For all its quirks, Ska Studios have themselves a solid entry here. I don’t think there were many problems I encountered that couldn’t be patched out, and I had a lot of fun with the game in spite of some annoyances. If Salt And Sanctuary was Ska Studios sheepishly imitating a more successful formula, then Salt And Sacrifice is them confidently finding their stride. For a game about tearing out hearts, it’s clearly had a lot of heart put into it and Monster Hunter fans in particular shouldn’t pass this one up. Just don’t expect perfection.

Trek To Yomi doesn't quite reach the heights I'd hoped, in all honesty. The game's combat can't match its beauty, but it's a journey worth embarking on if you're after a bitesize story of revenge – who doesn't love revenge? - that's got some of the most striking visuals around. This rings especially true if you've got Game Pass, as it makes for a perfect package filled with pretty things.

So despite the nagging feeling that FixFox needed an unforgiving editor at some points, Rendlike have made a lovely world to just BE in, tootling around on your desert bike, arriving in and out of town, eating nice soup. It's all about co-operation and being friendly and helping out. And in return the locals like you too! Isn't that lovely? Yes. Yes it is.

Ultimately, it's not the machinery of Citizen Sleeper I'll remember, not the ticking clocks and the rerolls, but the hackers and the mercs, the drunks and the shipyard workers. Because like Feng once said: systems aren't important, people are.

So embrace the chaos, friends, because Daemonhunters is the absolute business. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Now, I wouldn't say that Rogue Legacy 2 features an area or a weapon or otherwise that's utterly bonkers. There is nothing on selection here that's all too different from other roguelikes or metroidvanias. Still, it doesn't matter. All of its many, many, systems coalesce into a roguelike that'll give you a great big "one more run" itch. And it's an itch that rewards you, no matter how much you scratch.

If Curious Panda can flesh things out enough on top of the smaller tweaks they already appear to be patching in, and really lean into its unusual details, it could distinguish itself well in an increasingly competitive division. [Early Access Review]

Less good than very good is still good (wrote the professional, terribly), and Spice Wars has been a very pleasant surprise overall. It’s intricate. It’s polished. It’s well considered.

Glitchhikers is an interesting place to explore, a suspended cat's cradle with weird art and angles that are more effective prompts for thoughts than any of the voice overs about place and meaning. When it's silent you have to have strange ideas to fill it up. But Glitchhikers as a whole feels less like a series of dreamy conversations and more a series of lectures being delivered at you by a self-conscious writer.

Turbo Overkill is action and style cranked up several notches higher than it has any right to be, with levels that really let your chainsaw leg sing with a brrr. But with its relentless pacing comes a frustration in how long it takes for Johnny to truly get going, while its constant barrage of baddies coalesce into a samey red noise that makes you desperate for a bit of creative downtime. Still, if you'd like to coat vents and ceilings with copious entrails over the course of, say, 15 hours, then Turbo Overkill could absolutely be for you. Just play it in bursts, otherwise you might burn out quickly.

It's a forgiving Metroidvania that doesn't surprise all that often, but hits the spot for platforming fans and those who enjoy carefully considered backtracking. I'd also say it's not a bad starting point if you're looking to get into Metroidvanias but don't know where to start. It'll teach you the ropes without overwhelming you, with plenty of room to save and switch things up if you're struggling.

On the whole, though, I think Chinatown Detective Agency is pretty great, and one of those new modern point and click games you can show to people who think point and click just means 'use fish with screwdriver'. It's a different take on tired cyberpunk settings, it has a great cast, and it sets its puzzles in a new and interesting way. Most especially I want to praise the writing again, because it's so deft, but knowing, and I think I found something to make me laugh on every screen. God bless the durian fruit guy. Make good art, buddy.

The game's emphasis is on the collectibles, but taking them out would see the game crumble like a Jenga tower collapsing. Rather, the tower's vista would be cleared of obstructions, giving you the a chance to see the galaxy clearly again. The collectibles feel like padding to line the large gaps in the story in a way they weren't in older Lego games. If you're happy to hoard bricks and partake in a simple Star Wars romp, then you'll likely love the stodge. But if you're after a Lego Star Wars saga that takes its time, you might be left disappointed.

This is not for the slow, the methodical, those desiring to investigate corners or play a shooter over many small sittings. No, this is for bingeing.

While multiplayer offers a lot of potential for TFC even this early in its early access run, and functions very smoothly in terms of matchmaking and connection, finding an actual opponent is a vanishingly rare event. There are, sadly, very few people on the servers so far, and I’m pretty sure the lion’s share of multiplayer games happening right now are being arranged on Wield’s Discord server. Still, that will hopefully all change if this game gets even half the attention it deserves. On which note, I urge you to grab yourself a pomegranate, sell someone a load of high quality copper, and have a go. [Early Access Review]

Where Weird West breaks away from its RPG forebears is in its rejection of turn-based fighting. Instead, it controls like a twin-stick shooter, asking you to aim and react under pressure. That might be a dealbreaker for some genre fans, but the messiness of open combat is balanced by three things: the ability to gather an AI posse about yourself, a hefty kick for knockbacks, and a Max Payne-ish dive that stretches out the seconds, giving you extra time to swing your shotgun in the right direction.

The real heartbreaker is that I want to like the city of Abermore. It has so much potential. There’s real love in those streets, and so many toys to play with on a job. They have a secret bug cult! I gotta know what’s going on there. But right now, it's too rough and ready to recommend playing. It wants to riff on the same 'go with the flow' style of heist and sneaking as Arkane's Deathloop, but feels about as rickety as one of McDuckitt's ghost-knight automatons. I've been told the devs are currently working on a patch to fix up some of these game-breaking bugs, but at time of writing it's not going to be ready for launch. As it is, Abermore is a dame that I want to love, but she’s got nothing but contempt in her heart for me.

Mostly, though, it's just the sheer brilliance of Patrick's puzzles that makes it stand out. There's just so much to admire and delight in here, and lemme tell you, the puzzles I can't talk about are just chefkiss.gif genius. Truly wonderful stuff. Just when you think you've got the measure of where this box shuffler's going, it pulls the recursive rug out from under you and captivates you all over again. Given what we're dealing with here, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this is an infinitely pleasing puzzle game. If I were Wilmot, I'd be green with envy. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Shredders is at its most enjoyable when it’s not getting in its own way with zany goofball oddness. It deftly captures the sensation of carving neat lines through alpine forests and zooming across vast immaculate hillsides, that incredible feeling when the scissors start to glide through the wrapping paper. It has problems that hold it back from being a better game – gruelling cutscenes, impenetrable menu screens, some glitchy physics surprises – but Shredders is an endearingly sincere and uncynical homage to snowboarding.

In a roundabout way, this is a mission success for hands-off Mikami - Ghostwire certainly doesn’t feel like something he’s made. It’s too baggy, too loose, lacking the powerhouse momentum I associate with his previous work. What’s here just never clicks fully into place: a beautiful setting, tactile combat, tantalising hints of the beyond, but not enough to populate a city this big, leaving stodge to fill the vacuum. Mikami’s tinkling ivories aside, Ghostwire is a tad too discordant.

These grumbles aside, Tunic is a resolute and intelligently made adventure in its own right. Modern reimaginings of the "classics" often reproduce mechanics of old games in cleaner ways but without understanding the game's design from a holistic level. Nostalgic platformers give you coyote time, but then fill their world with needless dialogue. Retro shooters throw hordes of enemies at you, but fail to construct smart spaces in which to fight them. If this plucky fox 'em up flatters-by-imitation too much, it is only because it has examined its reference in its entirety. Like an overhanging camera view, Tunic sees Zelda from the top to the bottom. It is a tribute well-paid.

Distant Worlds 2 has a lot of potential, both for official improvements and expansions and for mods, which is no small thing, but it's tangential to how it stands up on its own merits. And on that basis... it needs another draft, but I'm still enjoying it. It has a few months of patching and tweaking and rebalancing in store, even if you discount those performance issues. If you were hoping for a revolution, it isn't here. But it is a considerably improved update of Distant Worlds, and frankly has no direct competition. I want it to succeed, and while I can neither condemn nor wholeheartedly recommend it, I definitely think it's worth meeting in the middle.

For the most part, though, Dawn Of Ragnarök is more of the AC Valhalla you like: more boating around singing, more armour, more raids (in which I kept getting referred to as Eivor but we'll let that one go). More NPCs with UK regional accents. More sub-bosses for different areas, leading you towards a big boss. A big new weapon and new, grim ways to instakill enemies. It's not game changing but it does feel game subtly-altering, and if you had to get one Valhalla DLC it should be this one. I think the best endorsement of Dawn Of Ragnarök is that it's fun, and it made me want to play Valhalla more. Job done.

Even more upsetting are the momentary flashes of Platinum brilliance that shine through. The game hits you with the occasional stunning oil-painting backdrop, draws you in with the story for a split second. Sometimes the bosses are super cool, or you'll do an awesome last minute dodge and you'll feel unstoppable. Somewhere, deep down, there's a sliver of the fantastic Platinum. But it's mired in what it thinks makes a live service game tick and loses itself as a result.

It's a very short adventure, clocking in at three or four hours. Precisely the right call for a story like this. It's smartly written as well (or maybe I just assume it is from the dozen references to Russian history and culture that went over my head…) I just wish the game's slumberous design was as enthusiastic with its verbs as Ivan is with his adjectives. For parents, or maybe anyone burnt out at the end of the day, or anyone seeking the cinematic beauty of Another World without the accompanying teeth-gnashing, this tall tale of a tiny terranaut could work as a pre-sleep chill-out game (psst, it's also out on Nintendo Switch, but you didn't hear it from me). But for someone who likes their platformers with more oomph, with trials of dexterity or twisty puzzle-thinking, then its straightforward tale might make you a little snoozy for entirely different reasons.

It's a big stodgy dinner plate piled with dissonant RTS ideas, the baked beans of unit management mixing with the Coco Pops of auto-battling. It's such a map-clearing jambalaya that it's difficult to tell which elements are working together and which are simply crowding out the fun parts. For all the things I can say about Hero Hour's design, it's not by-the-numbers. I can't even tell you if I enjoyed it or not, it's so much like eating a fistful of rando-flavoured jelly beans. And I suppose that in itself is kind of remarkable.

Cyberpunk 2077 is the game that sprang to mind while I was mulling over how to approach this review. It’s also a janky, overambitious RPG full of sweary, violent people doing horrible things to each other. The difference is that, by and large, the characters in Cyberpunk are compelling, well-rounded characters with depth and nuance. They’re frequently likeable, even caring, forcing us to deal with the contradictory aspects of human nature. Elex 2 has none of that, it’s just a game filled with deeply unpleasant people.

It feels like Shadow Warrior 3 puts a bigger focus on consistency than complexity. The moment you enter an arena it’s obvious what you can do because the areas all follow the same rules. You can predict where your grappling hook will go, what enemies will appear, and so on. But Shadow Warrior 3 soon stops throwing new challenges your way, and there’s very little to be mastered to sustain your attention till the end. It’s so repetitive that it becomes impossible to avoid confronting its other negative qualities until, as Lo Wang would say, they fill the room like a wet fart.

Tiny Combat Arena is a little simulation with big ambitions, but if you’re looking for something more substantial than a single plane and a single map, it’s probably best to watch it grow from this side of the “add to cart” button for now. Your £15 would be better spent on 30 credits in an After Burner cabinet on the pier. [Early Access Review]

Still, there’s loads here to like. It doesn’t feel like an all-time classic, probably because the original Race Driver Grid nailed the feeling of metal and rubber clattering down San Francisco hills far more convincingly. Think of this more as the track-based sibling of Dirt 5, with everything good and bad that comparison implies. But as with that game, there are few mass-market racers better than this in the current climate, so it’s definitely worth your attention.

There are plenty of grievances I haven’t had room to mention, nor to stress the cumulative misery of clunky writing combined with cheap attempts to go beyond the pale. Even if it weren’t so needlessly and extensively graphic, there’s a fixation on things that can go wrong with a woman’s body that would still leave a sour taste. The story as a whole is a series of rug pulls, but ones which left me standing nonplussed while the rug puller lurched haphazardly from foot to foot. A parade of ghost sharks, clumsily jumped. I suspect Martha Is Dead will be remembered as the game where you peel a dead woman’s face off, but it’s better off forgotten.

That's the thing about Elden Ring, its open world has your back, in its own - often painful - way. Souls has always been about inching through claustrophobic corridors and bashing your skull against whatever's in the way. You compare foreheads with friends, "Look at this bruise Barry, that's me five hours in". And Barry would probably peel his hair back and reveal the exact same bruise. Adventures in past Souls games tend to line up, as you're all wandering down the same pathways. But that's not the case with Elden Ring. You might show your bruise to Barry and he'll peel his hair back to reveal a scar or a massive indent or a tattoo of a mouse tustling with a skeleton. Both of may be five hours in but you'll be on totally different trajectories. No matter how hostile the game's world may be, it pushes you to succeed and carve out your own adventures. It is, by far, the most encouraging Souls yet. [RPS Bestest Bests]

There's poignancy in it as much as the first FAR, but its mood feels a little more barbed, keen to lay a simple but heartfelt warning about climate change on players. For all the delight and wonder we strive to find here, there's no getting away from the surrounding doom or the struggles which follow. Hardship is more central to Changing Tides than Lone Sails. It moves backwards in time to the apocalypse while we move forward to meet it. Reconciling that unease is not something it treats lightly, yet there is still hope to be found. I'm grateful for that. If you give FAR: Changing Tides the handful of hours it takes to complete, I think you will be too. [RPS Bestest Bests]

The colour palette of Tzeentch’s realm would be worth a paragraph on its own. There are fully customisable Daemon Princes, which you can give beaks and tentacles purely for your own amusement. I’ve not even been able to spare more than a sentence for my beloved, dreadful ogres. And still, as I said at the outset, this is not even the final form of Total War: Warhammer. It’s just the game’s impossibly hench arse, being winched into place by a rickety crane, before Creative Assembly brings the monster to life and, with a hearty roar, it eats the rest of my year.

Diplomacy Is Not An Option is a compelling little game with short-lived appeal for super serious strategy fans, but one with loads of character and entertaining physics. It’s a delightful merry-go-round of building stuff and defending stuff that sometimes handcuffs you to your merry-go-round horse and doesn’t let you off. [Early Access Review]

At the end of the day, though, it’s repetition that kills the beast. Demanding mastery through repetition can work for platformers, but only if it’s done carefully and thoughtfully, where you don’t have to go slug through long trivial stretches before you get another go at the hard bit. The grappling here feels good when you’re allowed to build momentum, but too many levels are more interested in killing it. I’m sorry, Grapple Dog. Swing on.

Thing is, I can't pass judgment on Lost Ark until I've reached the endgame myself. Otherwise, it's a jarring party of blinged out pauldrons and alien map markers. The trouble with that is whether I've got it in me to cross the finish line. The grind and the game's aged MMORPG template refuse to budge, and I'm not sure it's something even its excellent combat can varnish over. Some may adore the EXP churn and relish the comfort of an MMO with familiar trappings, but if you're after an MMO that does something truly different, I remain uncertain. The endgame certainly seems filled with menial and moreish pastimes, but whether you've got the patience to get there is another matter entirely. I'm not sure I've got it in me, honestly. [Review in Progress]

If you get good enough at Sifu, you could probably run through the entire game without dying once. It’s the ultimate, get annoyed, put the game down, come back later and make tons of progress, type of game. I will say though, at one point, I was so frustrated with myself I thought I was going to eat my controller. Anyway, it nails so much on its first go that I desperately want this to be the start of a new genre. Sign me up for more. Make a Matrix spinoff if you’re feeling nuts! [RPS Bestest Bests]

OlliOlli World has gone for that most coveted of design goals - "easy to learn, hard to master". I think it succeeds. For those who join me in obsessiveness, it may become responsible for hundreds of game pads laid low by kickflip-induced stick drift. Such is the intensity and frequency with which you will twiddle them sticks. I know. I stand before you a man touched by a divinity only those raised by gaming magazines of the 90s can fathom. I can say, with integrity, without embellishment, that this game is so fierce it will give you literal skin sores. It is blisteringly good. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Techland’s taken something quite distinct and sanded down the edges. Some will find it agreeably smooth, I’m sure, but you can only sand so much off of chaos before it becomes ordinary. Come the real zombie apocalypse we should all be so lucky to face a world this trudgingly well behaved.

The Waylanders is an RPG that's endearing as it is janky. It has fun characters and looks stunning, so here's hoping that more patches can get rid of the (potentially game-breaking) bugs.

I was in it for the plinkety-plink rush of clattering into a huge pile of gems. I was in it for the five item chest boogie, the mindless yet mindful monster shepherding, the giant meteors and the rainbow scythes. Those are all still here, and you can push into further and deadlier territory than ever before, especially if you get far enough to unlock the endless mode, or the modifier that lets you keep upgrading weapons past their usual point. Vampire Survivors is a bigger, better playground now - albeit one with a bodyguard blocking the final set of swings.

I can’t quite bring myself to hate it. But I knew that going in. It wins enough on concept to make the execution kind of secondary, and honestly, it’s got much more substance than I expected. So, while I can’t recommend that you part with your cash to experience RPGolf Legends this very second, I can absolutely recommend that the effervescent fountain of sparkling madlads at ArticNet keep doing what they're doing, because the world needs more unshackled visionaries like them. However, with the Lunar Steam Sale on at the moment, you could get What the Golf and the Grandia HD Remaster for less money, alternate between the two, and have a much better time.

When the story is this earnest, it feels churlish to berate it too harshly. Its heart is in the right place, and if anything, I wish there were more slice of life games out there like this. Plenty of games start off domestically, but they often leave it behind in favour of something more spectacular and fantastical. I want more games like The Kids We Were, that have the confidence to focus on the humdrum rhythms of everyday life, and that evoke the same kind of feelings as the films of Makoto Shinkai, Mamoru Hosoda and Hirokazu Kore-eda, and the novels of Shion Miura and Hiromi Kawakami (and if these games do actually exist, please tell me about them. I want to consume and absorb them into my consciousness as soon as possible). They may not end up feeling much like the games we're used to, but I'm glad they exist all the same.

In the end, if what you wanted was a traditional dating sim populated with (in Akabaka's own inspired words) Cthulhu-presenting anime girls, Sucker For Love may not be exactly what you were hoping for. But if you want a one-and-done horror visual novel that knows its lore, revels in gore, and just might surprise you with a genuine sweet moment or two along the way, then there are many worse ways to spend an afternoon and a few quid.

Deflector is really tough. Alien-like minions will just spew a slow orb or two at you, but tougher foes can vomit lines of the bloody things, to the point where just standing your ground feels like beckoning death. Staying on the move is key to survival, but levels will bring acidic pools and towering spikes rising from the ground to bear at you, variables that’ll easily throw you off your game and send you packing to an early grave. This is all done against the backdrop of a sort-of story where a giant tardigrade-esque creature ferries you between levels. Every Deflector run starts the same: heal up, interact with the big beastie, and select which room you’d like to be transported to. You’re presented with a big overview board of subsequent rooms, with pathways snaking between them, including which arenas house powerful enemies and exclusive rewards. [Early Access Review]

It's creepy, but Lixun treats it all as quite ordinary, even when he's trapped in a haunted mirror verison of the Tian family home. The fear is more bound up in what happened to the Tian family itself, because in a way it could happen to any family - and, indeed, does. Firework spins a lot of plates, and it's worth playing just to see them all being kept in the air.

The central, notionally interactive premise of fiddling around with camera angles, retuning signals and slapping censorship buttons isn’t engaging enough in the moment to make you want to dive back in and uncover the two thirds of the game you miss, but one helping of the news is more than enough. A strange, funny, and enormously ambitious game, Not For Broadcast is unlike anything else I’ve played.

It's a completely 2D game with hand-drawn art, and you're basically trapped in one room with a cat for the whole game. The setting is perhaps vaguely Edwardian but mostly unmoored by its strangeness. But it's so immersive! It's very easy to imagine how it feels to brush your hand over the cover of your encyclopedia of plants and flip through the pages. To experience the slight panic as a customer approaches and you sweep secret letters and tools back into the hidden drawer of your desk. The gentle animation of all the plants makes them feel so alive. The pattering of the rain on the windows. It gets cold in the shop, especially in the rain. If only I could persuade Hellebore to come and sit, purring, on my lap sometimes. Ah! Hello sir! Why yes, I have just the thing to help you sleep. Let me see now... Strange Horticulture is quiet, meticulous, delightful, dark, and beguiling. An utterly lovely game. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Windjammers 2 is a banger. I didn’t really know what to expect from Dotemu’s revival going in. I assumed it’d be catering to a very specific audience that didn't include me, and I wasn’t entirely wrong: it doesn’t even give you a tutorial before throwing you headfirst into the mayhem. Once you’ve mastered the basics, though, whether you’re a newcomer or someone steeped in the history of the Neo Geo classic, this is arcade action in simple and enthralling form, beckoning you in with a surprisingly low skill barrier to entry, a dazzling art style, and an eclectic mix of characters to master.

As far as Rainbow Six Extraction goes as a whole, I think there's a lot of good here. The missions are challenging, the aliens are clever, and the progression system is rewarding enough to keep you interested. Nothing is going to blow you away or keep you playing for hours on end, but it works as an FPS you can have a really fun time with on occasion. Sometimes that's all you really need, isn't it?

For all these little improvements, though, the time-honoured pursuit of watching a party of adventurers sprint across a map at a snail’s pace has been left untouched. And I know this might seem like a petty thing to complain about, but I’m dead serious. As I’ve stressed, between its surprising and inventive level design, its genuinely compelling character writing, and its various interlocked secondary games, Expeditions: Rome keeps you in a constant state of looking forward to what comes next. And unavoidably, that excitement dampens fast when you’re just sitting there waiting for people to move across a map.

Thing is, dungeons only exist to further EXP and FP. Aside from numbers and forms, there isn't anything else to chase. You clear dungeons to watch grades and bars rise. Crack open chests at the end of a dungeon and you'll get some tokens. What do they do? Up some numbers. I suppose this gives the game a clear focus, but it's one that gradually wears you down. This a game built for churning through, and that's the problem. Nobody isn't so much as saving the world, but clearing it, instead.

I'm a little saddened that I have these reservations, because Sands of Salzaar is a colourful and likeable blending of familiar ideas, elevated by a unique vibe. While I wouldn't quite call it compulsive, it definitely tempts you to keep playing, or go back in again a few hours later. It's just a shame it takes a little too much time and guesswork to get there.

God Of War feels like a game crafted from the ground up by a team of many people all pulling towards the same thing: to make you feel emotions about these two boys. But also, to really enjoy it. [RPS Bestest Bests]

For the most part, though, Monster Hunter Rise is another stonking addition to the series, and in my books a more than worthy successor to Monster Hunter: World. There's a generous and playful sense of freedom here that keeps combat and exploration feeling fresh, and the momentum of its hunting-led missions means you're rarely spinning your wheels as you seek out that last elusive armour part. It's kept me playing much longer than I ever did with World, and I can't wait to see how it develops with its imminent Sunbreak expansion later this summer. [RPS Bestest Bests]

There’s definitely some dark stuff in there and the characters have a real spark of life in them, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing - and that’s kind of how I feel about Vertigo as whole, too.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade doesn't just make a good first impression. It also makes a lasting impression, which is something that's been missing from mainline Final Fantasies in recent years. The bits in between could be more succinct, sure. Chapters could be less drawn out; there could be less cramming yourself through endless tight spaces to disguise its loading screens; heck, you've fixed the goddamn doors Square Enix, why couldn't you have fixed the nice little paper signs on Ma's Soft Drinks shop, too, eh? Despite all that, and the fact it's probably twice as long as it should be, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade nearly always has enough highs to balance out the lows. Its action barrels along with a joyous spring in its step, and even the cinematics leave you gasping for breath at the absurd spectacle of it all. Final Fantasy XV may proclaim itself to be "the Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers," but I'd argue Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is a much more fitting recipient of the title. [RPS Bestest Bests]

The Gunk is good rather than great, then, but given it's on Game Pass you'd be silly to pass it up. Maybe it's just the time of year, but watching each region unfurl in a bubble of light and colour, not knowing what it's going to look like until the last minute, feels very much like pulling back the windows of an Advent Calendar, with each de-gunking revealing yet another jaw-dropping treat for the senses. It's Christmas comfort food for lazy afternoons on the sofa, and at just under five hours, it can be done and dusted in just a couple of sessions, too. Very good vibes indeed.

As negative as I’ve been, I would recommend Fights In Tight Spaces wholeheartedly as it is, because the action at the heart of it is honestly incredible. When everything’s going right, it engages my brain like I’m doing a particularly hard sudoku. The problem is there isn’t much besides that going on. The whole game feels like it should be one of the best things I played this year, but somehow I came away from it saying just “okay.”

So, some of White Shadows' individual parts are flawed, but I did really enjoy my time with it. If you don't really mind the game's simple puzzles and you're willing to ignore the exposition dump at the end, I'd recommend it. White Shadows offers two hours of creative, chilling designs, joyous musical set pieces and enough screen-shottable sights to fill your hard drive.

I’m honestly confused by how much I enjoyed my time with Icarus. It relies on repetitive loops and often uneventful hiking, on tedious punishments and uninspired objectives. I am not a patient person, and yet, it does enough. The storms are terrifically atmospheric, basic crafting still feels compelling when you’re doing it for the umpteenth time, and oh, I haven’t even mentioned the way it models individual planks tumbling and getting stuck on each other when you chop down a wall. Despite the jank, Icarus’s (eseses) systems feel meticulous, on scales both big and small.

This year has blessed us with games that radiate care, where you can tell that the people who made it really loved the process of making it. Wytchwood is like opening a hand-drawn pop-up book and finding a cheeky little hag inside, throwing snares at living pumpkins and yelling, "I'll chop you good!" at giggling little changeling mushrooms. And who wouldn't want to tick "chop annoying little mushroom good" off a to-do list? [RPS Bestest Bests]

Endwalker isn’t quite as tight of an experience as the previous expansion Shadowbringers and definitely suffers from a few pacing issues, but it’s still a must for Final Fantasy fans and exceeded all of my expectations. It’s also showing its age graphically now (the grapes memes attests to that), but if you love the main FF games and still haven’t tried this MMO yet, then you really need to fix that (when the game goes back on sale again of course) as you’re missing out on one of the greatest FF tales of all time. A genuine must play despite its flaws.

I could go on with describing Mechajammer's flaws and failures for far, far longer than I could stand playing it any more. The sheer relief at exorcising my complaints are the closest I've come to enjoying it since my brief excitement at the promise of its character creation screen. Between its awful, threadbare design and a shocking number of bugs and major glitches, this has been an absolutely miserable experience and not even close to fit for release.

Even with these grumps about plot and characters, even with the sad lack of co-op or Forge mode at launch, this Halo ring is still a luscious national park devoted to rampage, Tarzan swings, hammer blows and big drums of plasma (my GOD these are fun to chuck). An open world Halo is something I didn't even realise I wanted. I'm glad I got it. It has taken the series a while to look outside its corridor shooting monoculture for inspiration. But now that developers 343 Industries have broadened that corridor to the width of plains and stretched it to the height of mountains, it'll be hard to go back. You can't drive a jeep full of snipers down a corridor.

It probably isn't going to set the world on fire. A dull first hour certainly isn't going to help. As fun as it is, the story is pretty well trodden stuff. Yet combine an over-the-top world and tone with slick dogfighting and you've a potent package. Chorus will sing for you, even if it takes a moment to find the right notes.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh here, but that’s because Solar Ash’s movement is brilliant and I hunger for more ways to roam its wastes. Don't expect one fluid joy ride, but when it does come together it really does impress. If you’re after a few hours of slicin’ and skatin’, I’d say it’s worth strapping those blades up.

It feels consistent. It’s workmanlike without being uninspired, fascinating without being flashy. It’s like a loveable cockney chimney sweep with a sparkle in its eye. It might be too mundane to scratch the itch for high adventure, but if you’re feverish for a grounded low fantasy ramble with the occasional giant rat, Wartales will cure ya. Also, apropos of nothing: I still haven’t played Battle Brothers yet, so I don’t know. Go away.

Let’s Build A Zoo has a deeply absorbing core that it builds from, and its more unique elements do enough for this game to stand on its own in a crowded genre. I’d recommend it to most people, even those who think it doesn't appeal to them. I’m normally terrible at these games, and end up throwing, like, fifty benches in a corner to fulfil some level criteria as quickly as possible, but even I love Let's Build A Zoo. Plus, just like any good tycoon game, I came out of it slightly ashamed of my behaviour.

Beyond its success as a mood piece, it's tempting to recommend Exo One solely for its scenery. As a machine for generating desktop wallpapers or screensavers, it's first rate. Some of you, I feel, will love it for this alone. But as I said up top, maybe I just don't like sci-fi vistas as much as I thought I did. Long before Exo One's short three hours reached their conclusion, I just wanted it to be Exo Done.

I really wanted to like it, but right now I see Battlefield 2042's little logo and I simply don't trust it. This game needs time. Time to untangle those performance issues and perhaps tweak Hazard Zone’s economy. Portal needs time to save it from the maw of XP farming servers. Whether I’ve got the patience is another matter, entirely. Simply put: this is a game that doesn't seem ready yet.

Less would have been so much more here, and sadly Undungeon’s deep-running problems with the basics get in the way of its bizarre and beautiful world, its lovingly drawn characters and its wild sci-fi storyline.

And that’s the thing that most frustrates me about Growbot. It squanders much of its potential. When things click, Growbot can be magical, but for all those wondersome moments, there are more that come to a jarring, juddering halt. If you’re good at puzzles and have a good ear, then you may well have a better time with Growbot than I did, but I suspect its hint system will leave you equally irked. I wish the game was as beautiful to play as it is to look at.

If like me you've been away for a while, or have never played FM before because your brain calcifies whenever someone says the word "football", then FM22 is definitely the version to try. As someone who came in relatively unversed in the series' recent history, I was surprised by how quickly I found myself poring over my rival's tackling statistics and trying to find a cheap yet quality replacement for my injured starting full-back. If the game can do that for old Barry Hattrick, then it can do the same for you.

It might not be quite up there with The Room as an all-time puzzle classic, but it's probably the closest we've come to a spiritual successor in quite some time.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is somehow both the best game that I have ever played while also being as smart as a bag of rocks. What happened to Mrs Holmes is, on many levels, best left unsaid, but it is almost exactly a literal view of that Charlie Day conspiracy board image: a complex web of clues and plotting that is impressive in its execution, yet embedded with idiocy. It is the silliest thing I have ever loved and enjoyed; the best thing I have ever ridiculed. I wish it every success while also hoping that it is screencapped in a million joke tweets. I cannot wait to finish all the side cases I have left over, and I will laugh at every two out of three of them. I cannot explain it more than this, reader. Which is why I am not a real detective. And also why Sherlock Holmes isn't, either.

Crucially though, just as I would one hundred percent go to a real-world Jurassic Park despite the near-certainty of getting hypermaimed in a portaloo, I will one hundred percent keep mooning over this game’s wonderful dinosaurs, right up to the point where my attention span is chewed to bits by micromanagement raptors.

Nevertheless, it’s unfair to evaluate a game solely through the lens of a masterpiece. The mountainous peaks you can reach with Severed Steel don’t make BMI’s hills not worth climbing, and this is still an impressive creation to spring largely from one person’s work. A short blast of high fidelity bombast might be just what you’re after, and this reaches levels of spectacle you’d typically expect from a much bigger team with a much bigger budget.

There is care in every line of Unpacking, in the ancient mug that you come to know as The Mug You Always Keep Your Toothbrush In, the way this person's fashion changes a little bit over time, the sound design that sees cutlery jangle when you put it away, or the paper rustle whenever you pick out something new. Each new box, each new item you pull out, is a little surprise, a little exquisite treasure. Every room you complete in Unpacking is like tearing open a Kinder Egg and carefully constructing the toy inside. [RPS Bestest Bests]

While Burnout Paradise Remastered still offers more involved gameplay on a second-to-second basis while still offering a similarly gleeful atmosphere there isn’t another open world racing game so exquisitely polished as this. If you’ve played a Forza Horizon game before then you might feel a slight sense of deja vu, but you won’t care as the formula has been perfected at last. The best sound and visuals, the most variety of gameplay, the best editors, superb car handling… it’s sheer class. And so, so big. Yes, it really is the best modern open world driving game, so get it. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Quotation forthcoming.

Flaws aside, Demon Turf pulled me in as a long-time platforming fan. Thanks to that competitive gameplay, great sense of humour and appealing art style, Fabraz’s latest stands apart from the rest of its 3D platformer competition. If you’re after a new jumping fix, I’d recommend it.

It’s reliably brilliant fun, and the best multiplayer experience a Ubisoft studio has ever worked into one their many open worlds. Whether played alone or alongside 63 other warm bodies, Riders Republic is unalloyed gratification in a stunning natural utopia, a streamlined series of rewarding activities so open-ended and forgiving it can sometimes veer into a directionless fuzz. Things are certain to change shape as more stuff is added and the player-base settles in for the long games-as-a-service haul, but there’s enough arcade fun here at launch to delight your inner extreme sportsperson, the one who looks at Tony Hawk at 53 and thinks, yes, there is still time for me.

Aside from those interface annoyances and the somewhat confusing compromises made to simplify roster management, I have been having a hell of a time with Darkest Dungeon 2. It might not scratch all of the same itches for me that its predecessor did, and some of the changes seem born of an overzealous devotion to streamlining everything, but it's also one of the most enjoyable roguelites I've thrown myself into on its own merits. The pacing is great, each decision along the road feels meaningful, most runs that aren't killed early on by horrible luck feel aptly rewarding, and the music, art, story, and narration create a singular and sorrowful set of vibes that are hard to top. Deck it out with some very interesting and often unconventional RPG classes and thematically-grounded party dynamics from the refined stress system, and I don't think I'll be letting the flame of this carriage burn low for a long time.

The game's story keeps unravelling towards a genuinely tearjerking ending, digging into its themes of community, resilience, and rebuilding in surprising and consistently interesting ways. It keeps a steady, compelling rhythm, switching between the normal fishing and cooking to something more dramatic and then back again. And watching the town slowly come back to life, not despite setbacks but building on what they leave behind, is beautiful.

Simply put, Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy is a really good time. Not only that, but its linear story-telling and fast, nippy pacing feels intensely refreshing after the bloat of, say, Far Cry 6 and the sometimes frustrating openness of Deathloop. As it funnels you down a story filled with japes and jabs, I'm transported back to a happier, simpler time. If you're a Marvel fan, this feels unmissable. And even if you haven't got a clue what a Marvel is, it still delivers a very enjoyable romp through the stars.

I don't feel very strongly about Age Of Empires. That might sound damning, but I'm someone with no particular stake in the series, perhaps even slightly biased against it. Yet I've never wanted to stop playing AoE 4 all week. It might not be a huge step forward, but it's a sure step in a genre whose comeback is long overdue, and it doesn’t appear to have ambitions beyond that. I'd like to see more clear innovation, I'd love an active pause and speed controls in single player at least, and a pull towards macromanagement, and a heap of smaller tweaks that may well come in time anyway. Fundamentally, the best I can say is that I enjoyed it more the better I got, I got steadily better the more I played, and I don't see myself stopping any time soon.

The tissue-thin layer of political commentary in House Of Ashes mostly serves to get in the way of what is almost a decent horror romp. It has real monsters! A big length of iron thrown at head height! Flashbacks to the past with a creaky old English voice! A cool combined knife and flare fight! Mushrooms! For God's sake, stop trying to say something meaningful beyond, "the member of your group who has been bitten cannot be trusted." By going back to being a silly 00s survival horror, House Of Ashes has taken a step firmly in the right direction compared to other Dark Pictures Anthology games. But what it really needed was the cast to be two cheer squads from different schools, who were on their way to regionals when they fell into a vampire nest. I'm sure you could come up with another way for them all to have massive guns. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Whatever the reason, Evertried forgoes a lot of modern conveniences common to the roguelike. If you are in search of an austere tile-hopper, you might find strength in its arrow-key puritanism. But as one indoctrinated by Into The Breach and the recently released Pawnbarian (a similar tile-by-tile roguelike with both clarity and capybaras), the uniformity of Evertried comes across as a lack of polish, a jigsaw that could be pleasing to the eye if only it didn't have so many missing pieces.

Gripes aside, I love Digihaven for everything it does, and I love it even more because of how accessible and simple it makes such a magical tabletop experience. It’s not just a great tactics game in its own right, but a gateway to introduce the Monopoly-scarred to how nifty, gratifying, and ambitious the best digital board games have become over the last several years. Gloomhaven? Massive bloody grin-haven, more like. [RPS Bestest Bests]

After several months of stalling and dogged perseverance, I finally finished a 350-page book about the art and struggle of being a Japanese literary translator the other week, and not once did it get me thinking about words and language in the same way Grotto did over the course of five hours. When a game provokes these kinds of feelings in me, I don't mind so much if the choices I'm making are actually a little bit fake. Grotto stands on its own as an engaging story about the way we communicate with others and how their meaning can be polluted and morphed over time, and I reckon fans of such things will likely enjoy it even if the game-y aspects of it feel a little undercooked. If it's a meaningful, branching narrative you're after, though, then you'll be better off finding a different rabbit hole to hunker down in than Brainwash Gang's Grotto.

When Quintet disbanded, many of its developers unfortunately faded from the industry. ActRaiser Renaissance is therefore the work of a whole new staff (barring legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro, who returned to revise his epic soundtrack while adding a slew of new tunes). It's always worrying to see a beloved property fall into the hands of a new team, but Sonic Powered have done right by ActRaiser. And that's important, because Quintet's catalogue deserves to be remembered and revisited. With any luck, ActRaiser Renaissance might herald yet another renaissance for the likes of Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma.

It’s a shame to end on such a sour note, because those earlier moments where the Pit shines are positively radiant. Battles in Into The Pit never get as intricate as a meaty fight in Doom Eternal, nor as suspenseful as the single, exquisitely choreographed encounter you’ll find in Devil Daggers, but I’d say they came close enough to make me giddy if only they came more consistently. Instead, Into The Pit descends into comfortable familiarity, and all the scuttling in the world can’t save the back half from feeling like a slog.

A finely crafted card game sealed in a meta-narrative wrapper that you sometimes have to tear off when it snags, but when that wrapping falls away, Inscryption reveals itself as a rare shiny. A clever game without taking itself too seriously. Metafiction always runs the risk of being pompous and showy. By contrast, this is an impish game, trollish even, repeatedly reinventing its own rules. A beautifully cursed creation. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Ultimately, ElecHead is just an absolute treat from start to finish. It's clever, beautifully designed and it's all accompanied by a toe-tapping soundtrack by composer Tsuyomi. It's an essential purchase for puzzle platforming connoisseurs, and an excellent way to spend an evening for less than a tenner. It's not often I say this, but chucking your head against a brick wall has never been so much fun. [RPS Bestest Bests]

This is a shambolic RPG barely held together by an underutilised photography aspect and an entirely inconsequential shapeshifting ability, wrapped in the familiar trappings of a rural life simulator. The Good Life is tonally stupid, structurally broken, surprisingly deep and occasionally self-aware. It is a confusing and strange and mostly horrible experience, which I feel personally worse off having been through, but am somehow glad that I did.

Ultimately Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles doesn’t really offer a lot outside of watching characters beat the shit out of each other with various flashy moves, but I guess that was always the point. Although the playable roster is feeling the distinct lack of demons right now, there’s a lot to enjoy from the characters who are there, delivering on the promise of a power fantasy of Gotouge’s manga epic. For those steeped in knowledge of that manga (or Ufotable’s anime adaptation), The Hinokami Chronicles offers a great little opportunity to spend some more time with the heroes and stories we’ve loved for years.