JDM: Japanese Drift Master doesn't quite go the whole hog with an homage to Japanese tuner culture. The handling feels solid, even if there is a lack of feedback. The selection of cars is pretty strong and the world is decently sized. The story is something that passed me by but the manga presentation does give it some flavour. If anything, it also shows up the rest of the gameplay by reverting a more familiar, but polished look. That said, it's bright and delivers a fun open-world racer.

I think Dark Auction does pull some punches. Whilst it aims to ask difficult questions about a post-war generation, it approaches it softly or prefers to avoid the bigger picture. It can feel like a backdrop when the whole cast have familial ties to a failed dictatorship. Despite that, the investigative nature of each auction is well done and it's presented in a smart, stylish way. Digging into the past of the other bidders is a methodical process that can be rewarding.

Roguematch: The Extraplanar Invasion is a good combination of match three mechanics with dungeon crawling aspects, but is hamstrung a little by the harsh difficulty you’ll encounter in the second chapter. Some mechanics aren’t that well explained, but when the game is as addictive as chocolate coated peanut butter crack pieces, you’ll let it slide as we did.

There was enough about I Hate This Place to keep us engaged right to the very end, but the longer we played it, the more it annoyed us. It feels dated, confused and amateurish in everything it tries to do, and it's such a shame because you can tell there was heart and vision behind it. It just needed more time, talent or maybe both.

A fair amount of content for a fair price. That's all you can ask for with a DLC and it's nice to see World War Z still getting content six years after its release.

Fighting Force is still fun, in a dated and clunky kind of way. Fighting Force 2 is still awful, in every way.

Cats Around Us: Giant Cat is another Silesia hidden cat game, but rather slim pickings. Fleshed out a little bit by the jigsaw puzzles you have to do to unlock three out of four levels, but this is generally a weaker entry into the sneaky feline pantheon.

Tonally, BrokenLore: UNFOLLOW doesn't quite land. I'm always wary about bullying storylines and they can pull punches that make the abuse seem a little hokey. Anne is not the most reliable narrator so it can be hard to trust her words. The social media aspect is decently attempted but the inclusion of a real influencer can make the ending feel very contradictory. It's a visually stunning game but it lacks a cohesion from chapter to chapter and the chase scenes can lead to some early frustration.

We gave The Perplexing Orb: Bounce N' Roll the benefit of the doubt when we reviewed it but this sequel isn't just similar, it's basically the exact same game. With all the same problems as before and even less of a lifespan. It's a bit of a rip-off and we just can't support it.

It's one thing having rogue-likes do the shooting for you but this brick-breaker has zero interactivity apart from letting you pick your perks. And while that can be the most addictive part of some of these sort of games, it's not really enough to carry a game by itself.

Street Racer Collection packages four ports from the much travelled Street Racer series. For the most part, it does a solid job of conveying how the game tried to compete and change things up in a developing genre. In terms of the game selection, having two 16-bit efforts leads to a lot of content duplication and the controls aren't uniform across them. The DOS and portable versions at least feel like separate games and offer a glimpse into a series progressing over time. I had fun with it and you do get plenty of options to tinker with the experience.

Dark Atlas: Infernum has most of it's horror implied rather than seen. Whilst I do enjoy the implications, the game itself lacks a connection to the world at large. Natalia is a suitably distressed mother but the English voice acting is a touch overdone. Crucially, the checkpoints aren't best placed and, if you take intended experience of having monsters accompany you, that may lead to a lot of repetition.

Static Dread: The Lighthouse is a fun take on the Papers, Please formula with a distinct Lovecraftian flavour. Across its fifteen days you’ll stare into the maw of madness as it makes everyone around you lose their collective minds. We had a lot of fun and look forward to playing it a load more. To call it a job simulator does it a disservice as it’s anything but tedious. Get to it.

Hidden Cats in Istanbul is another solid hidden cat game, though very much hewing to the same template as the last one set in Rio. It’s still good though.

Kill It With Fire 2 is more of the same, following on from 2021’s FPS puzzle game. But by trying to iterate, we fear the premise has been stretched too far. We still had fun to some extent, but when there’s plenty of other more fun games to play at the moment, this doesn’t engage as the dev probably hopes it would.

Ultimate Zombie Defense is a bad port of an average PC game and it gives you almost no incentive to keep playing it.

Don't get your hopes up if you're looking for a great skateboarding game. This isn't it. But it is a very good game that has a lot of skateboarding in it.

Project Motor Racing clearly wants to emulate the likes of Project Cars but simply doesn't have the breadth of content or options to live up to that expectation. It's tricky handling model can be a handful on controller and I just don't quite get the oomph from the throttle that I'd like. That said, I did enjoy trying to figure that out. It's surprisingly tense and sharp to require that much focus behind the wheel. The career mode lacks some flexibility and, on the technical side, there's a lack of polish that can make things look and feel dated.

MARVEL Cosmic Invasion is a love letter to the great comic-based beat 'em ups of the '90s but, very importantly, surpasses all of them. Which it absolutely should given we're in the 2025 but it's nice to see them do it nonetheless.

If nothing else, Hannah has a confident style. I love the Dutch angles and the big, intimidating world. She controls well enough but the restrictive camera really impedes the platforming. That said, it's not a difficult game but it will frustrate. The puzzles will lightly jog your memory but nothing felt especially taxing. I wish the story was better presented. Finding segments out of order or missing them entirely can make gaining a complete narrative difficult to achieve. For all the ambition, it lacks polish and care.

Lumines Arise is a fun refinement of the formula, completing a loose trilogy of sorts with Tetris Effect and Rez Infinite. It supports PSVR2 just as they do, but somehow feels less reliant on them to get the full experience. For us, Lumines is a handheld joint, so perhaps a PlayStation Portal is your best bet in that regard. It’s still excellent though with the new Burst feature being a welcome addition. No callbacks to the original PSP game feels like a missed opportunity though, especially given twenty years have passed since the first game.

This publisher may have released more shoot 'em ups on the system than any other but this might be their most interesting. If you're up for a shooter that genuinely changes up the classic mechanics of the genre and pulls it off, Schildmaiden MX is definitely worth a look.

Whilst it tries to do something interesting with it's pro-trucker story, time on the road is filled with irritants. The behaviour of the other road users is erratic and obeying the laws of the road only seems shorten your driver's chances for survival. The long hauls only seem to showcase a large, bland map with very few points of actual interest. Truck Driver: The Dutch Connection is a something of a dull mess that doesn't quite stack up.

Sektori is a return to a style of twin-stick shooters that we don't see nearly enough of these days. Addictive, exciting and set to a banging soundtrack, this is what we've been missing. It's just let down by being a bit too tough for its own good

Cat God Ranch is an odd thing. We suspect the concept was solid when it came to the project brief but the execution leaves something to be desired. Mechanics aren’t well explained at all and you’re guaranteed to hit a solid difficulty wall after a while. Yes, the animals are all very jolly and vocal, but can’t carry this beyond the initial couple of hours. The problem is the game mechanics aren’t clear and bafflement is likely to be your default state rather than enjoyment. For now, avoid this.

Once Upon a Jester is certainly worth playing. Whilst the interactivity is light, the humour and writing do a wonderful job of creating a heart-warming story. It's twee, cheeky but tactfully performed. The on-stage stuff can hinder the pacing but, even within those segments, there's a playful tone that can produce some smiles.

While this is the shoot 'em up port we most wanted to see (alongside Gradius V at least), it's also such a straight, unambitious port that it doesn't really do justice to such a beloved game. Sure, the original magic is still there but they've done very little to enhance or modernise it, beyond a quick and dirty upscale.

Hidden Cats in Rio de Janeiro is another solid hidden cat game. In a similar vein to the Tokyo installment, this is good and offers a decent package for less than a coffee from Starbucks. Get searching and find all them felines.