With Masters of Albion, Molyneux and 22cans have achieved what they set out to do. Is it going to be a game for everyone? No, but that's the nature of god games, and strategy games more broadly. Is it a game you should spend some time with, however? Yes, yes you should, if only for the rush of dopamine and the creative new insults you'll learn along the way. [Early Access Review]

Slay the Spire 2 is more about refinement than evolution. By honing in on the elements that made the first game so addictive, Mega Crit has elevated the deck-building experience to consistently deliver more of those unforgettable “I can’t believe I just did that!” moments. Don’t let this game being in early access deter you from playing it; even in its current state, potentially years out from its full launch, this is an all-time classic that you won’t want to miss out on. [Early Access Score = 100]

Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream wants to spin a grand Dickensian tale centered on the familial bond of a street urchin and her brother, but this ambition is betrayed by its lack of emotional stakes. And while its stealth puzzles can be intriguing and challenging at times, thanks to the ability to swap among multiple characters, these largely fail to deviate from the genre's long-held conventions.

The Precinct takes a welcomingly sober approach to videogame policing, focusing as much on the mundane as the action-filled aspects of the job. But this isn’t enough to make enduring hours of its repetitive mission design and poor writing worthwhile.

A fantastic soundtrack and handful of excellent scenes aren’t enough to give Karma: The Dark World an identity greater than the number of sci-fi and horror classics it bluntly references throughout its story.

33 Immortals is so much of what I love about gaming mushed into a tight package, one I can make a tiny dent in while I wait for my partner to return home from work before inevitably recruiting them to join the fight. Should I ever try 33 Immortals on Steam Deck, it could very well consume me. And I’d welcome it with open arms. [Early Access Review]

Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered is a crude, mean-spirited, and dangerously unfunny trip down memory lane with a grating cast, middling gunplay, and only the most minor of visual enhancements.

Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown is a frustrating mess of conflicting, grindy systems made worse by a dull open world and unexceptional racing.

Bland visuals and a lack of motivation combine with frustrating mechanics to make Ark of Charon little more than a temporary distraction. [Early Access Review]

For the time being, though, it’s a beautiful and mechanically impressive city builder that still has plenty of room to grow. [Early Access Review]

Despite the promise of its setting and philosophically informed morality system, Broken Roads fails to set itself apart from or come remotely close to matching the many post-apocalyptic games it’s inspired by.

Skull and Bones promises the pirate adventure of our dreams and falls far short thanks to a sparse storyline, lack of personality, and gameplay that oscillates between frustrating and boring.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League offers some fun, frantic action, but it gets lost in shallow, repetitive mission structures and frustrating narrative sensibilities.

No matter where it falls on your moral compass, Palworld has given the static formula of Pokémon a clear shake-up, both mechanically and ethically. On a technical level, I can’t say it’s good. However, its sheer playability is carried by just how bizarre it is from moment to moment. It’s certainly not bad going for a game that many people dismissed as vaporware at best, or forecast to go the same way as Fntastic’s The Day Before at worst. Anyway, my Pengullet’s feeling down because of the bad working conditions, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to chuck him into a hot spring. [Early Access Review]

Modern Warfare 3 is an uninspiring trip down memory lane, hacking together old ideas in an attempt to create something new. With a campaign that even the most die-hard fans would struggle to enjoy, and a multiplayer mode that offers nothing fresh, it’s best to steer clear of this full-price travesty.

Hellboy Web of Wyrd’s sharp art direction, warm voice performances, and goofy if basic combat struggle to shine through in a roguelike that is otherwise too messy in too many ways.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum fails to live up to both the Tolkien name and its own potential. From exhausting, repetitive gameplay to a poorly constructed narrative, this is a piece of Middle-earth you should never explore.

The marketing materials surrounding Lightfall built it up to tell the story that would lead us to the space game’s final chapter. But Bungie should know one thing: if it wants to keep its players happy, it should never make a promise it can’t keep. [Review in Progress]

Sons of the Forest is an utterly engrossing game, and in losing myself in it, hours went by as I explored. For me, the main concerns are in content density, lack of direction, and a lingering feeling of being unfinished which, to be fair, is totally understandable from an early-access title. The building is a little clunky. There are visual issues with certain animations. It’s also given way to many hilarious glitches, including a physics issue that launched my character into the sky while chopping down a tree. If you can tolerate these issues, it’s absolutely still worth playing. [Review in Progress]

The shooting is sharp and impactful, and the slow and snipey set pieces feel as slick as they did all the way back in All Ghillied Up, but it feels like the ratio behind this tried-and-true formula is a little off this time. It’s more stop-start than any COD in recent memory, and the highlights are diluted by a few too many drab stealth missions. It’s not one of the best Call of Duty campaigns, but it’s far from a bad one. [Campaign review]

The key takeaway is that Mass Effect fans will be happy; this is the same Mass Effect we fell in love with all those years ago, painstakingly polished and wrapped up in a neat ribbon. To those who have never played before, though, fair warning: for all its charm, Mass Effect Legendary Edition still plays like a game from the ’00s. But if you like RPG games with rich sci-fi settings then you’ll have a ball. [Impressions]

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood is peak mediocrity and lacks any real meat to make it stand out from the rest of the pack.

Nine Dots Studio's RPG will appeal to people who love fiddly systems and have enormous patience. But if that isn’t you then it'll simply feel like a time drain.

State of Decay 2 is a strong sequel that, bugs and odd design decisions aside, expands on the innovative original in all the right places. The larger map might not add much, but the game is deeper and more refined. I found that the best stories in State of Decay 2 were the ones I wrote myself but, while the game can stand on its own in single-player, I look forward to doing that even more with friends.

Q.U.B.E. 2 takes the first-person puzzler in a direction I can only hope Portal 3 might someday go.

I sincerely hope this isn’t the last we will see of Tyranny, because - in its current state - it has ended with a whimper, absent of a single fight or NPC who could be characterised as memorable, or quests that would inspire anyone to start the game all over again. Obsidian’s dark RPG deserves a better expansion than Bastard’s Wound.

Indeed, Prey is the best performing triple-A game I’ve played for many months. It’s incredibly rare to be able to boot up a game at maximum settings and get consistent reports of 90+ fps when using mid-tier hardware, but here we are. No matter how many benchmarks I ran, the reports came back clear and consistent: on a GTX 1060, an average of over 100 fps is easy to attain. [Tech Review]

Red Barrels should be commended for trying a different approach to their sequel, but unfortunately it’s just not the instant horror classic the first game was.