Afterlove EP pulls from a deep emotional well to weave threads of grief, love, hope, resentment, forgiveness, identity and more through a mostly-good mix of choice-driven visual novel and rhythm game. It has some issues with flow, and the rhythm stuff isn't amazing, but stick with it and you'll fall in love with this little slice of Jakarta.

Avowed moves Obsidian Entertainment even further toward the action side of Action-RPG with a satisfying combat system and vibrant world stapled to an unengaging narrative and surface level roleplaying systems. Despite its initially promising setup, Avowed never rises above a binge and forget experience.

As is sometimes the way, after reading my thoughts back I get a sense that perhaps I have been a little harsh. This remaster is undeniably beautiful, and faithfully recreates the experience of the original Ninja Gaiden II and its Sigma version on modern consoles – this much is certain. But despite its gruesome and oft entertaining spectacle, many aspects of its design, be it the one-note linear structure or godawful camera, mark it with a certain quaintness that isn’t entirely becoming. It was fun to replay this moment in time, but I don’t see myself going back for more. I’m watching very keenly to see what the extraordinarily talented people at Team Ninja and PlatinumGames can cook up with Ninja Gaiden 4 – hopefully we’ll see what a true modern reincarnation of this legendary series looks like.

Civilization VII is an excellent turn-based strategy game. As a Civ game, it looks and feels the same as its predecessors but with enough changes to leave long-time fans with something new to learn and hopefully cherish. At times I felt at odds with the decisions, but I always come back to the fact that I still enjoyed my time and will absolutely keep playing this game long into the future.

Warhorse has been quietly cooking up the greatest first-person roleplaying series of the last however many years. It overhauls little from the first game, instead improving on everything that made it such an ambitious, unwieldy beast. The fact this sequel builds upon everything I loved, means it’s a sequel that improves more than innovates. Make no mistake, there are glimmers of a masterclass, action-packed role-playing game here that has me thrilled for whatever Warhorse has in store next. Kingdom Come: Deliverance should now be regarded alongside greats like Oblivion and New Vegas.

Overall Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is a fun tower defence game that features a vast selection of roguelike elements to help you kill as many orcs as possible. You’ll upgrade and unlock everything you can to survive each wave you go through, all to defeat the ending boss of each run. Despite its lacking soundtrack and story, you’re guaranteed to have fun for hours in co-op or solo.

Sniper Elite: Resistance is a reasonable continuation of the franchise, its sniping highs remain as amusing as ever thanks to some neat environmental gameplay, but much of its content rehashes what came before instead of evolving the series concept for a true next-gen sequel.

Despite it feeling really late in the game to drop this HD re-release, the simple fact is that Donkey Kong Country Returns is a masterclass in tough-yet-exhilarating platforming, and the Switch is now the best place to play it all over again – or for the first time.

Completely Stretchy is the perfect game if you are looking for a couple of hours of fun on your own, full of laughs. Its simple 3D platforming gameplay with your stretchy arm makes it easy for anyone regardless of gaming expertise to master. Despite only a couple of hours of gameplay, it’s just enough time to uncover a simple story and live amongst bizarre characters doing weird things in even weirder locations.

Loco Motive does what it sets out to do – be a modern and faithful homage to the LucasArts adventure games. I’ve said it before, but modern game design has seen puzzles evolve beyond simply combining every item to progress and unfortunately, Loco Motive’s crime is that some puzzles pay too much homage, hurting the experience as it brings the game to a halt when you feel invested. Thankfully, the game’s captivating characters, funny dialogue and excellent pixel art animations mitigate the annoyances, and regardless, adventure fans should give Loco Motive a ride at some point.

So who is this game for? I can imagine cosy gamers being delighted by the intricacies of the puzzles as I was, but others might feel this interrupts the simplicity. I can also see how a game like this could spark delight and long-term nostalgia for someone before finding games that incorporate its elements a bit better. Maybe escapism shouldn’t be the marker for a successful cosy game. Maybe it was necessary for me to play something so casually at the end of the year, so that my mind could be freed up to contemplate the wins and losses of 2024, and the resolutions to be attempted in 2025. Critter Café, with its flaws and subtle successes, is at least a fittingly weird game for the end of a pretty weird year.

With its stunning hand-drawn, graphite visuals and meditative tram driving gameplay, Short Trip is the respite we all need from the chaos of our current zeitgeist. If only it offered a deeper experience to fully escape into.

When Indiana Jones and the Great Circle plays to its strengths it’s a captivating adventure led by Troy Baker's exceptional performances, but sadly some design choices bog it down and stop it from being a generational treasure.

For all it does to add value to the existing package, smooth over existing bumps and enhance presentation, FANTASIAN’s PC and console release is held back slightly by some of the fundamentals of the Apple Arcade original. But at the end of it all, Neo Dimension absolutely feels like the definitive version of an already-excellent little RPG that looks fondly back on Hironobu Sakaguchi’s gameography without using nostalgia as a crutch to skimp on innovation.

A general lack of polish and quality assurance has become a somewhat endearing shortcoming of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience. We joked about it and expected it for the sequel, especially given the endurance of a developer currently facing tragedy at home. GSC Game World’s extraordinary ambition in delivering this long-awaited follow-up is buoyed by some frankly impressive world-building and narrative developments that fully commit. The extraordinary scale of this world, the generally satisfying gunplay, and the ambitious story are always contending with the player’s growing anticipation that their experience is about to break down at any moment. The magic circle that is so crucial to the successful immersiveness of this series is, currently, fractured by the extent to which the many promising aspects of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 simply don’t reliably function together.

Call of Duty has long been criticised for its lack of innovation and endlessly rehashed and recycled features, and it’s true that BO6 does not reinvent the wheel. However the fact I (and many others) have enjoyed this series for so long with only a few exceptions makes me wonder if Call of Duty itself is the wheel. Just when I think it’s time to join all the other angry old jaded gamers and shake my fist at the clouds and feebly declare that CoD is dead, an entry like BO6 comes along that takes me back to the joy I experienced when I first answered the annual call in the first place all those years ago. It’s the sweaty palms and sore hands, the thrill of the online kill and the hours that melt away and take the stress of the real world with them. Yes I’m older and not half the sweaty squeaker I once was, but as long as there’s room for me on the virtual battlefield, I’ll be there.

Lego Horizon Adventures will find an audience in its target demographic of young kids wanting something easy to pick up and play. But a short campaign and a lack of originality hurts the finished product for everyone else.

The gameplay loop is the (black) heart of this game. While the narrative undoubtedly wraps a beautiful black bow around the whole, the core fighting and ability mechanics unite everything in a cohesive and affecting experience. The level of quality is surprising for a small team of four working in New Zealand, representing an impressively solid introduction to Hyporeal’s work and I’m actually scared of what they may accomplish in future. A final word for players and game publishers out there: pick up Blackheart before the world does.

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.

Although the formula is bordering over-familiar at this point, it’s been long enough between entries that this return to the Mario & Luigi series is incredibly welcome. It manages to feel fresh enough with interesting new wrinkles that play on this new world and story’s overall themes, and its obsession with fraternal bonds results in probably my favourite take on the Bros. to date.

Bokeh Game Studio's debut horror title is a game entirely out of time with its genre contemporaries and all the more wild, compelling, and beautiful for it. Satisfying combat and a generational eye for tone and design collide in the year's strangest beast.

If what you want is to re-experience Horizon Zero Dawn – or experience it for the first time – with some of the prettiest visuals you’ll see in modern gaming, this will get you there. But more than that, if you’re interested in game design and production, especially on the artistic side of the process, it’s a fascinating look at what is arguably a “best-case” remastering effort where ambition and capital were clearly in abundance.

Ubisoft’s XDefiant is a compelling live-service offering that is remarkably substantive in its free-to-play offering. As a competitive shooter, its blend of satisfyingly agile movement and liberal lifting of modes and map philosophies from every other shooter makes a strange first impression. There is nothing new or surprising about what XDefiant offers. But those curious few eager to go through the initiation hellscape of purely random-skill matchmaking will find a clean and well-structured shooter that should broadly impress anyone who doesn’t mind their competent online shooter to be a personality-lacking, serials-filed amalgam of all its best competitors. Flaws and all, I was continually drawn back in the hopeful search for any active, local lobby.

When the game makes you feel like you’re in the world of A Quiet Place being pursued by Death Angels, The Road Ahead is an immersive and tense time. It’s just a shame that the game’s mechanics and its 8–10-hour journey ultimately come at a cost to the tension and overall experience. As a result, fans of the franchise and the first-person horror genre will likely find more to like here than most, even with its budget price tag.

Botworld Odyssey is the perfect creature-collecting game for all ages at any level of expertise, thanks to its fun and simple gameplay. Despite its repetitive nature, it has an abundance of Bots, enemies, biomes, quests, and game modes for players to experience for hours on end. Most of all, it has an interesting story that you can uncover at your leisure with no need to rush.

Fear the Spotlight masterfully captures the look and feel of a classic PS1 horror title while leveraging modern concepts and gameplay features to produce an atmospheric and nostalgic experience that every lover of horror should enjoy.

With some light visual touchups, Adol continues to dominate his PS2 era. The new sea air is good for his crimson hair, but the breadth of exploration can occasionally feel as broad as the Suez Canal.

It’s difficult to place in the face of the game’s overwhelming and evident visual prowess but there’s a quiet self-consciousness to Neva that leads it to places incrementally but mountingly less than it should be. There are moments and even stretches of ingenuity and beauty that paint a portrait of a developer entirely in control of their craft, coalescing into a richly satisfying emotional conclusion. Neva’s path to this place is less certain though, resting too neatly atop a pile of influences and structural choices that rob it of being more than its aesthetics or touchstones. Perhaps most simply, Neva is a good game from a studio capable of greatness.