An initially wonderful return to Max Caufield comes entirely undone with competing narrative priorities and nonsensical attempts to build Life is Strange into a cinematic franchise. Despite the game’s stunning animation work and sincere queer writing, Double Exposure is an overexposed mess.

Layers of Fear is an admirable remaster that uses the fresh coat of paint to bring the series’ art direction up to modern standards but the bones of the experience remain fractured. Tedious and exhausting gameplay loops and tasteless writing make even this package a nice frame on an ugly painting.

A clumsy and mechanically inert effort to capture the majesty and thrills of mob cinema, Mafia: The Old Country finds no promised land in either its routine tale of crime or its linear, hyper-focused gameplay. Impressive facial capture and a unique setting can’t sustain this poor, if well-intentioned, emulation of far greater works.

Morsels is an ambitious indie roguelite that just doesn’t deliver. The game shines with a distinctive aesthetic identity, but between shockingly unclear mechanics, poor game balance, and unsatisfying moment-by-moment gameplay, it otherwise has little to offer.

I do have a soft spot for small development teams and I find it hard to be critical while acknowledging the time and effort it takes to put together a game like this. Playing Animal Rescuer felt more like I was playtesting an end of year project for a game development student, albeit one that would get an A+. There is definitely potential here and it could be a decent game if there was just a little more focus on the narrative and the core gameplay loop. There is also a free demo on Steam that you can check it, if it sounds like something you’d be interested in.

An artistically striking interpretation of Arthurian canon that isn't quite able to draw its sword of convoluted card-driven systems from the slow and cruel stone that is the turn-based combat.

Rustler brings classic Grand Theft Auto to a twisted version of the European Middle Ages, but its reliance on other media for laughs and a finicky release build makes it a title worth trying only for those nostalgic for the vintage entries of a now-juggernaut series.

Hotel Barcelona is an underwhelming roguelike with lopsided design that simply doesn’t nail the fundamentals that make the genre popular. Head-scratching design choices regarding stingy mechanics that are almost tailor-made to extract joy from your life, mixed with a lack of fluidity and unity of vision make this a hard sell. Even in you love Suda51 and Swery 65, this is not what you hope it will be.

A repetitive and dull gameplay loop that’s thematically allergic to the game’s cast of misfits only begins to describe how heartbreakingly disappointing Kill the Justice League truly is. Rocksteady should’ve died a hero, instead, it’s lived long enough to see itself become the villain.

Arkham board game fans will find little in this adaption that harkens back to the fantastic tabletop challenges. This could almost be a ‘my first turn-based tactics’ game, hampered by embarrassingly arbitrary puzzles, bad technical and vocal performances, and progress that provides meaningless penalties rather than rewards.

With a little more polish and player-driven feedback, The Cleaner could well emulate a proper first-person John Wick experience. However currently, it feels a little more like a frustration emulator designed to inspire rage quits.

This hellish remaster is stretched to raw, fibrous sinews. There is far too little variety in the weapons and enemies to make the many hour stretches of blind backtracking and incomprehensible connected-world layout anything more than a slightly dressed up chimera’s corpse. Place this in video game museums with its cult mantle and a sign above its polished noggin that reads ‘look, don’t touch’.

Funko Fusion’s biggest success is how well it matches the vibe of Funko’s uber-popular line of vinyl figures as a whole – joyless, soulless representations of beloved franchises that capture almost none of the charm of the source material. The most culturally-relevant thing here might be the collectible KFC buckets.

Harvest Moon: One World feels like an unfinished release that could have been so much more but is as uninspiring as its flat, empty landscape.

Riko and Reg's descent to the netherworld is a classic in existential dread and worldbuilding. Playing in this broken world imparts an even worse sense of dread.

Enchanted Portals copies almost everything about Cuphead, except for the precision of its mechanics, the tightness of its design and the enjoyment gleaned by mastering it. All the good bits really…

After giving The Bee Hive a chance, it unfortunately proved to be a dull experience full of bugs and glitches. Despite its potential, there are too many ideas that simply do not stick the landing.

Martha Is Dead fails to deliver any meaningful semblance of the story it wants to tell and ends up being nothing more than a colossal and tedious disappointment.

I can in no way recommend Babylon’s Fall. It’s the most disappointing experience I’ve played in years, a combination of poorly defined ideas and a lacklustre sense of visual identity that does nothing to feel like a PlatinumGames experience. That’s the most frustrating thing of all, that a studio with such a strong back catalogue could release such a basic, uninspiring title in this modern era, as if they just handed the project to the interns and forgot about it until it was too late. Whatever positives there might be are few and far between in a title that likely won’t get a chance to fix itself before Square Enix eventually pulls the plug.

The saying that everything deserves a second chance should not have applied to Elex. Elex II takes so many steps backwards from an already poor game, it’s astounding. Its writing, optimisation, combat, and game systems all stand as a new benchmark on what to not do.

An unsatisfying shooter brought even lower by an exhausting and all-encompassing script, High on Life can’t commit to its satire or ideas long enough to do anything of value.

A quaint art direction and an occasional well-conceived puzzle are not enough to redeem this painful slog through a child's living nightmare. Trial-and-error instakill sections and some of the worst hide and seek stealth since Sanity of Morris ensure the greatest nightmare will be your own.

With dated design, LotR: Gollum is a slow and tedious slog through Middle Earth that even the staunchest LotR fans will struggle to enjoy.

Quantum Error is a flawed, frustrating and unfun slog that collapses under the weight of its lofty ambitions to blend multiple genres and mechanics on a limited budget and developing skillset.

Dead Static Drive has glimmers of interesting Lovecraftian art, but fails to captivate with floaty driving, broken quests and game-breaking bugs further brought down by a general sense of aimlessness and lack of cohesive vision.

A faintly interesting premise is irrevocably squandered by muddy visuals, tedious moment-to-moment gameplay and a hateable weak-willed protaganist.