2017 is the year the Sonic franchise stops running from itself. Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces celebrate different eras, but they both take the same shameless “all-in” approach. Sonic Forces is a confident game, serving up a story and stages that go for broke while dodging the pitfalls of the past. As long as you’re not a hardline 3D Sonic hater, this earnest, entertaining adventure is worth a spin.

Like the film it's based on, The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame changes things up from the usual formula without harming the overall product at the end.

One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows is more ambitious than it needed to be, to its own detriment. While the main missions and combat are very enjoyable, forced, lacklustre side content spoils the pacing and makes the game tedious to play. Still very fun for the right fan, but not without a sale.

There will be an update for online multiplayer later, but there's nothing as of right now. The game could be fun, but the developers of Gear.Club Unlimited 2 really need to rethink this mobile-style progression system and make the game load faster and run smoother. With those improvements, it could be a great racer that everyone should play on the Switch.

While the game can be fun at points, its archaic and dated design choices can make for an overall frustrating experience. Its combat doesn't require much thought, and the game can be "difficult" for the wrong reasons. Still, it's high points are still noteworthy highlights for the overall experience, and when everything works properly, you do feel as badass as the main character is supposed to be.

Griefhelm isn't a bad game, but the parts that make it good only work in isolation, not with each other. That drags the whole experience down, however excited you might be for the battles.

Eclipse: Edge of Light has a few neat ideas, but nothing that isn’t done better anywhere else.

MeiQ hits all of the right marks of a dungeon crawling RPG but fails to capture that sense of challenge, instead opting for light fan service as a substitute.

Jump Force has major problems, but it can actually be really fun. It feels tedious when playing missions, and repetitive at times in combat. But using your favourite characters' abilities in battle remains fun throughout. It's going to be an acquired taste, but anime fans will actually find a lot to enjoy here. Just stick to the online play, where you can remain blissfully ignorant of the awful cutscenes and animation.

The Technomancer is a well made action-RPG and the best title released by Spiders so far, thanks to the additional polish and increased size of the game's content. Just don't expect to be able to explore a massive world like those in Fallout 4 or The Witcher 3 or you may be disappointed.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood is as straightforward as an action-adventure game can be. None of its features are broken, but the shallowness of the entire experience makes it a very hard game to recommend for those who are not into the setting to begin with. It does provide moments of fun here and there, but its linear, derivative experience does not stand out in any way.

Perception builds upon one unique gameplay element throughout its entire brief run but fails to see what makes a horror game memorable.

If you look up "average" in the gaming dictionary, a poster for this game will sit next to it. It's not a broken mess, but it's so run-of-the-mill you won't ever feel like you've missed out if you don't play it.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise is as bonkers as you’d expect and fans will no doubt enjoy catching up with Agent York, but a lack of atmosphere, dull action, serious technical issues, and the creeping sense that Swery is becoming a touch too self-aware conspire to kill the fun. Deadly Premonition 2 is for the hardcores – most other folks can safely close their investigation after finishing the first game.

Crucible in its current form feels uninspired in a lot of ways. While the heroes themselves would fit great into smaller arena matches, throwing sixteen players into an oversized MOBA map sours what makes Crucible unique among other hero shooters.

Recompile is stylish and well-written, but its messy Metroidvania structure and clumsy platforming corrupt what fun it might have offered. Maybe this game would have been easier to recommend a decade ago, but in a world where Hollow Knight and Axiom Verge exist, and an actual Metroid game is coming out in around a month, Recompile just isn’t up to code.

Ary and the Secret of Seasons is a lovely looking game with some truly smart gameplay ideas, but all of that is plagued by screen-tearing, performance issues, animation bugs, and a general lack of polish in almost every aspect. After a few patches and a sale Ary could become someone's favourite game, but the fact it launched in this state is just a shame.

The Walking Dead Onslaught is, at best, a mixed bag of a game. The VR aspects are well made, Survios using their VR experience and making a very accessible title. They have also made a game that features genuinely enjoyable zombie-killing combat. However, the problem is that this combat is surrounded by several bad elements that drag it down. Level design is just bad, missions being dull, uninspired, taking place in terribly repetitive corridors. There's a massive amount of grind used to pad out the game length, acting as a barrier to story missions. Even then, the story is shoddy, the only advantage being some decent voice acting by three actors from the show. All in all, I could only recommend this to huge fans of TWD and those happy enough to deal with quite a few negatives to play some reasonably entertaining combat.

Syndrome has a foundation in place to be a creepy horror story that focuses on the desolation of outer space and the madness it can bring, but the execution is a few light years behind. It might give players something more to try out for a Halloween-themed gaming binge, but players might also die of boredom long before they succumb to shock.

Skater XL is, simply put, an unfinished product. It's a Skateboarding Simulation Game without the game. A barebones five developer-created maps and three user-created maps have no path, purpose or direction with just a handful of 'challenges' that are identical to tutorials. The skateboarding itself is great, the tricks satisfying to perform and a joy to pull off, particularly due to the control scheme. Will you enjoy it? Possibly, if you're happy making your own fun and you like skateboarding. If you expect a video game, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

A weak campaign with an unsatisfactory cliffhanger resolution, a Zombies map that's little more than rebranded DMZ, and a selection of multiplayer maps taken straight from Modern Warfare II (2009), Modern Warfare III barely stands up on its own merits, especially if you've thrown countless hours into last year's entry and have plenty to carry forward.

Necromunda: Hired Gun has a certain grungy charm and offers up some clever ideas, but unrefined core mechanics, messy level design, and a shameful lack of polish ultimately add up to Necro-no-fun-da. Hardcore Games Workshop fanatics might still find something to enjoy here, but I recommend you don’t hire this gun at anything but a steep discount.

In addition to poor audio and visual qualities, including large re-use of assets, Empyre is let down by the poor world and character building. Sadly, in addition to this are poor audio and visual qualities. Sadly, I can't say much positive about the game, besides it having an interesting setting and a decent combat system, neither of which are used as well as they could be.

Railroad Corporation is a mixed bag, to be generous to the game. While it has certain strong points like the corporation building aspects, featuring a large variety of structures and businesses to supply and even own, as you utilise them to expand your corporation and develop the towns and cities around you. These cities react to your network of railways and businesses, creating the feeling of a living world. The problem, however, is that fundamental basics like even building your tracks is finicky at best, most of the time just annoying. Railroad Corporation can absorb you into it, it's certainly stole hours off of me, but the best I can say is that it's left early access too early and could certainly have done with a little more time.

Space Hulk Deathwing Enhanced Edition doesn't feel enhanced. The gunplay and enemies are boring, the story isn't interesting and the crashes (on PlayStation 4) are very frustrating.

Bright Memory isn't inherently bad, but it feels like a demo for a game that promises to be bigger and better. In addition to that, it's not the best showcase for the new features of the Xbox Series X|S. Regardless, it's a fun romp, but you shouldn't go in expecting this to feel like a full-fat action shooter, because it's not that, not yet.

Although a tribute to the likes of Persona and the Tales of series, Akiba's Beat doesn't have quite enough substance to recommend another Sunday visit to Akihabara.

Unfortunately The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia just doesn’t do justice to the series at all. There are a few hours of fun to be had here, certainly, but even dedicated fans will find that it doesn’t last long enough. Repetitive battles and shallow combat just don’t keep things interesting for long enough, even if there are several characters to use. Add a point to the score if you're a fan, remove one if you don't know what SDS is.