While I found the first-person cameras lead me to slower lap times, they were my preferred way to crash the bikes. I’ve still yet to win at the Isle of Man on a modern bike, but hopefully, that time arrives soon. 8/10 Ninja wheelies

Everything about Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time feels perfect. Yeah, the game can be frustrating, and there are a few hiccups here and there, but for the most part the formula is still solid. The addition of new mechanics helps to bring the old-school design forward, and the overall design of the game – from levels to characters and beyond – is splendid.

Super Mario 35 is an absolute pleasure, taking the usual Nintendo nostalgia and offering a different way to experience it. I couldn't have pictured anything like a classic Mario game working in a competitive battle royale environment, but Nintendo has made it happen and it's loads of fun.

Simultaneously a franchise cash-in and love letter to the classic LucasArts PC space combat games of the 1990s, Squadrons sticks to its mission and comes out the other side of a warp-speed jump successfully. Pummeling a star destroyer against the Wild Berry Skittles-esque backdrop of Yavin Prime doesn’t require my undivided attention or multiple scans of my credit card. Seems like a fair deal to me. 8/10 burning embers of Alderaan.

Going Under is a fun dungeon crawler that parodies capitalism and the culture surrounding it. While a shorter experience, the game is given a solid level of replayability thanks to the procedural generation and wide variety of weapons. Though the combat feels like it’s lacking depth at times, it’s still fun to sling office equipment around at foes. Going Under is a great offering from the team at Aggro Crab and Team17.

While Kirby Fighters 2 is fun for a night with a co-op partner, there's little entertainment beyond that. There are better Kirby games out there. Try those instead.

Whether you’re looking for a challenging action game or just want to enjoy a beautifully illustrated and orchestrated story, Hades might be my preferred recommendation for romps through Hell.

Serious Sam 4 is fun to play – and an even bigger joy if you bring co-op into the mix. If you’re a fan of the series, then you’re going to feel right at home. If you’ve never played a Serious Sam game, then just don’t go into it expecting the same level of narrative as story-driven games, because you aren’t going to find it here.

Unless you’re a mad fan of Vampire: The Masquerade, and need to absorb every piece of literature about the universe, this will be a disappointing experience. While the artwork is rich and the music moody, the writing – the game’s backbone and its entire selling point – is weak. Even fans will likely find this a shallow read where decisions rarely feel like they have any significant weight. Give this one a miss.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars is frustrating, because it could be more. It could be so much more. But even with Nintendo phoning it in, the games themselves are such classics that they're still worth putting in your Switch library. Just make sure you add it before it goes away forever.

Spelunky 2 is a treasure in every way, one you'll be glad you've discovered.

NBA 2K21 suffers from the same issues that have held the series down for years. A poor MyCareer story, reused assets, shoddy servers, and an over-importance of VC/microtransactions. The one redeeming quality that NBA 2K21 can boast is its high-level gameplay. Luckily, that’s what you want most from a basketball sim.

Bounty Battle is one of the coolest ideas for a game I've seen in some time, which is partly why I feel like part of my soul has been crushed. This game is an absolute mess. It's presentation is terrible, the character models are laughable, the systems are confusing, and it made me wonder half the time if my PC was broken. Given the rich roster of wonderful indie characters, this should have been a contender. Instead, this fighter's career is over before the bell even rang.

Massive Damage’s Star Renegades is a really solid roguelite, despite lackluster campaign elements. The combat system forces players to outsmart their opponents, rather than simply beat them to the punch and is also anchored by a robust adversary system. There’s plenty to see with the world itself, as the pixelated art style, vibrant colors, and various environments work together to make a vast series of game worlds. Star Renegades is a great offering from Massive Damage and Raw Fury.

Vicarious Visions has a masterpiece on their hands with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2. They handled the remake of theses games with the right amount of reverance while still leaving their own signature on the work. THPS 1+2 combines awesome gameplay mechanics, impressive graphics, and an outstanding soundtrack in a complete package of skateboarding greatness.

As far as a dating sim goes, it’s not the worst I’ve seen, and I would go so far as to say the stories of some characters drew me in at times and made me laugh at others, even if some of it was still an eye-rolling level of writing. On the other end, the dog care angle is also enjoyable and raising your furry friend’s stats to make them the best puppo they can be wasn’t a bad time.

Iron Harvest presents a fascinating alternate reality of which I’d like to see more. The war is intense, the maps are rather pretty, and the units are an escalating maelstrom of steel and steam from which delightfully concepted war machines come into play. The battles are intense and the deployment of armaments can make one feel giddy in the rush of it as bullets and shells fly and explode. That said, some unfortunate aspects distract from the experience. The game’s increasing technology tree makes cover-based tactics a questionable proposition, the slowness can make downtime between events seem just a bit too long, and multiplayer is a bit too limited. The game is not horribly marred by these drawbacks, but best bear Wojtek can only carry the spirit of Polania so far with the baggage weighing him down.

Project Cars 3 is the first game to feature the all-new 8th generation Corvette, a car that driving enthusiasts were itching to get their hands on. It is used in the opening tutorial where its grand first impression is wasted on a two-lap quagmire of bad AI drivers and garish UI popups. Maybe that Mad Box console will come out one day and make things better

Now I'm wondering what anybody saw in the original in the first place. The controls and the combat are bad. The story elements are dull. The load times are excruciatingly long and frequent. And visually, it doesn't look very polished, which makes me wonder how this is a remaster. The menus, especially, are an eyesore to look at with giant glaring fonts and ugly textures. The horrible online experience isn't just the icing on the cake, it's like someone took a cake and threw it in a blender without putting the lid on. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered is a lot of things, but a classic is not one of them.

It honestly feels like Windbound could be a great game. There’s a strong foundation and a lot of spirit in the idea, but ultimately it fails to live up to the endless ocean that it promises. I really wish that there was more to this experience and that it took more advantage of the things it does have to offer. Unfortuntely, if you’re looking for a great survival roguelike to put your time into, then you’re probably better off setting sail in more abundant seas.

Marvel’s Avengers impresses with a well-written, dramatic campaign. From a gameplay standpoint, the combat is as fun and satisfying as one could hope for in a title based on the superhero team. Though the online live service aspect is bogged down by overly complicated menus, systems, and matchmaking woes, there’s still a fun experience underneath. Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix deliver a perfectly adequate adaptation of an iconic property with Marvel’s Avengers.

The Last Campfire sets out what it promises to do, tell a heart-warming and tear-jerking story about life, death, and the emotions one feels when all hope seems lost. While the narrative does take a few beats to get started, the real problem lies in the overly simple puzzles that the game is built on. It’s a lovely experience that is quickly forgotten.

While it's not exactly a kick in the pants, WRC 9 manages to build on the solid foundation of WRC 8 and simply give players more to do, which is never a bad thing. The WRC license is a big deal and the roadmap for post-release support looks promising with new rallies slated to arrive by year’s end. It certainly won’t win any beauty contests and rough edges abound, but when things come together, it can turn your knuckles white with fear. Isn’t that what we want from a rally experience in the first place? 8/10 hay bale chicanes.

I'll say this much, if you try and play Metamorphosis as a substitute for a book report, you'll probably fail your English class. But as a game that's inspired by Kafka's classic tale, this is not bad at all. The platforming is competent, the puzzles can get creative, and the characters are often interesting. The downside is that the performance lag can't be ignored and sucks a lot of the fun out of this game. The other thing worth noting is that this is a very brief adventure. Even novices should have little trouble getting through the full story in anything more than four to five hours.

Crusader Kings 3 is not only a return to its franchise's grand range of gameplay, strategy, and storytelling, but also a massive and meaningful evolution with little to hold players back from exploration and discovery throughout an intricate web of rulers, dynasties, and statecraft.

As I spent my time with the PC version of the game, I’d like to note that EA has once again failed to utilize any advantages provided by the platform to improve the game, outside of support for higher refresh rates. There is still loads of lag and unresponsiveness in menus and during game situations that make no sense. I experienced stuttering at random times across all modes, including hitching during active kick meters or when trying to complete passes. Sometimes, these hitches corresponded to dropped frames and other times not. There still remains loads of visual stutter every time the game swaps between what you control and between-play camera cuts, even when everything is running at 144Hz.

The team at Saibot Studios have made exactly what they promised to their Kickstarter backers, but I was left wanting more. This doesn't make Hellbound a bad game, but it certainly feels like there were a few things left on the cutting room floor as I finished the game. After a somewhat slow start in the campaign, I was happy to finish the fight, and any fan of 1990s FPS fans could do worse than slaying demons in Hellbound.

Tell Me Why stands out as one of Dontnod Entertainment's best efforts to date, which is high praise given their output to this point. It's a brilliant story about twins coming to terms with childhood trauma while exploring the mysteries of how they came to be where they are. The characters are memorable and the dialogue is some of the best to come out of a Dontnod game yet. And at three chapters that average roughly two hours each, the game doesn't overstay its welcome. Dontnod knows just what it wants to say and it says it beautifully.