Ultimately Nightmare Reaper's a fun retro-styled FPS with a couple of rogue-lite elements to introduce some loot-fuelled pizazz to bloody proceedings. While it lack of full commitment to the rogue-lite reward loop knocks it a touch - you're still in for a treat. The game's sheer volume of randomised weaponry and twisty levels make it worth picking up for retro FPS veterans or newbies alike.

In general Arranger is an imaginative, cheerful, funny game that doesn't outstay its welcome. I think it'll provide a great challenge for puzzle enthusiasts, but it's kind enough to throw at someone who is only just getting into them. In specific, I still haven't been able to solve the optional mine puzzles. But that just makes me want to try again.

If you’re at all intrigued by Ni No Kuni, I’d strongly advise you to just go and play Revenant Kingdom instead. It’s a far more enjoyable JRPG than Wrath of the White Witch, and it won’t make you feel like snapping your keyboard in two out of a white-hot fury of your own (if only because its actual mouse and keyboard controls are much easier to get to grips with in the first place).

In short: good fightin', rushed writin'. The storytelling is markedly more generic than the previous game (even that was a bit too Marvel for me), and I'm less in love with the character design overall. I miss the big ringed chrome arms of Jax, for instance, the skittering sharpness of D'vorah's spikey limbs, or Kollector's blessedly messed-up arm anatomy (he's not playable so far). So for franchise-agnostic fighting game dweebs, it might not capture the imagination with the same might as its predecessor. But otherwise there's enough klassicism to Mortal Kombat 1 (and enough fan servicey callbacks) to please the diehards. A totally acceptable (akkceptable?) follow-up, provided the online kombatants follow through.

The result as a whole is that Botany Manor is extremely peaceful and focused puzzle game, even as the puzzles increase in complexity. It is an oasis of calm. You know that everything you need is around you somewhere, and that you have all the time you need, and this makes it immensely satisfying when you do figure the puzzles out - because nobody helped you at all. You can take your time cataloguing apples. You can look for the different duck models that are hanging around. You can carefully examine the cards on the board game to discover which animal's heartbeat will stimulate this meadow plant. I only wish Botany Manor was longer - I would buy any DLC you care to name, be it a Succulents Pack or a Winter Plants Special, or what have you - except I have a suspicion it is perfectly balanced as it is.

In its present state, Duelyst is fantastic, and with time it’s likely to only get better.

I think my CS days are behind me. It's an FPS that requires a lot from you, and those after a shooter you can sort of switch your mind off to should look elsewhere. But if you're a newcomer, lapsed player, or veteran, I think CS2 offers up thrilling matches that can twist and turn after a smart play or a remarkable shot. Many will find it's rather close to CS:GO with neat upgrades to grenades and extra pop to maps, while another portion of the community might just want CS:GO back. Right now CS2 is a great iterative update to a tried and true formula... that's missing an awful lot of fan favourite stuff. Give it time, though, and I think it's onto something pretty special.

If you're after a new, turn-based take on Monster Hunter, then Monster Hunter Stories 2 largely delivers. The story isn't going to make your jaw drop, the world's rather bland, and it lacks in-depth crafting options. But - and it's a big but - the combat is genuinely a lot of fun, and collecting monsties is very moreish. Plus, I like being able to ride my monstie in battle and pull off special moves that practically nuke monsters from orbit. Len Goodman would give that in isolation a 10, at least.

Of every choice I made in Many Nights A Whisper, I am open to learning what this says about me the least. I really wanted to nail that shot, and what kind of selfish fool ignores such an obvious advantage with so much riding on success? This isn't about me, I reason. Of course, it's actually been about me the whole time.

Vermintide 2 might be shameless about its inspiration, but, critically, it recreates it really, really well, at a spectacular scale. I can’t speak to whether I’ll still be showering the land with rat legs a few months from now, but I fully expect to happily spend the next few weeks, at least, knee-deep in the rodent dead.

It’s the campaign crouching that impressed me the most, the way it dips its toe it a ‘light RPG’ direction. I’m enjoying this new trend of RPGs-but-not-RPGs; action games that borrow the language of the more complex genre – side quests, character levelling, exploration – but in such a way that there’s never any doubt you’ll miss a pixel of it. I’m thinking of things like Metro Exodus or Control; games which put you on a longish leash, but take you for a walk around a world that is so hand-crafted that it feels rude not to gobble the whole thing up. Gears 5 left my belly nice and fat, and keen for the next course.

So it definitely leans into the lite in roguelite, but it's a good version of that, and it does much more with its story and characters than you might expect. Turnip Boy Robs A Bank fully commits to the bit, doesn't feel the need to explain itself, and it's having fun - all things that are big ticks. I suspect it's not super welcoming to a player who isn't already a Turnip Boy fan, and, indeed, it's my second favourite Turnip Boy game, but I still hope there are more games in this world that are all a bit different, every single time.

Wargroove, on the other hand, is faithful to not just the spirit but the body of its inspiration, keeping both the pleasures and some pains of the old toy war game, pointedly refusing to change most of the basics, and instead simply adding extra layers: online multiplayer, map editing, a “puzzle” mode. It’s not so much a spiritual successor as it is a full-bodied recreation of the franchise, with skeleton horsemen instead of tanks. The impeccable Into The Breach already established itself as the true successor to Advance Wars, but I’m perfectly happy to have the old GameBoy cartridge more or less repackaged, even if some of the old dust is trapped in there with it.

Prey is a game that’s smart about almost every aspect of itself, and yet with that, so crucially modest. It doesn’t yank the camera from you, doesn’t force you to sit through cutscenes, doesn’t demand you sit still and listen to its backstory. It’s content to be itself and let you find it, which is a damned rare treat in this hobby. Even more amazingly, for all its array of abilities and powers, you can finish the game without touching them, perhaps even find a narrative rationale for doing so. It lets you improvise, explore, make big decisions without needing to tell you they’re big. And yes, it absolutely does let you turn into a cup. [RPS Recommended]

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.

I’m amazed that Ratropolis works so well. I’m amazed it works at all. I extracted many hours of satisfaction from it before I hit the wall, and it’s a game I will return to with every patch, because there’s something excellent here. It’s time for my humble rats to become gaming heroes.

I was half expecting Suikoden to feel childish but it doesn't. Instead: a prodigious, precocious sprog. A genre in its infancy and prime at once. Sheer fuckin' magic. Two of the most uplifting, absorbing, tragic and sweet JRPG stories ever penned. This is what the human soul is best at.

All of these facets weave together to make Kathy Rain 2: Soothsayer one of the most engrossing adventures I've played in a long while. It's heavily reliant on extending the narrative of its forebear, however, and like the Kathy Rain 1 Director's Cut, many of its more interesting twists and turns exist to iron out the rough patches of plot from the first game. But sequels don't necessarily need to be fully standalone experiences, and you can probably blast through both Kathy Rain 1 and 2 in the span of a long weekend. If that sounds favourable, give Kathy a go. A detective has indeed been born, and as a femme Gabriel Knight, she carries the torch of a niche genre in fine form.

I’m conflicted. Conceptually, The Crimson Court is very much my cup of blood, but the execution, particularly when it comes to the first mission and the curse, sometimes feels off. That said, Red Hook has clearly been taking feedback seriously, and changes have already been made to make things a little less punishing.

It's deftly done, and goes a long way in smoothing over some of the cracks that emerge from its simplified take on Papers, Please's gate-keeping. Overall, I had a very good time with it, and wolfed it all down in almost a single serving. It's probably a good one to play with kids and young teens, too - a kind of Baby's First Papers, Please, if you will, that can introduce them to the core concept while also giving them a jolly good story at the same time. For adults, Lil Guardsman may ultimately miss the point of what Papers, Please itself was trying to interrogate all those years ago, but you can’t deny its heart always tries to be in the right place.

Making entertainment media rooted in the recent past is never easy. The interactive nature of games makes that even trickier, and Paradox is no stranger to certain groups deciding that presenting historical reality is equal to endorsement. Victoria 3 succeeds at rendering a tumultuous chapter in world history with a straightforward grace that educates as much as it entertains, encouraging reflection and empathy in the process.

I find it difficult to picture the person who wouldn’t enjoy Starbound. Parts, sure, but the whole is this sincere, incredibly ambitious sandbox that’s as full of charm, and space-faring pirate penguins, as it is stuff to build and places to explore.

There is, throughout, a slight air of artificiality to Torment: Tides of Numenera. It has been made to please a specific crowd, and sometimes that shows; sometimes that comes at the expense of what matters most. This is outweighed entirely by the scale of this accomplishment. Torment is the weird, wordy, wise and wicked roleplaying game we’ve so desired during these long years of heightened spectacle. Not a total triumph, no, but close enough.

It’s a stylish, retro-futurist love letter to computing, engineering and ’90s videogame level design. It also feels like the prelude to a better game.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a substantial and in some respects lavish cyberpunk romp, which, if looked at purely in its own right, is only really guilty of a bit of visual and narrative flab.

The satisfaction of a fully-ticked list kept me going to the end, and I happily lingered for a few more hours to identify objects I'd missed. The highs of Strange Antiquities – and there are many – match those of anything else I've played this year, and surely put it up there with Blue Prince among the best puzzle games of 2025. It is fiendish and delightful, and hopefully, one of many more Strange games to come. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Football Manager 2016 isn’t the best of the 3d match engine era – I think that’d go to 14, which consolidated lots of ideas into a redesigned tactical system – but the apparent improvements to both long- and short-term AI make it a much more involving and reactive experience.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink has absolutely no pretensions about it, isn't saying anything, and is quite dedicated to it's fantasy. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and a hot witch who explodes roses everywhere in battle is cool. So are attacks the size of a planet, and monsters with hands on strings flying everywhere, and pirate captains who are also dudes with big cow horns. Unless all of that doesn't sound at all cool to you - in which case, best avoid this game, if I were you.