Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York is essentially a collection of subplots for their own sake, largely set in stone. But they’re written with talent and confidence and I would gladly read some more.

It starts to fall apart if you look hard at the minutiae: the simplistic economy, infrastructure development, and the somewhat directionless AI. It’s charming and evocative, but the more I play it, the less substantial it gets.

Human: Fall Flat is unquestionably charming, and tremendous fun when it’s not annoying me so much I want to find the developers and put staples in their toes.

There’s definitely a nice idea in playing as a tech support trapped behind deploying stock phrases, as some larger story unfolds about you, but Tech Support: Error Unknown just doesn’t deliver it.

For terrible husk-people with no love in their heart, it’s a little harder to be forgiving of Disney Dreamlight Valley in its current state. Glitches are to be expected in early access, but quest-ending bugs and repetitive grinding put this life simulator on unsteady footing out of the gate. You’d have hoped Disney has deep enough pockets to spring for more voice-acting and properly animated cutscenes too, and the extortionate price of some of Scrooge McDuck’s items should give parents an early sense of unease. The game will be free-to-play when it launches in 2023, and the game’s monetisation mechanics aren’t yet implemented. [Early Access Review]

It’s a robust piece of design that you could well consider a triumph, given just how many ways in which the concept of an ARPG based on a construction game phenomenon could have ended in disaster. And I’m confident in recommending it as worth its price to even the most jaded click-stabber, especially one with even a passing familiarity with Minecraft. But the fact it’s been executed so competently leaves me wishing the developers had been a bit more reckless, frankly. A bit more experimental, in adapting its parent property to an alien genre. Because while the results might have been profoundly weird, it’s weird things – like Minecraft itself was, when it first appeared – that change the landscape of gaming.

It’s just the content, I suppose, that doesn’t charm me any more. It was like playing the FPS version of a top down ARPG like Diablo or Wolcen. Yeah, I’ll shoot the waves of oncoming enemies. No, I don’t particularly need to know why. I’ll do it again in another mission in a minute. Blah blah blah, strip club, blah blah blah, chop shop. Oh Saints Row. It is not you that have changed, but I.

I’ve had such a splendid time just mellowing and wallowing in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, not needing to care why it has such a terrible name, not being rushed along, or nagged to do anything. [RPS Recommended]

It really does have the best of intentions though, and if you’re a mega-fan rather than just someone with fond but not entirely specific memories, I suspect you’ll tap right into the rich vein of Fighting Fantasy love here. Me, I need a little more.

Probably the biggest benefit of playing Tomb Raider via these remasters is that they'll allow you to quicksave anywhere, and there's a way to map that quicksave to a multi-button shortcut. But from a purely aesthetic perspective, there is something needless and gestalt about it all. Lara Croft has not aged gracefully, which is fine - in the long run none of us will. But putting her through this TikTok filter and dismantling her tank treads has not made her knees any healthier, her stories more memorable, or her past any more playable. Only the most feverish crypt botherer should follow her into this ominously high-definition temple.

I dearly hope this receives a huge patch. Perhaps fistfuls of bandages and a full body cast. This could be a three-hour wonder, a really truly beautiful work to be lauded. Gosh I wish I could have written the review its unmangled form deserves. As it is, it’s very hard to recommend spending £12 on – already a tough call for such a short game.

And it’s a world to spend time in, too, not just turn up and smash a few pots and hoard a few coins. Take it slow, says Garden Story. Yes, peril approaches, but fences need fixing just as monsters need slaying. Fighting to save the world is a lofty abstract. Instead, fight to save the soil and the sky, the frogs and the flowers, the wise cacti and the talking pickles. Fight like only a grape in a green bucket hat armed with a parasol can.

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.

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.

For this, it has my respect, and I don’t regret giving it my time. It just bears remembering, amid the dust, the quietness, and the boxes of unreliable memories, that the bookwriting values flexibility above the pursuit of a single, perfectly scribed chronicle.

Halo Wars 2 is simultaneously conservative and inventive. It’s definitely trying to evoke traditional RTS games – which is not entirely a bad thing given the recent dearth of them – especially when it comes to the campaign, but elements like base construction and Blitz mode make it stand out enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re just going through the motions for the hundredth time. A clumsy UI and weird, sometimes fixed, keybindings and controls reveal its console heritage, but there are a surprising number of benefits to that side of the design.

The world of Scorn is singular, and carefully constructed, and intelligent. The way you're left to explore - and the way you can get through it without any help whatsoever - is a 10/10 bit of game design. But the most upsetting parts are upsetting by accident rather than intention. I think as many people should play it as possible, but I can't say you'll enjoy it. I'm really glad it's coming to Game Pass.

A minor diversion at best, without the comic timing or cunning to turn anyone to a life of crime. A weekend of crime, perhaps, at most.

The thing is, though, that I don't exactly hate it. I've chosen to be a carpenter and spend a lot of my days in the forest, strip cutting the whole place with a song in my heart and the sun at my back. There are a truly dizzying number of achievements in New World, and I've got my sights set on the Master Carpenter one, partly out of spite at this point. And, you know, a good MMO should facilitate you playing how you want. It's just, I do also really want to do the dungeons. [Review in Progress]

If you’re the kind of person who wishes it still was the eighties and likes the idea of revisiting a button-mashing romp, warts and all, you’ll find a lot to like about this one. But even so, you might find it wearing thin after a while. After all, even the Age of Nostalgia must come to an end.

Competent enough as these things go, but far less suited to manic action-comedy than it is to languid angst and survival.

Zoria is doing a lot of stuff. It'll remind you of Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Lord Of The Rings, even Terry Brooks' weird fantasy books, and a bunch of it is done well, and in interesting ways. But in other cases the ambition has stretched beyond breaking point. But you kind of love your terrier even though it pisses on your cushions sometimes, right?

I'd wager you'll have hunnerpercented Storyteller in two hours max, which will sound like mana from heaven to some, but may disappoint you if you've been waiting for Storyteller for over a decade.

I’m not sure Taur has enough depth or variety to justify that £20 price tag, but it is good for picking up in half-hour bouts and knowing you can make a decent chunk of progress. Like Into the Breach, it’s easy to engage with without being mindless, although it lacks the balance and subtle ingenuity of Subset Games’ mini-masterpiece.

At its heart, Pathologic 2 is a frustrating game. Ten times more interesting than your average immersive sim (probably the genre it belongs), yet hundreds of times less inviting. It has perhaps successfully replicated its predecessor in being an artful mess. But whether you’re up for the art depends on how much of the mess you can stomach. For me, the answer is: no more.

This is a game that has a lot of talent stacked up behind it. It’s just that for me, it ended up amounting to slightly less than the sum of its parts.

Shadows Of The Damned: Hella Remastered will no doubt please fans of the original, as it doesn't touch the demonic meat and bones of the original besides giving them a bit of a face lift. For those coming in fresh, it's a fairly good time, but only until you start noticing its nastiness. I respect its zaniness and its double-A feel from yesteryear, but I also despise how its characters and its world portray women. I wish that attitude had been tossed in the bin and 'remastered' instead, honestly.

As critical as I’ve been, considering its age, Fatal Frame really is an alright game. It’s the kind of thing I could see a younger me playing in windowed-mode while listening to a podcast, chatting on Discord, and eating a bag of sour candy in my dorm room. These days, though, I really only have time for games that bring a little more to the table, and Fatal Frame, like its protagonists, is very much stuck in the past.