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.

Battle Axe is a hard game, but it never felt frustrating or unfair to play. I can appreciate a game that takes a lot of practice and technical skill, but my favorite thing about Battle Axe is the way that it engages your memory and map knowledge. Once I mastered a particular level’s layout, I felt like the hero of a time loop movie, casually advancing through each zone and deflecting attacks with ease. It’s a beautiful game created by developers that have a genuine love and talent for pixel art. Visually speaking, Battle Axe is pixel perfect. My biggest problem with the game is that I want more of it, and that’s never a bad problem to have.

When I wrapped up my experience with Nier Replicant, I realized it was the most satisfied I’d ever felt after working so hard for a particular ending. Yoko Taro asking me to relive the same experiences again and again wasn’t a repetitive journey, but a more meaningful reflection on a cycle of hate, pain, and trauma. Nier Replicant is Yoko Taro’s best work, brought up to modern standards, and finally delivered in the presentation its tale always deserved.

Bugs aside, it is an astoundingly well put together experience, balancing player choice, opportunities for chaos, deep introspection, and a thorough exploration of politics. That’s on top of the sordid and twisted murder at the narrative’s heart, too. I’m not necessarily a fan of all of the design choices - it’s often both too open ended and too restrictive - but I understand them all, and I wish it was less of an exception to the rule. I can’t fault its narrative, or even its design, despite my disagreements. If someone told me they consider it a perfect game, I wouldn’t have anything besides personal preference to come back at them. But with the fiddly game design likely to block off even more players than the already niche themes, I can’t help but wish a game so focused on socialism could have been more welcoming to the masses.

Had the characters been a little more charming, had each day’s play lasted slightly longer, and had there been something - anything - else to do outside of each day’s central tasks, Cozy Grove would be a much stronger game. But in such a crowded genre where everyone is struggling to emerge from the shadows of Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, it’s hard to recommend a game like Cozy Grove.

Silicon Dreams is a tremendous detective game. The way you grill these androids for information is highly engaging. I was surprised many times by the responses I got from my interrogations and the narrative continued to get more and more compelling as I went on. If the idea of delving into the minds of androids to see what makes them tick sounds like a fun time, then you should experience the dystopian nightmare that is Silicon Dreams.

When you fail a Trial of Fire, you learn and you move on. The thing about this game is that every single run is better than the last one, even if it’s decidedly more short-lived. In fact, that’s actually a blessing in disguise - more time for another go before bed, eh?

Tasomachi: Behind The Twilight doesn't have anything that would make it worth playing over any of the much better 3D platformers available right now. Hopefully, the developer releases the soundtrack online so I can listen to these tunes without having to perform any more menial tasks for fog-ridden feline folk.

A Gummy’s Life is solid for what it is. It definitely feels like a game that belongs on the Switch, even more than it belongs on PC. The overall experience is great for younger players, but can be equally as fun as an option for family game night. Nice and juicy.

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.

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.

I don’t think I’ve ever referred to something vague as “charming,” yet that’s exactly what Narita Boy is. There’s certainly an underlying emotional narrative, but progressing through the game itself is so “out there” that I couldn’t help but want to uncover more of the Digital Kingdom and the life of The Creator. The 80s aesthetic makes the experience that much better, allowing me to revel in my own sense of nostalgia while playing.

I like the idea of creating a title that feels like a less complicated version of Civilization, but it seems easy to create a game that dumbs things down too much. It was hard for me to get immersed in ruling my kingdom in Conqueror 940 AD since the gameplay was so barebones. At times, it almost felt like I was feeling out a spreadsheet rather than ruling a kingdom. It's possible to take something like Crusader Kings 3 and make it more accessible for a general audience, but Conquerer 940 AD's buttons and toggles don't make for an exciting game of political intrigue.

It's worth diving into for visuals alone. The chibi art style is adorable and certainly elevated the visuals beyond the typical cheery Unreal Engine 4 vibe to something much more, and the variety of costumes, while the amount makes it a huge game of hit-or-miss, brings a new level of diversity to the character themselves.

The balance of needing to manage your lair and check your world map is particularly well done. As your network grows it can get harder to avoid lockdowns, but upgrades bring it back in line. My only minor gripe is that you can’t properly micromanage minions. They have auto-assigned tasks and if you need things prioritizing - for instance, the removal of dead agents blocking the corridor - you need to get your Genius to step in, which can be dangerous. If you love building games, creating elaborate strings of traps, playing the bad guy, and generally living your best island life scamming tourists, Evil Genius 2 is for you.

Without a doubt, the best thing about the PS5 version of the game is that it allows for cross-gen progression. The process is fairly straightforward - you essentially save and upload your PS4 version, and then download the file onto your PS5 - but it made me incredibly happy that I was able to bring over my custom character and his stats to the PS5 without hassle.

I came in expecting a pretty big learning curve in figuring out how to not jump in a platforming game, but developer Redstart Interacting did well to squash any of those concerns pretty much immediately upon starting the game. To put it plainly, Get-A-Grip Chip has me hooked.

Black Legend feels and looks like it could be at least ten years older than it is. The environments are all nearly identical, almost every attack has the same animation no matter how it’s actually described in the tooltip, the only tutorial is a 15-page menu you read at the start, and there’s an entire adrenaline system that I’m pretty sure is never explained anywhere. To say the game is unpolished would be generous, but I can’t lie, I really liked it. It apes Bloodborne’s atmosphere all the way down to NPCs you can talk to by knocking on doors that have a light on, and I have to admit I’m a total sucker for it. I loved coming up with ways to build a well-rounded party, even if it felt like I could probably breeze through combat without trying nearly as hard as I did. I’m the same guy that put 40 hours into Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics and loved every second of it, and I know I’m not the only one. If you’ve got the same passion for old-school tactics games, and I mean that in every sense of the word, Black Legend is just as infectious as the classics. It’s not for everyone, but the things it does well, it does really well.

It Takes Two is, without a doubt, the best co-op game you can play right now. It’s much more ambitious and bigger budget than A Way Out, which was still brilliant in its own way. Josef Fares and the team at Hazelight take things to the next level here, and I can only imagine what they’ll do when they’re inevitably given a triple-A budget. Grab a friend by the hand and pull them through an adventure unlike any other as soon as you can - you won’t regret it.

If you liked Immortals, this is basically the same game again, but shorter and with Chinese myths. It’s a shame that a different studio couldn’t, for whatever reason, make its DLC distinct from the base game, but if you want to experience a little bit more of Immortals Fenyx Rising, Myths of the Eastern Realm has you covered. It’s a disappointment, but it’s not a disaster.

It's a great entry point thanks to the Village Quests and helpful dog companion. If you're a fan who already pre-ordered and want to know if it's good, rest assured. You might actually like Rise better than World, as it brings back some of the strategic variety while building on more recent quality-of-life updates. It's a shame that the Switch holds the game back in small ways, but this is a contender for best in the series. If post-launch support is as good as it was for World, this game could easily rise above the rest.

Overall, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time on Nintendo Switch is well worth picking up if you liked the version that came out on console earlier this year and want a portable copy. It holds up very well on Nintendo’s system, and springs a few surprises with how well it handles everything. As for newcomers, this is probably as close to Warped as we’re going to get, so classic Crash fans should grab it too, even if it’s not quite Crash with all the trimmings.

It was fun developing my character as a newcomer to the franchise, but, goodness, it's been a lot of work. I’ll probably play Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town for a few more seasons just to see what develops. After that though, I’ll likely be saying, “So long,” to Olive Town for at least a little while.

My favorite part about the game was the animation. I loved the doll art style, and it fit really well with the quirky plot. The gameplay was okay, though it would have benefitted from clearer audio and more locations. Overall, Clea 2 was definitely worth playing through, but I’m unlikely to replay it. I’m hoping for a Clea 3 that expands upon the characters and setting, and a game that further improves upon the mechanics.

Unless you really want to see an ear of walking corn fire machine gun rounds at a zombie dressed as a football player, Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle For Neighborville is far from the best option for a multiplayer shooter on the Switch.

The visuals and audio in combination with the meaningful and positive narrative come together to construct the complete package for a short ride into What Comes After.

Adios is the kind of contemplative experience that will stick with me for a long time. While I think Adios is a much better story than it is a game, I’m fully convinced this is a great proof of concept for bigger stories in the interactive theater genre. Adios could have been a one-dimensional story about a man who has nothing left to live for, but through a series of short, concise conversations, the game does an exceptional job of fleshing out this character, humanizing him, and giving meaning to his death. That’s a lot to do in just an hour, but Adios handles it beautifully.

Frustration aside, if you're a fan of old-school horror in both film and games, Mundaun may be a place that's worth visiting. Just watch out for headless goats.