For those who prefer their logistical twiddling to be more abstract and neat, this isn't going to tear you away from the factory lines of Shapez 2. But it might be worth a pop for those who prefer their number-fiddling to be wrapped up in a thematic purpose. It doesn't have the moral compassing nor the defined flavour of Frostpunk (which, for me, remains the more eye-catching post-apocalyptic city builder). But it does enough with its humble scavengers and salvaging expeditions to at least invest you in the populace as a whole. Even if that concern is always attached to a selfish desire to avoid resources plummeting. [Early Access Review]

Valorant’s gunplay feels just as weighty and precise as CS:GO’s, with a structure that hits all the same highs and lows. Abilities sometimes let you outsmart people rather than simply outshoot them, and I’m excited about playing in a squad of friendly and coordinated pals. If and when they fall away, though, I expect I will too. Riot say they’re taking toxicity seriously, and this is good to see. But they acknowledge they’re fighting an uphill battle, and I’m not at all convinced they’ll be able to foster a competitive environment that doesn’t routinely make me miserable. This launch week, though? When my friends are playing, and the game isn’t dominated by people with far more experience than me? I’m going to have a blast.

Problem is, all this wears thin fast. After a couple of hours, I’d already got to the point where seeing certain maps crop up made my poor jellified heart sink. Within a few more hours, my heart looked more like stone. Saying that feels monstrous but it’s true...I’d still heartily recommend Fall Guys in its current form though, because those first few hours were such a treat.

So: a funny spectacle that doesn’t have the staying power beyond the length of your average concert (plus several encores). I wish there was more reason to return to this world once the applause dies down - I could see myself firing it up for a nostalgic listen down the line - but it’s fun while it lasts. The perfect Game Pass game, then, or a slightly more indulgent treat at £17. A recommend, but not a full recommend. Too ambiguous? Ha, the Slippery Matthew Castle strikes again.

This is an incredible game. I started it with no expectations at all (as I mentioned before, I can’t even remember why I’d flagged the game to look at), and have come away from it as one of my favourite games of 2016.

If you’ve any interest in transhumanist philosophy or even ethics in general, then you owe it to yourself to pick this one up. If you don’t, then The Red Strings Club should still hit the spot – and you might find you have more to say the next time someone asks you about the nature of happiness. [RPS Recommended]

There are ideas to celebrate, then, but this isn’t an entry that particularly excites or builds upon what we’ve already seen. If you love the NFL then you’re going to play this because of the lack of competition, but EA Sports needs to seriously think about how it’s going to evolve its Madden formula over the coming years. We can’t keep giving it the benefit of the doubt forever.

Bury Me, My Love isn’t, first and foremost, a treaty about refugee-ism: it’s a compelling and effective game about deciding what the hell to do next.

So yes, in light of Alan Wake's newly established relevance in Remedy's Connected Universe, I'd say it's well worth making the trip back to Bright Falls to reacquaint yourself with this important piece of gaming history. Whether you do that through this shiny new remaster or the original Steam release is up to you. Personally, I'm not sure this remaster warrants paying twice as much for the same adventure. It would be a different story if ray tracing or HDR was involved or the original was capped at 30fps like its Xbox 360 counterpart, but outside of its newly reworked character models, Alan Wake Remastered looks and feels much like the original PC release. While it makes sense to have a fresh, clean version of the game that everyone can enjoy in the run-up to whatever's next in the RCU, Alan Wake Remastered is a much more essential purchase for those playing on console than it is for us on PC.

It is simply a good time. And there is an unmistakable, open-hearted joy to fixing problems for people as an intimidating agony uncle. Even if it usually involves hitting them with a bike first.

For now, The Finals is the most exciting multiplayer shooter launch I've played in years. It's a clever blend of old-fashioned generosity and new-fangled technology, and it's exciting enough at its core to offer delight and drama no matter your unlocks or skill level. I'm going to play it right now.

There's still plenty to like and admire about Planet Of Lana. It may not deviate much from the puzzle-platforming playbook, but its cinematic action sequences and environments are worth your six hours. It doesn’t quite reach the highs of Ori And The Blind Forest and Limbo and the like, but it’s a solid sci-fi tale and a wonderful debut from Wishfully. I'm excited to see what those folks do next.

I just wish it was better structured to deliver that a conclusion without collapsing on itself at the last hurdle. Because there are hints of something wider at play here. It just does a terrible job of pulling it all together, which can leave Octopath Traveler feeling like a big old anticlimax. I both love it and hate it in equal measure, although I must say the PC version’s gorgeous 60fps is absolutely to die for after chugging through it on the Switch. It makes me all the more inclined to give it a sort of sneaky thumbs up, but in the end I think even JRPG die hards will find this a bit of a slog.

There’s a climactic rush at the end of the game’s 20-hour runtime, but for the majority, Dungeons of Hinterberg is wonderfully laid-back. There are so many games that romanticize leaving your busy life and escaping to the wilderness, but here the topic is explored in an authentic and genuine way. There’s a lesson here about how rest is fundamental to health and happiness, but I also love how the game communicates that. It’s a gentle, reflective fantasy adventure that’ll have you reaching for your hiking boots.

If you’ve never Nidhogged before, this might be the best place to start since you’ll almost certainly be able to find a non-laggy game much more quickly, but it’s missing some of the original’s elegance, and not just in the visual department.

While my fellow lovers of supernatural storytelling and occult life simulation will get a huge kick out of playing with Werewolves, I doubt it's going to do much to convert those who would rather see The Sims as a slice of life. Fundamentally, this pack doesn't change anything about how occult life states behave in The Sims 4, and they're still going to feel intrusive if you'd rather not have them in your game. But if you are a fan of the weirder side of Sim life, then I have a feeling Werewolves is going to be an essential add-on.

Largely, though, Catherine Classic is a pretty fantastic rerelease of a cult hit that people have nattered on about endlessly since its debut. Being able to finally play it on PC is wonderful, and having other game modes — Babel, where you unlock harder stages by getting gold trophies on normal or hard mode in the campaign, and Colosseum, a competitive multiplayer mode — gives it a lot of replay value.

It's also just very nice to look at. You can zoom right in to watch the trains pass one another, loaded with goods, and horses galloping along by the completed tracks. It's a bit like going to a model railway, except one you built yourself. You want to build beautiful railways, you want to build a luxury passenger train that winds around a mountain path rather than smashes down it with a steep bridge. You want to make your great design part of the landscape - there's a level in a forest that rewards you for not destroying any trees (and each tree destroyed in the forest stage costs money). Station To Station is a short but lovely puzzle game, perfectly balanced, and you'll play it in pursuit of a more beautiful engine. [RPS Bestest Bests]

There is a happy Saturday morning feel to Dicey Dungeons. It’s as if you’re munching on Coco Pops and watching cartoons, as you fiddle with some toy dice that came free in the cereal box. This is a sorta-deckbuilding game about being transformed into a walking, talking dice and battling creatures on a rigged game show for a chance to “SPIN THE WHEEL” (the wheel always lands on a skull). It’s a make-your-own-luck strategy game about micro-arithmetic, about adding up chump change into shiny pound coins, then flinging those pound coins straight at the forehead of a toothy cowboy. It’s not bad.

Given the lack of a Sim City 2000-style ‘apocalypse now’ button, the scenarios are also a fine way to simply enjoy/scream at the disasters. The dam one, particularly, is a goofy-horrible treat. A meteor slams into the water, which promptly mushrooms over the dam and totally swamps the city beneath it. It’s proper disaster movie stuff: cars screeching to a halt to avoid a rising tide, the waters sweeping people away, the lights slowly dying.

After sifting NieR Replicant for golden nuggets of story for nearly 30 hours, the fifth and final playthrough is the big payoff. A glimmering chunk that's worth all that pain. The game becomes unpredictable again, as if you only had a second of time to celebrate your find before crashing through a sinkole into a throng of earth and cables. It was brief, but stirring stuff. That is, if you're into NieR's story. If you're not, then I highly doubt you'll have the patience to complete this game five times. There is no other way to describe it other than a big commitment. Almost all aspects of this game wore thin over time, until at one point the only thing that kept me going was sheer force of will. I'm very glad I hung on in there, but I do wonder how many people will bother.

Mostly, I really like the high drama and high fantasy of Last Epoch. It's much less depressing to stare at for hours as you blast mercenaries and ice wolves into trembling ragdoll corpses that some of its contemporaries, and the the mid-complexity crafting and gear systems, along with the character building, makes it easy and, dare I say it, actually fun to engage with minor percentage increases. I never thought I'd see the day.

Minor issues aside, I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed a long-form point-and-click adventure this much. It reminds me why I love the genre so much.[Recommended]

A game that offers us both a memorable journey and a place to call home. Of course, how much meaning can one have without the other? Far: Lone Sails gave me a wistful sense of both that I won’t soon forget. [RPS Recommended]

I think this is basically for two types of people: those who played Oblivion back in the day and think they'll get a real kick out of the updates, and those who just can't deal with the way classic Oblivion looks and controls. It's a game for the curious, for the nostalgic, and for those that want to be part of meme-stuffed zeitgeist moment. It's that last point I imagine Bethesda are banking on, barging themselves back into cultural relevancy on the back of Virtuos's hard work like the cheeky gits they are. If you're hungry for a gorgeous medieval open world to get properly lost in, you're still much better off with something like Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. But if you ever wondered what Skyrim would be like if it was less existentially grey by every metric, there really isn't a substitute for the undeniable charm that Virtuos have so cannily preserved here.

Despite its flaws, Tales of Berseria has numerous interesting stories to tell. If the developers had cut the flab and focused almost exclusively on the cast of characters – with some combat thrown in – then I think this would have been a must-play. As it is, I think it’s still worth playing if you’re a fan of story-focused JRPGs, as long as you know you’re strapped in for the long haul. I felt more connected with the game’s characters than I have to any group in a long time, and it’s worth putting up with a few hours of pain for that pay off.

Goodness me, Kingsway is clever. It’s clever in so, so many ways. It’s clever in its absolutely spectacular presentation, but it’s far too clever to let that just be a gimmick – its peculiar appearance as a mid-90s Windows desktop could so easily have been a cute idea that hid an ordinary roguelite RPG, but instead it so very brilliantly influences how you play, and indeed the foibles of such an interface become crucial to how you experience it. It’s also really bloody tough.

Byt gosh it’s fyn. It’s ytterly ridicyloys, bombarding yoy with new items like nothing else, jyst constantly asking yoy to go have some fyn. “How aboyt trying that level with this?!” Okay! “Now this!” Syre thing! And that’s enoygh.

It’s not quite Bestest Best material, then. But Planet of Lana 2 succeeds far, far more often than it dawdles. Its core puzzle-platforming benefits from some particularly canny mechanical improvements, scoring the unlikely achievement of becoming more complex without stumbling into head-stumping, teeth-grinding difficulty. And, once you escape those cold corridors, it’s even more of an audio-visual treat than the original. Still with, happily, a cat who actually listens to you.

Although there are some elements that could've been improved with more time to bubble on the stove, Venba's visual novel-style conversations and gorgeous cooking puzzles complement each other perfectly. The result is a heartwarming love letter to immigrant parents, Tamil culture, and the food that raised us.

A MOBA in a non-cutesy, non-fantasy setting, with just enough respect for the genre’s tradition while having the courage to keep things slow, uncomplicated and strategic. Here’s that slap on the back, space videogame. You deserve it.

A fantastic co-op brainteaser that's perfect material for catch-ups and corporate days. Seriously, replace team-bonding sessions with a puzzle-tower and you're golden.

That it successfully pulls off big ideas while ostensibly criticising the danger of big ideas is perhaps a better way to end, and a better reflection of the admiration and fondness I feel for The Magic Circle despite its shortcomings. Or are they?

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.

Despite some characterisation wobbles and a somewhat perfunctory final mile, STASIS is the best adventure game I’ve played in years. It’s also one of the most impressive horror games I’ve played lately. The tiny team behind it have done remarkable things, far in excess of what many, much larger studios seem capable of. Those studios should be afraid – be very afraid.

I can gripe about Trepang2's tone and I can shrug at its plot and I can pout about its length but that's all fine, really. Criticisms fade when I launch it to double-check a detail then get lost bursting heads for 20 minutes before remembering I have a review to finish. I already fancy returning to check out higher difficulty levels or the many cheats and modifiers unlocked after finishing the game (ranging from 'Only Headshots Kill' to 'Squeaky Voices'), or just to shoot faces all over again. Oh, I do enjoy shooting these faces! I'm hoping new missions might follow if it does well, or even that 2005 FPS staple, an expansion pack.

By the time I launched my final rocket from Terra Nil, I was happy to leave it behind. It certainly feels refreshing in the citybuilding genre, which is so often focused on creating infinite growth and bustling metropolises, nature be damned, but ultimately, it's still a game about chasing numbers, and filling meters that allow you to progress. That alone could be comforting, some much needed calm in a busy world as you create a lush landscape, but I found its repetitive nature was more frustrating than relaxing. Topped off with a level that shifts the focus from its previously hopeful tone to one of somber silence as you suck away the radiation, Terra Nil struggles to cement its identity as the calm, meditative puzzler that it seems on the surface.

It can be tricky to assess the balance in a genre that relies on making you feel hopeless, threatened and, yes, a little bit tilted occasionally. Resources feel plentiful, initially, and so I feasted until famine struck and I had to abandon my first run, which honestly just made me respect Conscript more for committing to it. If this isn’t your bag, there’s four difficulty settings, plus options to enable checkpoints and unlimited saves - in saferooms still, but without needing to use an ink consumable. Also included are mainstays like playthrough ranks and unlockable costumes. And - ohoho! - an honest-to-god digital manual, complete with a blank notes page. Love it. The way I just structured that paragraph now necessitates I make it clear I’m not just saying this because of the manual, but: Conscript is good survival horror. Fill your boots. Check for rats first though, innit.

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.

On the one paw, there’s enough variety in the levels that playing my favourites on a cycle doesn’t feel too repetitive, and I’m enjoying the core of the game enough to be happy with a little repetition. But then I dislike the mindset that the loot system breeds. Forget the rats shagging in the sewers and scurrying up your plugholes, Vermintide’s true horror is the ruthlessness of its playerbase. If you’re not contributing toward a superior haul of loot, you might as well be ratfood.

Does every game “for” grown-ups need to have blood and rude swears? No. And by the same token, games for tweens don’t need to be patronising, and it’s not like if I had a 12-year-old kid I’d buy them Cyberpunk 2077 for their new console, because that’s not at all appropriate. Thank goodness there’s this, then: an imaginative, fun action game that has a nice story about family and personal growth at the heart of its epic adventure, and a good sense of humour, where you turn Aphrodite from a gracious tree back into a bitchy hot girl.

I also don’t want it to sound like that bit of collectible busywork spoils what is ultimately a very good mix of satisfying snapping and eyes-agog wandering. You can always just capture the requisite frames while you’re passing by, looking for your own shots, and - truth be told - the striking vistas you’ll win access to are very much worth a spot of picture-matching. Come for the lessons, stay for the landscapes.

Despite these missteps, though, Episode 2 was still exactly what I wanted from this game, and that's more Coffee Talk. I wanted an excuse to hang out with these characters again and check in to see how they're doing - a feat I've continued to do with Toshikazu Kawaguchi's now three (soon to be four)-strong Before The Coffee Gets Cold series - and Hibiscus & Butterfly absolutely delivered on this point. I wouldn't say it's a better visual novel than the first Coffee Talk, but it is more of the same ingredients, and that's fine by me.

The story and dialogue itself is also super simplistic. I actually appreciated this more and more as the game went on. The whole thing had a flavour of Final Fantasy about it – you join a band of activists in an unfamiliar city, fall in love with one of them and fight against a mysterious and dodgy regime.

Minit is that most rare of joyful things: A really good idea, done really well. [RPS Recommended]

It might sound like I'm pretty down on MW2's multiplayer after all that, but trust me, I think it's a strong time! Aside from a couple of overcomplications, the game still excels at delivering an arcadey shootybang that's paced well, with a wealth of modes and weapons to satisfy all types of player. [Multiplayer Review]

It's just fun, isn't it? It's not groundbreaking, Toem, but it's somehow nostalgic and modern at the same time, a silly world that you can just enjoy, guilt-free. No overwrought commentary on modern society. No hidden meaning. Occasionally some hidden socks, or ghosts you can only see when you're wearing magic sunglasses, yes. Mostly having fun and taking pictures. I was here, I played Toem. It was good.

If you’re a fan of old school Castlevania-esque games then this is the ticket for you. A perfect recreation of the mould, but filled with its own strange story and theme. For those of you who aren’t this is a tough recommendation. You’ll need a lot of patience to get to the oddities I found so compelling, but if you want to know what Indiana Jones would be like if he fought mecha-dinosaurs instead of Nazis… well, you absolutely do want to know don’t you?

This is a game that, despite its derivative nature, manages to delight in the details enough to make me remember why I loved the games that inspired it to begin with.

So perhaps what The Eternal Cylinder is really about is how the spirit of creativity flees ahead of all those forces that seek to flatten and homogenise it, how it will take on any form to do so, and how Ace Team are one of the strange families fleeing with that light into the unknown that lies ahead of us. That Ace Team have managed to keep making these outlandish games is, all on its own, a chance to be hopeful, a motivation for us all to evolve, and certainly a good reason to buy The Eternal Cylinder. Which you should if what I have said about this game appeals to you even remotely.

The setting will largely dictate whether or not it speaks to you. I found it more appealing than the other big Creeds of recent times. I lasted mere hours in Odyssey's ancient Greece, and the same for Valhalla's 9th century England, but much longer in Mirage's golden age Baghdad. That simply comes down to being more into Islamic architecture than Greek myths or Viking longboats. Assassin's Creed, for all its faults and weaknesses, is as close as video games can get to time travel tourism. I'm glad I went on another trip.

It’s such a warm game. Touching and heartfelt, masterfully capturing the cosy excitement of the places and stories we explore as children.

While The Beast was fun to binge through in a few days (around 21 hours, with plenty more side-quests still left to do), I feel like I've had my fill of Techland's specific brand of open-world design for now. But if the zombie parkour itch hits again, I think it says something that I'll probably return to Dying Light 2's sprawling cityscape over another scenic alpine excursion.

If you love Doom and you're the kind of Guitar Hero player who wants to 100% Through The Fire And Flames, then I think Metal: Hellsinger might have you obsessed. For me - who only played Guitar Hero on Normal mode at parties, and whose only understanding of heavy metal comes from Wayne's World - it remained an excellent five hours. Party on.

It’s a game where old-school decisions too often trump good ones. A blast from a past I never lived through, where puerile humour and “area complete” screens tease you about not being a “real player”. Ion’s tongue might be in its cheek, but I’ve got little interest in what it’s saying.

The buggy, like the rooftops, is a temporary form of safety. All of the enhancements in the latest edition – new loot, new levels, new end-game excess – are icing on the cake. Dying Light is about creating moments of safety, empowerment and comedic triumph in a world that wants nothing more than to tear you down, and The Following is a perfect expansion of that central tenet.

The expansion is so large, so full of stuff, that the puzzle sequence forms a very small part of it. It’s just a very, very frustrating part. Grit your teeth. Take deep breaths. Hope that the pathfinding behaves. You will be able to get back to what you enjoy about Fallout, I promise.

I really liked Kiki’s face in the top-right corner of the screen, pulling an adorably smug expression as she pew pews her little pistol. But this isn’t a novelty animal Instagram account. Adorable only gets her so far, I’m afraid.

A remaster that takes a characterful, if clearly old game, and doesn’t quite give it the love needed to hold its head high in 2021. After Sega’s amazing PC run - launching Yakuza 0 and Persona 4 at £15 earned a big thumbs up - this feels like wanton gouging, and for a game that is more interesting than essential. Maybe the devil made them do it. Either way, it's a shame.

So, The Quarry isn't perfect by any means, and you can throw in some QTE or choice moments that feel like they cheated you on top of that. But even if it were perfect, its full price entry sticker might still feel like a pretty big ask for some people. It's also not actually that frightening, if I'm honest. Instead, it goes more for "tense and thrilling" even at its most hightened moments. But The Quarry improves on almost all the flaws of Supermassive's Dark Pictures Anthology, and picks up the baton from Until Dawn as if all those years haven't passed at all. It's cool, creepy, a bit funny, and a great summer horror treat for anyone missing monster movies.

I feel like, as much as I’m enjoying it, the side missions and gun farming only has a limited appeal once the story missions are over. And my stomach churns to think of making my way to the level cap just for the sake of ultimate completion. At level 26, I’m enjoying The Division. At level 30, I’m worried it’ll get repetitive.

The problem, really, is that while both aspects of Murder By Numbers are pretty good, neither of them are given enough space to really breathe. There are too few picross puzzles for puzzlers, and there’s not enough visual novel for VN lovers. I wouldn’t not recommend Murder by numbers, but it would perhaps have benefited from being a bit longer than it is (an easy demand to make of an indie game, I’m sure you’ll agree). Still, though, it’s worth a poke around if you’re a fan of either genre involved. And I still can’t get the theme song out of my head.

Sniper Elite 5 maintains the series signature sharpshooting across some gorgeous locales, but its renewed emphasis on close-combat encounters often feels like a shallow sidestep away from your rifle, leaving objectives feeling flat and monotonous. The game's at its best when you can sit back and snipe like a champ, but when the campaign constantly forces you into tight, muddled environments, it ends up distracting you from that glorious sharpshooting. The new Invasion Mode ups the ante and makes missions more tense, while the new weapon customisation system lets you personalise your sniping experience, but the amount of time spent sprinting around means that Sniper Elite 5 often fails to hit the mark.

I think of the themes FromSoft's Miyazaki is so fond of revisiting, of monarchs clinging on to life and power well past their time, and becoming something warped and hollow in the process. And I can't help but see an exhaustion in Nightreign, despite splotches of sprightly inventiveness. I'm left asking why I should want to throw myself at these bosses once again, absent much of the delight or discovery that would give these challenges context. Instead, this is challenge for challenge's sake. A stripped-off part of FromSoft's creative identity with little appeal absent the whole. And ultimately, I'm left wishing they'd sit back down at the bonfire and have a good, long rest, until a real spark makes itself known again.

It looks just lovely, a bold and distinct cartoon style that’s something I want to see more of. And it’s important not to underestimate how much the voice acting adds, including daft singing characters.

The new aliens’n’ocean stuff is thoughtful and entertaining, pushing the sci-fi further and helping Beyond Earth take much-needed strides away from Civ V, building it at last into a game you have to figure out rather than just go through the motions with. It still comes up short on character compared to the best Civs and, of course, Alpha Centauri, but it’s without doubt less anodyne than before.

I enjoyed Ghost Song overall, but that middle act slump did almost kill it dead for me, too, which is a shame, as underneath it all, this is a very accomplished Metroid-like for such a tiny dev team - and it will certainly fill that Hollow Knight shaped hole in your life while we wait for Silksong, especially if you're a Game Pass subscriber. There's still plenty to admire about what Old Moon have made here, but there are enough fluffed notes in the mix that it just stops short of being a harmonious whole.

Even outside of those giggling japes, there are endless smile-raisers. The inventive playfulness of Blendo is on full display. There's a James Bond styled opening song that you walk through as the credits roll. Exposition chats are accompanied by an old-fashioned projector that lights up the room with figures and diagrams. Finish a level and the game will sing "Niii-naaaaaaa!" in celebration. It's got so many little flourishes like this. Granted, I'm predisposed to love a Blendo Game, after the smash cuts of early free games like Thirty Flights Of Loving, and the hacker heisting of Cowboy. But if you haven't played anything from this studio before, Nina Pasadena's sci-fi jokeathon is certainly the place to start.

Routine is just a well-made sci-fi horror game. I wish I had a more elaborate closing note, but I've used up all my adjectives yammering about turbine noises and VHS-C. 2012 was a million years ago, but this elegantly cumbersome chillfest seems none the worse for the interruptions and extended spells in suspended animation. Congratulations, Lunar Software. You pulled off the moonshot. Now, let's get the hell out of here before that thing down the hall notices me typing.

The glitchiness is my only hesitation in wholeheartedly recommending Semblance. But it’s vital that you know I’ve had a thoroughly good time with it. Not just because the puzzles are so smartly designed, but also the cartoon graphics are a complete joy, and the music is some of the best unobtrusive ambient pleasantness I’ve heard in a long while. This is a properly good debut from South African developer Nyamakop, and a genuinely interesting take on puzzle platforming.

Temtem is a treat for Pokemon fans on PC, innovating on the formula in meaningful ways while staying close to its roots. That's not always good, as Temtem has a lackluster story and an endless churn of wild battles that feel inherently Pokemon, but it's still the best take on the genre in a long time. However, the best part about Pokemon is that I can whip out my Platinum cartridge and return to Sinnoh in a heartbeat with all my old mons lying in wait, and whether Temtem can stand a similar test of time remains to be seen. For now, though, it’s a fabulous creature-catching experience that you need to try. There's a chance that Temtem might even become your favourite Pokemon game yet.

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.

There is, perhaps, a slight sense that Marrakesh has been rushed – as well as the logic issues, that sense of revolutionary promise unfulfilled and unfortunate route-blocking I mentioned, I suffered from a ton of blurry textures – but it doesn’t feel seriously compromised. Not quite the equal of its noble forebear, no, but it’s the most visually impressive installment yet and, as a package, Hitman’s three episodes so far are already providing more game for the money than anything else recent I care to mention.

While Pacific Drive has trunk loads of atmosphere, a powerfully engaging premise, and simulates the feel of driving a quirky old machine in admirable detail, it’s all locked into a laborious framework. For all those “Get off the road!” moments, the processes of gathering, crafting and advancing through its story are fraught with irritating potholes and diversions. With all the repetition of mundane tasks, I imagine it’s closer to the reality of being in the army than that old advert ever was.

Wizard of Legend is a good, if lopsided game. The moment-to-moment combat is highly flexible and seldom anything less than satisfying, especially in co-op. It’s just a pity that while your arsenal of spells and artifacts is massive enough to be remixed a thousand ways, the maps, bosses and enemy types only fit together in a handful of configurations.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty may fall victim to the same pitfalls that snared its predecessor Nioh. Looting and levelling can be an overwhelming and confusing venture, to the point where it can be actively offputting for those who want to know, at a glance, that the greaves they're rocking and the spells they're casting are the best for their character. And yet, if you embrace the slight messiness of the game's backend, what you've got is a triumphant Soulslike and a showcase of Team Ninja's ability to make some of the best combat in action-RPGs. It's a streamlined Nioh, one with rhythmic action that may not always reward your efforts, but is rewarding in and of itself. And that's what will keep you coming back.

Deserts of Kharak does manage to be standalone as well as prequel to an old series, and if you’re tired of the twitchy frenzy which grips so many latter-day RTSes, Kharak is a smart and beautiful destination whether or not you still dream of Hiigara. It might be set on land, but by recent RTS standards it’s nonetheless reaching for the stars.

I had a lot of fun with Hue. It was frustrating sometimes, but most puzzle-platformers are, and it would be boring to get every level right first time. Its faults mostly lie with being over-ambitious in terms of tone and narrative, but I think I’d rather see a game overreach than be content with mediocrity.

This political road trip is rendered an exciting and entertaining time by its cast and the deliberately piecemeal nature of its storytelling, rather than the story itself.

If anything, the game's built-in radio station is its greatest weapon against any grinding or gnashing of teeth. It's just so darn soothing, playing a mix of poppy, lo-fi music and calm, softly-spoken listener stories that help fill in some of the game's wider backstory (in multiple languages, too, which is a nice touch). I'd happily listen to it as a real-life radio station if I'm honest, and I liked how constant and uninterrupted it was, too, playing whether you're navigating the menu to restart a level or moving between stages. It really helps to keep you in the overall golf groove, and it was one of my favourite parts of the entire game. Sure, life up on the red planet might not be much better than it is down here, based on the little story snippets you glean from the radio now and again, but man, when the golfing is this good, what an extraordinary bit of escapism. Let's go another round, shall we?

Observation is clever, but it’s also astoundingly dumb. You’re placed in a unique perspective, where onscreen inhumanity accentuates your oh-so-human instincts. Then it subverts that! But then it makes you control a sphere that can’t move directly up or down, furthering the nightmare of navigating already labyrinthine spaces. It asks you to do something, without telling you how...It’s worth persevering with. When you get stuck though, don’t hesitate to use a walkthrough.

I consider this a kind of grimly hilarious manifestation in the vein of an Alan Moorish act of chaotic development magick, minus the part where the art actually has anything of substance to say about literally anything. That’s fine! Substance isn't always necessary. Those doors were substantial, and you saw what happened to them, didn’t you? Sometimes what Anger Foot does offer is worse than nothing, mind. The concept for the final boss (‘unholy corpulence') is effectively “lol, fat.” You’re funnier than that, mates. I know you are because I’ve just played your game. He keeps trying to knock you into a pool of molten cheese, but this is weak sauce.

Suspicious Developments have distilled that chaotic kinaesthesia into something much smaller, smarter and spacier, which is absolutely to be praised. Even if I found myself feeling like an aggravated villain as often as I felt like the fleet-footed hero. Even if I’m still sour about the man who killed my mum.

Some games only become fun once you work out what they expect from you, and I spent most of my time with Wildfire wondering if I was playing it wrong. Maybe I was, but if there was a fun way to play it, I never found it.

Brief as it may be, Untitled Goose Game leaves a lasting impression – much like the geese of my youth. Our honk-meister general is a devious and thrilling villain to behold, and the level of detail that’s been poured into each of his hapless victims only serves to make them all the more endearing when you come flying in and take a giant dump on their perfectly ordered lives. It’s also finally given me the answer to my age-old question about what the deal with geese is. They are, in short, horrible, and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

F1 Manager 2023 does a near miraculous job of simulating the business and strategic side of F1, but that also brings the inherent flaws of the sport to it as well. The teams aren't anywhere close to even, overtaking doesn't happen much (especially at Monaco), and real progress takes years.

I still wish they’d been placed in a more inventive or expressive shell. For all of the wonderful craft on show, Siege doesn’t contain any surprises. It executes its plan to perfection but there’s no room for deviation.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes has some old school habits, and they can be difficult to live with at first, but once you settle into those quirks, it's a story you'll struggle to put down. The sense of journey is magnificent, as you march across snowy valleys, lush jungles, and dusty deserts, sweeping up buds along the way. And you regularly partake in moments that'll genuinely surprise, forever keeping your quest from getting stale. Expect one-on-one fights, cinematic song, and races of some description. If you're a fan of Suikoden, it's a no-brainer. And if you're a fan of JRPGs or struggle a bit with old-fashioned things, I'd still urge you to give it a shot. It's a really lovely hang.

So much damage has already been done to the game simply by calling it Overwatch 2. From the second of its announcement, Blizzard were at the mercy of players' expectations for a full-fledged sequel. And when they compare those two side-by-side screenshots and see virtually no difference, that's a major disappointment and perhaps a turn-off for many players. For a content update, Overwatch 2 does an absolutely phenomenal job. For a sequel, it feels pretty underwhelming. I wonder, would it have been better to use chapters like Fortnite did? Something between a content update and a sequel? [Review in Progress]

If you want noise, combat, speed and the occasional hurried decision, developers Rockfish have you covered.

The major design changes in Civ 7 address important criticisms of earlier versions and help to ensure that players are faced with challenges, not tedium, even as the game progresses - albeit at some loss. By the time I wrote this review, I had spent more than 50 hours playing the game - proof enough that despite its flaws, Civilization 7 sustains that “one more turn!” desire to plow through history and see what happens next.

Rise and Fall adds, tweaks and expands, but it doesn’t address some of the underlying issues, particularly those related to the AI. We’re not quite in the new golden age yet.

As someone who loves a bit of space-trucking, it is indescribably refreshing to have some handcrafted characters sprinkled into the mix.

As it is, this is a perfectly reasonable portion of carefully planned fantasy stabbing, which was enough fun (once I started playing properly, at least) to make me reevaluate my whole position on puzzle elements in tactical games. Hell, it might even be time to postpone my next marathon slog with XCOM, and revisit Into the Breach.

Wayward Strand knows not to outstay its welcome, and I came away feeling completely refreshed. Spending a couple of hours navigating the hallways, patient rooms, and airship innards in real-time is a fun mechanism and one that goes hand in hand with the game's wider themes about the passage of time, being young, and growing old. Assembling a story through details found in conversations and overheard snippets of dialogue are great storytelling devices, and although you could play it once and be satisfied, I recommend several playthroughs to really discover everything it has to offer. After my handful of playthroughs, it honestly felt like I had pieced together a larger whole, and I truly felt like I finally understood the beating heart at the centre of this clockwork machine.

It’s DOOM without the claustrophobia. A Serious Sam + Borderlands cocktail with weighty, thumping, exciting, speedy combat. Diablo in first-person, with wide open spaces, packs of enemies, giant bosses and more weapons than you can shake a wang at. Shadow Warrior 2 is anarchic, excessive, ridiculous, occasionally spectacular and almost entirely wonderful.

There is something great glinting just below BattleTech’s dour and crusty surface. So much now depends on whether future updates will dig for it or not – I pray they do. I’ve put an inordinate amount of time into playing Battletech, even starting the campaign over at one point, so convinced was I that I must be missing something or playing it wrong, but now I have reached an inescapable conclusion. If you want a picture of BattleTech, imagine a giant robo-tank silently firing an ineffective laser at another giant robot-tank – forever.

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.