It's just such a delight to have Ghost Trick back on modern platforms. For returning players, it's a chance to revisit one of Takumi's best and most lively mysteries, while newcomers get to enjoy one of the finest puzzle games of the last two decades. There's still nothing quite like Ghost Trick, and that makes this resurrected remaster all the more worth saving. [RPS Bestest Bests]

I absolutely can’t blame Tindalos for wanting a game with such a recognisable and beloved license to court appeal outside of genre fans, but I also think that if you’re going to make a strategy game, you should probably make it full-heartedly. 2012’s XCOM felt like a genuine revolution in turn-based tactics, but Aliens: Dark Descent too often feels like a compromise, or, more accurately, a console-mise. If you’re thinking, wow, what a snob, then, congratulations. You get to enjoy something more fully than I did, which is much better than griping about things. Dark Descent is beautiful, engaging, and absolutely drips with authentically atmospheric Aliens goo. But, again, like those face huggers, it’s also just a bit too restrictive, and I don’t think it needed to be.

As I mentioned at the start, Dordogne is not a taxing game, and it won't challenge you or make you think differently about the world around you. But it is a very sweet and tender coming of age tale that's the perfect little mini-break for such a busy time of year, and I enjoyed the three hours I spent gawping at its truly gorgeous watercolour scenery. It's well worth a pop on Game Pass if you have it, but even if you don't, you'll feel much better about yourself at the end of it than spending the same amount of money on the latest Marvel dross at the cinema - and it will no doubt stick longer in the memory, too.

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.

Much as I loved trading in gossip, it’s just another distraction in a game where ultimately I’m here to find the love of my life, tentacled or not. I’ve greatly enjoyed weaving my own tales and following my nose exploring the Eldritch corners of this world, but I was hoping for more romantic endeavors seeing as it labels itself first and foremost as a dating sim. I’ve left the Neath with an anthology of tales, it’s just a shame that none of them included escapades of romance, flirtatious encounters, or straight-up monster f.cking.

As a returning Frictional fan it shook up a slightly ponderous series to make something exciting and new. This is Frictional back on imaginative, exciting form, and I'd be happy seeing them do other slightly more contained projects like this. I'd also, of course, love to see something new - but it feels like Amnesia is a pocket dimension they can visit again. If it's an idea as well-rounded as The Bunker, I'm happy to go with them.

If you're allergic to puzzle games, though, it's not a gentle introduction to the genre. Depending on the ending you get, it might feel a little abrupt at the finish, but there are some puzzles in there that feel revelatory to solve. You feel smarter than one of those sheltered Mensa kids whose parents force them to learn to play the tuba. I figured out that bit with the blood serums, godammit, I should be eligible for lifetime membership of your little genius-person club without any tests.

Part of the reason it's so easy to play hours of Diablo IV in one go, staring unblinkingly at the centre third of your screen until you feel your eyeballs turn into raisins, is that it's very well made. The different synergies of all the abilities and spells is extremely impressive, and the game kicks up a bit when you get your ultimate spells and special abilities. I got the ability to summon, rather than a team of skeletons, one huge Big Daddy-esque monster in their place - and even that came in three variants for extra build customisation. There are main missions, side missions, timed world events, an optional currency to buy mystery weapons, and hours-long dungeons to get Aspects for your character - themselves another optional addition to apply to your gear. It's a game that puts no friction between itself, and you mainlining it for an entire day. Whether you'll feel good afterwards is another question.

Although the performance issues take the shine off things, I can still comfortably say Street Fighter 6 is the most fun I’ve ever had with any fighting game on release. After the disastrous launch that was Street Fighter 5, seeing Street Fighter back on top form again just feels right - and I’m extremely excited to see what the next year of content updates can do for a game that already feels this mechanically polished at launch.

But if you’ve an appetite for space dungeoneering in the company of one of gaming’s most iconic and influential villains, you’ll find the remake cleaves close to that original pitch. This is the product of a team which, to its credit, believed in the 1994 proposition of System Shock and trusted it would still stand up today, in spite of a 30-year shift towards smoothing the player’s path. The result has proved them right. It transpires that our creepy, manipulative robot mother knows best. [RPS Bestest Bests]

But even these moments of spectacle can't hide what is ultimately a very dull game. It's also quite janky, and I spotted plenty of canned animation loops, characters getting stuck in scenery, and Gollum clipping or jittering through the environment on several occasions to name just a few. But even if it were technically sound, Gollum is simply a game that fails to expand the world of Middle-earth in any meaningful way. There are glimmers of something here, but like the ring itself, this is best chucked into the bowels of Mount Doom and forgotten about forever.

At the core of Miasma Chronicles, then, is a nugget of precious metal. It demonstrates a strong understanding of what makes turn-based tactics games tick, and when you get down to the nitty-gritty, it’s full of the knife-edge decisions and risk-reward gambits the genre is renowned for. But around that core there’s too much that doesn’t quite fit, or isn’t quite up to snuff. If The Bearded Ladies are going to stick to type in the future, their balance of stealth, tactics and post-apocalyptic fiction could do with a new strategy.

It does make me wonder, though, if this existentialist aesthetic was chosen for any particular reason or just because story mode necessitates the presence of a story and if you make the story’s theme “stuff sure is confusing” nothing really needs to make sense. As I said earlier, humanity’s puzzle mechanics are extremely strong, with each stage requiring a satisfying blend of intuition and experience to successfully complete. Its stage creation and sharing functions are similarly friendly and effective. The people could just as easily be water flowing through a zen garden or fish swimming through the sea, though, so why aren’t they? The fact that they are people and I am a shiba inu must mean something, right? Right?!

I’m really glad that I checked it out as, despite some issues, Boltgun is marvellous fun. It’s a highly entertaining shooter that had me grinning from ear to ear on many an occasion, and is one of, if not the best representation of the Warhammer 40,000 universe available on your personal cogitation device.

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.

In a way, it's fitting that HROT should repeat the mistakes of the games that inspired it, frontloading all the best bits into that first episode inherited from the shareware model, then following it up with level packs that have sparks of brilliance but lack the same coherence. I have zero regrets about playing it, those brown and twisty murder dungeons speak directly to my blackened husk of a soul. But this is a treat baked specifically for shooter enthusiasts, and probably not where you should start your adventure into an imagined FPS past.

Where 2KDrive shines is in its races, which ironically, feel freer than its open world.

I know the above's been pretty bleak and it genuinely saddens me that Redfall is a disappointment. I simply can't believe it's by Arkane Austin, the same folks behind Prey, and by the same minds who helped bring Dishonored's Dunwall to life (Dishonored 2 remains one of my favourite games of all time). It's not that Redfall's absolutely diabolical, by any means. There are moments of wonder buried away in Redfall, where Arkane's penmanship and architectural mastery surface. I just know that Arkane are far, far better than what they've put out here, and there's a sense that what's arrived is a game that was pulled in so many directions it couldn't cope.

It's perhaps unfair to slam it for its best parts apparently coming after many more weeks of experimenting and practicing (although I will slam its utterly tiresome ‘progression’ that has you unlock cosmetics and world generation options with points awarded after a campaign. It’s pointless time-wasting, but thankfully a great many worldgen options are available upfront, saving it from outright condemnation). I enjoy its city management, its freedom, and sometimes its battles. There's some solid, intricate design I can appreciate. but I never really connected with the factions, spells, or fighting of Age Of Wonders 4 the way the phrase "cursed toadlings" promised.

The fact this is all the work of mostly two developers also just blows my mind a tiny bit, too. I don't think it will convert those who have never enjoyed a Pokémon game before, and I can also see its in-depth elemental system being a bit too much like a GSCE chemistry lesson to capture the attention of those Pikachu-loving ten-year-olds. But for those who have felt increasingly like the Pokésphere just doesn't cut it for them anymore, there's definitely a lot to like and admire here. Pokémon will always likely be the dominant force in the monster-catching genre, but Cassette Beasts is a smart, evolutionary offshoot from the Game Freak family tree that I hope has a long and happy life ahead of it.

I was on a mission-critical infiltration to save someone's life with nice giant Bode, and I kept running off like "I know man, just, yeah, no it is, it's very important... yeah, no, one second, I saw something shiny over here and I'm not going to replay this level for ages". That doesn't feel very Jedi Knight. My repeated calls for every game to be at least 40% smaller go unheeded. Still, it's very fun rolling a Stormtrooper over your back and pinning him to the floor with a lasersword, isn't it?

Honkai: Star Rail is still in its early stages but it’s incredibly good fun to play. With the promise of more planets to come, more characters to fall in love with, and more twists and turns than anyone can see coming, this is one train that’s worth riding.

Stranded: AD may not contain an entire galaxy’s worth of possibilities, but it knows how to keep you curious about your little patch of land, and it's a pleasure to watch your survivors feast on the fruits of their labour–whether they be beefberries, graincob, or buttermelons.

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.

This is a game that that understands its own entirely disposable nature, that knows it's landing at the tail end of overwhelming zombie survival fatigue. Instead of trying to resist that, it embraces it, resulting in a breezy, messy adventure that has zero nutritional value, but will fill your bloodstream with yummy, delicious sugar. Dead Island 2 is a stinky trash game, and this filthy racoon had a grand old time rolling around in it.

All of this could be fixed with future updates, but I think the devs have built themselves into a corner with the fundamentals of Minecraft Legends. Adding more content and complexity won't solve the issue of the awkward control scheme and lack of precision - something that all RTS games need in order to be great.

It's the second game in a row that I've reviewed and said I wouldn't recommend it unless you're a fan, but given The Awakened was Kickstarted (with some fund-raising incentives that I'm not really on board with to boot) I'm preaching to the converted. In as much as you, like me, might want to see Frogwares continue, both to exist and to keep making their weirdo Sherlock Holmes games, you should check The Awakened out.

It's a decent, fun game if you liked Road 96 and while I don't think it's essential, it's endearing to see a developer like their characters enough to want to do more with them. Nice, too, that they had the runway to do it rather than move on to the next thing. You get the feeling they wanted to do more, even so; there's a DLC in the form of an interactive e-book bridging the gap between Mile 0 and Road 96, which costs almost as much as Mile 0. It's nice to go back - but my gut tells me it's probably time we all left Petria behind now.