The Magnificent Trufflepigs is a small-scale affair, both in terms of technical scope and dramatic themes, when compared to its award-winning inspirations. It’s not especially memorable but it has just enough warmth and wit to get you through a spare Sunday afternoon.

An undeniable passion project with incredible world design, addictive gunplay, and a great soundtrack, let down by jank, weak storytelling, and half-baked systems. I could see this getting rave reviews if it had been released in Early Access, though. Give it six months. It’s got the makings of a corpse-grinder cult classic.

Capcom Arcade Stadium is a perfume soaked and kiss covered love letter to the arcade. Capcom really has set the benchmark for how iconic publishers should preserve their work for future generations. The pitch-perfect emulation is notable, but it’s the courage to make the necessary changes to classic games and ensure accessibility for all that is truly genius. Sure, having to buy everything in packs is a pain but you’re bound to uncover a few unexpected gems in the process. Now, how about that Rival Schools: United by Fate, eh Capcom?

Any game so good that you can't resist doing just one more battle in is a game well worth paying attention to, and Tainted Grail definitely manages that.

The ship combat and looting might carry King of Seas' piratical adventure for some, just beware that there's grinding through a bunch of stretched out story missions to get to the heart of the game. It's a game to break out when you're feeling extra piratey, but it has enough flaws that you should weigh them up before getting your cutlass out.

It's wonderful to have the classic Famicom Detective Club games remade with modern artwork and with full Western localisations, but the flow of these visual novel detective stories is distinctly lacking and infuriatingly obtuse at times. Still, we can hope this is a sign that Nintendo is considering a truly modern revival of the Detective Club series in future.

It's wonderful to have the classic Famicom Detective Club games remade with modern artwork and with full Western localisations, but the flow of these visual novel detective stories is distinctly lacking and infuriatingly obtuse at times. Still, we can hope this is a sign that Nintendo is considering a truly modern revival of the Detective Club series in future.

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers is a genuine joy to play and a fun spinoff from the main series. EDF is a silly series even with its dark undertones, but World Brothers is a lot more light-hearted, and could well lead to a lot of new players looking forward to Earth Defense Force 6.

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.

A beautiful love letter to Japanese games and culture with a simple but heartfelt narrative from start to finish that’s both comforting and life-affirming.

BioWare has done a fantastic job of bringing the Mass Effect trilogy up to meet the standards of 2021. While it's still a bit rough in some areas, and there's quirks to how they've retrofitted some elements into the oldest of the three (which is still inferior in gameplay feel), this is the definitive version of the landmark trilogy you remember.

Rise of the Slime ticks all the boxes of a bad game. Not only is it a roguelike that crashes regularly to ruin your run, but the game has little explanation of basic mechanics, too much variety in the deckbuilding for consistency, little meaningful longevity, and a poorly considered port to Switch. If you’re desperate to play it, get the PC release, but do yourself a favour and save your cash for your next run at a deckbuilder.

It's hard to say how impressions of Dog Airport Game might have changed if we’d gotten the game outside of a pandemic, but it’s a lovely comedic slice of a forgotten time when air travel was normal. Just with tons of weird dogs and puns.

Star Wars Pinball VR is the perfect experience for fans of Star Wars and pinball. It's wonderfully immersive as you chase high scores, unlock in-game decorations and uncover the minigames for each table. I came into this game as a massive fan of Star Wars and VR, but with only a minor interest in pinball, and have been really enjoying my time with it. I can certainly recommend it to anyone with a combination of at least two out of those three elements.

Manifold Garden is a fantastic puzzle game with a distinctive style. It adds challenge and new elements gradually, using colour within puzzle solutions in a way that keep things fresh. Highly recommended for puzzle game fans.

If you had to pick a console family to buy the game for right now, it would have to be Xbox. The game is only played through backward compatibility on the new generation of consoles, but as we’ve seen on plenty of occasions, that leaves Xbox Series X owners able to play at 4K, while PlayStation 5 players are running at last-gen resolutions and frame rates. In this case, the game is stuck at 1080p on PS5, and even then the frame rate has been a bit variable. That’s improved through pre-release patches, and will hopefully continue to improve. [Review in Progress]

Mad Rat Dead offers an entirely unique rhythm action platformer experience, one that is so good you’ll want to surgically attach more ears to your body. Original, addictive and tremendously thrilling, Mad Rat Dead will make you love 2D platformers again.

Wild at Heart is so well put together with a remarkable level of polish and a real sense of its own identity. The skilful blending together of different mechanics borrowed from high profile titles enables the game to be intuitive but also maintain a distinctive feel, so while not the longest game, it is chock full of character and deserves to find its way into your heart. Plus, the Spritelings are just so effin' cute.

Quantum League really is quite special, a Time Paradox Shooter that justifies the buzzwords with its overlapping timelines of first person shooting. It just needs more players.

Gravity Heroes is a curious proposition. The core gameplay elements are rock solid, the four-player gravity switching leading to plenty of chaotic fun, but the concept as a whole feels under-explored and the intense difficulty will can soon become a joyless slog.

A formerly excellent game brought down significantly by a poor remaster with barely any upgrades to sell it to a new audience, at a price that’s a little too high for what the game is. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance still has a great, classic DnD story and setting, with an excellent musical score, but the experience is marred by technical issues that range from disappearing sound effects and frame rate drops to frequent crashes.

Mind Scanners is perfectly paced, creative and engaging, striking a skilful balance between satisfying play and storytelling. I finished in a couple of evenings, but they were some of the most consistent and enjoyable evenings I’ve spent gaming this year.

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.

Anodyne 2: Return to Dust is an unusually captivating experience. The way the developers mix and match various gaming tropes shouldn’t work, and yet the absurd narrative and overall aesthetic binds perfectly. If you’re looking for something completely different, make sure you check out Anodyne 2.

Hood: Outlaws and Legends has some good ideas, but the execution is a little lacking. The one mode here is enjoyable but it gets very repetitive, with the clunky combat, slow matchmaking and poor, though admittedly amusing AI, taking the fun out of it. With more variety, whether in the form of different modes or with each map having its own objectives, this could have been a winner, but as it stands it's got a lot of squandered potential.

Subnautica: Below Zero is a masterfully horrific experience that encourages you to push on despite your fears. It's a fine balancing act of the horrors you'll face underwater and the rewards you can get for evading them. It's really very hard, but it's also really very good.

For the right sort of person, this abstract, solo board game style will be incredibly intoxicating. There are a lot of moving parts to keep in your head, and figuring out a particularly fiendish task is rewarding in and of itself. For most people, the contrast between mellow aesthetic, strange design choices, and the lack of a hard fail state (fittingly, it's more like a fail cul-de-sac) will make it a taxing time. Buildings Have Feelings Too! is certainly charming, but that charm hides a stiff challenge.

Legend of Keepers is a delight to play. It has such character, both in its looks and humour, that it feels unique when compared to other games out there. For those who want to work hard to create undefeatable monsters and dungeons, there’s plenty of scope to carve out your success. It's definitely a title to try out for yourself, even if you’re not usually one for this type of turn-based indie RPG.