Super Mario Odyssey isn’t just good, it may well be my favorite mainline Mario game to date...It's brilliant.

It's pretty good, I'll say that much. I don't think it's the most brilliant game in the world. It's not having me crying tears of joy. But it's nice to play a game with a sense of a beginning, middle, and end, a game with a sense of pacing. A game that does have its open explore able areas...It's just nice to play a game that feels like a game, more than a service.

It's decent. It's a good little game...The violence is inherently fun... I don't think I've seen a bigger gap between promise and reality since I played Fable 3. [7.5 out of 10 "if I were doing review scores still..."]

It’s all good, friends! Except when it hates you.

For all I could criticize Nintendo for, I could never begrudge it rescuing Bayonetta from the scrapheap and continuing to have faith in the series...I’ll also happily take the excuse to play Bayonetta 2 again!

Disco Elysium is one of the best roleplaying games you could hope to experience, provided you're looking for something savagely dark, political, and introspective...Bearing a brutal wit and a deep, contemplative story about depression, addiction, societal struggles, and everything in between, Disco Elysium is one of the most fascinating games you can play this year.

The Resident Evil 2 remake has been anticipated for years, and Capcom has impressively lived up to expectations....Gorgeous, gory, and bloody scary, Resident Evil 2 is back, and it’s juicier than ever.

I always liked Shovel Knight, but I never loved it. Not until it came to Switch.

I'm notoriously lacking in patience, but Animal Crossing has always had a charm to it that allowed me to tolerate its time wasting bollocks. Considering New Horizons wants you to work just to get to Animal Crossing's usual brand of time wasting bollocks has eliminated that tolerance.

It's a From Software instant classic, a game of stealth, brutal combat, and punishing difficulty. I also don't like it... Sekiro is a very good game that's absolutely not for me.

With its excellent ping system and fun combat, Apex has had me pretty bloody gripped.

Technically it's impressive, and the people producing content for it are talented as heck... sometimes. Unfortunately, for those looking to play the games rather than make them, Dreams is hard to stick with. The best projects are in "early access" for want of a better term, and they're surrounded by baffling memes, half-baked nonsense, and bids for YouTuber attention. Oh, and tons of copyright infringement. Dreams is amazing, but I'm not very interested in playing more of it.

I adored the first Alan Wake, and I’ve either loved or liked every Remedy game since then. This is the first time I’ve felt so displeased by the studio’s work I’ve actually been angry about it. The pompous writing, the shoehorned mechanics that push a tiresome narrative conceit over the quality of the narrative itself, the archaic combat, the amount of time it spends doing almost nothing, Alan Wake 2 is fucking insufferable most of the time...It’s impossible to tell where the stylistically bad writing of the title character ends and the inadvertently bad game of Alan Wake 2 begins. The difference, at this point, matters not.

Devil May Cry 5 is the consummate "return to form" package, Capcom's unapologetic comeback for Dante, Nero, and a mysterious Adam Driver lookalike called V. Sidestepping the DmC reboot, this is the Devil May Cry fans know and love. Not a step has been lost. DMCV is everything fans want, and everything the rest of the world needs...It's the best Devil May Cry game.

More intense and aggressive, Doom Eternal gives the player more tools to play with, and an increased pressure to use them. Coupled with the fluid environment traversal, the result is one heck of an engrossing game.

Dead Cells really is that good. A bit of Dark Souls, a bit of The Binding of Issac, a bit of a Metroidvania, but all Dead Cells.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is something new. It's something different. It's bold, and clever, and overwhelmingly arrogant. It's contentious, controversial, conceited, and some people may view it as simply a... con. But if it ain't a subversive masterpiece nonetheless, I don't know what is.

A stunningly faithful recreation of a classic Game Boy adventure. It's gorgeous, too. I mean, really gorgeous...Its got an aesthetic that demonstrates perfectly my argument that raw graphical power is not necessary make a stunningly beautiful game. In fact, Link's Awakening may be the best looking game on a console full of lovely visuals...As far as the gameplay itself goes, it's certainly nice. And old school. With a little emphasis on the "old" part of that phrase.

Perhaps the best Spider-Man game yet made, Marvel’s Spider-Man feels terrific to play and has a near-flawless combat system. Just a shame about the open world busywork tasks and lack of villains. Still, Insomniac made a bloody fine game!

It's okay, it's been enjoyable, but I must confess, I've not enjoyed it as much as the other one, the previous one...The gameplay itself, I don't know, something just doesn't quite feel as satisfying, enjoyable. I mean, taking a fire axe to a Nazi's head is always going to be fun....The levels, as well, just not quite as well-designed. The other ones had a lot more pacing to them.

It really sunk its teeth into me...I'm starting to see what people have been getting out of it. I still don't see the Game of the Year quality to it...It's still far too rough and ready.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is outwardly hostile to its audience, embracing everything that made the original such a hassle to enjoy. A game designed with the purpose of wasting a player’s time, which makes Capcom’s “time saver” microtransactions all the more sickening. It’s a glorified xerox that you will adore if you believe Dragon’s Dogma was literally perfect when it released in 2012 and absolutely none of the progress within games development in the past twelve years meant one fucking thing. Indeed, if your idea of a good time is having a terrible time, you’ll love this malignant resurrection of ideas and implementations that should have stayed long dead.

Square Enix have put out a pretty good JRPG that, shockingly, doesn’t need to reinvent itself with every sequel. While I’m not quite as in love with it as some critics, I do enjoy it a lot. Like most DQ games, it’s simply a pleasant ride.

Cadence of Hyrule marries The Legend of Zelda with Crypt of the Necrodancer. The results are quite charming indeed....I can't actually play it very well... at all... but I am enjoying it nonetheless!

Obsidian's long-awaited The Outer Worlds is, quite frankly, everything I needed it to be. Rich, dense, brilliantly written, it's everything we've been missing in the wake of "live services" and other "AAA" trash.

It works really quite well. Obvious graphical compromises have been made, but it runs nicely, retains the sheer volume of content, and maintains a consistent stability. While mostly a novelty for those who already played it, it's an adequate Switch version for those who haven't.

Enjoyment can be finely sliced off of ARC Raiders like edible shreds from a doner kebab smeared in shit. That these slivers are entirely dependent on its players is hardly a triumph of the base experience, which is generally boring, flavorless, and lacking much of a point. If not for one intensely fragile hook, this is a sub-mundane peashooting box breacher that, despite a lack of originality or quality gameplay, still needed help from an algorithm.

A good game that sadly lives in the shadow of its excellent original.

Gears 5 is pretty damn good, huh? A campaign that dares to revitalize the series' formula, backed up by some classic multiplayer, Horde Mode, and all that nonsense. It's real good. It's gorgeous to boot, with great lighting, meaty effects, and an icy new environment with all the snowy fun it entails. I'm tired. I was up all night playing Gears 5. So tired.

A platform game with mild puzzles and plenty of THEEEEEMES, a fantastic art style and soundtrack are really what brings it to life.

I'm playing all the time, really...Having a lot of fun. It really is better than PUBG...It's so much more user-friendly, welcoming...It's just a better game.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has, amazingly, lived completely up to expectations. It's the Castlevania game we knew we needed, but Konami didn't want us to have. Koji Igarashi isn't trying to hide the fact that Bloodstained is a Castlevania game in all but name, and he doesn't have to. It's a heartfelt, authentic, beautiful MetroidVania game and I am so very happy with it.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has, amazingly, lived completely up to expectations. It's the Castlevania game we knew we needed, but Konami didn't want us to have. Koji Igarashi isn't trying to hide the fact that Bloodstained is a Castlevania game in all but name, and he doesn't have to. It's a heartfelt, authentic, beautiful MetroidVania game and I am so very happy with it.

Alien: Isolation may be the very best Switch port I've played in terms of accuracy and performance. It looks amazing, it runs smoothly, and in several departments it outclasses the PS4 version...On top of that, Alien: Isolation is just an amazing game that's still absolutely terrifying.

Yes, it’s more total nonsense from a story perspective. As a game? Well, it’s a ton of bloody fun, because it’s a very good game.

Octopath Traveler is exactly the kind of JRPG I’ve been needing. Yes please!

If you’re the kind of person who thinks videogames peaked with Fallout 3's launch version and they’ve required neither evolution nor improvement since, this game is absolutely for you. If you believe Bethesda doesn’t need to exhibit growth as an artistic outlet and hasn’t had to change a thing about the way it’s made games since 2008, I can safely say you’ll adore Starfield because it’s all that a Bethesda game has always been... and literally nothing more...Starfield is a shallow ocean, hiding its lack of creative ambition behind the physical size of a universe that’s minuscule where it counts...In short, it's everything a fan of these games could love.

Dark Souls Remastered finally came out for Nintendo Switch, and it’s… okay. I’m not insulted by the graphics or audio because I expected worse, but they’re definitely a step back compared to other versions. Still, I got my handheld Dark Souls, even if I don’t see quite so many players to enjoy it with.

It's more Horizon Zero Dawn...No better or worse. More of the same.

It's an authentic, intriguing game of detective work, and I quite like it!

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is one damn greedy game. In addition to its half dozen special editions, its Amazon Alexa tie-in, its Totino’s promotion, and its season pass, it’s filled to the brim with microtransactions. As well as all that, it’s been purposefully turned into a grindfest in order to sell XP boosters, like this is some free-to-play mobile game.

Helldivers 2 struggles to appeal after stripping out so much of what made its prequel memorable, and if that’s all that was wrong with it I’d be sadly grateful. Miserably, it’s such a wreck of a product that it spends significant amounts of time in a near-unplayable state while the rest of the time is typified by frequent crashes and other technical difficulties. You're supposed to expect a certain level of quality in a Sony-published game, and Helldivers 2 is a reminder that such expectations are naive as all f.ck.

Hand of Fate 2. It’s basically as good as Hand of Fate. The new twists are good, the old problems are a shame.

The Division 2 is one of those unique games that I keep playing, and even enjoying, despite being very bored by it. It's compelling in its tedium...Deeply flayed, and suffering under the weight of its own "live service" requirements, The Division 2 can be quite fun, but the loot fatigue sets in quick.

It saddens me to say that I had no fun whatsoever playing Metro Exodus, and as a Metro fan who was seriously looking forward to this, it breaks my heart...I've not had a single moment of fun here.

It's wonderful that Hideo Kojima gets to do whatever he wants to do. It's equally wonderful that I can do whatever I want to do, and what I did was stop playing his game...Death Stranding is a hassle. A slow, monotonous, fiddly, irritating hassle. It's pure indulgence, every whimsical fancy that crossed the studio's minds has been tossed in without regard for the player's time or the gameplay experience.

A rarity, in that it’s an Activision release without a nasty predatory catch, Spyro is a ton of fun and it’s held up incredibly well.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening is a terrific game that has aged astonishingly well, a fact that becomes clear within moments of playing it today. A good excuse to play it today is Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, which recently came to Switch. It's the same excellent game with the addition of a weapon/style switching mechanic, practically the one thing it needed to stand next to its modern sequels. The Special Edition is the best version of an already great game. Can't say fairer than that.

Yeah, it's pretty good with a number of caveats. Terrific combat and a ground bed of fun ideas, marred by some poor writing and level design. Still, you get to throw a LOT of stuff around.

Wandersong is a lovely little game about singing and saving the world. Bright, colorful, and utterly cute, I’m personally enjoying the heck out of it.

A Plague Tale: Innocence is the best game I've played this year. Easily the best. A stealth game with puzzle elements and a hearty dose of horror, A Plague Tale may turn heads with its killer rat swarms, but the real star is the great writing and character portrayals. This is something special.

Combining multiple genres and examining the relationship between game and audience, The Hex is a poignant, witty, cleverly written adventure spanning six protagonists and six very different – but smartly cohesive – stories.

It's certainly not remarkable. It's a continuation of a formula that works really well.It's just more Borderlands with more stuff in it...Borderlands 3 is a pretty good game.

It's a fairly good game, I'll give it that. Definitely in regards to design.

It's adorable and has quite a clever conceit.

It’s time to visit Hope County and do… pretty much the same thing you do in pretty much every “AAA” Ubisoft game.

Here is more Battlefield for you. It’s Battlefield V, and it’s perfectly fine. It’s fine. It’s absolutely totally fine. If you want another Battlefield, this is another Battlefield for you.

Void Bastards has a great name, a great look, and often great gameplay... when it's not being really annoying....For the most part it's fun and rewarding, and the British accents are employed to great effect. But when it tries to screw with the player, it really bloody screws.

It's okay. It's pretty much more Pokémon, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, it's quite clear the game needs a proper overhaul, something to drag into the modern day. Or at least the modern century.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare may revel in its edgy depictions of armed conflict, but it's so one-note and routine about it that none of it really lands. It's visually impressive, and the combat all works well, but ultimately I spent hours playing something I just can't care about. I think I kind of hate it. Not because it's a bad game, but because it's just so... Call of Duty.

It's okay. It's pretty much more Pokémon, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, it's quite clear the game needs a proper overhaul, something to drag into the modern day. Or at least the modern century.

It's okay. It's pretty much more Pokémon, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, it's quite clear the game needs a proper overhaul, something to drag into the modern day. Or at least the modern century.

It’s not going to be for everyone, but I must confess I’ve not been this into a Pokémon game since Pokémon Red, way back when I was a ruddy boy. Just a shame the motion controls Nintendo forced in wreck it for a lot of people.

The game has been affected by the loot box system...The game is compulsively playable.

Judgment is Yakuza with a hardboiled twist, which unfortunately means the addition of tailing missions and lockpicking minigames. When it's not doing that, however, it's brilliant as always...With all the usual punching, nightlife, and bizarre side missions, Judgment continues Sega and RGG's winning streak. More faults than usual, but nonetheless fun as heck.

A truly excellent game, Children of Morta is like a checklist of my favorite things. Hack n' slash gameplay, dungeon crawling, roguelike elements, constant rewards, charming narrative, gorgeous visuals. Children of Morta has what I need.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order feels like a throwback for Electronic Arts, a nod to a time when the publisher let its studios simply make and sell honest videogames...While it's deeply flawed in several aspects, Fallen Order is pretty fun, and it's nice to finally see a mainstream story-driven Star Wars game. Shame about the glitches and the frequent annoyances, but when it's good, it's really quite good.

Yeah, it’s alright. It’s not Yooka-Laylee, and that’s better than being Yooka-Laylee.

Yoshi's Crafted World is a chill little platformer. So relaxing is this game that I heartily recommend it as Sekiro's ultimate companion piece.

It's really good. I recommend it.

It’s not going to be for everyone, but I must confess I’ve not been this into a Pokémon game since Pokémon Red, way back when I was a ruddy boy. Just a shame the motion controls Nintendo forced in wreck it for a lot of people.

A competent, mechanically enjoyable shooter that suffers from aesthetic blandness and a quiet, drab atmosphere. Basically, it's a Call of Duty battle royale game.

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is as excellent as it is scary, and it is very scary. Take it from someone who doesn't scare easily - Capcom pushed the boat out on making this one pure paranoia fuel...While the zombies can sometimes be annoying, the overall experience is just as good as Resident Evil 2, which was already amazing, and adds more tension. Also, the new Jill Valentine is just too darn likable.

Another November, another Call of Duty. Rinse, wash, open loot box in front of friends, repeat...Goes through the motions.

I, for one, just truly appreciate seeing a game that isn't desperately, embarrassingly trying to pry open the customer's wallet after purchase to see what extra little coins it can scoop up in its talons and scurry off with like a cockroach in the night.

Is it just me, or are Quantic Dreams' games getting more and more boring with each subsequent release?... But boring, actually, on reflection, isn't quite enough to describe this. This is tedium. It's like they doubled down on the worst shit from the other games. And I had high hopes for this one.

Cloying adorability is Unravel‘s saving grace. Propped up on a crutch constructed from mawkish sentimentality, it gets away with a fair few missteps and manages to claw together a smattering of memorable moments. This pretty shell, however, is undeniably a shell, and no amount of pretty little animations can make up for a total drought of engaging game design.

Challenging, beautiful, and exquisitely mournful, Blasphemous flavors its methodical pacing with a little influence from Dark Souls and Metroidvanias, while maintaining its own unique voice...From gorgeous visuals to magnificent boss encounters and evocative themes of religion and punishment, Blasphemous is well worth checking out.

This came out around the same time Nintendo started charging for online play, and while the blame’s on Capcom, the fact this was promoted in a Nintendo Direct makes the timing absolutely awful. At least on Switch, the Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle is an online disaster.

Ashen isn’t trying to hide the fact it’s exactly Dark Souls. It’s Dark Souls, people! And that’s… fine? Perhaps the best Soulslike ever, Ashen understands From Software’s formula better than many other pretenders.

This is what people have (been) praising? This mediocre shooter with broken co-op and the most unimaginative boss design I've seen in years? Well... okay, then...Remnant: From The Ashes is a game I do not understand the love for. At best it's pedestrian, drab, and repetitive. At worst it's a pissin' nightmare.

The latest from the Retro City Rampage studio, this Grand Theft Auto style take on capitalistic business models is worth a scope.

Tacoma is Fullbright’s latest interactive drama. It’s in space and it’s pretty okay.

Warriors action at its finest.

If you took out the branding and populated it with generic creatures instead of marketable pocket monsters, Pokémon Legends: Z-A would be rightly seen as a sub-mediocre and sloppy RPG, the kind with 115 "mostly negative" user reviews on Steam. Game Freak knows how much grace the public affords Pokémon and has taken the absolute piss with it, churning out a cheap budget game with a premium price, expensive DLC, and a ten buck markup to get a decent framerate...The audacity of this exploitative cash-in is honestly quite disgusting. At least Ekans is in it.

Darksiders Genesis is a strange one. While it may look like a Diablo style affair, it remains a Darksiders game at heart, with combat and mechanics taken straight from the main series. The new perspective is jarring however, especially when it comes to jumping and platforming. The lack of dungeon crawler RPG features also makes the pulled back camera feel just a tad cheap. Nonetheless, it's a decent enough game.

A pretty decent survival horror game, immediately better than the first one...Remarkably better than the first one.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is fine. It’s simply okay, in a mundane way. While the previous games in the “reboot” continuity were great action adventures, this is predominantly a swimming simulator with a boring plot and dull backdrop...Also, the direction this game takes, with its lacking combat and focus on restrictive exploration, is a little baffling.

The Surge 2 represents Deck 13's strongest crack at a Soulslike yet, and it's really damn good. They nailed it this time...Fast, aggressive, challenging, and wildly entertaining, not even some shockingly bad texture glitches can hold back the sheer amount of fun I've had dismembering my way through Jericho City. The Surge 2 is, simply put, a brilliantly good time.

I’m so tired of this manipulative garbage. I can't wait to stop being addicted to it.

Sega have royally messed this whole thing up.

Remothered: Tormented Fathers has a silly name, it’s a silly game, but it’s a charming survival horror nonetheless.

Donut County, a charming little puzzle game with a dorky sense of humor, is a short but sweet little jaunt.

An enjoyable take on visual novels and other story-driven games, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a pleasant little game indeed.

Journey to the Savage Planet is a fun little game that looks a bit like No Man's Sky and plays a bit like Metroid Prime. It's also full of bug-eyed round birds that are kind of adorable, and has a cute sense of humor. It's a fun little game that I've been having fun with because it's fun. How fun!

The best part is how it still holds up really well. What a great bloody game. And what’s this? OOH A LIVER!

The Switch continues a hot streak as Kirby’s latest sequel turns out to be good… because it’s a Kirby game.

It feels rushed, incomplete, and woefully imbalanced...With more time to develop, this could have been something cool, but instead it requires a lot of legwork before it becomes slightly fun, and the effort's just not worth it.