I love the world of SteamWorld. Heist 2 is as flavorful as ever, with great characters, funny writing, and a great soundtrack by Steam Powered Giraffe. The overworld exploration is charming too, with its own pirate ship progression system and simple naval combat. I really want to like SteamWorld Heist 2, but I can’t get past the more tedious aspects of the grind, or the long, punishing missions in the late game. It’s an improvement over the original to be sure, but I’ll have to wait patiently for SteamWorld Heist 3 to see if this series can finally reach its full potential.

Interrogation: You Will Be Deceived uses dialogue-heavy gameplay to remind us that many extremists start as frustrated people. It mostly succeeds by pulling from all walks of life for its characters. I would've liked to see the gameplay dig just as deep.

Sometimes, a game like Oath in Felghana is all you need. When you get home after a long day, you’re not making a five-star meal for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy it. It’s something you’ve gotten so used to that it brings you comfort just to eat it. You’ve probably played hundreds of games like this before, but Oath in Felghana knows that. It’s not a groundbreaking game, but it’s not trying to be. It has all the basic ingredients you need, without any of the extra spices. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s comforting. It wants you to sit back and enjoy the experience, savouring every drop of its familiar flavour.

I'm as conflicted about Stellar Blade as it seems to be about itself. It's competent and occasionally interesting with combat as unique and rewarding as it is repetitive and frustrating. Less style over substance than it is beauty over brains, there is a good time to be had in Stellar Blade, but it comes at the cost of knowing there are better versions of this game that will never be realised.

While I’m sure that’s not going to be enough for those who have already played hours of Worms Armageddon or who already own it on PC (which remains the best way to play), for everyone else it’s a nice way to experience the series at its best. Hopefully, above all else, it’s a reminder to Team17 what makes Worms works so well - and it isn't when it's trying to be a battle royale.

Park Beyond is a unique experience that has a huge amount of potential that’s not entirely been released yet. I experienced a number of visual glitches in particular and there are still some core features that feel absent. While I don’t need to do a deep dive into micro-management I do wish I could set patrol areas for staff, instead of just restricting their duties. I didn’t even find a way to move them or call them to a specific ride. You just have to Impossify them and trust in their jetpacks and the AI. Things like this feel like an oversight that I hope is changed as the game progresses.

To the Moon is well-worth experiencing, so long as the player knows what to expect going in.

Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is both a pleasing and frustrating puzzling journey that leaves you thinking both about the steps you make in-game and the ones that you might or might not make in your real life.

Pikmin 4 isn’t quite the best game in the series, but it’s certainly the most confident. With this new entry, Nintendo has decided to wipe away much of the past tedium in favour of ensuring moment-to-moment gameplay is more enjoyable than ever. But eradicating its past frustrations also removes much of the challenge and depth from the game’s battles and puzzles. Commanding its multicoloured armies and pilfering this planet of its treasures while gathering a motley crew of comrades kept me enraptured for hours, just don’t come into this expecting the harsh journey back home to be little more than a leisurely stroll.

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.

Call of the Mountain has wonderful elements to it, and it lands the most important part - the physical experience of climbing - perfectly. Trailers and even my own video capture don't quite convey the speed and agility you feel while scrambling. Unfortunately, other parts of the game are too thin, with the inability to wander back the way you came and the constant stop-start nature of its thin narrative working against its own appeal. With some fresh ideas, huge scope, and clever adaptation of an existing property without relying on a simple remake, Horizon Call of the Mountain is an important game for VR. However, I'm not sure it's a great one.

The Dying World comes to us after a messy early access period, and it shows. The pacing is all over the place, and parts of the narrative feel unfinished. The finished stuff is fantastic, but the rest leaves so much potential left unexplored.

Last year’s Madden release was one of the best in recent memory, so - at least in my eyes - Madden 21 had a lot to live up to. For the most part, it did so. Madden traditionalists will enjoy familiar game modes (which are all par for the course in their own right) with improved control mechanics, while The Yard adds an exciting element for those looking for something new. The Yard still has room to improve, but, personally, I’m excited to see where the game mode goes and how its long-term placement in the game (and competitive esports scene) plays out.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate might not manage to reach the same heights as the game it so clearly takes inspiration from, but ‘being as good as Hades’ is perhaps an unrealistic goal for any game and it's a wonder that it comes even close. It still provides a satisfying roguelite experience with one of the best interpretations of the TMNT universe I’ve seen in some time. It won’t be replacing Shredder’s Revenge as the franchise’s best modern game, but it’s sitting nicely in second place.

Throughout Schim, you can only watch this man’s life from a few steps behind, and when the time is right, you find him as hope returns and the man finds himself at the same time. There are some beautiful, abstract sequences as the man goes through these stages of depression, development, and betterment, and the lead-up to the final moments are appropriately dramatic and satisfying, completing what is a pure and wholesome experience that casts a bigger shadow than you may expect.

Outriders would have been a much better game had the campaign been half as long and the end game had twice as much content. I had fun exploring the dozen or so environments throughout the story mode, but the game doesn’t start firing on all cylinders until the gear you get becomes meaningful. The disposable nature of gear during the campaign/leveling process makes the game feel a lot more shallow than it actually is, and getting players to that end-game grind sooner would likely have exposed a lot more players to the best that Outriders has to offer. I hope that Outriders gets DLC, but only if it’s content that builds out the end game even further. If an Outriders expansion is just another story-driven campaign, I likely won’t even bother playing. If I do, I’ll almost certainly set the difficulty to easy, skip all the cutscenes, and rush to the new end game. If you’re playing Outriders for the first time, I highly recommend you do the same.

If you’re after an anime-infused action romp in a similar vein to Akira or Sword Art Online, Scarlet Nexus is almost certainly worth a punt. However, there are a few caveats. Combat is excellent yet not without its flaws, while the story being told and characters you encounter don’t have nearly enough depth to feel emotionally resonant. The potential for something brilliant is here, but much like Code Vein before it, this is a game that seems determined to stop itself from achieving something truly special.

Waking probably won't resonate with most - it's far too oblique and mixed for most, and it's complicated art for weirdos. But as one of those weirdos, I found Jason Oda's unique thesis on life, death, and everything between the two to be an engaging, engrossing, and challenging experience.

Fans of the IP will have some fun here, but you likely already know whether you’ll like this game or not. Boltgun competently blends the Warhammer universe with a genre that felt made for it, but offers no surprises. It set out to be a Doom clone, and it succeeded. That’s fine in some ways, but a shame in others because this could have been special with the application of a few original ideas.

This isn’t a single-player experience with multiplayer tagged on to sell battle passes – if anything, it’s the other way around. I found playing other people more fun than fighting the AI, despite all the triple-A quality cutscenes aimed to curate a perfect experience. But Realms of Ruin goes to show, no matter how stylish your Lord of Change character model is, no matter how well rendered its feathers are, games are nothing without deep gameplay systems and precise controls to back it up.

Radical Rabbit Stew is a good time throughout its short run, but its level design and gameplay leave a bit to be desired. It still shines with its progression, art style, and music, and can be a welcome play for those missing the classic arcade games it's inspired by.

Bye Sweet Carole still needs work, and it shows. Truth be told, though, a few quality-of-life upgrades – controls and hints – would be more than enough to potentially turn this game into one of those titles I come back to over and over again as years go by. Because don’t get me wrong, I am impressed with Bye Sweet Carole as is. But I can’t help imagining what it could be with a few tweaks.

Conglomerate 451 isn’t a game for everyone. For those wanting a taste of what Cyberpunk 2077 will be bringing later this year, it’s likely that Conglomerate 451 will only satiate your visual senses with its dark, neon, cyberpunk aesthetics. But for fans of RPG and dungeon crawling games, you probably won’t regret adding Conglomerate 451 to your library.

Is the game worth your time? Yeah, it’s worth a go, it’s on Game Pass, innit? This is where I can see Rainbow Six Extraction shine. Very dimly. If the game poses a genuine challenge and a progression system that feels rewarding over the long term, there’s no reason why this polished experience can’t retain at least a few players across the coming months. It’s not easy being a video game in 2022: you’ve got some real big hitters on the way, and if you’re not hitting hard then you’re just going to get knocked out, pretty little Siege engine and all. You alright there, Extraction? You’re looking a little woozy.

Biomutant is a game that's still evolving. Plenty of bugs need to be ironed out, its combat system could use another coat of paint, and it desperately needs new puzzles – they rarely move beyond a simple "match-two-colors" format. Much of the game works exactly as intended, including a robust crafting system, a fantastic suite of side quests, and an open world that's begging to be explored. Dozens of great ideas are lurking just below the jank, and so is an enjoyable game if you're able to look past them.

All in all, Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is a perfectly average open world survival shooter. It’s an interesting setting with well-realized characters, but it’s held back by less-satisfying gunplay and a run-of-the-mill ‘good enough’ sense of exploration. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone. But if you’re a fan of games like Fallout: New Vegas, or you enjoyed past Stalker games, then this one is worth following up on.

Like the Sarcophagus, developer Hadoque is giving birth to something strange and potentially powerful. Ultros doesn't fully come together, but it's an interesting experiment in Metroidvania design that I hope Hadoque or another developer builds on in the future.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is clearly a labour of love, and I can see that in everything it does. The ambition that bleeds into its story, characters, and gameplay are all evident, but the execution is just sorely lacking everywhere it matters. Perhaps my perspective on past games is warped by nostalgia, but this isn’t the road I imagined Abe and company going down. It’s in the right direction, but they’ve veered off course and landed themselves in a ditch.