It remains compelling, despite its flaws, thanks to a steady, beating heart, and a joyful design that makes you want to forge onwards, towards a brighter future for all your tiny robot friends.

The world needs more simple, fun games. In Survival Kids, young players can learn problem solving, whether solo or with friends, and learn to puzzle their way through a variety of ever-more-complex terrains. While older players will find the lack of challenge grating, there’s ample fun in letting go, and indulging in light-hearted exploration.

While the game’s story is applied relatively loosely here, and you may occasionally feel bogged down by reams of dialogue, it’s a wonderful game to explore in bites. By design, it’s very bizarre, but with a wholesome approach and a wicked sense of humour, it’s also a very endearing experience.

Accept its oddness, and Don’t Stop, Girlypop! will find an easy place in your heart.

From mini shoot-outs to cute little outfits and architecture, it presents a bright, semi-historical world to live in, complete with a tiny saloon and a jail cell for those who break the law. While Cattle Country isn’t quite unique in the world of farm and life simulators, it does just enough differently to make it a warm and wonderful experience.

It’s the sort of game you’ll be thinking about long after the credits roll, as new revelations dawn. While it’s only short, its message is resonant – and in era where, globally, work and the need to hustle has become more pervasive in our lives, it delivers a message of resistance that everyone should hear. Play is powerful, and entirely transformative. We only need to remember how to weave it back into our lives.

Dear Me, I Was… has launched at a very low price point ($11), which feels appropriate for what is, essentially, a lightly interactive short film. It’s a gorgeous piece of work, and, right now, maybe the most visually gorgeous Switch 2 exclusive, even if it’s not pushing the hardware particularly hard.

In MakeRoom, you can simply create and vibe. That’s all this game is, and all it needs to be. Once you accept that, you’ll find yourself in a cosier world, where anything feels possible.

There’s something soothing about BALL x PIT. Losses rarely feel too dispiriting and that part of your brain that enjoys seeing the numbers going up is well-served. Some of the elements dictating how you progress through the game are a little frustrating but it’s all worth it for those moments where you bounce your balls just right and a swath of approaching enemy forces are wiped out in seconds.

As a solid tennis simulator, with layers of novelty to differentiate it from its nearest competitors and plenty of unique modes to conquer, Mario Tennis Fever is an absolute racket. While odd in parts, it remains charming and bright-eyed throughout its many rounds.

Kiln deserves a chance to go further. It’s got incredibly novel, cool ideas about character building in its menagerie of quirky pots, along with a customisation system that feels tactile and very creative. Even lacking variety, there’s explosive charm in its gameplay and a sense of moreishness that some competitors lack...The world of multiplayer gaming, particularly in 2026, can be brutal. Here’s to hoping Kiln can survive the fire and come out stronger on the other side.

Get to know this expansion’s many parts, and you’ll find a bounty of activities to enrich the lives of all Sims in your household – whether that means learning a new skill, or taking time to relax in Gibbi Gibbi Point, and beyond.

Ultimately, between the two, I prefer Call of the Sea. It’s a more cohesive game with a stronger story. But Call of the Elder Gods is a worthwhile follow-up, one that offers similarly challenging puzzles with satisfying solutions. If you enjoyed the first game, this call’s worth heeding, too.

With bite-sized gameplay, bright and colourful characters, and a lot of imagination in gameplay, Lego Party! is a game that won’t necessarily surprise adults, but will provide a welcome party experience, and one that’ll absolutely delight younger kids. Even being outside the target audience, I can see the fun, and how it lit up the eyes of my niece, with clever choices elevating this significantly.

It’s a cool experiment, and one that demonstrates the uniqueness of the Nintendo Switch 2, but it’s unlikely to have the staying power intended. With a reasonable price point, the barrier to entry is low, but those who do dive in may find an experience that wears thin in the long-term.

I played the Nintendo Switch 2 version of TR-49, and I wish I had stuck to the PC version. It’s not just that the interface design suits the PC better – using a controller works, even if it’s a little inelegant – but the game runs surprisingly poorly on the system, with long stuttery pauses and many moments where the game would freeze unless I went back to the Switch home menu to re-enter the game.

With its sense of flash and dazzle, All’s Justice frequently inspires euphoria as you flit from one battle to the next. The action is breathtaking, to the point where it often paves over the game’s lesser elements.

While some of my appreciation is clouded by my disappointment in what Royalty & Legacy could have been, rather than what it is, I can still see the care that’s gone into this pack’s overall design, and it does add plenty of neat, smaller features that make Sims life more meaningful.

Tales of the Shire isn’t quite the game I wanted it to be, but for the hours I wandered Bywater, I still came away dreaming of my new, cosy life in The Shire.

As it stands, it’s hard to recommend Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour as a paid title. With very niche information delivery, it’s a very interesting game, for some. But for everyone else, it’s a quirky oddity with few key draws to make its hardware breakdown feel essential.

Demonschool is a game I appreciated more than I enjoyed. It’s a collection of great ideas, brilliant artistic choices and fun moments but they don’t quite stitch together into a game as good as the one you imagine from the screenshots and GIFs. There’s definitely something here; when I’m not actually playing Demonschool, I think of it more fondly than I do when the controller’s in my hand. It’s still worth playing if you have a soft spot for cool indie games with impeccable style, and can forgive them when they don’t quite hit the mark.

Here is a game that attempts to revisit what made the original Life is Strange so popular, that sacrifices the integrity of Double Exposure and its boldest ideas, for a softer, less punchy adventure, with fewer things to say. Seeing Chloe and Max together again is aggressively nice, but Reunion leaves so many threads dangling that it’s hard not to question what the game could’ve been instead.

I enjoyed playing Syberia Remastered, but I can’t bring myself to recommend it when the original game is right there and has held up quite well. As a product of its time, it’s a little easier to forgive – or at least work with – some of its flaws. Ultimately, the fact this new version sits awkwardly between a remake and a remaster means that it doesn’t quite feel like either.

Screamer is a game of half measures. It’s got an anime style that doesn’t extend beyond the menus and cutscenes, a cool drift mechanic that isn’t put to good use by the dull track designs, and a long story campaign that just doesn’t hang together in an interesting way...It feels like a game where the final product perhaps isn’t what the developers set out to make, or where restrictions have prevented it from realising its potential. It’s a shame – a story-focused, anime-style racing game with cool drifts and deep interpersonal conflicts between a diverse cast could have really been cool.As it stands, Screamer is screaming for some significant tweaks under the hood before it’s totally roadworthy.