There’s a lot of love that went into the creation of The Dwarves but the glimmers of brilliance are dulled by the numerous problems with the combat, as well as the conflicting nature of the narrative with the few moments where you are able to make your own choices. Chances are those who will enjoy this game the most are fans of the books, but it’s a largely forgettable game for everyone else.

While there is some interest here for fans of cosmic horror and an atmospheric opening setting, The Shore is difficult to recommend for the frustrating second half.

Killer Is Dead is a real missed opportunity. The fighting mechanics are there, the ideas are there, but the end result is just so totally average. It’s a game that’s hard to dislike, but also one that fails to impress on pretty much every level.

InnerSpace manages to craft a bright, bizarre and beautiful world that is probably the best example of the phrase “eye candy” I can think of. Unfortunately, the act of exploring and navigating that serene, majestic world often times felt like a headache. The poor frame rate on Switch and no clear horizons made flying and swimming in InnerSpace far less enjoyable than the idea of those actions ever was.

At this stage in the PlayStation Vita's life, the most important thing for Reality Fighters to be is, perhaps, a tech demo. In that sense, it is quite spectacularly impressive. Impressive enough to warrant a big purchase and plenty of game time? Probably not. It demonstrates exceptional potential though, and sometimes that can be enough.

The way fire spreads is pretty good, but the rest of the game falls a little short with the real killer being repetition. It’s just not random enough to maintain interest for too long, and that’s a fatal flaw in a roguelike with permadeath.

Flawed and often out of touch, Syberia 3 only serves a dedicated clutch of fans that have spent the past decade looking for closure to a beloved series. To anyone else, it will come across as a bizarre and mostly impenetrable relic that feels out of place among 2017’s slate of releases.

Full Mojo Rampage is simply an average game that could have been a lot better. There are a few good ideas here, but they aren’t fully realised, leading to a game that becomes tedious after a few runs of its quests.

Everything about Endless Ocean: Luminous makes it a particularly Nintendo game: the chunky menu layout, the soothing AI voice, the tranquil music and the laidback vibes. That’s emphasised by the notion that this is a deeply unusual piece of software, and one that you wouldn’t find coming from the other major console manufacturers. It’s a shame then that, unless you’re an avid fan of marine facts, it’s interminably dull.

Splicing dino DNA with a very old school style of RTS, Warparty has plenty going for it conceptually, but it comes up short. Even if the gamepad controls weren't an obstacle to your success, the three races aren't balanced and it's all too easy to fall back on massed army tactics. A refreshing setting is not enough to drag this tired old school RTS out of the past.

Agents of Mayhem is a step back for Volition after the success of the Saints Row series. While the characters are good and fun, they don’t feel larger than life when compared to The Boss and their crew. There aren’t as many memorable moments either, and the city of Seoul is wasted. The game is less Agents of Mayhem and more Agents of Mehhem.

We’re not likely to find out exactly what troubles the team at Prope faced on Rodea’s rocky road to market. The end product is evidence enough to suggest that something went wrong along the way, and it’s a real shame. With a little more refinement and even the lightest of facelifts, Rodea could easily have been a Nintendo exclusive worth owning.

Torment: Tides of Numenera is a game whose plot, with its well written characters and plentiful twists and turns, could easily hook you in. However, it’s a game that is currently fundamentally broken on consoles. Despite the technical flaws, the plot definitely grew on me and it would be great for others to be able to experience it, as well as the world they’ve created, but until the game is fixed on a number of fronts, Torment: Tides of Numenera is hard to recommend.

To a T is a cute game about acceptance and community, but it doesn't do enough to keep it's concept fresh or engaging for the duration of the game, and there's a major lack of enjoyable gameplay to pair with it.

Old Gods Rising takes a great premise, but unfortunately does very little with it. The barren, but confusing campus leads to pointless wandering that does little to reward exploration and the narrative is delivered through generic exposition. The one successful aspect is the sense of uncertainty and unease that permeates the experience, yet this isn’t enough to maintain interest. The Old Gods may have been better off staying put.

Body of Evidence has a quirky premise for a game, but it doesn't live up to it. It gets repetitive very quickly and new mechanics just make the game more fiddly and in turn more of a chore, murdering your spare time.

Compared to vanilla Dynasty Warriors and its Samurai counterpart, KOEI’s Gundam offshoot is falling behind. Where the other two have made a number of progressive changes through the years, Reborn does little to distance itself from the stigma attached to the franchise.

Outside of boss fights, there’s little gameplay variation, making Lost Sea a drag when playing in long periods, but OK for shorts bursts here and there.

I’m fairly sure that Beautiful Desolation is a decent game. This is a vast world clearly built with passion and with a keen attention to detail. Unfortunately, this console conversion is no way at all to experience The Brotherhood’s latest. Awful pathfinding, so many invisible walls that if they were visible they could be seen from space, and clunky, unresponsive controls turn the fetch quest-heavy gameplay into a meandering slog.

Bright Memory: Infinite is a matured version of the original Bright Memory, stripping away some of that game's excesses for a more put-together experience. That said, the story is still complete insanity (that's barely acknowledged by the characters), and it’s clear that this solo production cannot match its boundless ambition.

For all its flaws and lacklustre looks, you can tell that Phosphor were really onto something in the way it experimented with superpowers here. Given more time and resources – and without being weighed down by the Heroes license – the studio could have created a truly special comic book adventure.

Unless you are a big RPG fan who is desperate for a fix, then this title is certainly not good enough to warranty your attention. The fighting is tedious, the story is not well told and the menus are clunky and awkward.

Having found Tribute Games' previous release, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, to be one of the best scrolling beat ‘em ups I’d ever played, I had high expectations for Marvel Cosmic Invasion. How could Shredder’s Revenge with Marvel characters go wrong? Sadly, Marvel Cosmic Version is entirely OK but fails to be anything more than that.

Tembo the Badass Elephant could have been so much more than what is offered. SEGA seemed to be searching for a successor to Sonic with Tembo but at the same time wanted to get a piece of the market for particularly hard games, forgetting to make it fair at the same time.

WWE 2K22 isn’t a good fighting game, despite the multiplayer being a bit of knock-around fun. The woolly controls, messy inputs, and numerous glitches lead to an underwhelming video game experience, while the lacklustre Showcase and MyRise game modes don't manage to replicate the bombast of professional wrestling, WWE 2K22 isn’t a particularly good wrestling game either. It’s a decent laugh in multiplayer, but with the notably hefty price tag I would expect a lot more than that.

Castaway Paradise is a disappointment. It simply doesn’t capture interest like Animal Crossing does, whether it’s due to the broken economy, the endless repetition of quests, or perpetual fruit gathering.

I'm pretty disappointed with Greedfall: The Dying World. Despite going through Steam Early Access, the end product is buggy and messy, and the combat uninspiring. This combined with slow pacing that gives three false endings to the opening before you get into the open world makes it get old quickly. Perhaps wait for a sale, or a lot of patches to fix things up a bit.

The Tomorrow Children is a weird, unwieldy game that had me sighing at just how obtuse it is while still somehow simultaneously entranced. The social action concept is a strong one though moment-to-moment gameplay will quickly become too much of a grind for most players. Hopefully it can find a new audience but, at the very least, it will help rehouse those fans who adored the original release and mourned its server shutdown.