Sigma12 is an entertaining arcade game, one that will use both your talent for numbers and your impeccable sense of rhythm.

If you want a comparable experience to the console titles that you can carry around in your pocket, then you will probably end up disappointed in this effort. If you want a gorgeous looking Batman title filled with all sorts of nice fan service and simple combat that won't bust your brain with strategic depth, then Arkham City Lockdown delivers this really well.

If you gobbled up Battle Academy, its sequel, and Pike And Shot, you'll find another excellent serving here. I think this game also offers a strong experience for strategy fans who love the serious designs of Slitherine titles but are looking for something a little less serious thematically from their usual fare. Those who burnt out on previous titles using this engine might want to avoid Hell: Fight For Gilrand, however.

Tapper World Tour contains a ton of content, with more than 40 levels in Story mode and an additional 50+ expert levels when Story is completed.

In its current state, despite some quirks, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster on Steam Deck is a much better experience than the same release on Nintendo Switch. Not only does it run nearly perfectly even at 90fps, but it also can go above when playing docked. If you skipped the Switch release in the hope of a version with better performance, your wait has been worth it. The quality of life improvements in the Switch version already made that worth grabbing, but Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster on Steam is the one to get right now.

Blast Brigade vs the Evil Legion of Dr. Cread does just about everything a Metroidvania-style game should, and that makes it very easy to recommend to fans of the genre. I don’t think it’s going to convince anyone who is tired of this sort of game, because apart from its sense of humor it’s not really doing anything unusual for the genre. But what it does, it does well. The graphics are good, the controls are solid, the pacing and progression is more or less where it should be, the boss battles are enjoyable, and the map designs are good. It’s always fun when something so well-made as this comes seemingly out of nowhere.

Right now, I’d recommend Remnant 2 itself for sure. I love the gameplay, co-op, soundtrack, and improvements over the first game. I do not love the visual downgrade to get it running decently on Steam Deck though. Since it is Steam Deck Verified, Valve likely wants people to buy it to play on Steam Deck, but just be prepared for some tinkering to get it running at an acceptable frame rate. I featured Remnant 2 as one of the best new games to play on Steam Deck in 2023, and I’m expecting it to be on my end of year list as well.

Grayout is quite the rewarding game if you do decide to check it out.

I think that if you enjoyed Warhammer Quest and you're looking for something somewhat related, you will probably find something to like here. I think it does a good job of capturing the unique flavor of HeroQuest while still advancing the rules in a satisfying way.

The gameplay, music, robot hardware upgrades, power-ups and touch controls are all good and destroying the city is fun, especially with a faster robot. However, the graphics are just okay and the tilt controls are not recommended.

Even if you're on the fence, you should at least check out the lite version and see if the tower offense pieces suit your fancy. Either way, it's nice to see advancements made in the area of TD games, and I hope this is a sign of more innovation to come.

If all we were talking about here was the original release, we'd be talking about an awesome game. But the new PongVaders Max takes it to the next level.

In its current state, Company of Heroes 3 is an easy recommendation with the caveat about non standard controls. While you could always use a mouse and keyboard to play it on Steam Deck, I’m impressed with the community layouts, and have enjoyed Company of Heroes 3 quite a bit thanks to one specific layout I used. I assume we will get proper controller support when it hits consoles later this year. Until then, Company of Heroes 3 on Steam Deck is a solid base, and I’m glad that it didn’t fall short of my expectations like Age of Empires IV did at launch.

Ellipsis has few notable flaws, and you'll have a good time if you play it.

It’s rare for a game to be as difficulty and frustrating for me and yet be so enjoyable to play. Chromaticon manages to strike that balance with me and offers a compelling enough experience to keep plowing along until I can eventually complete that next stage and move on.

Ultimately I think VEGA Conflict is a mixed bag that some gamers could take umbrage over certain design decisions. My personal opinion is that it's a free to play game that doesn't keep you from doing the fun stuff, and it's an improvement on an established formula.

The game draws me in because it lets me be creative. It's freeing to play a puzzle game that lets the player decide when a piece is finished.

Of all the games newly released on iOS through SEGA Forever, I think Ristar has come out the best. Granted, a big part of that is the improved emulator, but I also think that its mechanics and difficulty level suit the platform and its input methods better than something like The Revenge of Shinobi [Free]. The game itself is, in my opinion, an underappreciated classic from the Genesis library, the kind of game that could have been a big hit if it had only released a year or two earlier. In short, this is exactly the kind of game I'd like to see more of if SEGA means to stick to mainly Genesis games with the SEGA Forever initiative.

If you have a taste for the surprisingly methodical, The Nightmare Cooperative rewards planning, coordination, and calculation.

It’s a quality game with a very affordable ad removal fee, and we’re not so swimming in dungeon-plunging riches that we should pass that kind of thing up just because of some slightly wonky controls.

It's hard to make anything out of these minor complaints considering how good the game actually is. I only hope that the other games in the series eventually make it to iOS so we experience the complete saga of Avernum.

In general, DynaStunts still manages to be a solid experience. It's casual enough that most people should be able to pick it up, but it's also packed with enough content that those who want to can explore it further.

In the end Mad Chef lives or dies on the joy of tapping. It does a great job with its simple mechanic, veering away from simple spamming to something that takes a lot of thought and attention. And, you know, crazy-fast tapping.

Hackycat is a solid game of kick-ups wrapped in a pretty delightful package—and hey, if you're going to kick cats, make it these ones. They need the help, and you need the cheeseburgers if you're going to kick 'em all.

If you already played Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board! on Switch, there isn’t anything of note here to warrant a double dip barring improved visuals and performance. If you don’t own it yet, I would recommend the Steam Deck version for the best portable experience, and also think the team did a good job of translating the game to more powerful hardware on PS5 and PC. Hopefully Steam Remote Play Together support is added in the future.

If you enjoyed the previous Sniper Elite games, this one is a no-brainer. Sniper Elite 4 carries forward all of the strengths of the previous games and adds in a number of improvements, making for one of the finest stealth action experiences you can get on the Nintendo Switch. Admittedly, there aren’t a whole lot of traditional stealth games on the system, but I think that even if there were this would still be worth checking out. The only real miss is in its rather bland story, but the little stories of your own that you make as you play compensate for it. Overall, an enjoyable experience of the type and quality we don’t see often on the platform.

A Journey Home? was another solid and entertaining episode that, once again, paid homage to Minecraft's incredibly vibrant and inventive community. And that I feel describes the whole series: an homage to those who took that very weird - at the time - game and made it possibly the biggest game ever. While I could point to quite a few issues I had here and there during the series, overall this very long and arduous endeavor was a success and a fun marriage of a sandbox game with a story-based formula.

One word game that has captured my attention, and is worth checking out.