There are moments of fun, especially towards the end, but too often I just wanted to ram a garlic-flavoured stake through Vampire Crawlers repetitive, grindy heart.

An immaculately presented arcade racer with a thousand good ideas, but the twin-stick drifting wasn’t one of them.

Monster Hunter Stories 3 delivers deep build crafting and battle systems, but they're wasted on a war story that's barely there.

A casual timewaster for people who are into the Witcher enough to get the references, but not married to the idea every Witcher game has to be a big RPG.

Reanimal doesn't meaningfully develop Tarsier's approach to gameplay in the Little Nightmares games, but it's a grim sight to behold, and a worthwhile horror adventure.

Weak characters kill loftier ambitions, but a brisk pace keeps the combat lively.

An inventive puzzler with rapid-fire gags that'll make you groan as much as guffaw.

Some clever and grisly medical examination systems, but not enough base management and side activities to remain engaging for long.

Hell is Us' rich world and gorgeous design prop up its uninventive structure and simple combat.

Charm and a solid formula go a long way to smoothing over this roguelike deckbuilder's ungroomed edges.

Perhaps the beat-'em-up genre's best ever roster of playable characters, let down by an inconsistent campaign that wears out too fast.

There are some good ideas in Rue Valley's depressioncore time loop, but the execution makes it feel more like a chore than a charm.

A stylish metroidvania with crunchy combat and a delightfully melancholy mood, but some will find it too safe and frictionless.

Bloody good combat carries Ninja Gaiden 4 through its more granular and extraneous "modern" additions.

The combo of roguelikes and gambling should probably be more addictive than this.

Little Nightmares 3 adds a welcome online cooperative mode and some freshly bizarre environments, but the series' formula is becoming a little staid.

A more gritty survival horror experience than Stay Human, but Techland's new first-person parkour game still stumbles a bit.

The scariest part of Cronos: The New Dawn is probably the frustrating combat, and while it boasts a selection of surprisingly cool puzzles, they're not enough to save the experience.

Wildgate is a fresh combination of a ship battler and an FPS that is a better concept than it is a game.

Story aside, this would be one of Destiny 2's more forgettable campaigns. But thanks to its wide-ranging overhauls, it's become memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Great cooking and foraging systems, but not a lot else to keep you busy.

Killing Floor 3 is fun, quick to pick up, and builds on what worked for its predecessors. And while there'll always be a place for gory multiplayer shooters, they are a dime a dozen, and this one doesn't do a lot to stand out from the rest.

The Drifter is a gorgeous and moody point 'n' click adventure with impeccable art, but its pulp leanings undermine its best qualities.

A good Metroidvania trapped in the shadow of too many better ones.

Raidou Remastered isn't the best Shin Megami Tensei game on PC, but its live-action take on a familiar turn-based combat system is as fun as it is fascinating.

Splitgate 2 is a fine F2P time-waster, but its portals don't add much to the genre and its shooting is nothing special.

Pretty much just an ebook, but its form means you can gamify your progress and listen to some bangers while you read it.

FBC: Firebreak's madcap mission conceits are delightfully silly, but balancing issues and limited replay value hinder the fun.

Exciting combat and a plethora of sexy costumes can't totally save Stellar Blade's middling story and occasionally questionable level design.

A weird and funny story with a lot of surprises, but control and camera issues dampen the fun.

Wonderfully authentic, but it's too familiar, cumbersome with a pad, and the career management is unusually tedious.

Bursting with ideas, enthusiasm, and a solid physics model, but JDM seems more preoccupied with throwing another idea in than polishing what’s already there.

Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny represents the design tenants of a bygone era, more often for worse than better.

Blades of Fire can be great fun, but it definitely overstays its welcome.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's gorgeously realized world is let down by its emphasis on combat, marred by a few fatal stumbles.

Tempopo's rhythmic puzzling is undeniably great, but is let down by a lack of mechanical pacing and an absence of Witch Beam's coveted storytelling.

A rough port and bungled narrative make The Last of Us Part 2 hard to recommend, though the remaster's additions and moment-to-moment action satisfy.

Stylish and often satisfying, but surviving Grit and Valor’s later campaigns demands persistence over clever tactics.

Atomfall can be a fun diversion, but it really needs to take a gap year so it can find itself.

Flawed and overfamiliar, but still as joyously OTT and hilarious as ever.

Toothless writing, old-fashioned open world design, and ropey port work undermine what should be a thrilling cinematic adventure.

It's old fashioned, but I find it quite compelling that it's a game that knows exactly what it wants to be. Sniper Elite has felt like the heir apparent to the stealth genre for a while now, and Resistance further solidifies that, a generous helping of sneaky action that's only slightly less impressive because it's retreading the same path Sniper Elite 5 already took in 2022.

Orcs Must Die: Deathtrap retains the frenzied fun of its predecessors despite a mixed bag of format changes.

Synduality has some smart ideas, but the end result is a misguided, hollow franken-game.

Being so devoted to Final Fantasy 7 means that there’s a lot of love to be found in Rebirth. And as a fan of that original game, it was so easy, for a while at least, to be swept up in the dazzling sights of Gaia, in the vibrant amusement park of games and sidequests at my fingertips, to hop on this rollercoaster journey with many of my all-time favorite characters and give myself to the joy of being able to spend more time with them. But all the charm and pageantry in the world can only distract me for so long before I realize: nothing has happened this whole vacation. The ship hasn’t even left the dock.

Marvel Rivals is a well-made hero shooter that is easy to enjoy, and while it's managed to distinguish itself from Overwatch 2 in terms of heroes, it's fallen into the same pitfalls.

What Infinity Nikki lacks in difficulty, it makes up for with a gorgeous wardrobe and charmingly scenic world I can't stop poking around.

Empire of the Ants features a lavish rendering of the world from a few millimeters high, but fails at the basics of interesting RTS play.

Personality, creativity, and co-op multiplayer elevate this Hades-like beyond its rough edges.

Call of Duty's strongest multiplayer offering in years is dragged down by a tedious campaign.

A flawed but fun action slaughterfest with a great NPC-possession hook.

It's great to have Max Caulfield back, but I'm not sure she ever needed to be in the first place. A somewhat unnecessary-feeling sequel that still manages to tell a compelling story, if not a little messy and underbaked.

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a surprisingly satisfying romp through Hell, as long as you plug your ears.

Starship Troopers: Extermination's cooperative battles are mechanically innovative and can be enormous fun, but a general lack of polish and a slapdash single-player hold it back from greatness.

A game all about gliding and exploring trips over its own feet.

While its new environments are a decent aside, Shattered Space seems largely content to tread water, leaving Starfield the same mixed bag it always was.

A beautifully presented and accessible game in a sometimes obscure genre, Ara: History Untold is a pretty picture book rather than a deep tome.

Italian folklore makes for a unique setting, but Enotria lacks the smooth combat and smart mechanics you'd look for in a decent soulslike.

Tiny Glade is a stress-free building game with some lovely ideas, but it too often feels restrictive rather than meditative.

Fans of Warhammer 40,000 will be delighted by the spectacle and authenticity—but ultimately disappointed by messy action and unengaging multiplayer.

A charming meowtroidvania.

Star Wars Outlaws is Ubisoft's most ambitious game in years, but it plays the basics way too safe.

An entertaining roguelike deckbuilder held back by irritating design decisions. Frustrating, but far from a bust.

Not hard enough to be a challenge, but not painless enough to be relaxing.

ZZZ is a shallow, polished front for a relentless online store.

A serviceable slice of Soulslike fantasy that doesn’t do enough to stand out from an overcrowded genre.

Less assured and sorely missing story mode, this feels like a downgrade over F1 23.

Despite its greater scale and visual splendour, this sequel fails to escape the shadow of its predecessor with a muddled tale that Senua herself feels out of place in.

Men of War 2 is a flawed but rewarding gem for masochistic RTS fans.

Dread Delusion brims with an exhilarating sense of discovery that starts to wobble in the final act.

Sand Land is just another forgettable tie-in to add to the existing anime game pile.

Tight design and compelling mythology compensate for a few too many borrowed ideas.

A killer puzzle game that tests your skill and your patience.

A great artstyle and flashes of brilliance never truly make up for a meandering, risk-averse plot.

A clever yet frustratingly muddled follow-up to Monster Train.

There's half of an amazing game in Broken Roads. Trouble is you have to play the other half.

A rough-edged but worthwhile spin on historical 4Xs that oddly leaves Civ's greatest flaws untouched.

Pleasant but rarely compelling characters undermine this spiritual sequel to Gone Home.

A pleasing world and satisfying jetpack exploration aside, Cutter Slade's return is rarely out of this world.

A charming but slight co-op action game where a basic combat system is elevated by clever bonuses and abilities, and half the pleasure is the world's incidental details.

Technically impressive but just not as fun or innovative as its predecessor.

There’s a lot to love in the core loop, but this diamond in the rough gets buried under a repetitive campaign and late game balance issues.

One flipping good idea can’t save this repetitive roguelike deckbuilder from only rolling above average.

With its emphasis on crafting and trading rather than action, Last Epoch puts the cart before the horse.

Combining moody and gratifying ship-on-ship combat with shallow live service trappings, Skull and Bones is great within the claustrophobic parameters of what market forces allow it to be.

This ghost story is stretched a little thin, but still well worth exploring.

I'm optimistic about what Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League can become, but let down by what it is now.

A palatable metroidvania with a mediocre story, my biggest frustration with The Lost Crown is how long it takes to get to the good stuff.

Steep costs and microtransactions taint an otherwise dreamy life sim.

Frontiers of Pandora's stunning presentation and fantastic world design are failed by atrocious technical issues.

Rogue Trader gets 40K's atmosphere right, but it's buggy and the rules are a mess.

A mismatched mix of genres grafted onto a moving, beautifully presented story.

Gangs of Sherwood shows initial promise with its creative setting and colourful combat but runs out of steam well before the end of its already brief running time.

Relaxing and brisk, but lacking in the substance needed to please genre fans and live up to the SteamWorld name.

A family-friendly adventure that captures the essence of the show, despite rough edges and a steep price.

The Last Faith is a beautiful but inconsistent rehash of older, better games.