I absolutely recommend playing Resident Evil Village, but probably not on Switch 2. It’s a fantastic game, and it can be found very cheap on PS5 these days during sales. Paying full price for the Switch 2 version — technically worse for around three times the price and the handheld version is simply bad — instead of playing it cheaper on a more powerful console is actually the scariest thing I’ve seen since we got given the code. If you do pick it up on the Switch, do yourself a favour and keep it docked at least.

As a single player game Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is utterly pedestrian, lacking the frantic pace of the original. Most of the repurposed features such as power ups and jumping on bubbles detract rather than enhance the experience, but add in some friends and it's still fun, especially if you want to be devious and sabotage the other players.

Undisputed is a valiant attempt by Steel City Interactive, bringing back boxing to the fore in video games after a long absence. The in-ring action is generally very good and the roster is well stacked. What is missing is good commentary and there are gameplay issues that need to be addressed, including lag and stuttering. Undisputed is not ready to be a title challenger yet, but updates may see it get there eventually.

Unusual Findings is a good point and click adventure that will appeal to fans of the genre and nostalgia addicts alike. It doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel, though, and does suffer from the occasional moment of obscurity or needing to talk to every character again to discover a new line of dialogue. If the style and setting appeal, though, then there is a lot to love here, not least the pixel art and liberal use of pop classic ‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’.

Mega Battle is great fun, especially in local multiplayer, and has seen me both laughing and cursing aloud, but with no mini-games or notable campaign to speak of, and without the overblown power-ups I’m used to in Mario games, it’s a game that I’ll have all but forgotten by the time Wimbledon rolls around next year.

Team Sonic Racing is a technically sound karting game, but really only sells its central mechanic well enough in multiplayer to convince you that it needs to be there. It’s not helped by only featuring the mostly bland Sonic family of characters and locations, leaving it feeling like an overall downgrade from the fantastic Sonic & All-Star Racing games.

Warsaw is a game that captures some of the desperation and inevitability of failure that the Warsaw Uprising faced. The random assignment of characters removes some player choice, and there is a lack of narrative to add more weight to the events. However, as a strategy game Warsaw is well put together and offers a challenge in a unique setting.

If you’re a big fan of snow-based sports and don’t mind the dip-in and out feel, then give this a shot.

Ultimately EDF4.1 ends up being an addictive game that is full of alien squishing fun on a huge scale, but as a last generation port to PlayStation 4, it ends up being far too expensive. I shall await with bated breath for a true sequel.

While I appreciated the insight into the folklore of the Taramuhara people, Mulaka as a game is about as average as an action adventure title gets. It’s got some great ideas lurking within, but the overall structure is incredibly dated and only really saved thanks to the subject matter. As a game, it’s not really doing much that hasn’t been done better before, but as a cultural insight, it has a lot to offer those interested.

Ultimately, with so many games around at this time brimming with originality and quality, it is easy to overlook this game and the experience left me feeling a little hollow. But if you have time, then pop this in your rental queue and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Warcraft III: Reforged is built upon such strong foundations, yet manages to be somewhat unremarkable in 2020, mired by technical hiccups and Blizzard’s clumsy messaging.

Shadows: Awakening ultimately fails to be the action RPG that fans of the genre need. It has some interesting ideas and decent writing, but the story shifts to the backburner after a while and the side missions and combat aren’t enough to maintain interest through the grind it turns into. It’s not bad, it’s just not particularly inspiring either. If you need a new diablo-like and a lack of polish or a glut of grind doesn’t bother you, there are definitely worse options out there.

Gestalt: Steam & Cinder is a charming metroidvania with a unique world that's ultimately undone by its overstuffed and underwhelming storytelling.

On paper Ride 3 offers a lot of variety both in terms of quantity of bikes and track options. It’s possibly the most refined Milestone game to date and you could spend 20 hours playing through the career and have a perfectly acceptable experience, but you’ll be left wanting more. It does little to innovate or move the genre forward. In many ways, Ride 3 is like eating a 14 piece KFC bargain bucket all to yourself. Initially it’s satisfying and feels like great value for money, but about halfway through, indigestion starts to make you question why you didn’t just get a Zinger burger instead. Sometimes, less is more.

Overall this is a competent, attractive version of mahjong solitaire, though not without its flaws.

There are some troubling flaws with the camera, and the construction tools, though potent, are not as immediately accessible as they should be.

OTXO puts a roguelike spin on the familiar Hotline Miami murderfest formula, but it doesn't quite nail the landing. While moment-to-moment combat is fast and flashy and unforgiving, there isn't enough care put into the roguelike structure of the experience to make new runs feel justified or exciting.

Without a single player campaign and only a small selection of effectively interchangeable game modes, Rainbow Six Siege is a game with a fairly limited scope. However, there’s still a solid and very enjoyable tactical shooter at its core, especially when played with friends, and it’s one which will only grow over time as Ubisoft add more maps and content.

The relatively unique Georgian setting and the brewing civil war are all but set aside for a by the numbers story of revenge and betrayal, while Jon isn’t a very likeable protagonist. The various bugs and crashes also need to be addressed in future patches, as they can ruin the experience. Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 has the sniping down to a tee, which should be expected with the number of years CI has been working on the series, but the surrounding package could be better.

Well, we’ve enjoyed our time battling the Draelus, and for the price tag it’s hard to argue against the value. There are issues that need addressing, so perhaps with enough attention Tiki Games will be able to deliver a sequel?

Much like its early 20th century setting, Vampyr feels like a bit of a throwback to a past age of action RPGs. In a time where the genre is evolving Vampyr holds on to past ideas for much of its tenure, and it doesn’t have a story strong enough to overcome that fact. The world itself is ripe for lots of stories to be told within, with Dontnod having done a good job with world building, but while Vampyr isn’t a bad game, nor is it as great as it could be.

If repetition isn’t a problem for you, however, and you just want to blast-off into space and shoot down enemies by the bucketload, then this game is definitely something you should look into.

Youngblood feels like Wolfenstein got drunk and ended up at the wrong party. It’s still able to pull off some of the same old tricks, but it feels wildly out of place alongside RPG-style levelling from Destiny or The Division. The next entry needs to go back to the previous formula, let me shoot my way through hordes of Nazi’s and spin a good yarn. Go home Wolfenstein, you’re drunk.

Serial Cleaners comes with a new style and attitude, taking inspiration from some of the great crime films of the 80s and 90s to tell a four-sided tale. It's an enjoyable return for the original game's quirky take on crime scene cleaning, but only takes a few small steps forward, leaving the limits of its stealth-action gameplay evident to see.

Pro Foosball has plenty going for it and at times it certainly feels like you are playing a game of real table football. I had a good time with it and think it could be fun with friends.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed has potential, but game balance, a lack of content and some uninspired gameplay makes me want to come back to it after a few updates. Busting ain’t making me so feel good right now.

If you don't care about narrative, don't need the latest and greatest game engine powering your HD shooters and can live with the confused juxtaposition of stealth and over-the-top action braggadocio then you'll love it. If you want a tense, tight, stealthy experience then you'll probably love around half of it and loathe when it robs you of that pleasure.

Namco Museum is only really worth purchasing if you either have an unhealthy obsession with at least three of Namco’s arcade classics, or want an immensely fun party game and don’t care too much about the price or extras. It’s great to see that they won’t be forgotten, but aside from Sky Kid there were no games that I hadn’t already played that I liked. Namco Museum is certainly well put together and presented, but the selection of games just aren’t completely enticing.

Dear Me, I Was offers reflection on a life accompanied by eye-catching art and gentle piano music. There's very limited interactivity though, and while the story is relatable at some points, it's not particularly unique. It is worth picking up if you're looking for something that will make you sit back and reflect, but it feels as though Dear Me, I Was will only appeal to a very specific audience.

UBOAT is fascinating and ambitious in its concept to faithfully encapsulate the experience of being a World War II submarine captain. Like any sim, it’s a slow burn: this isn’t one for action lovers or casual players wanting to fire a torpedo every five seconds. Boffins will delight in the attention to detail, but the inherent plate-spinning and fiddly console controls drain some of that potential fun factor.

I wanted to love River City Girls. A modern side scrolling beat 'em up, from a proven developer like WayForward, with bright, bold visuals, and two kick-ass heroines should have been great. Instead, thanks to way too much repetitive grinding, River City Girls is a bit boring. Something I never thought I'd say about a game that has high school children hitting zombie cheerleaders with wrenches.

I've played R-Type across many systems since 1987, and Final 2 is not the glorious swan song the series deserves. It's still R-Type, so fans will find some things to like, but it has flat, dull presentation and some odd design choices that diminish the shoot 'em up great.

As an educational tool, Beyond Eyes did a great job of teaching me of the struggles people face when their vision is impaired... As a game though, Beyond Eyes is about plodding through a maze with barely any meaningful plot until right at the end.

Gorogoa’s main problem lies with its outdated linear approach. It’s a fantastic, distinctive looking game with a solid hook for progression through its puzzles, but it ironically doesn’t take a lot of risks. If you want a good hour or so to play a unique puzzle game, Gorogoa will fill that void, but just don’t expect it to do much more than that.

Sagebrush's story isn't one that will leave a lasting impression and the pacing can feel off, but it is succinct, suspenseful, and on sale for less than a fiver, making it well worth your time if 90s cult thrillers are your jam.

After MXGP Pro settled into a hardcore dirt biking niche, MXGP 2019 surprisingly steps away from that feel just one year later. It tries to combine multiple elements like track creation and player challenges, while still representing an official championship and gets lost on the way. It’s neither an arcade racer nor a serious simulator and the end result is quite bland.

I think ultimately that Sovereign Syndicate should have focused on one character, or allowed me to choose one and have the others become part of their storyline. Then you could re-experience the game from the other characters' perspectives. As it is, the pacing just doesn't do the game any justice. There is stuff to like here, the world is deep, the story is interesting, and it's releasing at a budget-friendly price, but I have to say that a game set in a steampunk London with minotaurs, centaurs, and dwarves roaming around really seems like it could have been much more than this.

Impressive multiplayer functionality and social tools contrast with frequent loading screens and clunky main menus.

It's clear that the developers of Banner of the Maid have a lot of love for the historical French period they've adapted in this game. Unfortunately, the gorgeous character art and intricate story is hampered by a rough localization and awkward gameplay systems. The intriguing characters are hard to follow thanks to awkwardly translated dialogue, while the upgrade and faction mechanics of the game only serve to bloat the experience. Banner of the Maid has plenty of solid ideas, but only a few of them truly shine through.

Nexomon: Extinction is a solid take on the monster training genre with some interesting gameplay tweaks on the Pokémon formula and narrative decisions. The higher difficulty saps some of the pace and enjoyment of adventuring, making me hanker for a return to a Pokémon game. Still, if you’re after some monster catching and battling, Nexomon: Extinction will do the job.

Technically it is a well crafted game without any bugs in sight. The look SUTD Game Lab has gone for with it stands out well, and works in the context of the game’s setting. The soundwork is also very well done. The majority of puzzles are decent too, but it is the ones that take ages to get past, even though you know the solution, because of timing that remove a lot of goodwill for One Upon Light. There were points where fun wasn’t being had because of them. At the same time One Upon Light feels very mechanical.

Atomic Ninjas is a blast when you get a full room going and the variety of skills/weapons on offer will give you a lot of choice when deciding your playstyle. It’s just a shame that, so soon after release, it is difficult to find a four player game.

What is difficult to forgive though, are the distracting drops in frame rate at key times which make the game frustrating to play.

Madden 21 has the components to be a solid, if utterly by-the-numbers entry in the franchise. However, a raft of bugs and glitches serve to undo the game’s atmosphere at every turn.

Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn looks the part, this is a sumptuous 2D scroller that clearly loves the 1990s with unabashed and borderline obsessional desire. It effectively emulates the experience of playing a game from that era too. The problem is that includes dodgy controls, plentiful gameplay frustrations and difficulty spikes so sharp they’d make a 42-year-old man cry. And they did.

Jurassic World Aftermath Collection brings the tense experience to Switch mostly intact, but the Quest version - and the upcoming PSVR2 port - remains the best way to play.

Death Howl has a strong central theme to it, the cards are well made, and there's a decent variety to build out decks. But it is also a game that can require a lot of repetitive grinding to make small amounts of progress, and the quests could have been better designed.

Squirrel With a Gun is more than just a jokey throwaway meme game, but in some ways this is its biggest downfall. There is so much potential in the central mechanics that is held back by floaty controls and so it falls between two stools. A little more refinement and this could have been a more solid experience, but as a joke it goes on too long. That being said, there is enough here to entertain if you can look past those control issues.

Balan Wonderworld is a passable platformer marred by a string of increasingly baffling design decisions. It has charm by the bucketload and off-the-wall concepts that land well in spite of themselves, but the experience is inconsistent at best and frustrating at worst. There is a good game in here somewhere, and it is great fun at points, but waiting for those points isn’t really worth it.

If silly jump scare horror is your thing, you can do a lot worse than Doom 3 VR Edition, but you can also do much better. Its cutscenes are 2D, you get lost a lot, and occasionally you need to waggle your weapon about so it cooperates, but if you can get past these issues it's... a good enough version of the venerable id Software shooter.

I’m happy to finally have an official English release of Gundam Versus in my hands, but confused as to why it feels less feature rich than the last game. There’s the amazing framework and attention to detail that makes this such a fun game to play, but there’s just very little for you to sit down and actually put those gameplay systems to use in. Having a group of friends to duke it out with will add a lot more value to the experience, but without that, you’re looking at a delicious burger that’s missing a bun and maybe just has a little piece of lettuce on it.

This child-friendly dungeon crawler has brief moments of brilliance, but descends too often into dull drudgery. Plus, for a game about flying a dragon, actually flying your dragon is a lead weight.

While I eventually enjoyed Aporia: Beyond the Valley, the moments where bugs and glitches appeared took me right out of the experience. It’s a shame too, as the story is well told despite uttering no words at all, the premise is genuinely interesting, and the puzzles – when they work as intended – are a joy to solve. It’s certainly one to wait on for now while they tidy up all the bugs and glitches.

Formula Legends is a love letter to F1, and for fans of the sport, you can’t help but fall for its charms. However, it is a small-scale arcade racer, and you need to temper your expectations when getting into the driver’s cockpit.

Destiny 2 is still one of the best feeling games to play, but compared to the inventive, personal story told in The Witch Queen, Lightfall is dull and totally inconsequential. What a disappointment.

For those who have been following the game since long before it’s PlayStation 4 announcement, Gang Beasts really does come as a poisoned chalice. Its meathead multiplayer melees will light up your living room for hours on end, yet when there’s only one person in the hot seat, it loses that charm almost completely.

Somerville is a fantastically evocative game as it depicts an everyman's journey through a War of the Worlds-like alien invasion, leaning on countless sci-fi tropes and ideas along the way. Disappointingly, it's undercut on a number of levels by controls and a detached feeling and hastiness with some parts of the story it's telling.

Gungrave G.O.R.E is a decent game. It's not the best shooter, but it is often very entertaining if just for the spectacle. It has a few issues, mostly in level design, and the story isn't particularly memorable, but there's plenty of fun to be had in chainsawing your enemies with a transforming coffin.

Ruiner has some great set pieces and a dark, bleak world that I would normally gravitate towards. Yet when the dystopian renders everyone inhabiting it to be as relatable as raw sewage, there was little for me to latch onto. Maybe you’ll find the world of Ruiner to be more bearable than I did, but even the best films of the genre have a glimmer of hope for the audience to cling to, something Ruiner is devoid of.

Splitting Ground Zeroes back into a separate release was always going to be contentious. Thankfully, there is a lot more gameplay and depth than the early reports of the main mission’s length suggested and it’s full of potential for exploration, fan service and Kojima’s particular brand of hackneyed allegories.

There’s a satisfying strategy sim here, running behind design choices that try to streamline the experience, but don't necessarily make it more accessible. Awakening feels like a reshuffling of ideas without necessarily evolving the Nobunaga’s Ambition formula or pushing it forward. We’re hoping the next instalment is a little braver, or at least cherrypicks the best elements from past games, refining them into the ultimate Sengoku strategy game.

Telltale’s take on Game of Thrones feels quite low-key compared to some of the goings on in the main series, but this episode begins to move away from that being a problem and starts using it to its advantage, as it shows you different sides of familiar situations. There’s still a lot of filler to get through, though, and it’s very dialogue heavy with little to offer in terms of unique gameplay.

How does Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster hold up in 2025? In short, it holds up poorly unless you’re a big fan of the franchise, or just love JRPG tropes with a passion. Even the combat mechanics that lends the game its name wear thin, leaving little about this game to really recommend against more inventive JRPGs or Switch 2 launch titles. For the first time ever I'd rather play a racing game than a JRPG.

Across its approximately 15 hours of playtime, #Blud offers a fun and straightforward dungeon crawler with a great aesthetic, but it is undone by some bugs that impact the flow of the game, along with some missions that just bring the fun factor right down.

By no means a bad game. The chance to face off against Resident Evil favourites such as Nemesis is a really interesting idea, and the constant threat of zombies will always have you on edge. Saying that, I can see the multiplayer modes becoming repetitive fairly quickly. Whilst differing slightly, the modes on offer are too similar, and all play out on the same handful of maps.

Final Fantasy XV Pocket HD is a bullet-point RPG that just about gets away with its narrow focus thanks to the charm of its lead characters, fun combat, and having been able to crib some of the original’s great production values, particularly the epic soundtrack. It’s more or less impossible to recommend to PlayStation or Xbox owners, but for Switch fans it’s a light snack before next year’s deluge of proper Final Fantasy games.

For new players, Blood Ties may come across as both demanding and frustrating due to its reliance on trial and error gameplay.

There is some fun to be had in G.I. Joe Operation Blackout. The story is great but there is an over reliance on making you defend a position while wave upon wave on enemies attack. It's lower priced than most new releases but even taking that into account I can only really recommend this to die hard Joe fans.

GRIP: Combat Racing is an unpolished gem that’s currently too flawed to fully recommend. When it comes together – particularly in multiplayer – GRIP is capable of providing some of the most engaging future racing this side of Wipeout 2097, but it’s all too easy for it to fall apart, especially when you’re placed in the hands of the game’s cheating AI.

Much like the console Mario Party on the Wii U, getting the most out of the game means you probably should have a compatible Amiibo on hand. For some modes this can mean that you gain a perk, such as an extra power up collected every time in Coinatholon or an extra try in the Challenge Tower. This could be used as an unfair advantage against human players in a game where luck is the main concept, which may not sit well with some players.

Just like with its bizarre setting and over-the-top visuals, the overall experience of Aerial Knight’s Dropshot is uneven. There’s complete brilliance in places, such as the thrilling races, but they come alongside some rather uninspired and borderline frustrating combat. If I could just have a game full of the rival chases, and get rid of the fighting, this would be terrific. As it is, it’s alright.

Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters has some fun ideas and absolutely beautiful visuals, but with an incredibly flawed combat system that fails to learn from its predecessors, we're ultimately left with another clunky spinoff that fails to move the needle for the franchise. There's so much room for exploring new, exciting, and impactful ideas in the world of Neptunia, but Neptunia: Sisters VS Sisters is adamant in taking another step sideways rather than pushing the series forward.

Azure Saga: Pathfinder is a competent but generic game that will likely only appeal to fans of the genre, to fall back on a reviewer’s cliché. The cutesy graphics and interesting ecological sci-fi narrative are effective and the combat mechanics skilfully bring together inspirations from across the history of the genre, but it does little to innovate the JRPG. I spent most of my playthrough ticking off an imaginary bingo card of genre clichés in my head and was ready to shout ‘House’ way before the final boss.

I hate being that guy who basically says "this isn’t the game I wanted to play", but in Skully’s case it seems the most appropriate conclusion. So much of the game concentrates on mechanics that were rightfully abandoned and too little fulfils the marble rolling promise of its early footage. Looks like I’m still waiting, like a strangely bearded Cinderalla, to go to the ball.

Football Manager 26 is the first step of a new era, and as we're seeing with some of the biggest clubs in the country, any new era comes with the challenge of rebuilding and both setting and meeting expectations. Football Manager 26 can get better with updates, but I doubt that this entry will be the one to make the most of the switch to the new engine, overhauled UI and new features. It might take one or two more years for this rebuild to really meet its potential.

Project Cars 2 is a game that doesn’t manage to capitalise on a lot of the enthusiasm that was generated for the original. Too buggy and not as accessible for newcomers as it should be, a lot of the genuine improvements are lost behind a veil of annoyance and frustration. Hopefully Slightly Mad Studios stick with it, because the wider range of racing disciplines, the refined career, and the improvements to LiveTrack and weather are all fantastic and deserve a better, more polished product to bring them to as many people as possible.

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook is a dish that aims to bring together various ideas from dungeon-crawling JRPGs, roguelikes, and cooking games, but only a few satisfying flavours from each of those emerge. Only JRPG addicts with a trained palette will be able to find the enjoyment here to warrant digging into the entire dish.

Cosmic Picnic have created a good game and if you like tough roguelikes then you’ll have some fun with this.

A new game in the vein of GTA Chinatown Wars is something that should work quite well, but while American Fugitive has some good ideas it fails to deliver on the execution, especially with the Switch version's wonky frame rate. American Fugitive takes the promise it had, prangs it on a lamp post, and gives it a wanted level.

Challenging but without the same painstaking depth as most fighting games, Griefhelm neatly distils the thrills of facing your opponent in a mortal melee. The campaign has some clever ideas to help extend longevity with multiplayer being a welcome addition, though the core gameplay can grow repetitive after a while. Still, it's a fun take on the genre and one that will hopefully grow and galvanise over time.

If you have seen and enjoyed Tron: Legacy, then it may be worth picking up Evolution to explore the universe a little further. However, if you happen to be a gamer with no connections to the series, it's difficult to recommend.

While there is a bit more depth than first appears in SkyScrappers it doesn’t often rely on any of this. It is fairly easy to accidentally die because you didn’t see a falling rock or fall behind because the platforms are just slightly out of reach. The game itself can be a fair bit of fun with friends, but the single-player is little more than an hour long tutorial and sadly there isn’t anything else to do.

Dead Rising 4: Frank’s Big Package is perhaps the perfect Christmas game; stuffed to the gills with content that swiftly loses its novelty, with the overall effect being a kind of overfed sleepiness. In this case, less could have been more.

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles is a beautiful canvas that needs more detail to make it a masterpiece. Gemea is an enchanting location and the majority of systems in the game function well, but the magic hook is missing. The story isn’t engrossing and the quests just blend into each other for the most part, as do the characters that give them. Gemea is magical, the content not so much.

Fans of the genre will definitely find their fix here. God Wars may not push the envelope though adheres to what can make tactical RPGs so deep and rewarding. With a little more care given to the story, friendly AI, and graphics, this could easily have been a much-needed triumph for Kadokawa Games.

The Legend of Steel Empire is a fun side-scrolling shooter set in an interesting alternate history timeline. The gameplay is easy to get to grips with, allowing people of all skill levels to deal with enemies. However, the short length of the campaign is not truly worth the asking price, so I'd recommend waiting for a sale to pick it up.

As a game Eldest Souls does not hide the fact it is a tough game but it is trying to outshine in a genre that has had better examples, and better bosses over the years. Eldest Souls is by no means a bad game but it does rely on players having luck on their side a little bit too much, and that can make it a frustrating experience rather than a fun or engaging one.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a decent 3D platformer filled with all the SpongeBob humour you'd expect, but it feels like a step back when compared to the far more imaginative Battle for Bikini Bottom: Reheydrated. The lack of alternate characters or costume abilities really hurt it, as does the very linear level design, so while there’s still fun to be had but I was left with a general feeling of disappointment.

9 Monkeys of Shaolin is so close to being a really good side-scrolling brawler that it physically hurts. Hurts worse than a rolling cartwheel kick to the soft and delicates. There's a truly brilliant, satisfying, fun and deep combat system here, but whether you can see it beneath the shadows, silhouettes, staircases and stupid Green Tea meters is another thing entirely.

By acting as a simulation rather than embracing the promotion silliness, WWE 2K17 misses the mark wildly. What chance they had to make MyCareer a marquee game mode and a game changer was wasted by half-baked ideas.

With more depth to the combat, Crossing Souls could be a great game. As it stands, though, the lack of difficulty means that the only reason to drive forward is the story, so a recommendation relies heavily on your view of the 80s and reference-heavy stories set during that decade.

Even with a one-year gap between them, there are enough similarities between Liberation and Black Flag to recommend the former. It’s certainly not the best game in the franchise though does open up yet another chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga. Still, those who have become particularly attached to Black Flag may find it hard to hoist up their sails and touch down in New Orleans.

SkateBIRD is a charming game with fun writing and a great soundtrack, but can’t strike a good balance between offering precision boarding and silly physics chaos.

The debut release from Gylee Games has a lot going for it; a charming cartoony aesthetic and reliably punchy fisticuffs being at the forefront of that particular list. Yet, it also feels too light on content, suggesting we might have to wait for a sequel before Ra Ra Boom’s true potential is realised.

Was Uppers worth the years-long wait to be able to play it in English? Probably not. Even as a fan of the titles Honey Parade Studios puts out, there's something disappointing about the way Uppers is too scared to fully commit to the gritty, hot-blooded front that it puts up. By having one foot in there and another firmly planted in the same-old T&A antics of the studio, it fails at truly capturing either aesthetic successfully. It's still a fun brawler with satisfying combat, and it looks amazing on PC, but there are plenty of areas where it could be improved on.

An ambitious RTS/Twin Stick hybrid with a lot of potential and some great moments, let down by technical issues, inconsistent flow, and a lack of tutorials. One to keep an eye on if the premise appeals, but not worth diving into straight away.

Shadow Fight Arena is another case of a perfectly good game that would be better if it wasn't free to play and loaded microtransactions. In spite of this though, you can quite easily ignore them and play the game, you'll just progress and unlock fighters much more slowly. The combat gameplay is still really enjoyable though. Carefully dodging a few attacks and responding with a perfectly timed blow to finish a match will never get dull.