Its fair to say that TBC touches on a lot of timely concerns but doesn’t have the wiggle room to delve further. As far as I’m concerned, the game is a parable on the arrogance of exploiting heritage sites. Back in the early 20th century, Stonehenge was actually bought from the Antrobus family and ‘gifted’ to the nation by Cecil Chubb. Let’s hope that life won’t imitate art and the great lithic monument doesn’t end up as an expensive ornament for a rich family.

Genesis Alpha One is an ambitious triple-I game that, even though it relies too much on continuously repetitive and similar-looking activities, provides a deep, engaging and challenging experience thanks to its great visuals, some surprises along the way and gameplay mechanics that quickly become natural and intuitive.

Despite its excellent, beautiful catastrophe of a script, Metal Wolf Chaos XD is a tough sell. Why would players want to spend time on a game with gameplay this dated? The reason is simple: Metal Wolf Chaos XD is a reminder that games can be fun even if they don’t meet wider notions of what makes them ‘good.’ The title is mindless fun, a distraction from the confines of what audiences expect when they play a game.

Just like the sport of soaring, while everything is great when you’re up in the air, the fun comes to a screeching halt when you’re down on the ground. Cruising around on those rising currents of air is an incredible experience that truly captures the feeling of flight. You can sometimes keep your glider aloft for hours by weaving around the sky in just the right way. When you touch down, there’s no getting yourself back up into the air, though. Flight School Studio was on to something with all the gliding, but didn’t quite stick the landing.

At times, YIIK’s story does contain exceptional observations about the human experience that are incredibly moving. While its disparate pieces struggle to satisfyingly coalesce, I don’t regret my time with the game, and its developers should be proud of their achievement. All games are a masterwork of hours upon hours of immense emotional and physical labor. YIIK made me recognize and appreciate that labor in ways that other games simply don’t.

FRACTER is a brief puzzle adventure that doesn’t break the mould. But it’s a well-accomplished port worth checking out at its low asking price.

While there’s certainly room for improvement in Override, the game is undeniably fun in an old-school arcade way. It’s not as fast and fluid as classics like Sega’s Virtua On!, but the premise is excellent, the character designs are gorgeous, and the action is addicting.

Ultimately, what guides the trajectory of this voyage in Dog Airport is your relationship with Krista, which is surprisingly tender and heartwarming. It’s the contemplative, and sometimes mournful conversations you have with her, the reminiscing of older days, and the gentle banters you trade with one another, that makes every reunion with her a poignant.one. For a game that’s predominantly moulded in the surreal humor of the internet, I wasn’t expecting to be swept away by all these feels.

Unforgivable lack of exploding barrels aside, Super Treasure Arena is a fun little multiplayer game. While the lack of actual online play (on the Switch, anyway), game modes, and levels is a definite problem, Arena counters its shortcomings quite a bit simply by being cheaply priced. For a quick old-school multiplayer fix, it’s a safe bet.

While Bite the Bullet didn’t blow us away, it’s still a fun diversion for fans of old school run n’ gun action. Unfortunately, it came out a scant two weeks after Carrion, another much better side-scrolling retro pixel game largely also centred around eating people. If you only play one game this year about chomping on people, go that route. If you have room for two though, this Bullet is worth a taste.

There is plenty of fun to be had with Hammerting. The aesthetic is delightful, and when everything works as intended, time joyfully slips away. However, the aforementioned issues frequently rear their ugly heads and immediately halt the enjoyment as you’re forced to try and work around it. Despite the full release status, it still feels like Hammerting is in Early Access since it lacks the polish of some of its peers.

Instead of having a cast of lovable or unlovable animals to play as you get faceless soldiers in a divided America. None of these units ever really seem to feel anything, and as a result, neither will you. It’s just a bit barren comparatively. It’s also very hard to shake the feeling that this is a testing ground for ideas they’d like to use in the sequel to Mutant Year Zero (Mutwont Year Zero), which explains the cheaper price tag but makes it feel a little more noncommittal as well. It’s still fun, and the battles are still good, but it has a really hard time getting its hooks into you and dragging you through the story.

The hitboxes are atrocious, the game is janky, laggy, and messy, and it’s all just way too derivative to be enjoyable. I really wanted to like Hellpoint, as I want to like all games, but especially soulslikes, but it’s just not going to happen.

198X is aesthetically pleasing. Its bright, accomplished pixel-art and synth-fueled music capture its desired tone perfectly. But if that’s all that 198X is, I’m not sure it’s worth anyone’s time. Even if you are interested in a pretty but empty 80s nostalgia drip, I’d suggest looking elsewhere; there are plenty of options.

Neurodeck is a fascinating card game that explores an often ignored aspect of gaming – our psyche, and in an interesting and fun manner. I would have liked to see more of a storyline as opposed to the raw card game, and phobias would have been more interesting if linked to personal character emotions, but overall the game is fun, well thought out and unique. Deal with that how you like, but cards on the table, the game is aces. (It isn’t; it’s pretty good. But who can resist a good card pun?)

The Suicide of Rachel Foster is an interesting game. There are many ways to approach and critique it that will reveal myriad facets to it, and this is but one observation of narrative discourse. Within this subgenre, it stands on the shoulders of giants or at the very least tall minotaurs. But it doesn’t quite deliver the all-encompassing experience it might hope to.

Even though I don’t see myself swapping out my go-to “rainy day” games like Stardew Valley or Moonlighter for Moonglow Bay anytime soon, I’m also not ready to say that I definitely won’t. The amount of progress that the game made in just a week and a single patch has given me nothing but hope for its future, and it’s a game I’ll be keeping an eye on in the weeks to come. Moonglow Bay also supports local coop, and while I’ll always support anything that allows me to play with friends, the game feels like an almost personal experience that I didn’t ever feel the urge to invite someone to share with me. So with that, I’ll leave you with my closing thoughts of Moonglow Bay: Not bad, cod be better.

Ultimately, Jon Shafer’s At the Gates is a deep, interesting and gorgeous barbarian-‘em-up for about three-quarters of its runtime, with the quality of the experience varying hugely from there. With time invested to learn the game’s systems, there’s fun to be had in taking the various unlockable tribes to victory. It’s definitely rough around the edges, and there are a few features I’d happily trim, but if you enjoyed Jon’s previous work then the spark that kept me awake all night when Civ V launched is definitely still alive. I hope future updates can fill in a few of the gaps.

Override 2: Super Mech League is a great sequel, and by removing Mech City Brawl’s more tedious elements, Modus Games have created a thoroughly enjoyable 3D brawler. With more refined gameplay, improved performance, and a great roster of mechs, this isn’t a simple rehash of the original. Though Leagues can be repetitive in solo play and it holds infrequent performance issues, there lies a fun multiplayer experience here for Kaiju fans that comes highly recommended.

While The Flower Collectors doesn’t reinvent or radically reenvision detective fiction, and the plot never twists in very shocking or particularly exciting ways, it’s a sophisticatedly told, cosy murder mystery. In these times, that’s exactly the kind of entertainment I need to get through the day.

The Blackout Club isn’t really a horror game. Essentially, it’s a non-lethal stealth game with horror elements. Co-operative and antagonistic multiplayer elements keep it from getting stale too quickly, although the true measure of its longevity lies in content updates post-launch. Eventually, the game will need more locations, enemy types and objectives. Greater focus on co-op would be a huge bonus, too.

SkateBIRD is a beautiful and heartwarming game, and it’s something that will stay with me for years to come.

As a story, My Beautiful Paper Smile is an 8, maybe even a 9 out of 10, especially if you’re patient enough to put up with a tale which is mostly revealed and cliffhangers disguised as a moving plot. But there are long stretches where the story takes a back seat for you to wander, and while the aesthetic is good, the game isn’t open-world and looking the part isn’t enough to carry it. My Beautiful Paper Smile is an ideal Let’s Play game, in that it’s probably much more fun watching someone else play than it is to do it yourself. One for the horror enthusiasts, but I don’t see it reaching across the aisles.

Unfortunately, despite an interesting story, a good chance to learn some new folklore, and some solid combat, it just doesn’t reach as high or hit as hard as I’d like it to. This is a good game if you’re looking for something short, but it’s not going to change your world.

Try as it might to nestle its way into the recesses of my mind, Etherborn may end up being a fleeting memory – a pleasant experience but one which will hang on the forefront of your mind, only to be quickly scuppered by something with a bit more of body.

Accompanying the hideous inventory and tedious combat systems is the unforgiveable control scheme, which can’t be remapped at all. Overall, it feels like each of these are intentional choices to help solidify the ‘90s horror vibe it goes for, but just because something is purposely bad doesn’t actually make it good. Game design has progressed a lot in two decades, and Daymare is at odds with what it wants to achieve.

Ultimately, the only flaw was the sensation of wanting more of The Sundew. While its length can feel underwhelming, it is still an achievement since it’s developed by one person, which is even more admirable after seeing the quality of the final product. The fact that the game left me craving for more adventures like this speaks volumes of the developer’s dedication, as well as a testament to the beautifully presented cyberpunk adventure of The Sundew.

These puzzles are challenging but invigorating. The short of it is this: you’ll need to push specific objects around, which will cast a shadow on the wall for her shadowy figure to traverse through. That said, everything else about the game is not as memorable—from its overwrought music to its clunky visuals. In My Shadow veers between sheer monotony and needless melodrama. Which makes it difficult to stomach.