Board games are great because you can play through time and time again and experience something a little different each time. At least, that’s normally how it is. Arkham Horror: Mother’s Embrace is inspired by the Arkham Horror board game series, but it doesn’t match it in any real way. It’s a bit of a shame, but it’s all a bit too short and a bit too basic most of the time.

The story, while occasionally perplexing, is full of heady material to chew through. It’s the kind of narrative that would require an additional playthrough, totally possible thanks to its roughly 2-4 hour campaign with selectable chapters. The gunplay may be a tiring affair of shooting lemmings in body armor, and the other elements are both underwhelming and frustrating, but Foreclosed is a gorgeous game with a big-ass brain. It just hasn’t quite figured out how to apply that yet.

Strangeland stands as an argument that players should know as little as possible in a horror adventure game to cultivate tension, yet it still manages to circumvent its own potential by trying to do too much.

It’s hard not to come away from The Otterman Empire feeling disappointed. It’s got a cute aesthetic, and the mere concept of space otters should sound appealing. Ultimately, however, Tri-Heart’s latest title gets let down by flawed gameplay. Whether its an experience redeemed with friends is hard to say, though missions provide some degree of fun. Parents looking for a new game will find some joy here, but for anyone else, Otterman is best avoided.

There are a few great ideas in this game to take Darkest Dungeon’s format and improve upon it but instead, Mistover flounders in its wake, trying desperately to grasp at a market which will find it lacklustre.

Ultimately, I cannot recommend Freakpocalypse to anyone who isn’t an established Cyanide & Happiness fan. This isn’t the sort of point-and-click adventure that bridges gameplay issues with an engaging story, since it relies on crude humour to see it through. If you enjoy C&H, this will be right up your street, but it does nothing to court players that aren’t part of the existing fanbase. I wouldn’t call this a bad game; it’s just a very average one, and there are much better alternatives out there for point-and-click fans.

Ultimately. I can’t say I expected much from AAA Clock. It ticks off the necessary features, bringing a functional clock to the Switch with some nice cosmetic touches, but after a tedious run of the Retro Game, I’m ready to clock out.

Overall, Astria Ascending feels like a missed opportunity. Despite these issues, the game does right by its art direction and world-building, but the fundamental gameplay drags the whole experience down towards mundanity. Having to wait for the seven enemies in front of you to status lock you to death isn’t challenging and engaging combat; it’s tedious. Jumping through dungeons hoping to find a doorway that leads to the next area isn’t interesting trial-and-error exploration; it’s dreadful. In the JRPG marketplace that’s filled with all sorts of storytelling quirks and eccentricities, tedium is simply no longer acceptable.

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.

Most of Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Earthblood feels like a game entering early access, and every element would benefit from more time and more polish. Too shallow for World of Darkness fans, too simple for ARPG aficionados, and too much tedious exploration filler for button mashers, it’s hard to recommend this one, especially for the asking price.

In spite of its fun premise, there’s an overall aspect of the game being underbaked which is hard to get away from.

If Deadtime Defenders adapts itself while focusing on that looter shooter goal then it’s something I’ll eagerly return to – for now, it’s simply an okay game which does nothing new.

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.

I love bad games. But The Good Life doesn’t fall into this category of bad-fun, it’s simply too much of a mess. Did anyone say no to anything in the course of refining the core concept of this game? Probably not. Is it even fun? I still don’t know because even after 8 to 10 hours, I feel stuck between a begrudging sense of sunk-cost fallacy and possible Stockholm syndrome as someone who also once faced ruinous debt and an unwanted move. Honestly, there’s no such thing as a good life unless you have paws, eat garbage and can pee freely in public, but you don’t need to play this game to know that.

The mannequin-like orgies, hefty focus on vaginal doors, and character designs that look like questionable 50 Shades cosplayers, however, can’t cover up the fact that what the game is really about (or should have been) is finding all the intriguingly bizarre dildos spread throughout the game’s wonky world.

While turning off frustrating features is a blunter solution than seeing them integrated into a better-balanced game, As Far As The Eye has a grounding in something really beautiful. I look forward to the opportunity to experience the game I saw parts of underneath its less well-implemented elements. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one I got to review.

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.

As distasteful as the title is, it doesn’t seem particularly triggering for most people. The game’s comical tone and frivolous approach stave off any potential triggers its gruesome title might suggest. When you approach the game as a virtual escape room, wherein every time your character dies, you get one step closer to the real world, the whole affair becomes more palatable. But without a potent narrative and puzzles that increase in complexity, Suicide Guy ultimately doesn’t offer anything new to the genre.

Old Gods Rising is unsettling. It does a wonderful job of making you uneasy, constantly convincing you you’re being watched by someone or something, which the story is happy to suggest. If you want a game with a story which has multiple twists, an ambiguous ending, a nice sense of creepiness (without playing a horror game) and a fun, small insight into ancient civilisations and the gods they worshipped, Old Gods Rising maybe for you. Although, I’d wait for it to be a bit more stable if I were you.

Overall, I’d rather wait and play the PlayStation 4 version. I’d mention the PlayStation 5 but trying to get one is like finding a needle in a haystack. Either the game isn’t optimised well, or my laptop isn’t compatible with it. If you’ve got an option to play this on something that isn’t a PC, I definitely recommend you check it out elsewhere.

The game doesn’t really have any unique ideas or ways to build upon this genre. That would be fine if the ones they did have were executed well, but this sadly isn’t the case. The monotony pervades every aspect of this game. And that’s a shame. You can see certain parts of the game trying to make an impression, but they inevitably falter. However, was there any real hope for an engaging experience if everything was executed well?

I’ll admit that I found Overland difficult and that it was designed to be like that, but more than that I felt it was limiting. There were some nice touches – every time you kill a monster, you attract more, which makes strategy more important than hacking and slashing – but without a sense of purpose or defiance when I overcame my challenges, it was hard to keep going back to it.

Against the Moon should be exactly what I’m looking for in a game. It’s got some deckbuilding, some tactical combat, and a cool setting. It is, on paper at least, an interesting game with some really cool mechanics. Unfortunately, none of it fits together as well as it could, and it feels incredibly short. This style of game is at its best when you can keep going back to it time and time again, and that’s not the case here. Some of the battles feel terribly balanced, and the whole thing just feels a bit off. It’s still getting regular updates though, so I’m quietly hopeful for the game it could become despite this being the full release.

The plot is meant to feel uplifting as hope is, literally, restored and trauma overcome. But it all feels too downbeat and too open to interpretation to make sense. What for some might be an intriguing journey of discovery was for me a baffling, meaningless grind.

Element Space has the potential to offer a genuinely fun experience in the sci-fi genre, which is something that is wonderful to see, but not all that common. The issues presented by its poor performance and the less-than-stellar implementation of many of the mechanics result in something that is often far more frustrating than fun. It’s a huge shame because the world and the characters really did pull me in, but the bugs and crashes kept booting me back out again. Hopefully, the studio can keep these kinds of complaints in mind when developing a potential sequel. If they can improve the quality of life as well as iron out the technical issues, it’s sure to be a far more enticing game.

The stronger elements such as combat, art direction, and sound design are held back by the technical issues, odd design decisions and weak narrative, taking itself far too seriously when – if simplified – this could be a truly fun turn-based combat game.

Inertial Drift follows in the footsteps of Joy-con drift, meaning it has its issues. The game has great visuals, music and the drifting mechanic is a game-changer but it’s barebones gameplay apart from that makes this a game you’ll get bored of just as quickly as you learn to love. With some more refining, the ability to play against more racers and better and more varied game modes, this game could really be improved. I really wanted to like this game but for now, I’ll be keeping my eye out for an Inertial Drift 2.

Its one massive redeeming feature is its soundtrack, an orchestral theme that elevates the whole experience and almost saves the whole thing. It’s worth checking out for its sound work alone, but perhaps not at full price.