There's something admittedly unique about Romeo is a Dead Man, but that quirkiness doesn't make up for its middle of the road design. In fact, it's not long before quirky is just there for the sake of quirkiness, not serving anything larger.

What needs to be made clear is that Wreckreation has been built by a team of only 10 people with a few small titles under its belt — a far cry from when Criterion was building Burnout Paradise in its heyday. I made similar comments when I reviewed Danger Zone 2 back in 2018, praising the efforts of such a small team for creating something fun. When put into this context, what Three Fields Entertainment has set out to achieve is massive — I can’t imagine how much hard work has been put into Wreckreation. That said, some cut corners, bugs, janky mechanics, and limited content shows that a project of this size may have been too ambitious for such a small team.

Regretfully, the remastering of Onimusha 2 is just an increase to the resolution and nothing more. There are no new textures, no improved lighting effects, and no changes to character animations. If anyone was going to criticise a remaster for being a cheap cash grab, this is a fine example.

The fact that STALKER 2 is complete and ready for an imminent release is nothing short of a miracle. It’s just a shame that my experience... is damaged by a constant stream of ever-present bugs and issues. [Provisional Score = 50]

It’s eminently clear throughout that Slitterhead suffered a messy development. It’s an incomprehensible slog to play through and I regret spending so much of my week with it.

The issue here is that Until Dawn didn’t need a remaster. Or a remake. I would wholeheartedly recommend everyone reading this buy and play the 2015 original, and I would equally recommend you banish this remake from your mind to never think of again.

While true fans of the franchise might get a kick out of seeing a new take on an old story, Alone in the Dark is a tonal and functional mess that frustrates more than it entertains.

So far it seems the ocean in Skull and Bones is a mile wide and an inch deep, devoid of any real personality. As Arrowhead Studios — developers of the darling of the moment Helldivers 2, have proudly emblazoned on their website — “a game for everyone is a game for no one.” In Skull and Bones’ case, it seems that a game that does everything is a game that does nothing. [Review in Progress]

Currently, I’m roughly 9-10 hours in to Suicide Squad and I feel pretty confident I’ve seen all that it has to offer by way of gameplay. To be honest, I don’t really want to spend any more time with it. That not how this works, of course — I’ve not yet spent enough time to properly score this fairly and accurately because we received our review code three days after the refund window closed on the die-hard DC fans that forked out ridiculous sums for early access, and only 13 hours before its general release. Do what you will with that information. [Review in Progress]

AEW Fight Forever isn’t exactly a stupid idea from bad creative, it’s just a product scoped so small that asking a AAA new release price tag for it feels criminal. Matches are fun and entertaining, for a while at least, but absolutely every facet of the thing feels hugely undercooked. WWE 2K has been sorely in need of some real competition for years just as WWE itself has, but unfortunately AEW just haven’t pulled it off here as well as they did on television.

It isn’t as innovative as past Modern Warfare games, nor does it have as many iconic moments. But for the most part, it’s a unified campaign that nails what Modern Warfare should be. Fans of Call of Duty campaigns won’t be able to put their controller down. [Campaign Review = 80]

Those without a real attachment to the Bat family will feel indifferent to what's presented; most who adore Dick and Babs will simply be disappointed.

Saints Row finds a better tone than its predecessor, but otherwise doesn’t deliver as a reboot, with gameplay and mission structures inferior to past instalments. With the right expectations, there’s still fun to be had, but the endless bugs, glitches and just awful AI make it hard to recommend at launch.

Witch Queen is thankfully a beacon of hope. Destiny was long mocked for the narrative and mission design it provided, and this new expansion absolutely knocks it out of the park with the best campaign in the Destiny series. If you’re a lapsed veteran I sincerely hope you come back and experience the joy of the campaign. Its challenging difficulty and brilliant — actual — in-game storytelling are worth the price of admission alone.

It’s not that I’m mad, I am just disappointed. These three PS2 games remain iconic, and I have enjoyed returning to Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas, but as a remaster, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is lacking the care and respect such highly regarded games deserve. It doesn’t have the quality we have come to expect from remasters recently. Yet, such is their quality, the underlying games, which deserved better, still hold up as a product of their time. They are worth returning to if the PS2 GTA Trilogy holds a special place in your heart, so long as you can temper expectations and accept the good, the bad and the downright ugly from a ‘that’ll do’ remaster. If not, you’re better off persevering them with those rose-tinted memories.

In a world where developers are getting used to working from home and games are being pushed back due to the global pandemic, EA decided that Battlefield 2042 was ready for this year. It’s not.

Through an oversimplification of systems compared to previous entries in the franchise, everything in Far Cry 6 feels too safe…There isn’t any challenge to the combat, the exploration is mindless and the story that unfolds is completely unsatisfying.

This is the kind of game a cheap uncle buys a kid for Christmas out of the bargain bin giving little thought beyond, “little Timmy likes cars so I’ll buy him this thing.” Sadly, it will only keep kids entertained for as long as it takes them to realise the odds are stacked against them. While some real passion has gone into the transition of some much-loved toys into digital form, the challenge of Hot Wheels Unleashed is just too great for its target audience. Without significant fixes, it will do little more than frustrate all who pick it up.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is an uninspiring and dull game that should have been shot out of an airlock.

A creative and novel way to spend time in whatever level of lockdown you’re currently engaged in.

Avengers would have been a great story-driven title but its Games as a Service elements completely destroy it. Steer well clear, at least until Achievements and progression are fixed. To date, Square and Crystal Dynamics haven’t even bothered to officially acknowledge the issues the game is facing. For shame.

All up, Avengers is turning out to be a pleasant surprise so far, a game with more narrative and heart than I expected thanks to a lacklustre beta. There’s till the sense that it’s trying to be and do far too many things, and time will tell if that proves true.

If you’re a racing fan, be it arcade or simulation, I recommend you avoid this game – it’s a thoroughly unenjoyable experience from a once great series.

While objectives are straightforward, it’s teamwork that generally lets a team down. From my playthroughs, you can almost immediately identify a team that will work at a unit – or, ideally, in a handful of coordinated ones – compared to teams with individuals that will rush to an objective with a strategy in mind. Games where individuals are blindly rushing at a group of bad guys are frustrating beyond belief, and sadly, they’re happening often at this point. [Review in progress]

If you ignore the presentation, there’s something in here for dungeon crawl fanatics, but you’re better off going with something like Darksiders Genesis for a far more enjoyable experience. Like Darksiders isn’t for the younger gamer in your life, neither is this. Snack World: The Dungeon Crawl – Gold is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Death Stranding is an irredeemable piece of garbage that should serve as a warning to publishers who give developers carte blanche to create ‘art’.

Unless you’re an absolute die-hard Power Rangers fan who foams at the mouth when it comes to new content (and has patience to wait for online matches), give this one a very easy miss.

Crackdown 3 feels too similar to the game that came before it; it’s like Sumo has made Crackdown 2 again, ignoring everything it could have learned from the last decade of open world titles.

Start playing The Grand Tour Game after work tonight and you will be done with the single-player campaign before your Uber Eats order arrives.

Bethesda has chosen to release a half-finished, buggy mess of a title in its current state. This isn’t early access, nor is it a beta — this is apparently a finished product that I have to assess. I have: it’s garbage. This poor release provides Bethesda the opportunity to take notice of two key takeaways: the Creation Engine needs to go, and single-player developers shouldn’t bite off more than they can chew when making a multiplayer game. And this comes from a guy who looked past Fallout 4‘s last-gen engine and subsequent failings to give it a 10/10. Free pass no more, Bethesda.

Give Agony a hard miss. It looks awful, controls horrendously and definitely can’t get by on shock value. There’s nothing to see here.

The problem with the grind is that there’s hardly anything new worth doing! Over on Xbox One, we’re treated to a second expansion that borrows old missions to repackage as Strikes. The only new Strike available in Warmind is a PS4-exclusive, which is good to those on the console, but us poor PC and Xbox folk are missing out. Everything about Warmind screams reskin, from weaponry to enemies (icy Hive) to these Strikes. It’s beyond disappointing. [Provisional Score = 55]

Perhaps the least forgivable aspect for me, given my love of exploration and discovery in games like these, is that all the islands feel the same. For Sea of Thieves to be a truly unforgettable experience for me I’d have liked to have seen islands and archipelagos that feel lovingly crafted with supreme attention to detail. What we have instead is a map that feels like Rare turned “Generate Game” on once and just ran with what the creator spat out. This, more than anything else, saddens me as it makes things feel even less devoid of life. Islands are too spread out, too samey and too uninteresting leaving the player with a, “seen one, seen them all” feeling.

The in-combat effects and camera work really make what could be a relatively basic combat cycle into something that feels dynamic and empowering.

It’s poorly made and is, hands down, the worst game I’ve ever played. The fact that the end credits didn’t include a personal apology because you simply made it to ’em is astonishing.

A mish-mash of concepts and half-cooked ideas that are never fully developed, wrapped up in a cutesy aesthetic that is at odds with its (at times) dark and disturbing themes. This is one to avoid.

The fact that DICE responded so quickly to the complaint of its beta being pay to win is a good thing; a source of hope the likes of which the Rebellion can use to secure victory. Unlike a lack of response (or urgency) after the launch of Star Wars: Battlefront, I truly hope that lessons are learned quickly and implemented before Battlefront 2‘s player base walks away in protest. Again. [Provisional Score = 6.5]

Right now, there are just too many bugs, too many exploits, and just too little simulation of the best parts of the sport it tries to replicate for me to recommend Rugby 18. This is a solid base to build upon, but with so many great playgrounds out there playing on a solid concrete foundation with a few stray woodchips for safety just doesn’t have much appeal.

While I think there is the opportunity for fun to be had in this game, it would mostly be generated by the players making their own fun and not the game supplying it. Friday The 13th: The Game has the potential to be a great game but sadly it’s not right now.

The first-person Way of the Hado mode is garbage.

AFL fans might never get the game we’ve been dreaming of, but we deserve a much better attempt than this quick cash-in.

You shouldn’t buy Wildlands right now. The types of glitches and problems we experienced in previews still rear their head; while they’re forgivable in a pre-release environment, the same isn’t true when buying what should be a finished product. The entire experience is best summed up by our multiplayer adventure: you’ll run around a lot, but you’re not going to be able to get much done.

Featuring systems that focus on community engagement and competition among friends, there are some clever new ideas that haven’t been seen in games before. Still, Steep falls short where it matters most, offering you more moments of anger than adrenaline. If you have plenty of patience then this might be the game for you, though most will end up pissed off rather than going off-piste.

Based on the first two instalments however, I can happily recommend this for anyone that loves to dig into a layered story – or just wants to snoop around in somebody else’s emails.

Predictable jump scares, ringing telephones, spooky notes, guys in animal masks humping things and malfunctioning flashlights litter the landscape, and with each new instance, you’re left less and less impressed.

Ace Banana in its present state is barely playable with Move controllers.

The story is mostly just window dressing for a mission-based grind-‘em-up.

It turns out communism isn’t the only idea that works better in theory than practice.

Risk: Urban Assault is a decent game wrapped in a terrible package disrespectful of the player and their time. It throws pointless animations, cutscenes and bloat into a board game that is already well known for being a soul sucking grind. If this was just a board game I’d begrudgingly recommend it to people who really like Risk but as a video game I find it hard to recommend to anybody.

The entire point of Battleship is that you are face to face with your opponent and cannot see their ship layout. Relying on good sportsmanship not to peek is an unnecessary complication. In all honesty, I think this game makes more sense on a portable device or mobile phone, both for convenience and the basic logic of the game itself. Even at around $20 AUD, it doesn’t seem worth the expense for a new mode alone.

Making a new game that’s so much like the original — right down to the borderline excessive load times — was a terrible decision.

Super Mutant Alien Assault has some good ideas in it, but the balance of quality vs quantity was shifted way too far towards the latter, resulting in a potentially excellent platformer that’s been ruined with unnecessary filler. Give this one a miss unless you’re a huge fan of getting really angry at video games.

7 Days to Die is awful. I’d imagine this is how the PC release initially played back in 2013 as part of Steam Early Access; I’m utterly confused as to why there’s no polish at all on this new console release. There’s no excuse for such a flimsy mess, and I’m quite surprised Telltale Games would permit its name to be associated with such tripe. Avoid the game at all costs.

In 2012, I forgave most of Resident Evil 6‘s failings, and I’m ashamed at my behaviour in doing so. I couldn’t, in good conscience, do that any longer. It’s an already dated game, worse now due to its chaos than ever before.

Overall it feels like an atmospheric step forward for the developer, but a mechanical trip backwards. Until that gets sorted, the red planet can wait.

The lack of local multiplayer is Mutants in Manhattan‘s biggest sin.