And after all this, there are the bugs. Bugs bugs bugs. Characters vanishing, cameras swiveling, cars becoming lodged in barriers, shotguns becoming lodged in spines, doors that look wide open but are really closed, ambulances flickering in and out of existence like a dying filament. The majority of the bugs are visual hiccups, but a couple are complete blinders, such as the time my onscreen health, stamina, ammo and minimap all vanished in the middle of a fight with a tank-like juggernaut zombie. Or the time I threw a pipe bomb and it simply froze in the air centimetres in front of me, then exploded.

There are a ton of great ideas here, and I particularly dig this whole concept of a management game that’s about a production line for silent slaughter rather than cash-generation as such, but the best stuff can struggle to breathe through the excessive micro-management. The stereotype-heavy gags and iffy translation make things more of a drag than they deserve to be too. It’s well worth persevering with MachiaVillain despite this.

Wizard of Legend is a good, if lopsided game. The moment-to-moment combat is highly flexible and seldom anything less than satisfying, especially in co-op. It’s just a pity that while your arsenal of spells and artifacts is massive enough to be remixed a thousand ways, the maps, bosses and enemy types only fit together in a handful of configurations.

It may take a few tries to discover how to land a date, but playing Monster Prom is some of the most fun you’ll have trying to figure out a game’s mechanics. By making the goal competitive in multiplayer, it challenges the dating sim genre in a wholly unique way, and its combinations of events and endings make every playthrough feel like it’s your first time (this is the part where I wink suggestively).

I wish PoE2 had had more to say, more it wanted to express. I think that would have covered over a multitude of its other sins. Half-ideas about colonialism mixed with exploitation of natural resources by trading companies don’t really deliver the goods here. (That is the best joke.) As it is, despite having spent dozens of hours playing this, I’ve always felt at arm’s length. [Review in Progress]

I’ve still happily lost hours mining away, blasting gun-toting demons with bouncing icicles and hanging with my skulls. It’s constantly doling out new weapons and monsters to test them on, and every dive into the subterranean world results in so much more loot than I can carry that I’ve just got to go back down one more time. Brevik, as you might expect, is still pretty good at making the grind compelling. [Premature Evaluation - Early Access]

It’s all focused firmly towards evoking the period though, and here, Creative Assembly’s love for history absolutely bleeds through.

As it is, it’s a lovely, fun game that too frequently reminds me of its mistakes. And despite that, I want to keep playing. Which is probably rather important.

There is something great glinting just below BattleTech’s dour and crusty surface. So much now depends on whether future updates will dig for it or not – I pray they do. I’ve put an inordinate amount of time into playing Battletech, even starting the campaign over at one point, so convinced was I that I must be missing something or playing it wrong, but now I have reached an inescapable conclusion. If you want a picture of BattleTech, imagine a giant robo-tank silently firing an ineffective laser at another giant robot-tank – forever.

Frostpunk may be one of the most tense, exciting city building survival games on PC, but for a game with such an emphasis on innate justice, and heat, it leaves you surprisingly cold.

There’s so much room for shenanigans thanks to the gameshow theme, but Radical Heights too frequently relies on the bare bones battle royale formula, which is a shame because being a battle royale is by far its least interesting feature. And it’s so early that it’s extremely difficult to predict what type of game it will grow into over the course of what Boss Key predict will be a year-long stint in early access. It doesn’t even have an identity yet. It does play You’re The Best during the victory celebration, though. [Premature Evaluation]

A pretty, weekend wonder that may never beat you but should never bore or baffle you either, March to Glory is a hard sell at £16. If you’re in the market for some quality turnbased wargaming free of hexes and headaches, and don’t already own them, I’d invest in Shenandoah’s WW2 duo instead.

At its best, Dead in Vinland is compulsive, and a great example of systemic roguelike storytelling. Just be prepared to scratch your beard constantly at some baffling writing decisions. Or, be prepared to buy a fake beard, I guess. All Viking games should now come with beards. New rule. You heard it here first. Also, mead. And an axe. You’d think we’d be able to download axes by now.

Usually, in the course of gameplay, a game’s character becomes an avatar for you. But A Way Out accomplishes something far more subversive and bold. Eventually, for better or for worse, you become an avatar for your character.

Minit is that most rare of joyful things: A really good idea, done really well. [RPS Recommended]

Far Cry 5 is frustratingly uneven as a whole. From minute to minute its combat systems are the best in the series, and its vehicles handle better than those in previous games as well. Its landscapes are a delight, their details rich and worth exploring, and you get to develop your playstyle and objectives on your own terms. Until something gets in the way. It wants you to enjoy all of the freedom it offers until, through its systems, characters or story, an interruption arrives. It’s the land of the free, but that freedom only goes so far.

Almost anybody can mine out 40 or 50 hours-worth of honest enjoyment from the quest to build Evermore, and I certainly encourage genre fans to take the plunge. Just don’t be surprised if it fails to make much of a lasting impression, like a sandcastle going out with the tide.

On the one hand, Sea of Thieves is a game so empty that recommending it feels like a dereliction of duty. On the other hand, I just chased down a man who killed me and threw a bucket of my own grog-induced vomit over him by way of revenge...It’s the small things like that that can make Sea of Thieves triumphant, which is just as well, seeing as there’s just an empty mass of very pretty water where the big things should be.

Gosh, it could be a lot better, but I really enjoy playing what it is.

Though I sometimes grew weary of the donkey-work of cables and repairs, I definitely relish the new state of sustained fear Surviving Mars brings to city sims. It means that even small accomplishments feel so much bigger.

Northgard is simple in all the right ways, challenging not because of complexity but complacency – it’s harsh, but rarely unfair.

A solid, decent picross game, that unquestionably stands in the shadow of Pictopix, the one picross game to rule them all. If you’ve exhausted all Pictopix has, as I have, the Picrastination is a very welcome inclusion, and at less than a fiver, an easy decision to make.

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 by no means the best Final Fantasy game there’s ever been, especially once it forces you to bid farewell to your easy-going road trip and sit on a literal train for the rest of the story, providing tiny, tantalizing glimpses of other open worlds that might have been if only they’d had another ten years to actually finish the damn thing, but I’ll eat my chocobo hat if it isn’t the most interesting, experimental and important one the series has ever seen. [RPS Recommended]

It’s still a bloody good time-troubling tactical shooter though, even if I wish it had more space to explore the world, and more variety in the tasks and locations.

Chuchel is a creation of pure joy, an absolute masterclass in silliness, with pleasingly involved puzzles to boot. It’s a giant cuddle of a game, interesting to all ages, and with a manic edge that never slows down.

It’s a game where old-school decisions too often trump good ones. A blast from a past I never lived through, where puerile humour and “area complete” screens tease you about not being a “real player”. Ion’s tongue might be in its cheek, but I’ve got little interest in what it’s saying.

The fights can be plenty challenging, especially if you venture online or into the openly-described-as-unfair gladiator arena mode, but I was never able to shake the sensation that they’re just a delivery vehicle for a really great cartoon.