But as it stands now, Dead as Disco is not only my favourite game I’ve played so far in 2026, but one that I can see being a true all-timer as more content is added and it’s polished up even more. Charlie Disco's comeback performance is already something truly special, but it can only get better from here. [Early Access Review]

This is almost certainly going to be the biggest Lego game TT has ever made, hence it taking so much longer to make than any Lego game to have come before it. Bigger isn’t always necessarily better, but after getting hands-on with it, I’m starting to think there’s a strong chance Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t just going to be the biggest Lego game ever made, but also the best. [Hands-On Impressions]

Masters of Albion’s little quirks and British humour make it endearing and funny, adding some much-appreciated details to what makes it stand out, like its crafting and odd building mechanics. The humour is a throwback to old-school Fable, so it can be shockingly explicit, but in the best ways. However, overall, if Masters of Albion wants to keep players enthralled, the nightlife needs to calm down a little so I can go back to enjoying making rat pies. [Early Access Review]

After spending a few hours with 007: First Light, I’m more confident it can and hopeful it has everything it takes to become an action blockbuster with nuance, spectacle, and flair that we just don’t get anymore. [Hands-On Impressions]

That really should be a given for a game with the phrase "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" in its name. Unlike other games to have worn that badge so far, though, I’m thoroughly convinced that there’s enough here to justify the price of its upgrade. What I’m still unconvinced of is whether this expansion is so good that the whole Wonder package is now an $80 game. Not because I don’t love Wonder and everything it brings to the table, both in the base game and its Bellabel Park upgrade, but because I’m yet to be convinced that any game is worth $80.

From building your base to fighting off an endless horde of ladybird larvae, Grounded 2 is very much more Grounded, and some will likely question why this is a sequel and not an expansion to the original. But if you look beyond the superficial similarities, you’ll see a sequel that’s far more confident in itself. This isn’t an experiment for Obsidian anymore, it’s a full-blown project that’s getting the care and attention it deserves, with a bigger story, bigger enemies, and a bigger world to explore. We may be small, but I have very big expectations for Grounded 2. [Early Access Review]

It's mildly amusing to rattle Joy-Con like maracas, but a Nintendo table setter should strive to be better than 'mildly amusing'. And that's the strangest part here - Nintendo has not failed with Welcome Tour. It has succeeded in its ambitions. But if the Switch 2 is to match its predecessor, those ambitions had better grow, and quickly.

Schedule 1 is the chillest game about running a drug empire I’ve ever played. My little dude, whom I’ve nicknamed The Eggman because all drug lords need a cool moniker, spends his time skating around town, laundering money at the laundromat, and peacefully snipping away at his plants in a dinky little room above a Chinese restaurant. When I invited my friend to play this new early access title, it wasn’t thirty minutes before three police officers were dead and half our supply was sinking to the bottom of the river. [Early Access Impressions]

Rusty Rabbit is a serviceable Metroidvania at best, which just isn’t enough to warrant a recommendation. If you love rabbits, or Takaya Kuroda, then you might get a few laughs out of this game, but chances are you won’t actually enjoy playing it that much. It’s a shame: a great concept, some half-decent writing in places, let down by shoddy controls and gameplay.

InZoi is undeniably impressive both in its visuals and gameplay, with more than enough to get stuck into even in this early access version. Players will spend endless hours customising characters, buildings, and furniture, and that’s before they even start living their digital lives. Life sim fans are certain to lap it up with gusto, providing they can overcome the graphical barrier. The real test of whether InZoi will reign as the life sim king will come with time, as long as regular updates happen and Krafton delivers on the promise of all it has in development. [Early Access Score = 80]

For older fans wanting a hit of nostalgia, plenty of these games don’t hold up to revisits almost 25 years later. With none of the usual gubbins we’ve come to expect from retro anthologies, all you’re getting out of Early Days Collection is having your rose-tinted glasses stamped on. Lacking in games, lacking in upgrades, and lacking in content, this feels more like a slightly heftier update for Nintendo Switch Online than a full ode to Yu-Gi-Oh!’s golden era.

As is always the case with these types of things, install and play Delta Force at your own discretion. For a free-to-play shooter, it’s a solid game, but nothing too special. Worth trying out for the sake of a new shooter, but it probably won't tempt you away if you're happy with your current multiplayer game or if you object to kernel-level anti-cheats. [Review in Progress]

Right now, New Arc Line isn’t showing the coherence I had hoped for, but it makes up for that ambition. It’s a game I’ll be sticking with throughout its Early Access, and as long as you’re prepared for the fact that this might not be a smooth ride for a while, I can recommend that others do too. I just hope that the team realises that it needs to focus on improving the writing as much as the technical issues. [Early Access Review]

There's just too much to fix to make Funko Fusion worth your time. Even if all the broken issues were fixed, the onslaught of enemies, the confusing puzzles, and zero incentive to help the player will remain. Even after several patches to balance some of these issues, the overall product remains the same, and so will the fundamental issues affecting it.

There’s a real promise in what stands to be a modern successor to one of the all-time greats of the genre, NCSoft’s Lineage 2. [Review in Progress]

Roads To Power is more than just the next in a long line of DLC. It’s a true expansion, one that promises all-nighters to die-hard fans, and could be the missing something that brings hesitant newcomers to finally try on the crown.

I'm not sure what happened with Reynatis. Yoko Shimomura and Kazushige Nojima are legends. It feels like FuRyu had everything they needed to deliver a great JRPG. However, game development is difficult, and some projects are bound to miss the mark. That happened here in a big way. Reynatis is one of the most miserable experiences I have had with a game in decades. It is an ugly, repetitive mess that houses some of the worst writing the medium has to offer. Outside of the OST, there is almost nothing of value here. If this is, in fact, anything like what Final Fantasy Versus 13 was supposed to be, then I can comfortably say that Final Fantasy fans dodged a bullet.

Zoning new buildings is a pleasure in Manor Lords - significantly better than Cities Skylines 2, somehow - and watching your citizens drag the logs over, build the foundations, and set up the support beams, is completely immersive. You can wander around your town in third-person, your great red cloak billowing behind you, and exploring the streets at a walking pace brings the whole package together. “I built this,” you think. [Early Access Review]

Even with my love of the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and my enjoyment of the fun, but simple gameplay, Wrath of the Mutant's short run time and high price point make it an incredibly hard game to recommend. If this was a bonus game added to The Cowabunga Collection or a part of a sequel collection for some of the modern games then it’d be a notable treat, but on its own, it's simply not worth it.

Messy doesn’t even begin to cover the state that the Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection launched in, and even though updates are rolling out to make things more tolerable, the ‘improvements’ are loaded with issues that only make matters worse. This might be the worst port since the Silent Hill HD Collection, so get ready to warn away newcomers until it’s fixed.

There is a bit of a grind to get the materials you need, but it doesn’t feel like it. You can freely explore all areas right away, though accessing the resources involves restoring the land and solving the mystery of the ancient civilization. It’s a great way to unwind at the end of a stressful day, and with the multiplayer function, you can bring friends along on the journey as well. [Early Access Score = 80]

The Pirate Queen - A Forgotten Legend is an underwhelming game not worth your time. Its barebones gameplay and unmotivating storytelling failed to entertain or excite, and its disappointingly short runtime only disappointed me further. The story of Cheng Shih is a fascinating one that more people should become aware of, but this game does her legacy little justice.

It doesn’t provide anything new, or even the basics of what people want from an ambitious pirate adventure, being overshadowed by Ubisoft’s own game 11 years older. Even with the solid naval combat mechanics we’ve seen in multiple games over the last decade, it’s just not enough to carry the promise of a pirate’s life on its own.

After the failure of Babylon’s Fall, Foamstars feels like yet another attempt from Square Enix to nestle in on the live-service market, and one I wouldn’t be surprised to see fail. It’s a shame, because on a foundational level, there is an aura of Jet Set Radio or Ghost Trick in its cool aesthetic and obscene lore, which in a better world could have been turned into something far less cynical. This is a game where foam has developed into a secretion from individuals who are basically soap-based mutants, and this is the most creative thing you’d have them do? If you get foam-o from this one, I promise you aren’t missing out on much. [Review-in-Progress]

It’s fair to say that I’m disappointed with Chronique des Silencieux, but mostly because there is so much here to appreciate. Held back by translation faults and a buggy experience, there are compelling mysteries, lush artwork, and strong characters to enjoy. It feels very much like a game in Early Access that needs a whole lot more cooking before it’s ready to tell its tale.

Fashion Dreamer was never going to be a Game of the Year candidate, however it did have the tools to be a favourite game for many. On a purely technical level it runs smoothly (as smoothly as games ever do on Switch), but with its aimless story, lack of depth, oddly colourless world, and misguided focus on influencer culture means it finds itself as one of 2023's worst dressed instead.

It’s disappointing to see a project that had potential come up short, but if like me you were anticipating the launch of Untamed Tactics, it turned out to be far from what we were hoping for. The game’s biggest selling point could have been a dynamic Parley System with witty banter and opportunities for hidden characters and plotlines, but like the rest of the title it falls disappointingly flat.

Fort Solis is all presentation and no substance. It feels like it blew its budget on getting this cast to build up some hype before launch, and then forgot it needs substance to make it worthwhile. With an appalling story, bumpy technical issues, frustrating UI, and a pace so glacial I literally fell asleep at one point, Fort Solis is a waste of everyone’s time. And not even the deliciously grizzled voice of Roger Clark can help that.

Exoprimal is a prehistoric relic of its own making, and a harsh but necessary lesson for a developer who has been sitting atop the pile for far too long. Future seasons could salvage the flashes of excellence on display here, but I doubt players will stick around long enough for that to become a reality. And to think we could have had a new Dino Crisis instead.

If you love Crash Bandicoot and you've been waiting years for what once was Wumpa League, there's probably just enough there to convince you that this is a good game. But it's not. It's a bad game. They shouldn't have made Crash Bandicoot into this thing, and deep down all of us know it.

Much of my experience was salvaged by the beautiful visuals, heavily reminiscent of Night in the Woods, and the very endearing cast of characters that Finley gets to know duringver his time at Porcupine. I loved walking to work every day, chatting with the owner of the local pub, checking in with the woman who fished by the sewer, and dropping by the flower shop to see how my friend, the florist, was doing. I enjoyed bumping into patients on the street and seeing how much they’d improved. Every character had a distinct personality and felt alive, and helping them out in between shifts coloured the world in and made the experience fun, instead of just tolerable. But there’s only so much that can do to buoy a game so bogged down with inconsistencies and bugs.

Dark Descent is a generic XCOM clone with brief moments of engaging puzzle-piecing strategy. The horror is underused and feels wholly out of place as it pushes you further and further into action. Music is adrenaline-pumping and clearly designed to compliment firefights, troops yell ‘LET’S GO TEAM’ every time you move, and xenomorphs are easier to mow down than avoid. Nothing about Dark Descent wants you to be scared, but everything about Aliens does. Mix in the cocktail of performance issues and thin mechanics, and what you have is another disappointing entry in the catalogue of Alien games.

Do not play Greyhill Incident. It is a great idea that falls apart utterly and completely. The core gameplay loop is infuriating, unrefined, and unenjoyable. What specks of quality I may have encountered do little to mask the sully of the rest. The biggest commendation I can give this game is how well it implements the store-bought asset packs. There’s potential for this developer to create something better in the future. But for now: hard pass.

There are more positives – character designs, too, are phenomenal interpretations of Tolkien’s descriptions, and the creepy folk horror vibes of the Mirkwood Elves is inspired – but they’re too few and far between to save this boring game.

Monster Menu is a competent game at best. It emulates the Rogue experience decently and does something very interesting with its food-based mechanics, but it doesn’t stretch far. There’s enjoyment to be had in the high-difficulty and grindy aspects- if that’s your thing, but you won’t find much depth or complexity here. More McDonalds than Michelin, you’ll wish that you’d opted for something more flavourful.

Redfall isn’t a total disaster, and there’s fun to be had in slaying vampires, especially with a couple of friends. But to call Redfall a shallow experience would be an understatement. I’m happy to loot and shoot and make my own fun, but there still needs to be something there to pull me through it. Nothing in Redfall, from the loot to the characters to the exploration to the power climb, ever made me want to keep playing, or feel like there was something more to achieve. No amount of bug fixes or updates will be able to improve Redfall’s fundamental gameplay flaws. It’s not just rough around the edges, it’s rutted all the way through.

I wanted to enjoy this game, but I didn’t. I expected smoother movement, interesting characters, and better expression of the game’s themes, but The Library of Babel fell short. Its premise was interesting enough, and its eclectic influences could have elevated it, but it was undercut harshly by its design flaws – and its unoriginal plot couldn’t save it.

There’s no point to anything in Tron: Identity. It took a magnificent sci-fi world and gave us an hour of closed-off, inconsequential guff to fill the space. Its additions to the Tron mythos are interesting but underused, the characters are flat functions for a deceptively shallow adventure, and you’ll be walking away from the Repository with the vague feeling that you’d just wasted your time.

The Last Worker tries to be a lot of things. It’s a satirical puzzle adventure at heart, but a large part of it is spent stealthily avoiding sentries, it’s got an endless runner minigame starring SKEW that overstays its welcome, and there’s a lot more first-person shooting than I expected. While the story and stealth are both great, the rest of the puzzles are frustrating exercises in tedium, and that’s the feeling that lingers after playing. When the most compelling gameplay is the tedious day job that the game is trying to satirise and not the exciting revolution empowering you through the bowels of the Jüngle warehouse, you know there’s a problem.

Crime Boss is a game at war with itself. All three modes offer something, but none of them does their specific thing that well. Meanwhile, the characters and writing that surround these missions feel painfully stuck in 2011. And customisation is either limited or random in a way that makes it feel like you never quite have control of your loadout.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is a disappointing remaster that fails to hide its age under the pretty mask of shiny new character models. While the concept and story are intriguing, they’re impossible to enjoy when you have to wade through the awkward, clunky gameplay at such a snail’s pace. This one was better left on the Wii.

Little Witch Nobeta is not for me, but then I’m not certain who it is for. It is a catastrophic fumbling of the bag with a narrative that makes no sense, combat that feels far too basic, puzzles that don’t even warrant a mention, and a distinctly unappealing target demographic. The only magic I want from Nobeta is a disappearing act.

For everything Digimon World: Next Order offers, there is something better. If you want monster-taming, Pokemon and Monster Rancher are right there. If you want specifically Digimon, Cyber Sleuth and Survive are more than enough to have your fill. If you want anything other than wonky pacing, shallow combat, and frequently cringeworthy writing, Next Order probably isn’t for you.

Perish could’ve brought Hexen and Heretic’s medieval boomer shooter vibes kicking and screaming into the 21st century to the tune of howling metal riffs, topped off with a roguelite twist. However, it offers little to incentivise you to go back for replays. Every death feels like starting the whole game over from scratch, with so little changing that each run turns into a chore. The striking set-pieces, like the twisted Herculean monster, with a cage of heads for a, well… head, crumbling the moon just to beat you, are fantastic, but they’re too few and far between to justify Perish making you start from scratch and slogging through shallow mechanics to reach those exciting moments.

High on Life just isn’t very good, and there’s not much more to say. I think a lot of people are taking the route of ‘well, if you love this humour you might enjoy it’, but I already do love this humour and I did not enjoy it. It’s the ghost of video games past, with boring shooting and a bafflingly slim progression loop propped up by bad jokes that feel like some bros on a podcast writing their own Interdimensional Cable skits. It’s free on Game Pass, but your time on this planet is precious. Give this one a miss.

Ultimately, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet finally lets you experience a story in this world that doesn’t feel out of place, marked with a tone of childlike innocence that, for once, doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the subjects that it presents. Unfortunately, the performance is so abruptly bad that it completely ruins, to an infuriating extent, what otherwise could have been the best Pokemon game to date.

Ultimately, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet finally lets you experience a story in this world that doesn’t feel out of place, marked with a tone of childlike innocence that, for once, doesn’t diminish the seriousness of the subjects that it presents. Unfortunately, the performance is so abruptly bad that it completely ruins, to an infuriating extent, what otherwise could have been the best Pokemon game to date.

Shadows of Rose is a shorter, worse version of Resident Evil Village. It’s so committed to recreating a micro-version of Village and following it beat-for-beat that it even copies its major flaws. It concludes in the same location with the same info-dump of lore that quickly wraps up all the loose threads. It ends with the same boss fight (somehow even clunkier and more frustrating this time), and unbelievably, also ends with the exact same cutscene. The scene where Rose visits her father’s grave at the end of Village isn’t the start of Shadows of Rose - it’s the end of it. There’s no new context that makes this scene more meaningful, and in fact, that weird line where the driver calls her Eveline is an even more bizarre thing to say after these events. Capcom is quickly running out of Resident Evil games to remake, and this expansion didn’t give me a lot of hope for the future.

There is value to Modern Warfare 2’s campaign. It is art. It’s also just intense fun throughout, because it is ultimately a video game. To say anything else is to take away from the years of hard work that has gone into producing this spectacle. But we can’t forget about the context: millions of people, a lot of them very young and impressionable, will play this campaign. This is why it’s important to have these sorts of conversations. The campaign constantly dances a wobbling tightrope between being too fantastical and exposing the realities of modern war. Sometimes it slips too far into the realistic horrors, and it’s unable to commit, so it has to pull you back with just one more big budget explosion. [Campaign impressions]

I want to like Steelrising, I really do, but it just won’t let me. Every aspect of the game feels like a barrier to the one thing I enjoyed: combat. Even that got boring. The characters are bland, the story is dull, the setting is derivative, and the finished product is too buggy and bloated to truly enjoy. It needed a few more turns of the key to go the distance and keep on ticking smoothly.

What it has made here could be considered impressive, in a way, considering its lack of expertise in this genre, because it’s not entirely incompetent. The tennis does play fairly realistically and there is a rhythm to it that did remind me of Virtua Tennis 2 at times. But I'm not sure that you'll want to spend your hours with this game, because it’ll seem like time will slow down to a crawl.

Balloon Flight has struck on a rare thing - a good idea - but failed to execute it. At the end of the day, even if you can get past the steep learning curve of the controls and the physics, there simply isn’t enough content to give you a reason to continue. Only the most stubborn gamers would read the challenge ‘See how far you can get!’ and devote any length of time to this game; besides, they’re all kept busy learning rhythm games or speedrunning something. More likely, players will spend six-odd dollars on this game, fall to their death as cheerful music serenades them, and never return again.

Even with PlatinumGames’ signature combat and some mechanics brought in from its past work, Babylon’s Fall babylon-falls short in every department. Any hopes I had were quickly dragged down by wonky combat mechanics, a below-average narrative, poor graphics, and even worse aesthetic choices that only make the whole experience even more unenjoyable and frustrating. Babylon’s Fall is a poor attempt at a cash grab that doesn’t even get that right - no one is going to want to spend money on it.

The Gunk is not a disastrous game. I enjoyed turning my brain off for five hours and exploring this strange and mysterious planet. It’s okay for games to just be empty calories sometimes, and I wouldn’t knock The Gunk for just being a generic popcorn flick. The Gunk aspires to be more than that though, and it falls considerably short. The quality of the SteamWorld games gavethe expectation that this would be a fresh take on the third-person adventure genre, but The Gunk is too shallow for me to recommend - even in the slow December months. If you’re looking for character-driven action-adventure games on Game Pass, Lake and Firewatch were both added earlier this week. Give those a look and leave The Gunk in the gutter.

It’s hard not to be disappointed with this 2042 offering. You know when the devs said this is a game to “celebrate Battlefield”? They’ve stripped away some of the most fundamental elements of the series and added tornados and Wingsuits to make up for it. It’s Marketing 101. Explosions, tornados, and swooping helicopters look great. One day, they probably will be great. DICE is one of the best when it comes to post-launch patches - for better and for worse. But if you’re on the fence about buying Battlefield 2042, I would just wait. It’s hard for me to condone purchasing what is essentially an unfinished product - an unfinished product with Battle Passes, too. Just wait. It will be a better game in a year’s time. Maybe even six months. If you’ve never played Battlefield and want to experience some of the sheer beauty of 64v64, I say go for it. Just don’t expect an experience that will keep you interested for more than a couple of weeks.

It’s a fairly bog-standard sci-fi show at the end of the day, but it’s mine and many’s favourites because of the Doctor. The Doctor is the show’s edge, a lovable idiot that’s too smart for their own good tying everything together, ending up in random situations and being forced to interact with strangers to uncover plots of intrigue. We do none of that here. You go to A, do what you’re told, go to B, do what you’re told, until the game ends. Given how short it is, you’re better off watching a few episodes from the show, because this is barely Doctor Who, let alone a good game.

There’s a tendency to recommend bad games to the most devoted fans, but I think fans of Drizzt and Co. will hate this game even more than the uninitiated. The saving grace is that Dark Alliance is included with Game Pass, so it won’t cost you anything to check back in from time to time and see how it’s doing. There is an enjoyable game buried here, I just wouldn’t expect to see it anytime soon.

This is the first major game from the developers at Itzy Interactive Inc., so hopefully, they learn from the mistakes made here and deliver something better in the future. But Mad Devils is what they have right now and it's a hell of a bad way to waste your time and money.

Just Die Already has its charms, but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. I’d even go so far as to say this toes the line with the masocore genre. It’s a difficult game, but I did find myself chuckling often at the utter ridiculousness that I was witnessing. I could see it being a fun game to casually stream with an audience.

There’s no doubt that this is an incredibly fun way to play Capcom arcade classics - better than throwing all of your loose change at a game you’ll never actually finish, at least - but the selection available here hasn’t left me feeling inspired. The games in this collection feel like the last options, the games that could never be sold individually. Cult classics like Darkstalkers and every other version of Street Fighter are entirely missing - instead we have a bunch of Capcom arcade games that, for the most part, weren’t deserving of sequels, or any other recognition this far removed from their release. It sounds harsh, but these are the rejects, propped up by Street Fighter 2 and Ghosts ‘N Goblins. There’s fun to be had here, but without nostalgia you probably won’t find much to love.

While the VR medium definitely makes the game scarier, there’s absolutely nothing about Wraith that wouldn’t have worked just the same in a normal game. The hide-in-seek genre of horror games has been done to death, and Wraith would have been much better served by more scripted encounters, on rails scares, and fewer (or no) fail states. Once a monster catches you and sends you back to your last save, it loses almost all of its power to scare you. Wraith stopped being scary when it started being tedious. It’s one of the most disappointing horror games I’ve played because I loved the way it started, but its strong introductions never developed into anything more compelling.

If video games had an equivalent of Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Uncertain: Light At The End would be a worthy candidate to appear on it. Everything from the story to the acting to the gameplay to the constant onslaught of bugs makes it a title deserving of mockery. Its only saving graces are its passable graphics and the puzzles that made me temporarily forget that I was playing a horrendous Telltale clone. I may be uncertain about a lot of things in life, but I'm 100% certain that you should stay away from this.

I was really hoping to be wowed by Maquette, but my time spent with it was not the magical, romantic experience I was hoping for. The bugs, overall wonkiness, and lame puzzle design annoyed me to no end. Especially when it would punish me by making me start a chapter over because it had broken itself. As a result, my already low tolerance of the love story between Michael and Kenzie grew to the point where I couldn't stand the couple. I would actively cheer when things went wrong because I didn't like them. The game seemingly wants you to feel like their relationship is one for the ages, but it just felt like a couple who had issues after the honeymoon period was over. It's a tale as old as time, but not one worth basing a game on.

For anyone who’s never heard of Crazy Taxi, Taxi Chaos will be a good enough racing title that’s fine for a quick pick-up-and-play experience. For everyone else, this near-duplicate ride likely won’t be worth the cab fare.

While I may not be interested in replaying Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood any time soon, the game did increase my intrigue to learn more about the World of Darkness universe. I think maybe I’ll steer clear of werewolves for now, though, and instead see what the WoD’s vampires have to offer.

I wanted to love Destruction AllStars. I still do. There’s just not enough there to make it worth my while right now. A couple of times, I ran into a weird technical issue where I would jump into a brand-new car, but it just wouldn’t move. I think that issues like this can certainly be fixed in a future patch, though. I also know that the development team of Lucid Games has a year’s-worth of content planned for the game. As such, although I can’t recommend playing Destruction AllStars right now, I do have high hopes for the future of the game. Especially since the car combat genre is ripe for the taking with no new Twisted Metal in sight.

There's still a long way to go of course. I'm about halfway through the campaign, I've only unlocked three dungeons. I don't know what the end-game grind will be like and the rogue-like activity Torghast is still unknown to me. But I'm enjoying the process more than I ever have before, and more than anything, I just want to rescue the heroes of Azeroth and stop Sylvanas and the Jailer from doing... whatever it is they're doing.

But, I will say that Immortal Realms: Vampire Wars is very true to its subject matter, as it did feel like the life was being sucked out of me as I played it.

Even for the niche audience that this game is aimed at, I imagine this will be too unintuitive and exhausting. With a better user interface and some quality of life improvements, I could see how this game could be enjoyable for everyone and not just history buffs. As it is right now, Port Royale 4 is great for those who love crunching numbers, but probably won't be much for those who want to play a video game.

Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? - Infinite Combate asks a question that the protagonist deems to be of the utmost importance. But when it comes to the actual question of whether or not to buy this game, you're better off leaving the dungeons, the story, and (of course) the girls alone.

Every looter struggles in the early days, and it would be naive think a studio that's never made a game of this type before would nail it right out of the gate. That being said, it's already in way better shape than I ever expected it to be at launch, and, most critically, the combat — particularly in multiplayer — is an absolute blast. I'm hopeful, and I'll be sticking around to see where things go from here.

A realistic take on the Nidhogg formula does sound intriguing. However, after spending some time with Griefhelm, I would much rather go back to the outlandishly gross-out world of Nidhogg 2 than hang around this bland, grim-dark setting.

what is currently available feels like a prototype for something better. If the campaign were just longer, tighter, more refined, then Hellbound would be an easy recommendation. Saibot created something that feels solid in the hands but doesn't quite stick the landing. You can only play the campaign so many times before you've seen it all and Hellbound simply doesn't deliver much else.

Artificer: Science of Magic has a lot of potential, and with time, it could become one of the most challenging and interesting games in the survival genre. As it stands, the game is a mess and should not have been released in its current form. The ideas present in the game are interesting enough that we might take another look further down the road if the gameplay has been significantly improved and the bugs are fixed, but for now, we can't recommend Artificer: Science of Magic.

Truthfully, the only kind of person I can recommend this game to is a diehard Sword Art Online superfan who has never played a JRPG (or honestly, any other video game) in their life and therefore has no basis to compare the trainwreck that is Alicization Lycoris to anything else that has substance. Otherwise, just watch the anime. Or play a different game.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing In Disguise is a broken game on multiple levels. Its narrative is broken, in that its interesting core mystery fails to engage due to the most agonizing delivery possible. Its ideologies are broken, as it seems to think trans people are evil, women are weak, and black people are sentient stereotypes. The rest of it – the abysmal gameplay, unacceptable performance, tendency to crash – is no better.

If bringing Sakura Wars back means sacrificing tight, strategic gameplay, good characterization, and memorable storytelling for a sloppy heap of half-melted vanilla ice cream, I'd rather it stay dead.

Unfortunately, just about every decent thing about this game is offset by dull writing, buggy performance, and a core loop that grates on the patience after thirty minutes.

I'm not sure what the appeal of Deadliest Catch: The Game is supposed to be. There just doesn't seem to be much of a point to anything you do. At least the TV show offers up some drama and excitement by depicting the plight of these fishermen as they fight each other over the right to keep Red Lobster stocked with endless buckets of crab legs. This game just features you as a faceless avatar doing menial tasks without any story or even a dramatic voiceover about your struggles. There's no stakes or tension, just a giant pile of crabs.

For people looking for a ridiculous game to play with friends for an hour or earn Youtube views with, this may suffice. But even by that small metric, Totally Reliable Delivery Service feels like a completely inadequate video game.

While My Hero One's Justice 2 definitely "went beyond" the foundation My Hero One's Justice laid down two years ago, the developers certainly still have a ways to go before they figure out a video game formula that can be classified as "plus ultra!"

Dragon Quest of the Stars is just another Square Enix gacha game that pimps out one of its beloved properties in the name of money. It follows the bare minimum of what is required to be a video game and nothing more. It's designed to keep the player interested for brief instances of time during a commute or during a quieter moment at school/work and it does fill that role, but it's a poor entry in one of the best video game franchises of all time.

For now, Shadowgun War Games isn’t a threat to any of the big competitors. Call of Duty Mobile, Fortnite, and PUBG can all relax knowing that Shadowgun War Games feels more like a proof of concept than a finished game. With that said, developer Madfinger Games is likely aware of the game’s shortcomings, and over the coming months there should be substantial additions in content, else we won’t be hearing much about the game.

As a single-player experience, Table Manners is very much like a bad Tinder date: after one awkward night, you'll probably never want to see it again.

Nom Nom Apocalypse is an unfulfilling snack of a game that offers very little to sink your teeth into.

Unfortunately, while Skellboy has its enjoyable moments, there is simply too much going against it to make the game worthwhile. If the game were more focused in its design, either towards exploration or linear gameplay, and if the system of taking the power of opponents were more thoroughly developed, and if the technical issues were non-existent, then Skellboy would be great. As it stands, it’s simply alright, lacking in areas that cannot be tolerated in today’s market with so many high-quality titles available.

Despite having the most absurd premise a game could have, Orangeblood is utterly forgettable.

Animal Friends Adventure feels like a title that needs to go back into development. It has the potential to be a reasonable retro-style platformer, but there are just too many errors in it right now for it to even hit average. In its current state, I literally cannot complete it. Not a good move for any game.

This game does nothing to deserve your attention. I honestly can't believe that the developer is charging ten bucks for this. It feels like the unfinished alpha build of a game that would still probably be bad. Down To Hell is so lame that the devil would be ashamed to be associated with it.

There's no reason to bother with this game. In fact, there's already been a great River City Ransom game released this year that completely blows this out of the water. River City Girls is a fantastic game that honors the series' legacy, has amazing music and characters, and features gameplay that's actually enjoyable. Play that instead, because Stay Cool, Kobayashi-san!: A River City Ransom Story is about as far away from cool as you can get.

If you loved the original Shenmue and Shenmue II, then you'll likely love Shenmue III for how closely it adheres to the original games. If you enjoyed the HD remasters of Shenmue & Shenmue II, then you will likely enjoy Shenmue III as a faithful sequel. There isn't much to recommend for everyone else, as Shenmue III is a ponderous experience that exists more to waste player's time than tell a compelling story.

Kingdom Under Fire 2 has some really cool ideas, but it would seem there's just too much baggage built up over the years.

Jumanji: The Video Game is best left in that dark and dusty cupboard that it will no doubt end up in.

The only silver lining of Narcos: Rise of the Cartels is that the game itself is such a disappointment in what it sets out to do that few people will play it in the first place.

I'm not bashing this game because it's about religion. It isn't bad because it's a religious satire. It's bad because every aspect of it misses the mark. The graphics are bland, the music is repetitive and dull, the satire isn't funny, and the point and click interface isn't easy to use. I've never before encountered a point and click adventure that made it so difficult to point and click.

The problem with creating a dungeon crawler game and calling it Munchkin is that there is too little connecting to the source material.

If the game were to do away with its heart rate resource, which severely limits the style of play, and added more procedurally generated content, the game would be a hit. As it stands, Breathing Fear misses the mark and is a forgettable experience.