Exe:Late[st] takes the delicious Under Night cake and adds an entire extra layer of your favorite flavor, plus the garnishes and decorative frosting to make it stand out again, 3 years later.

EA UFC 3 is a good representation of the sport franchise, offering a well put together fighting game that represents the different styles and weight classes found in MMA. The action in the octagon mimics reality very well, with a decent career mode helping people to learn the ropes. On the online front, there’s a divide between Ultimate Team and standard online divisions with the latter winning out in both accessibility and fairness. If you’re a UFC fan in general, then this is a good game to pick up.

Strikers Edge has a strong and satisfying core, but there just isn’t enough surrounding that core experience to keep me engaged for very long. A lack of game mode variety would be excusable if there were some incentive for me to keep playing the one core mode this game has, but that incentive is nowhere to be found. Coupled with the lack of character descriptions or a proper way to practice their abilities, Strikers Edge is a lot like highschool dodgeball; you can only enjoy the same rubber ball hitting you in the teeth for so long before you decide to play something else.

For fans of fast-paced, over the top twin stick action, complete with bullet time and a score system that awards perfection, Bleed 2 is excellent. The only real issue is its length, which is remedied to an extent by additional characters, weapons, and modes. If arcade, Contra/Metal Slug action is your thing and you’ve been missing it, you could do much worse than Bleed 2.

I wasn’t expecting to have a good time playing Sairento VR because of all the movement, but once I’d gotten used to it I really enjoyed the over the top action. Even though it was just because of the ease of slaughtering enemies mindlessly, doing so in VR really helped with its appeal. It’s by no means perfect, with some structural and technical issues getting in the way of the fun, but from a small studio making a relatively ambitious VR title, they could have done a whole lot worse.

While you may not want to pick this up strictly for a single player experience, Shiftlings Enhanced Edition is probably one of the best co-op experiences there is on the Nintendo Switch, especially considering the recent surge in top-quality indie titles on the platform. If you like puzzles, platforming and have friends that enjoy video ganes, then this is for you.

Most people probably won’t mind Lost Sphear’s nostalgia tinted approach to game design, but there’s surprisingly little to write home about. Despite a rather intriguing premise, the characters come across a tad too bland, while the quest itself is too linear. It’s hard to knock it too much, but after the thoughtful journey at the heart of I Am Setsuna, this is a pretty average showing and certainly not a fresh take on the JRPG.

Black Mirror is a good story that suffers from a dated application of game styles. While this is interesting in a meta way, it is not much fun to play. The narrative itself plays out fairly successfully. but it is hard to recommend it for this alone.

Shadow of the Colossus isn't necessarily a game that needed to be remade in such an elaborate fashion, and yet, I'm so glad that it has been. Bluepoint's remake of this sublime and poignant adventure is phenomenal, both managing to stay utterly true to the original and bringing it up to date in glorious fashion.

Out of Ammo is a decent experience that blends RTS and FPS together, and if can be fun if you want something quick and not too taxing. However, it’s a game that shows its hand very quickly and doesn’t offer much beyond that.

2018 is off to a strong start with an Dragon Ball FighterZ early contender for this year’s best fighting game. By shattering some boundaries, Dragon Ball FighterZ has combat that’s more than worth getting into, but also a diverse roster and some phenomenal presentation. The Story Mode could have been improved if it were more streamlined, but it’s a mere blemish on an otherwise spectacular game.

Vesta was an absolutely delightful way to start off my gaming year. It’s hardly ground-breaking stuff but this is a solid, dependable and, most importantly, fun game. It’s all over rather quickly, but it’s a credit to the developers that this left me wanting more.

Full Metal Furies surprised me in just how diverse the gameplay could get in a brawler/shooter hybrid. Some experiments don’t come off, but upgrades change character play styles nicely and the game is a joy to play with others. The teething problems that online play is suffering do make it hard to recommend for those with online co-op in mind, but once it’s all fixed or if you plan to play locally, Full Metal Furies is a decent way to spend a couple of evenings worth of co-op brawling action.

Monster Hunter: World is the evolution the series has been waiting for. The giant creatures have never looked better, while the beautiful open world areas and the way Scoutflies assist your exploration have brought a newfound dynamism to every hunt. It remains brutally difficult and the unprepared may still be chewed up and spat back out, but this time it’ll categorically be your own fault rather than the game’s. Whether on your own, or in a group, now is the time to join the hunt.

I think it’s important to preserve old games for future audiences, or make them available for audiences that never knew they existed. Video games, like any other art form, have a long history behind them, and a longer history ahead of them. Releases like Zwei: The Arges Adventure serve as time-capsules to help keep old pieces of history from disappearing. It’s a game very much from its time. While I appreciate the effort put into making the writing stand proudly in a modern day, gameplay flaws and dated design choices make it a chore to truly get a satisfying experience out of the game.

ChromaGun is, for the most part, a great port, but it doesn’t fix issues like the difficulty spikes that have always been present in the game. There’s some truly excellent puzzle design in the sharp looking test environments that will keep you entertained, in what is likely the closest thing to Portal that the Nintendo Switch will ever see.

Rise of the Tomb Kings is a great first expansion for Total War: Warhammer II. Stepping away from the Eye of the Vortex campaign to embark on a book hunt is more than just a thematic shift, especially with the way in which the Tomb Kings can play on the campaign map, thanks to their free recruitment and only needing a modest empire to fill their armies with elite units.

There’s two sides to The Inpatient: the first two thirds are tense, intriguing, and gives games like Resident Evil 7 a run for their money, but then the final third is ponderous, dialogue heavy, and has very little in the way of scares. With a play time of three to four hours it’s a decent length for a VR game and does have replay value with it’s alternate story paths. Despite it’s flaws, The Inpatient is still much better than many of the VR horror games available, so it’s worth checking out if you have an expensive fancy hat from Sony.

A fantastic genre mash-up between hack and slash, boss rush and twin-stick bullet hell shooters, Furi is as unique a blend now as it was in 2016. It fits effortlessly onto the Nintendo Switch, but it’s a game that is waiting to challenge you and worth testing yourself against on other platforms.

Beholder is an intriguing concept and thematically rather strong, as it twists and exaggerates a Cold War totalitarian surveillance state into the form of a video game. However, with a sequel on the way, we hope that Warm Lamp can improve on an idea that’s rather rough around the edges but is dying to be fleshed out further.

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.

Brawlout is fundamentally a great take on the Smash Bros. format, and they’ve nailed the weight of the characters, movement, and the pure fun that getting four players together for some combative carnage can bring. Unfortunately the limited roster and the unrewarding grind of the in-game store can temper that somewhat, but as a starting point for a new indie fighting franchise there’s a lot here to like.

The Escapists 2 for the Switch is a great prison escape game, which stays true to its intention of bringing 8-bit sandbox games into 2018 and while there may be other ways to create a game of this genre, it is still hard to imagine other prison escape games being as fun as this both for a single player and multiplayer experience.

Space will likely be the issue that prevents users from experiencing L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files, but while it isn’t a perfectly controlled VR experience, it’s impressive that we’re seeing a VR game that utilises Room Scale VR in ways that make sense. To actually be part of this crime drama, investigating crime scenes and apprehending criminals, was more enjoyable in VR. Here’s hoping the next time we see something like this, it’s a dedicated experience.

Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King is another indie game which feels right at home on Nintendo’s platform, despite also being available on Steam. The game will appeal to those looking for a bit of classic dungeon crawling, and it will be sure to please those that have missed top-down Zelda adventures. With a lovely kingdom to explore and a varied range of objectives, Blossom Tales shows us that this genre is still very much alive.

The Battle Royale game mode is so compelling, with each loss only making you want to do better next time, and each victory giving you stories of tense games of cat and mouse and frantic gunfights. It’s still lacking in terms of polish and optimisation, but after years of experimentation, this feels like the real start of a new paradigm in multiplayer gaming.

Tiny Metal is a great attempt at reviving the Advance Wars style of approachable military strategy for modern audiences, but while it certainly looks and behaves the part, the poorly balanced campaign and uninspired narrative only serve to emphasize just how special those classic games were.

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.