However, Cyber Hook revolves around, and brace yourself, a grappling hook. You race through neon worlds at breakneck speeds and attempt to swing from tiny points up as high as you can to see if you can beat your previous score. It’s just a lot of fun, and I can see this being massive with speedrunners.

Building off of the XCOM style of strategy, you get to decide how you move and act or react as you’re fighting it out. While the strategy can be fun, it’s all a bit sluggish, and that can make each fight feel as though it takes an eternity. On top of that, it’s visually just a bit early 2000s, with the colour brown seemingly being the inspiration for everything. It’s not a bad game, but it’s not a good one really either.

While what’s there is a lot of fun, and all of it is incredibly stylish, I can’t really recommend you pick it up in its current form. That being said, if you’re in the market for an incredibly stylish game with some very fun power-ups and combat, then maybe HAAK will keep you entertained for a few hours. [Early Access Provisional Score = 70]

I found The Girl Of Glass: A Summer Bird’s Tale’s to be a rare, honest look at how complex people can be inside while appearing to be less than that on the surface, one that doesn’t shy from reminding the player that being a presumptuous person with a loud mouth might make for an amusing exchange in a game, but in reality, it will cause pointless hurt and tends to betray a lack of understanding from the joker. It touches upon societal issues like submission to authority and the place of business in the lives of common people in a way that’s absolutely not being discussed honestly in the predominantly American influenced video game scene and for that alone, if you are drawn to the power of interactive narrative, this game is worth your time and money.

Going Under manages to upcycle the refuse of our everyday routines; its a Big Art Attack of 2-hour commutes, stolen tips and that one pinball machine your boss bought to make a chill room after he laid off three of your coworkers during a global pandemic. It’s one of the most honest investigations of existential digitisation and corporate greed ever made in videogame form. It addresses the farce of employment with creativity and humour, two things no malignant narcissist with a modest cash injection could ever take from us.

However flawed your party members may be – and they are flawed – they carry on to Camlann because they share a belief in Arthur. They believe in each other, and believe in something better for Britain. It’s hope that moves the game forward, and mechanically speaking, it’s morale that keeps your pieces on the board, and resolve that lets them rely on each other and enact their unique abilities. Pendragon is built on balancing tensions that would break a lesser game to pieces, but instead creates something new and worthwhile in that space.

Altogether, this makes Dungeons of Naheulbeuk a real mixed bag. Its slick and well-observed aesthetic is undercut by rote humour and tired cliche, and its combat has great potential smothered by layers of random chance and obfuscation, with the great swell of combatants meaning that you can sit helplessly as a cavalcade of attacks all target and take down a character before you have a chance to act. There’s definitely something here to enjoy if you’re a diehard tactics fan with a keen eye for optimum strategy and luck mitigation, but it feels like a lot of effort for little reward.

Bullets Per Minute has an interesting foundation without bringing anything too complex, and then gives you just enough tools to mess around with it. Even if you’re not a big rhythm game player, it’ll keep you at your own pace, and you’ll get better and better as you go. This subgenre is barely starting, and whilst it is early to tell how it will evolve from here, others would do well in taking cues from this experience, where simplicity behind the premise and a set of rules is enough to hit the right notes.

Whether you’re a current owner of the original or thinking of getting the complete edition, these new chapters are superb. The new gun modes are great, the story content is fascinating, and the sheer beauty of the animation and environments of Control still shine.

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.

Finishing what was available, I found myself immersed in a sort of aesthetic meditation, with each finished platform evoking a deeply tangible sense of satisfaction. Depending on your speed, Cloud Gardens is a great contemplative puzzle with little pressure to stay stuck if you don’t want to be. I’d like to think that much of its charm is a reflection of the way we’re conditioned to respond to processes of growth, decay, and rehabilitation. Perhaps the secret ingredient to its appeal is buried in the psychogeography between environmental guilt and our relationship to abandoned spaces. Perhaps it’s our lizard-brain drive to help things grow and flourish in unlikely surroundings. Or perhaps, Cloud Gardens is simply a very good deconstructed variation of Katamari, albeit one that refuses to hold your hand. [Early Access Score = 90]

Hotshot Racing is everything a fan of arcade racers could want, especially if you have fond memories of those aforementioned classics. It truly captures a style of racing that is so rarely seen these days. It’s fast-paced, easy to pick up and play, friendly feeling and, most importantly, it’s so much fun to play.

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.

I always remember Kingdoms of Amalur as a game that took risks, and then delivered on them despite the rocky development it went through. There are many other examples of games that have improved considerably using some of its design choices, but it’s undeniable that there’s no experience that quite matches this. I just wish it would have maintained that once present rebellious spirit here as well, coming up with the sorely needed update in the face of a new generation.

Star Renegades is an excellent game, one that will keep you entertained for as long as you’ll let it. It’s pretty, the gameplay is exquisite, and ultimately, it’s just a lot of fun. The fact that it’s also got some of the most interesting systems of a roguelike I’ve played helps a lot too. The difficulty can be a bit wonky in places, and the writing doesn’t always hit, but overall, Star Renegades is a deceptively deep and really rewarding game that’ll beat you over the head just as often as it’ll reward your ingenuity.

I think it’s important when looking at Underzone, to note it’s in early access and, for what it is, its a rather impressive release. There are some definite issues, but its base gameplay is rather fun, its ideas unique and story intriguing, if a little overdone. There is certainly enough here to be rather hopeful for its future. Like most roguelikes, if you enjoy that grind of slowly upgrading each run, there’s a lot to love here, but the promise of what it will be is perhaps a little greater than what it actually is.

It’s easy to see what Ary is aiming for. The ambition is certainly there, but the execution is off. Way off. At best it’s a clunky mess. At worst it’s broken and near-unplayable. It’s clear Ary was in need of a few more seasons of development before release.

It turns out that Metamorphosis is a wonderful little adventure game that has you exploring a world you know but from an unknown perspective. It’s just a solid game about being a bug and how strange that is. You get to solve puzzles, climb walls, and try not to get squished a few times as well.

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.

We have finally lived through the full release of Risk of Rain 2. With the full release comes a new character, who is excellent, and a true final level, final boss, and an ending. On top of that, we get even more excellent music from Chris Christodoulou. It cements Risk of Rain 2 as one of the best roguelikes of all time, and certainly one of the best co-op roguelikes too. There are a couple of things I was hoping to see with the full release, like more skills for the other survivors, but I’m sure they’ll arrive somewhere down the line. As it stands, if you’ve not played Risk of Rain 2, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

It’s a really interesting idea, and it’s very well executed. The flow of the game is never too fast either, even the more intense battles have a little more space than in most roguelikes, and it leads to a more relaxed game overall. I really like Dreamscaper and I hope that a lot more people will play it.

While it’s going to be a little too simplistic for some people, it’s a very good game if you’re looking to introduce somebody else to strategy games, then it might well be the perfect chance to do so.

Windbound is a lovely little adventure game in a beautiful world. You don’t always have to kill things, and you can generally be a little more relaxed as you journey from island to island and watch the wildlife. It’s not perfect, but I enjoyed my time in the world, and the emotional ride constantly swaying between immensely chilled out and “god d*mn it I died” was one I found quite fun.

If you’re already a fan of this type of game, then you’ve likely already been sold on Wasteland 3, and with good reason. But if you haven’t delved into an RPG of this size before it might be the perfect place to start. It’s a much more action-focused experience than some of its contemporaries, with a combat system that’s developed enough to carry the game even without the arresting narrative and its inviting pliability. Despite a couple of minor irritations, Wasteland 3 is the very definition of a game you can get lost in.

No Straight Roads won’t impress punk fans with its devotion to palatability and conventions; it’s not wont to hollering “F*ck off nazi punks“ and pointing a middle finger to the authority and the Man. Instead, it’s content with embodying the irreverent goofiness of pop-punk bands, with the dynamic duo of Zuko and Mayday making loud, emotional proclamations about saving rock music against the tyranny of EDM without a sliver of irony. It’s all the more charming for its lack of pretension, and the polished veneer of its absolutely heady soundtrack, which is perfectly in sync with the intoxicating rhythm of its boss battles, makes this a game worth headbanging to.

There’s a lot to love when it comes to Griefhelm and whilst that initial difficulty will be off-putting to some, I recommend you persevere. Whilst combat doesn’t hold a huge amount of depth, the variety in gameplay modes was appreciated and it features some challenging 2D combat, nice aesthetics and enjoyable multiplayer. The inability to save campaign progress is frustrating, but overall, the game took me by surprise, and I very much recommend it.

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind is a solid, if perhaps unexciting puzzle game with enough fan service for those looking to spend more time with the stylized criminals of old London to keep them on the hook.

For those who long for another Souls-like game, Mortal Shell will scratch an itch for sure. It has core gameplay and concepts that hearken to their inspiration and do well in living up to expectations on that basis. At a surprisingly low release price of £25, those tempted by the visuals and promise of an experience to fill the gap until FROM returns to take another swing at the genre they created would do well to give Mortal Shell their time and money.