If you're not sick of long open-world games or stories about zombies, then you should be able to squeeze some enjoyment out of this. Days Gone might be a ride that goes on for too long, but it's a mostly worthwhile journey with a few good stops along the way.

Twelve Minutes is a good adventure game, but its puzzle design makes it feel— mature, cinematic presentation aside—like something of a relic. If it was released in 1995, you'd be ringing up the LucasArts hint line for help and getting scolded by your parents for running up a massive phone bill. But it has its charms, and the way the story is gradually peeled back, growing more disturbing with each loop, is effectively done. There's a huge amount of emotion, drama, and conflict squeezed into this tiny, dingy three-room apartment. But also a lot of frustration as you struggle to determine precisely the correct sequence of events to let you move the story forward and finally get some closure.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life remains one of the best that the series has to offer, managing to preserve what made it so special in the first place with its unique emphasis on an aging town and cast of characters, while also raising the bar with new content and improvements. While more recent titles in the series tend to offer distractions in the way of more mechanics and options, A Wonderful Life is a return to form that focuses more on the life sim and farming aspects that fans fell in love with all those years ago.

It feels like nobody in Rise of the Ronin is connected to the world or its events, much in the same way most mechanics of the game don’t feel connected to each other. The game is inconsistent and unpolished. Annoying stat-crunching, a poorly handled story, and some really awful boss fights make it feel like a bad Soulslike was bolted on to something that could’ve been so much better. But its traversal mechanics, top-notch side missions, sublime open world, and the varied and likeable characters you can build relationships with all help prop up its weaker elements.

In a medium where narrative adventures have grown rather predictable, this one shines.

I love WarioWare: Get it Together for bringing this charming series back into the limelight. It introduces a bunch of excellent new microgames and a huge selection of returning characters I was so happy to see, yet the short campaign and lacking amount of extras can make the overall package feel underwhelming. Unless you’ve loved the series for decades, this one might be hard to recommend until the game is subject to a discount or two.

Ultimately Shin Megami Tensei 3 HD Remaster is a perfectly acceptable port of a cult classic PS2 RPG. Playing this at the same time as Mass Effect Legendary Edition has definitely coloured my perception of what we should expect from a remaster, but despite the fact it doesn’t have AI upscaled textures and 4K60fps presentation, it’s still a masterful example of how to build atmosphere in a game while still keeping players engaged, instead of bored. It also features Dante from the Devil May Cry series, which always helps.

Penny’s Big Breakaway might be a bit unrefined, but behind the occasional bugs and argumentative camera is one of the best momentum-based 3D platformers I’ve ever played, with unique movement mechanics that rival Sonic at his absolute best.

Mechanically, this is the Call of Duty game I’ve enjoyed the most since Modern Warfare 2, and the only game in the series where I’ve ever felt the need to finish the campaign more than once. It’s just a shame it’s a bit light on multiplayer maps, even if there’s no denying that, between the three modes, it’s still one of the best value video games you can buy. Enjoy, Bell.

While Mortal Shell does nothing to reinvent the Soulslike wheel, it still manages to bring many of its own ideas to the table while invoking the feeling, mood, and brutality of previous Dark Souls games.

Although the game is a single-player experience, I never felt alone while whipping up drinks and talking with characters who - as odd as it might sound - genuinely felt like my closest of friends.

Jurassic Park Evolution 2 delivers improvements across the board. It takes the best parts of the original game, adds new ways to play, and changes up mechanics to make them feel more realistic and interesting - making everything more engaging and immersive. Building straight paths and fences is easier, keeping dinosaurs fed is a breeze, and even speeding up time is now possible, yet managing those raptors is still a welcome challenge. While I may not actually be the best dinosaur supervisor yet, I can’t see myself putting this game down for a long time.

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.

Watch Dogs: Legion is a good game that could have been a great game if it had fully committed to its systems. Its recreation of London is stunning, its core concept is up there with Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system in terms of innovation, and I would love to see where it could go if Ubisoft gives the team a second crack at it. With a stronger story, a much better ending, an improved driving model, and a bit more polish, I could see Legion being a classic. I hope the series continues in this interesting direction and it’s not unceremoniously shunted into a lake.

The defining strength of Replaced—besides the stunning visuals—lies in its cultural commentary. Though the main narrative focuses primarily on one aspect of the apocalypse, organ donation and the subsequent dehumanisation that comes from losing a part of oneself, there's plenty of flavour there for the world's other tragedies: extreme poverty, the frivolity of the elite, fascism, police state and especially the dangers of technology.

If you can't wait for Metroid Prime 4, Savage Planet is a modernized version of that series that will scratch the itch. I wish it was longer, deeper, had more tools, more weapons, and more upgrades, but it's hardly a criticism of the game to say I wanted more of it.

Technical issues aside, Wavetale is a charming, chill time with beautiful visuals that’s perfect for winding down. It’s a little too simple and chill for its own good, but I still loved gliding along the sea and taking in what Strandville had to offer. If you're looking for something a little more relaxing than saving Ragnarok this Christmas, Wavetale might be the one for you.

After seven entries, it's clear the Jackbox team knows how to make a fun set of party games. Jackbox 7 keeps it up with an instant classic in Blather 'Round, another solid take on Quiplash, a zany time with Devils and the Details, the unfortunately bugged Champ'd Up, and Talking Points, a game that's really hurt by the current world circumstances. I can't blame Jackbox Games for the pandemic, but two of these games do take a hit from being played over Discord. And the bugs may be a side effect of at-home development, but I can't say for sure. All I can say is Champ'd Up has so much potential and is destined for Twitch fame once its bugs are flattened. So yes, Jackbox 7 is worth buying. But maybe wait for an eventual sale. And for this dumb pandemic to be over.

With a grim mystery, vividly violent world, interesting side quests and minigames, impressively real animal characters, and multiple endings to experience, you’ll struggle to put Into the Hive down once you pick it up. The story of Into the Hive is fresh enough to stand on its own, but with endless ties back to the first game between characters and references, the experience of playing both weaves together a horrifically beautiful story of inequality, crime, and style that sticks with you long past the ending.

Playing Afterimage, then, is a lot like going to a congested airport. It offers you the chance to visit a ton of interesting destinations. But, getting to them can feel like waiting through a long TSA line only to find out you're missing essential paperwork. Yeah, I want to see Naples, but maybe not that bad.

Hayfever might not be a revolutionary platforming experience, but it strikes a solid balance of fun and difficulty that makes it worth picking up, especially with it’s replayability and appeal to completionists. Cabin fever may be running rampant right now, but Hayfever can certainly help combat some of that boredom.

These are solid remasters of excellent games, and fans of the series will thoroughly enjoy the experience. It’s part nostalgia, part respect for its legacy, and part truth when I say Tomb Raider 2 is a perfect game for its era, and the titles either side of it aren’t bad either. I hope newcomers give it a chance, but it does feel like the remaster could do more to help that happen.

Rematch has good bones. It’s full of energy, raw and unbridled. But it’s a rough diamond, and rougher than most. The game has serious issues that border on rendering the game completely unfun. But if players stick around for long enough for developer Sloclap to polish those defects, to improve the servers and make goalkeeping feel responsive, then we might just have something here. At the moment, it’s a bit of a mess. But it’s a mess that keeps you coming back, that forces you to play ‘one more match’ in case it’s the one where you finally net a hat trick of bicycle kicks. And it’s a game I’d prefer to play over EA FC any day.

Power Wash Simulator is a darling escape into a profession I never knew I had any passion for. I’m not saying I’m about to quit writing and start going to town on my nan’s filthy patio, but there’s something about living a distant occupation through the medium of video games that pulls you in and refuses to let go.

With the blessing of Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, Skunkape Games has done well to bring the original highly-praised title to modern platforms, offering up plenty of reasons for new players to check out the game, and former players to come back.

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]

On a personal level, I'm still not truly gripped by everything here, but there are a lot of risky design choices and themes in Vigil. Developer Glass Heart Games should be commended for paying homage to the Dark Souls series while taking it in a slightly different direction.

Even with the balancing issues and a clear rough start to its first season, MultiVersus’ incredibly solid and unique core mechanics, along with its clear love and respect for every character and series that it represents, let it stand close to the top of the genre. It still needs some fine-tuning, but I’m confident that in a year’s time, MultiVersus will be standing strong next to Smash.