Marvel's Midnight Suns is a strangely complex game to explain. It’s equal parts isometric turn-based RPG, social simulator, and deck-building card game. But you know what? It actually works! Sure, it’s not as tense and as gripping as Firaxis’ XCOM series, but this is a nice action-oriented offshoot.

High On Life is easily Squanch Games’ most ambitious project, but aside from the environments and the world-building which match that ambition, the first-person shooter itself is incredibly generic, and not funny enough to make up for it.

A startling return to form for EA's flagship racing franchise, Need for Speed Unbound offers an enjoyable open-world, with challenging yet gratifying racing, and an infectious sense of gritty urban style.

An unflinchingly violent and gruesome survival horror that ratchets up the tension from the get-go and doesn't let up, The Callisto Protocol is superlative stuff, and a must for anyone with even a passing fancy for Dead Space and its ilk.

Someone, please send help. I can't stop playing Vampire Survivors, and I'm worried it might end up ruining my life. This is pure and unadulterated gameplay that will suck away hours of your life, but you'll be loving every bit of it.

The Devil in Me is the most assured entry yet in The Dark Pictures Anthology, even if it doesn't produce quite enough scares during its seven hour runtime.

Sonic Frontiers is a fascinating move into open world for the Sonic franchise. It's frequently flawed, and doesn't always match the heights of Sonic's best games. But the fact that it occasionally does reach those highs, while offering a totally new experience, is pretty impressive, and leaves Sonic Team with a strong foundation to improve upon.

A strange horror experience that isn't all that scary, The Chant is nonetheless an interesting ride while it lasts, despite being marred by a scrappy story and even scrappier combat. It's weird, but not all that wonderful.

Gungrave G.O.R.E looks like an uncomplicated and enjoyable arcade-style romp, but it's actually an unrepentantly dull and dated chore that will make you want to cry.

Pentiment is an incredibly enchanting adventure game that really is like no other. It doesn’t quite have the same depth and ingenuity that Disco Elysium has, but what it lacks in depth, it more than makes up for in charm. After a slow start, this murder mystery really becomes the talk of the town.

Often, belated sequels carry a weight of expectation that's hard to live up to. Return to Monkey Island has no such difficulties, Ron Gilbert and Dave Grossman going back to a series they quite clearly still love, and, you’ll love too.

Call of Duty returns for yet another year, and while the campaign feels a little bit like a case of diminishing returns, the strength of two-player co-op and multiplayer pulls Modern Warfare 2 through.

NHL 23 seems like an iterative instalment, as EA Vancouver settles in with NHL 22's Frostbite Engine. Nevertheless, if it's an excellent game of ice hockey you seek, then this is - quite literally, as it happens - the only game in town.

Persona 5 Royal is easily one of the best JRPGs on Xbox, which isn’t bad for a game that originally came out in 2019! A perfect blend of real-world shenanigans, mixed with some intense dungeon-crawling sections, and put together in one of the most perfectly presented packages in video games - what’s not to love? Buy it, play it on Game Pass... just make sure you experience it.

You may spend a lot of your time comparing Gotham Knights to the Arkham series, and that's to be expected. But this is a different beast, and something to be relished on its own terms.

A Plague Tale: Requiem is a mighty fine follow up to Innocence, and will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. Sure, there’s the odd interesting design choice littered throughout and the game has the odd technical issue, but other than that, Requiem is a great way to spend a weekend.

As far as horror games that ape the works of H.R. Giger are concerned, Scorn is certainly one of the most interesting examples around, and many of its puzzles are nicely executed. However, crappy combat cramps Scorn’s style, while the unrelenting bleakness of the thing will leave you feeling deflated.

A soothing and enjoyable adventure with a smattering of smart LEGO-building puzzles and a dose of metroidvania exploration, LEGO Bricktales is a polished and fun way to while away a few quiet evenings.

Games like No More Heroes III are remarkably rare. Brimming with ideas and genuinely humorous moments, this is something uniquely Grasshopper, uniquely Suda. Get on it as soon as humanly possible.

FIFA 23 is the best FIFA game that you can play right now. But unless you’re an Ultimate Team diehard, FIFA 23 might not do enough to convince you to upgrade from the mechanically similar FIFA 22.

A hardcore heavy-metal shooter boasting a side order of rhythm with its brutal ultra-violence, Metal: Hellsinger is good fun, but you'll probably get a lot more out of it if you actually enjoy the music.

Yet another elegantly composed and impeccably designed Arkane sandbox, Deathloop is an intricate murder puzzle that’s part-Hitman, part-roguelite, and entirely sensational. There are few better ways to kill time.

When you buy NBA 2K, you know what you're getting. Except this year, NBA 2K23 sees Visual Concepts bringing its 'A' game, with an excellent MyCareer mode, the return of Jordan Challenges, and an addictive MyTeam offering. This is a straight-up slam dunk.

As a vibrant and energetic revamp of a nine-year-old fighting game, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R succeeds in breathing new life into something quite niche, with meaningful tweaks to its fighting system, new features, and more, giving it a well deserved second chance.

F1 Manager 2022 succeeds in being an engaging experience, immersing you in the various intricacies and minutiae of running a constructor, while determining the ideal race strategy – you can't help but feel fully invested.F1 Manager 2022 succeeds in being an engaging experience, immersing you in the various intricacies and minutiae of running a constructor, while determining the ideal race strategy – you can't help but feel fully invested.

Like any collection of retro titles, however, much of the appeal lies in the innate nostalgia factor to players of a certain age, and on that front I'm not even sure I need to make a case for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection – it's immediately apparent that every one of the games included in Konami's comprehensive TMNT bundle is imbibed with 8- and 16-bit loveliness: the perfect way for NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Mega Drive/Genesis owners to time travel, and, furthermore, the perfect way for twelve-year-olds to play the Turtles' arcade highlights, without getting an angry letter sent home to their parents.

It's slightly upsetting how close Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed is to being a properly good remake. Were it not for the parade of annoying bugs and the occasional crummy mission, this would be easy to recommend. In its current, messy state, however, Black Forest's latest effort falls.

As a new start for the eponymous gang, Saints Row ticks most of the boxes, but falls short in offering up anything fresh. A litany of technical and visual bugs also conspire to spoil the party, making for a solid enough, enjoyable, but ultimately uninspired, return for the series.