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.

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.

Despite all this, though, there's still a lot to like and admire here. I can see why people loved it so intensely at the time, and even now Clash Of Heroes feels like a true original. There's simply not a lot else like it - although given how hard it is, I can perhaps see why. Still, even knowing what I know now, if I was faced with the prospect of popping down £15 on a game I'd heard so much about for the last decade and a half, I'd honestly probably still give it a pop, you know? Loading times and all. I'd be more sceptical if it were double that price, say, but fifteen quid is a lot more palatable, and not so high that it wouldn't satisfy my initial curiosity for it. And if its online scene takes off (as it did with the HD remaster), then just experiencing it through multiplayer might lessen the problems I encountered in the campaign. A tentative recommendation, then, although probably more for strategy die-hards than casual toe-dippers.

As a work of horror Strangeland is doing way more interesting things than yer Outlasts.

I still enjoy Bannerlord because there's nothing else doing those open world battles. But almost everything else is a robotic, shallow grind offering no surprises, with a plethora of complaints that early access is supposed to iron out. You can ignore a lot of it, which only highlights how irrelevant it is, and though there are a lot more things going on, you have to provide your own motivation, because everyone's behaviour is basically the same, and everything feels like a missed opportunity.

Overall, Chimera Squad is solid. It’s still a shadow of its progenitor, with its new ideas not quite making up for the loss of old ones. But if you try to treat it as its own thing, play at a higher difficulty, and do your best to ignore the snake’s voice, I’d say it’s worth a punt.

Crimson Desert is ludicrously overstuffed with mechanics and systems, a scant few of which are really quite excellent (picking up cats and catapulting off trees are the highlights), but the rest of which feel half-baked. And they're the ones that you spend all your time with. Believe me, I want to like the game. It would certainly make my job easier. But alas, I had a better time playing Starfield. - Ollie [Early Verdict]

Clocking in at the 3–4-hour mark, Time on Frog Island is a bite-sized adventure that doesn't outstay its welcome and could easily be played in a single, cosy sitting.

Repetitive combat in World Of Horror can't entirely mar a unique, stylish and layered horror adventure that makes you want to play more the more that you play.

At the end of it all, my decisions in Wilmot's house felt less meaningful, less driven by my internal ideas about the world, less personal, and less rewarding than in our last meeting. It's a quieter game, about turning down the knob in your brain that says "categorise". That makes it both more chill as a task and less interesting as a game. If the Warehouse is a strong mug of hot coffee, Works It Out is a delicate cup of jasmine tea. Both are comforting, but I find one more stimulating than the other.

This might be the most beautiful, intricately hand-crafted open-ish world in gaming. I wish I was more excited to spend time in it.

I think the ending could have been better embellished, provided a little more closure and be a bit less rushed. And gosh does it desperately need speeding up a mite. But I had a splendid time with Kathy Rain, and thoroughly enjoyed a game where I couldn’t see where it might be heading. Kathy proves a complex and interesting character, and, well, I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Which is the simplest recommendation of them all.

I liked it! More than I expected to like it. But at the same time, after six hours of it, I’ve had enough. The spider labyrinth was astonishing, but it’s not really a mess I’d get myself in twice, when the real joy was in escaping it. I could have spent more time finding secrets and backtracking for loot. And there’s certainly a huge replay potential to RE3 for completionists, and folks who are fond of difficulty challenges. But that ain’t me. I was precisely in the mood for a fairly linear, day-long series of setpieces, and that’s exactly what I got. If that’s what you want too, then the question is whether it’s worth £50 to you. Unless of course you also have pervasive fantasies about being smacked around by a wardrobe-sized bastard wrapped in bin liners, in which case this is a must-buy.

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.

I like the idea of Valhalla and some presentation gripes aside, I like its execution. It’s no great revelation but a pleasant surprise, and being a mundane bystander going about their day instead of the plot-critical centre of the universe is an under-explored concept.

It can be very endearing in these smaller moments, but it still all feels bit false, a bit watery. And it manages to draw out tedium at times that should be breezy.

Lovecraft’s Untold Stories lulls you into a false sense of security with its mostly banal horror, and then boom! Penguins screaming like people. I can still hear them. [Premature Evaluation]

When the term "juice" (or "game feel" as it's more ofen called today) was casually coined, it was offered as a reminder to make games pleasing in the hands and eyes and ears of players, so that the player might become more present, more grounded, even in an unreal space. Zenless Zone Zero uses these same principles to encourage the player to live too often in a menu screen. To me it feels like a deeply superficial world. A really cool pair of shoes that sit around in your home, looking great yet going unused because they are uncomfortable and impractical to actually wear.

This is an ambitious, confident debut by a small team that is swinging for the fences. When a game like this arrives, bubbling up improbably from an industry that all too often rewards one million-dollar-sequel after another, it stands to be celebrated. I’d go out into the glittering ruins of Dynevron and rumble into a boss fight and then, somehow, lose the boss, and get sidetracked by some flowers I needed to find, and then go and unlock a teleport gate, and then organically find the boss again stomping obstinately past a fallen cupola, and I’d think "this is a blast, I’m having a blast, this is great." And sure, I don’t tremendously care about any of these people, and it’s never been less physically satisfying to swing a sword at these dogs, but right about then I notice that there’s this beautiful cliff about ten feet away and I can pick things up with my mind and in a matter of seconds all my problems have been forgotten.

There are moments, many of them, during multiplayer and AI skirmishes, where I’m absolutely certain that Dawn of War 3 is the best game in the series, even with its missteps when it comes to cover and fortifications.

Ultimately, The Big Con isn't going to tax you mentally or physically, but it's still a fun way to spend four hours if you're up for a few larks and a big dose of 90s feel-good fun. Mighty Yell have conjured some great locations to thieve your way through here, and their colourful cast of characters (quite literally, in this case) make them feel alive with lucrative opportunity. Against all the odds, The Big Con had stolen its way into my heart by the time I reached the end credits, and I'd have happily paid for the privilege, too.

All told, I like Hard West 2. It's not as easy to get into as Gears Tactics, and it's obviously a less comprehensive experience than your XCOMs. But its revisions to the familiar tactical formula do ultimately work, giving you the tools to face down some seriously stern opposition in spectacular fashion. Taking a slug of whiskey to heal yourself before bouncing a bullet off the liquor store sign into an enemy's back is a delightful synthesis of mechanics and theme, and when you combine that with a brain-tangling network of moves that leaves every enemy in sight sprawled in pools of viscous scarlet, boy howdy, there ain't no better feeling.

So yeah, it has more than a bit of roughness to it. But hoo boy, do I admire its spirit, its extra-ness, its enthusiasm for small-scale RPG design. It feels like somebody put a lasso around the neck of a snorting Disgaea game and corralled it into a pen with Slay The Spire, the resulting gamefoal erupting onto Steam in slime and wires, a cybernetic child of chaos, pixel art, and giant JRPG word flashes. BREAK. BLEEDING. ANTIMATTER. ENRAGED.

This is Full Throttle made playable once again, and that’s something to be celebrated. It’s a really fantastic game, with a lovely story, and brilliant performances. And out of its original timeline it’s free to just be itself, not compared to the last or the next LucasArts adventure to hit the shelves. If you loved the original, this is worth buying for the improved sound alone. If you never played it, then oh my goodness, hurry up!

It may be slight, but it’s delightful.

Despite their respective annoyances, you can't help rooting for Angela and Trevor, and especially Trevor. He has, as he points out, not actually done anything wrong except to not be an awful fitspo influencer, like American Arcadia's most popular resident. By the end of the game you're catharting as hard as anyone at the prospect of victory at the entertainment company at the heat of the show. It's especially great to see how Trevor's concept of what victory in his own personal context means.

Tales Of Kenzera shows great precision in its character and world design, in the writing, in the voice acting, even down to individual animations. But it lacks precision in some areas of the combat, in particular the platforming, which arguably is the bit that matters more in a platformer. For me, I'm not sure it does! Despite my frustrations - I have evidence in the form of furious texts to a friend about how many times I attempted one sequence where you have to sprint up waterfalls to a timed gate, and another that features a jump-dash in time to land on a platform floating on a lava fountain - I'd like to see what other tales can be told in Kenzera.

While Worms W.M.D. might evoke the halcyon days of Armageddon, it’s more than capable of standing on its own as another high point for the series.