And while I wouldn't say the tricks (or the levels themselves) develop a great deal over the course of the game, these are small gripes in the grand scheme. It's just really nice to inhabit the world of a shadowy amphibian and observe our everyday world of material objects as spots to hunker in or paths to exploit. I don't think the relative ease of the puzzling should put people off, either. Instead, it's a journey worth embracing and a comforting reminder that there's always something watching out for us: frogs.

It’s a short journey but not eventful enough for a repeat trip.

Strip those personal complaints away and Realms Of Ruin is a solid RTS with some fun units and missions. Even if I do still think you'll find the Stormcast Eternals boring.

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.

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.

But as a PC game, Chronos: Before The Ashes feels like a cash in, with nobody bothering to ask “does this really need to be ported over?”. Without VR it loses the magic of being in your living room knocking shit on the floor, and exposes the game as a very lukewarm soulslike.

It helps also that the latter stages of the game capitalise on groundwork laid in the more predictable first half. The locations you find yourself sucked into become that bit more intricate, with multi-part puzzles to wriggle through, and some combat situations that force you to move through the gears. Plus, each time you reemerge in Decerto, with everyone else none the wiser as to what you’ve been up to, the notion that the whole thing might be in your head starts to grip. True, there’s nothing especially original about a story that blurs the lines between madness and the paranormal, but it does inject doubt and paranoia into your investigation, which only makes you long to unravel the truth more. While spending time alone in the dark may not be as uncomfortable as it should be this time, then, with all the changes it may still be worth peering into the void, to see what returns your gaze.

Personally, I look at it and see a game that only barely iterates, even slipping backwards on gun design and tech fidelity, and that’s just not an appealing approach during what often seems like a golden age for more ambitious co-op shooters. Helldivers 2 deftly balances large-scale warfare with slapstick comedy. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a deceptively deep and immaculately presented horde brawler. And Deep Rock Galactic has good-natured teamplay down to a science, thanks in part to its own clever arsenal of sci-fi tools and weaponry. Killing Floor 3? That has a good headshot and a plus-2% foregrip.

Scanner Sombre is at its best when you’re left to your own devices, lonely yet in awe of the sights you see and make, but suffers when the game itself is pulling the strings, whether that be to evoke empathy or terror. I absolutely recommend it, for its four or so hours of dot-matrix world-generation have pleased me greatly, but you should go in knowing that it stumbles over its storytelling hurdles and should instead be treated as, like the titular scanner, a remarkable technological toy.

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.

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.

Ambition wasn’t thwarted by technology, but just a lack of common sense. I find myself still wanting to recommend you play it, not least because the action is mostly fine, if very repetitive, and therefore there’s nothing that’s actively unpleasant about playing it – you can experience the wonders it has to offer, just for the price of grinding through the okay-ness of it all.

There's too much going on in Biomutant. Maybe if there weren't so many unnecessary things then the devs could have spent more time making the annoying bits less annoying. Making those menus clearer and easier to use, properly signposting critical QTEs in boss fights, and tightening the combat lock so fights feel less chaotic and you can be more intentional with your attacks. Who knows? In the end there isn't loads wrong with Biomutant, it's more that the bits that are wrong are pervasive, and you have to wade through extraneous fluff to enjoy the bits that are right. Really cool hats, though.

Next week, once the servers are busy, I’ll return and find out whether this is a game that desperately needs the internet it insists upon to shine. I’ll be delighted if that’s the case. Right now, this is an awful lot of not very much. [Single-player review]

Park Beyond could use some tweaking, and some tidying up of building and especially demolition controls (it's possible to accidentally delete an entire rollercoaster with one click). Judging it as a business sim would leave it wanting, but would also be unfair. Its shortcomings there aren't so much flaws as signs that it's not primarily intended to be that kind of game. It's a creative, low-stress game first and foremost. Some minor bugs aside, it's a fun time with some cute ideas that I appreciate but don't quite love. It's not aimed precisely at me, but I still got caught in the blast.

Metrico+ really needs a lot more focus. It’s throwing an awful lot at the wall, and while there’s certainly a great deal of smarts at play here, they’re not united, not well contained. Slidey controls do little to help, but in the end for me it’s the lack of a coherent aesthetic that feels the most disappointing. It feels too much like a portfolio, and not enough like a cohesive, deliberate piece of work, and certainly not one that adequately evokes the feeling of infographics.

I’ve had a very splendid time with this, and have much splendid time left with it. A proper fine achievement, and a game worthy of measuring against the mighty Metroid.

Besides slitterheads, the biggest enemy was really Bokeh Studios' distrust in you, the player. You're forever told how to go about each challenge because the world isn't malleable enough to entertain your investigative spirit. That's with all the emptiness and the irritants on top, which come together to form a deeply unlikeable game. That's unfortunate, because I do think it has some genuinely impressive ideas and delivers, on occasion, some brief bursts of interesting combat and the occasional nice wander. They're just too few and far between for me to recommend it.

This makes it all the more disappointing that a bunch of these mysteries are unsolved, left suddenly dangling at the end of the game as if waiting for a sequel or chunky DLC to tie them off. I wish my adventure on the Helios hadn’t ended so abruptly and I feel a wee bit short changed, but I’d still be really pleased if they announced an add-on — like being cheated by a 20s newsie, but he did it with a bit of flair and a cheeky grin, so you let him get away with it.

Payday 3 isn't not fun. The shooting is fine, the mastery of a crime feels good, the knowing where to go when and escaping with bags of ill-gotten gains! But Payday 3's level complexity requires a bit more active co-operating than your average 'go here, shoot thing' sort of co-op. The current skill gating also makes it harder to succeed unless you've already played quite a lot, which works against welcoming new players. As such, it makes it harder to have fun with strangers, which is arguably death for an online co-op game. It's not a massive plus, anyway.

At 20 hours, having discovered just 8 of the regions, I threw the gamepad aside with a mixture of exasperation and disappointment. There are those who will relish the challenge but I never found the slugcat’s family, and not just because there were no clues or direction as to their whereabouts. There was a big part of me that didn’t want to stop playing and maybe I’ll pick it up again some day, because there is so much to love about discovering the laws of nature behind this huge, ruined ecosystem. But with each random death, each accidental roll off a cliffside, each checkpoint drought, that love turned to ash. There is so much beauty and intrigue and diversity of life in Rain World. It’s a pity the game doesn’t want you to see any of it.

A brisk run at Trüberbrook will take you around five hours or so, but it feels like, if they’d have had their ‘druthers, the team would have made it twice that. Trüberbrook isn’t bad, but it feels like a wedding cake with a couple of tiers missing. Beautiful icing, great craftsmanship on show, but somehow not all there.

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.

As a whole, Swansong is a bit more loose and messy than I'd expected, but with some screws tightened the annoyances would be much less irritating and the game much more fun. It's almost really good as is. I had, I think, a middling run, where I got to enjoy the silly bits and interesting details, and didn't have too many tragic failures. I do want to play it again and try different choices, or make better decisions, but... I'm in the middle of a new TV show. And there's that book I've been reading, you know? And I need to put a wash on. I got attached to my three vamps, but not that attached.

Listen, Gotham Knights has the tiniest shreds of goodness, perhaps tapping into the primal urge within all of us to make the numbers go up. I just don't want to play it again, which says it all for a game that's designed to worm into your brain and keep you coming back for more of its bazillion currencies.

After its two hour run-time ended with a little bubble burst of hope and sadness, I rather wished I could have sent Beth on her way and stayed behind with Adam - if only 'cos I didn't finish detecting half of those fields. There's gold in them there lovely hills. I can feel it.

In short, Mineko's Night Market never coheres into an enjoyable whole. There's always at least one part that grates against another - and frequently it's not just one thing, but everything rubbing you up the wrong way and pulling you in different directions. Being the local errand kid is a pretty thankless task at the end of the day, and the more time you try and invest in this game, the poorer you feel at the end of it.

I know that I’ve said the multiplayer mode is a potential loose cannon, and the single player content feels a bit slim, but I can’t let you leave this review without reinforcing the fact I really enjoyed this game. The things at the heart of it - demolishing towers with dodgy medieval rockets, seeing that each individual pig wandering your farms has a name, upgrading a warlord’s castle, placing those beautiful stone walls - are all immensely satisfying. It’s good stuff, essentially. But it’s wearing armour that’s very slightly too big for it, and that has the potential to weigh it down in the long run.