Poor combat and stealth only serve to highlight the rest of the issues with Blood of Mehran, and far too soon does it become a slog to play rather than the epic Arabian adventure it could have been.

The tech art and art direction deserve commendation as Echoes of the End is frequently breathtaking. The gameplay design is similarly breathtaking but in the way that it sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

Robots at Midnight brings little to the genre that is new. It is decent enough but lacks the spark to elevate it.

MindsEye is the worst kind of failure, a soporific one.

There is a certain type of player who is going to love this game. That person is not me. I’ve not been this disappointed by a Fromsoftware game in a long time. And I’ve played Murakumo: Renegade Mech Pursuit.

Maybe Akimbot will play as a loving exploration of an old favourite for some. For those without rose-tinted glasses, this is a deeply unrewarding experience with a sidekick that needs to be launched into the sun.

I’ve genuinely lost hope in this franchise. With the mix of VC shills, content creators that overhype a garbage product, outlets praising the word vomit stew that the player base eats up every year – at least the ones with deep wallets – and the F2P tactics in a paid game, NBA 2K will more than likely never return to its glory days that I loved. I’m tired of repeating myself and I’m tired of having expectations go below the bar, like it wasn’t low enough. Every single year it’s “a step in the right direction.” No, it’s not. I stopped settling for less and everyone else should too. NBA 2K25 is a basketball game but feels like a grindy RPG with heavy predatory practices at play. An utter disappointment. Save your money and play a better game.

Cilla gives all the right shoot em up vibes from the 90’s, but fails to deliver a promising concept. Enemies feel like they have just been copying and pasted from one level to another, with the same movement type. Power ups are welcomed however they seem to lack the punch the power up should have.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken starts out incredibly strong with its visuals and architecture. It is unable to back up this initial promise with engaging combat, or game design.

Horror Tales: The Beggar has its moments (mainly thanks to some half-decent world building) but the introduction of combat, and its slow moving puzzles, underwhelmed me completely. Go and play The Wine instead, and hope we get more of that for the next outing.

I genuinely feel for the team that worked on this – it is a licensed product that is much loved in the UK. It is hard to please people engaged with any franchise. But I don’t think I am being precious when I say this game is abysmal in everything but the narrative.

There is potential for Broken Roads to be a great game with features like the morality compass being innovative for RPGs, but too many issues soured my experience and ultimately left a bad taste.

After I played enough to write a review I hung up my apron, turned off the grill, and that was the end of Food Truck Simulator for good. It’s a great concept that I’d like to believe would’ve worked without the frustrations and complications and maybe it’s like that on a different platform from Xbox. However, the game I played was undercooked leaving me in anticipation to clock out.

Given that STAR WARS: Battlefront Classic Collection is literally a port of the original games it’s surprising that it was botched this badly. Regardless of what price amount it came out to be, it shouldn’t be sold in this condition. It feels like a cash grab and a slap in the face to long-time fans of the series. The title needs to be hidden in a galaxy far, far away.

Jujutsu Kaisen: Cursed Clash lacks spirit and depth and is just Hollow overall. Just because the franchise is popular doesn’t mean fans will mindlessly love the game. Its combat and mechanics are interesting, almost touching the soul, but that flame is quickly snuffed out with poor graphics resembling a mobile game, and a lazy attempt as a arena fighter. Astonishingly, this game has a price tag of up to $100.

I had hoped to start the year of with a bit of a lighter game, and The Spy Who Shot Me looked to fit the bill. Sadly, while the jokes and presentation are fine enough, the terrible feeling aiming ruins what could have otherwise been a fun take on retro FPS action.

Roller Coaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe is like a county fair. Sure they have some rides and the fairground is decent, but its nothing compared to the official amusement parks and hotspots that were its predecessors. The game comes off empty and shallow, more like a walkthrough for somebody’s first tycoon sim. The game shows little to no consequence while spoon feeding players which in turn gives it no self accomplishment or overall purpose.

A loving rendition of Mike Mignola’s world, with excellent voice work (RIP Lance Reddick), but sadly Web of Wyrd is still not the Hellboy game I was hoping for. The score I provided is due to some debilitating bugs and I’d be happy to revisit if this were ever to get a major overhaul.

Overall, if you want an old cartoon-style game that can give you quality platforming, stick to Cuphead, Enchanted Portals may look the part but it isn’t the part where it counts and it’s real use is to showcase to sceptics what makes its inspiration so good.

NBA 2K24 is an overall disappointment compared to not only NBA 2K23 but past NBA titles too. To see how far it’s fallen, all the past great features no longer included, it hurts to see that the only thing that matters is how much VC someone spends on a game. This is the first year that we’ve seen 2K blatantly be VC-heavy and it won’t be the last. Nobody should have to purchase a game that expects you to pay more on top of that. NBA 2K24 is the perfect example for game developers everywhere of what not to do in the gaming industry unless you’re greedy and don’t care about fans.

I appreciate that the devs/publishers have a steam bundle called ‘Deadly Bakery’ that just about justifies this game’s existence. Utterly woeful at every turn, and best avoided.

Artistic expression is what will strike the biggest chord in Strayed Lights. There are lovely moments of beauty to unearth, and you will no doubt find a game ignited with a love for tranquillity and colour. However, empty spaces make Strayed Lights world feel uncomfortably abandoned at times, and the combat is based too heavily on precision and colour matching to engross. Thankfully, Strayed Lights is short, but it runs out of momentum too soon despite some impressive boss encounters and some gorgeous skies. Give it a whirl then, but you won’t feel like Strayed Lights is anything but a shallowly gentle gust that will blow by without the force it needed to stick in the mind.

With this many clumsy design decisions it is a miracle this game made it past pre-production. I will never look down on anyone that endorses playtesting again.

This is just disappointing from all angles. Boring combat in both gun feel and enemy AI, lifeless open worlds that actively discourage exploration, and hero powers that are flat out rubbish to use make not for the fun co-op shooter we were hoping for. A massive miss for Xbox, Arkane, and Game Pass.

Emoji Kart Racer lacks in content that is offered for the pricing they have selected. The sounds are if not annoying, the best part of the game. The music isn’t too short or too loud, except for the emoji’s sound effects for winning. The visuals are clean, colorful, and work for most levels. There are tracks influenced heavily by bigger, more well known Arcade racers. There are typos in some signage which I don’t think is intentional. The length of the time played is less than four hours and could have been shorter if the karts went a little faster. The AIs and respawning functionality removes all challenges. This title is for beginners and those who are younger. Had there been a better user interface for using items and targeting others and the scaled difficulty wasn’t so low, this could have been a worthy recommendation. The drifting was the biggest let down, or lack thereof. I was simply left wanting more from the control and handling. The design of the game was well done, just not the feel of how the kart rides.

Blood Bowl III has nothing here to recommend it for newcomers or veterans of the board game when there is a more complete package available in its predecessor.

Less time spent on the needlessly long cutscenes and in-between mission sections, and more on the feel of the combat and we could have had a little gem on our hands. As it is, this only gets a recommendation for those willing to suffer for their entertainment.

While the premise is decent enough, Trenches falls at every hurdle in trying to make a game worth recommending.

Spy Racers is competently made but such an uninspired slog through a dire spin off. Soulless and saddening.

Apparently, Josh Journey: Totems of Darkness started out as a short cartoon, and the creators were encouraged to turn it into a video game. Whoever handed out this advice did their friends a disservice; I think they should have focused on creating a full-scale movie or show because art is obviously their strong point. The gameplay in Josh Journey is severely lacking, and with no difficulty options, it will only appeal to more advanced players. Perhaps this game is a blast when playing with four players, but without any online options, most players won’t have enough people or controllers to try that out.

Bones of Halloween is a game of timing from the Ratalaika factory to cash in on Halloween. It doesn’t look so terrible but it is overly simple with very little variation. The gun inventory layout is a little broken and the look sensitivity is overly slow. With a little more care and a little more variation, this game could have been a fun Halloween pick-me-up. But instead, it will grow old very quickly and just be a game for achievement hunters.

Those looking to Session to fill a Skate­-shaped hole in their gaming life are likely to be sorely disappointed. It is not an easy game to learn, but more importantly, it’s also not a fun one either. Some better tutorials or alternate control options might have saved the game a little, but as it is I just can’t find any reason to recommend this to anyone outside of truly dedicated skaters willing to put the grind in.

Nowhere near the classic the true Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo was, this pretender does an unsatisfactory and un-compelling job of providing a worthwhile experience. The story takes its time to truly materialize convincingly, and the payoff isn’t worth the effort. From an appearance standpoint, the game looks atrocious and will not have the looks your mother could love either. The act of controlling and playing Vertigo is passable, but unfortunately it hasn’t been properly optimized for console – which goes for both how the game looks, and the absence of a proper cursor when pointing and clicking the environment. Despite flashes of intrigue in the story and some enjoyment with the past memories Ed relives, Vertigo is a shoddy game that fails to live up to lofty standards – and as it shows you quite vividly, this one has fallen off a bridge and splattered on the ground below.

Madden 23 is a rehash of all the previous Madden‘s in the series. Bits and pieces were taken from those games and labelled as new. Even though FieldSENSE was refurbished I still strongly believe that it gave Madden 23 its shine. What good is that shine however when the game is covered with bugs and laziness? I’m not saying this game had to be perfect. Other sports simulation titles have their own share of problems. What separates Madden from them however is EA decides to mix the old problems with the new ones. Instead of fixing it, they go and do the same thing next year.

Much like it’s predecessor, Drunken Fist 2: Zombie Hangover is capable of providing a few laughs at times, but it wears out its welcome very quickly and feels like it has taken a step or two backwards rather than forwards.

With some grit and determination you may find something to enjoy in Blow & Fly, but for most I feel it’ll be a title that is removed from the playlist shortly after starting it. A neat-on-paper but awkward-in-practice mechanic just doesn’t have what it takes to keep us invested for long.

If you enjoy the very hard ‘old school’ style of platformer, you might find something to like with Trophy. For me though, it just went to show how far we’ve come in gaming, with too many quirks and annoyances we’ve long moved past rearing their unwelcome heads again. There are better ‘modern-retro’ games out there to play.

Less content, less interesting, crippled by bizarre design decisions and bugs. Rico London feels like a weak test run for its precursor rather than a fully fledged sequel.

Mages and Treasure is a lovely retro Zelda-inspired game but lacks the punch, depth and storytelling to really make it stand out as something worth checking out.

All told then, I was mightily underwhelmed by Crossfire X. While it’s not entirely without merit, there are far better shooters already out there – and on Game Pass – which meant I lost interest in this fast. Clunky combat and menus, requiring an additional purchase for the full campaign, and a bizarre one mode per map multiplayer set up all come together to define Crossfire X as a massive disappointment.

I’ve tried to see the good in The Dead Tree of Ranchiuna, but it just does everything in such a boring, bland, obtuse fashion that I cannot recommend anyone bother wasting their time with it. Outside of some passable music the game is just tedious and dull, and somehow even worse than the developers previous efforts. Avoid at all costs.

Now that I think about it I don’t think I’ve ever played a game advertising itself as dark, sexy, and mature that’s actually any good. Demoniaca: Everlasting Night continues that trend. There was a lot I didn’t like about this game, but I have to give them credit for trying something different. I think most players should steer clear of this tower of terror, but if you are looking for a Metroidvania that’s a little different as well as a frustratingly challenging experience then it might be worth checking out. It’s not the worst in the genre, but it’s far from the best.

A few sparks of potential is all The Anacrusis has but perhaps when it comes out of early access and gets a full release its litany of issues can be rinsed away. Until then it’s not worth anything more outside of a curious session or few thanks to how forgettable and unexciting the action, the serious lack of urgency and the horrid performance jankiness. The set dressing does offer some appeal, but the entire game needs to revel in the ideas the game clearly has in terms of how it’s presenting itself to players instead of strafing away from its commendable features. Stray Bombay has a fission of what The Anacrusis could be after a serious overhaul, but for now there’s nowhere near enough reason to give it a prolonged time commitment.

There’s not really much more to say about Horatio Goes Snowboarding. Visually it’s passable if hardly outstanding, while audibly I had to shut it off after just a few minutes thanks to some aggressively naff music and sound effects. The experience is slight and seems better suited to mobile or Switch gaming where you can pick it up for five minutes here and there rather than sitting in front of the big screen for any length of time. Fun enough in very short bursts but there are far better titles to stick the Xbox on for.

Sadly, Mini Madness utterly squanders any sort of promise it may have had with dull driving icing the cake of boring track design, terrible music, and shoddy UI and modes. Even those looking for a simple racer to last an evening will likely turn this off after only a handful of races.

Encodya is an unabashedly retro point-and-click adventure. That brings with it all of the warts of early-mid 90s gaming along with any nostalgia.

I’m a pretty patient guy when it comes to trying out new gaming experiences, but Drizzlepath: Déjà vu is just simply not very interesting at all. A walking sim without any of the intrigue or interesting tales and scenarios, even achievement hunters might want to think twice about adding this to their list.

As an interactive experience, Lucid Cycle had some potential to be an interesting break form the norms of gaming as a whole. What we got though was a tedious set of scenes that threaten to have some sort of narrative payoff but falls flat at every turn. There are far better “walking sims” out there for you to be wasting your time and money on this.

Reminiscence in the Night felt like a cross between point and click and visual novels, with a passable story. This was a nice change of pace for the usual Ratalaika visual novels, The point and click aspect offered some good interactivity, and I found myself enjoying this more than some of the other titles. Of course, cheevo hunters will still be able to blast through this for some quick gamerscore as well.

Fans of Swery will no doubt lap this up, quirks and all, but I just could not get on with the game at all. Every time I thought I had finally turned a corner with it some other nonsense turned up that put me right back at square one. Overloaded with poorly implemented decent ideas, this is a one for truly dedicated players only.

All in all, Bouncy Bullets 2 is a fun enough title, acting as a good palette cleanser in between other, meatier experiences. It might not be quite worth checking out before a sale if you’ve still got plenty to play, but cheevo hunters will be happy grabbing that sweet, sweet 1000G no doubt.

While the open-world transition was a welcomed concept it wasn’t utilized to the best of its ability. YouTubers Life 2 is exactly what it is. A YouTuber simulator. A constant grind to fame. Day in and day out it’s the same thing only a different trend than yesterday. It’s the smaller things that give this game life while the major elements such as the story end up lacking in the end.

Unfortunately, although Hell Let Loose has gone full release, this game is not ready. Using in-game chat is frequently buggy, with it being unclear who can hear who. Getting into the game proved to be very challenging pre-release, and a nightmare during the launch date, with frequent drops, long loading times, and regular crashes and hangs.

Overall, if you’re after a game that is engaging, worth your time, money, and effort, then Takorita Meets Fries is not really a game I can recommend for you. If you want some easy Gamerscore, then £4.99 is the price you’ll pay along with five minutes of your time for eternal glory to be imprinted in that coveted digital score.

Alchemic Cutie is a relaxing RPG that relies too much on the patience of the player. I have reviewed similar games like Monster Harvest so I wasn’t expecting miracles. But demographically this is all over the place. The quests and simplicity seem to feel it was aimed at kids but the sheer tedious of waiting for something to happen will make many lose interest. There is only so much crap you can pick up before your soul starts slipping away.

With the raft of great horror titles out there already, there’s very little to recommend checking out Yuoni over most of them. The slow paced hide and seek gameplay lacks tension, risk, or any real consequence, and while the visuals can prove quite creepy at times, for the most part this is all too forgettable.

Monster Harvest looks charming and it offers a lot of the things you want from a game like this. A story, a farming sim with some creative choices and an animal combat element. It could be described as a Farmville Pokémon hybrid but only very loosely. A lot of the game feels lifeless and countless bad decisions in this game will leave you bored. Also losing your progress will infuriate you more than the three looping songs this game has to offer.

All in all, Orbibot is tough to recommend. For those willing to persevere the physics foibles, there’s a decent puzzle game here. But the issues are so frequent that unless you’re here for the very easy 1000g, then you’re probably best off looking elsewhere.

Cardaclysm’s deck building and tweaks to the formula are good, but this is weighed down by far too much grinding and not enough excitement.

If you can put up with the unresponsive controls for long enough, there’s a decent puzzle title in Tetragon. It’s just a shame that almost every turn of the world is met with frustrating UI and inputs.

I came into Heliborne full of hope, but left completely disappointed. Unless you’re a die-hard helicopter fan there’s not much at all here to make it worth your while checking out, and even if you are a fan…well… caution is still advised.

Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt doesn’t have the budget to be a competitive sim hunting game and doesn’t have the humour to be a goofy game. The few moments of enjoyment in there require an archaeologist’s focus to unearth.

Overall, Train Station Renovation hits all the marks that it aims for, but sadly those marks weren’t set very high. It is a lonely, solitary experience that just isn’t very fun. As with all reviews this is just one man’s opinion. Personally it does nothing for me. I don’t dislike it but the whole premise of Train Station Renovation I find to be uninteresting. Achievement hunters can easily pad their Gamerscore. Other than that I just don’t see repeated playthroughs of this game.

Trenga Unlimited is hardly a bad game, but it’s also not exactly an exciting one either. Passable mobile-style fun for ten minutes at a time, as a console release it wears out its welcome very quickly, and won’t have you eager to get back on the big screen to keep playing.

Heal is an experimental puzzle game, and despite some nice visuals the gameplay doesn’t quite hit home for me. I felt very little attachment to the story or events, and I ended up resorting to a guide for the most part just to get through it. If you’re keen for a new type of puzzle game then it might be more up your street, but there are better examples of the genre out there.

Kursk had some promise, aiming to be part adventure and part documentary of a real world tragedy. What we got though is a boring spy story mixed with tedious exploration and puzzles, staffed with a crew that would make Pinocchio feel like a real boy. You’d be much better off reading or watching any of the other media out there documenting this real world event.

Ravensword: Shadowlands is a passably playable RPG considering it is an aged mobile port. If you ever want to play an RPG that you can complete in days rather than months for a fraction of the cost then this could be something to pick up. But stiff NPCs, random hit detection/animation, bland storyline, and vast empty lands really make it challenging to fully immerse yourself into the game.

What the Dub?! is a single focused party game trying to crack into a genre where titles like Jackbox have been dominating. What the Dub?! has real movie clips and the answer read out by automated voices though, which is more inclusive, but the thought of having to watch the same clip 12 times with different players scripts one after each other, with only a few seconds in between for chuckles, makes me cringe more than it excites me. It’s a shame as I am all for party games as they can be real ice breakers at times, but I can’t see this being fired up more than once or twice before it has outstayed its welcome.

Squad Killer is a fun, if simple, retro platformer/shooter. The action is easy to pick up and play – and the achievements drop easily – but there are a few niggles that can frustrate a little too much. For the low price it might be worth a shot for some, but others will be best off looking elsewhere.

With the gameplay in its current state there isn’t much that would compel me to play this game for any length of time let alone keep coming back for more. I won’t say that a $17.99 price tag isn’t justifiable but if I paid cash for this game I’d have some serious buyers remorse. If you’re positive that Under the Jolly Roger floats your boat than by all means have at it, as this review is just one man’s opinion. But if you have doubts as to whether or not you want to set sail on this adventure I suggest waiting for a sale.

Sanity of Morris is sadly just not very good. Outside of some decent initial horror aspects and a passable tale, the woeful stealth, boring exploration, and tedious puzzles make for a title that gets ever more maddening the further we play.

Vera Blanc: Ghost of the Castle is the second in the Vera Blanc series. Despite being a port of a 10 year old game there are seemingly zero improvements or additions here. If you’ve played the first you’ll know what to expect; follow the story prompts to progress, earn some quick cheevos, and that’s about that. The story is passable at least, all ghost and murder mysteries, but it won’t last long enough to really get us invested.

If I’ve discovered one thing playing Balancealot it’s that physic’s based titles like this are not for me. The controls can be highly frustrating, with the triggers used for movement and the analogue stick used to keep our balance. Having enemies to avoid adds some variety though, and the helpful checkpoints do alleviate some of the frustration, but certainly not all. One for those with patience then.

The Child’s Sight tries to bring a more relatable horror – that of a young child in a dark room at night – to the table, but the brief glimpses we get of its creepy world are vastly outnumbered by staring at a black screen, occasionally interrupted by the exact same jump scare after thunder drowned out the cupboard door opening yet again. It’s only a few quid on the store, so you might find an hour or so of enjoyment to make it worth checking out, but I soon grew tired of it.

Fans of visual novels might get an hour or so of enjoyment out of Autumn’s Journey but I’d like to have seen more choices factored in to give the tale some variety. I found myself getting bored pretty quickly with the story on offer. As it is, an easy 1000g is most likely the best reason to get this.

Tiny Hands Adventure is a simple action platformer than feels pretty drab to play, looks bland and is too unexact and muddy to be engaging for anyone, let alone to younger audience to which it is catered for.

Despite having some neat ideas across the board, the final execution of Colossus Down just feels a little too awkward and uninspiring. Clunky, repetitive combat and a teenage angst-filled story do little to inspire continued play. There are far better examples of the genre out there, on which your time is better spent.

Drunken Fist hides wonky physics, hard to use controls and a toilet humour behind the set-up of being drunk, and while it’s passably funny for a short while, it’s also not something that will be on the playlist for more than the hour or so it’ll take to beat the seven levels.

I tried so hard to enjoy I,AI. I don’t mind a good challenge, but the key to getting me into retrying over and over is to have that challenge be fun. Unfortunately I,AI’s slow pace, weak ship and drawn out upgrades mean that the fun ran out long before it should have.

Beat Me! is a cheap, indie version of a Smash Bros-style game. Some other titles have tried to provide a decent alternative but I haven’t really come across a successful one yet. This is no exception to that rule unfortunately, as although the puppet characters are quite interestingly designed the game just isn’t that fun. The combat is too melee strong and with no attack variants, it gets old very quickly. Online play is a nice touch but I don’t know how often you will find opponents.

Pangeon had some elements to reel in those that enjoyed retro-style dungeon crawlers. But one gentle tap on the outer coating reveals a very empty centre filled with a couple of bugs. I know bugs can be patched but the other 80% of the game’s content needs to be here as it feels like it got pushed out the doorway before it was ready. It’s a shame as the retro feel is achieved well but with such little content, it is just a shell of a game.

I am going to flat out say this, this is the worst game I have ever played in my life. But then again, this isn’t even a game, it’s press one button and sit back to watch the text flash up on the screen. The worst thing is that it can be easily churned out and it will unfortunately make money as a lot of people out there love easy achievements.

For a title that has as interesting a premise as This is the Zodiac Speaking, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Tough to read stealth mechanics, a wooden cast delivering a bland story, dull visuals and audio, and some baffling UI and technical issues mean that I cannot recommend this to even the most ardent of thriller fans.

I can’t deny that the dev’s clearly wanted to put some heart into the game, but almost none of it pays off in any positive way. The character controls awfully, the powers are nonsensically strewn about, the Fourth wall-breaking jokes just highlight the poor game design instead of compliment it, and even those looking for an easy 1000g will likely be put off before they can reach it. While the aim may be to get to Earth, I’d suggest giving it a wide berth upon it landing.

With all this negativity going on is there anything nice to say about Tennis World Tour 2? Yes of course, if you like Tennis and you want a challenging gameplay experience then this will be a fine game if you don’t stumble upon difficulty-based weirdness, but there is too much here that’s off-putting to anyone but the most ardent of tennis fans. Tennis World Tour 2 has a bland career mode, dull presentation aspects, unfair matches thanks to difficulty inconsistencies and it’s largely just a safe but lifeless experience. Big Ant Studios served up better aces with their A.O titles, go and play them and forget about this one.

NBA 2K21 is in the end another basketball simulation game. Nothing here will catch you by surprise and leave you in awe. The biggest thing this game suffers from is the painstaking grind for VC so you can be on par with everyone else, which is not very welcoming to newcomers. It’s an enjoyable game but without any new updates or features it will end up lost in your backlog.

There’s no extra modes, no MP, no leader boards. As a standalone arcade game it’s passable for quick bursts, but the appeal soon wore off and after just an hour or so I’d more than had my fill. As usual, there’s a fairly easy 1000g to find if you’ve the desire to grind the stages, but I can’t see this being a title that’ll stick in your playlist once that last achievement pops.

Bounty Battle appeals to the indie game lover with its expansive roster, but any half-interested fighting game player would tell you to stay away. A lack of modes and, more importantly, much fun in the gameplay department mean even the allure of the character list isn’t enough to save this title.

Johnny Rocket is a complete misfire, spiralling noisily around your screen for 45 minutes. It’s broken, rushed and mercifully short, when it could have been a contender.

If you’ve ever thought that the door handle out of your room was a bit complicated and needed less gameplay, then A Hero and a Garden is £4.99 and might be your bag of seeds. For anyone else, this idle-clicker-meets-visual-novel is best buried in the garden and forgotten about.

Rogue Cube is a very tough but simple rogue shooter. It is aimed at those who want a quick and aggressive challenge. It encourages you to keep coming back to get further along in-game as you master the cautious approach. But for most, it will either be too difficult to be fun or once you have completed the game it is unlikely you will be back.

Too slight to be seriously considered a Ja-copy of Jalopy, Road to Guandong has some adorable visual-novel moments that focus on family. It’s just a shame, then, that the road trip sections to reach them are so lifeless.

I came away from Hardcube severely disappointed; there are far better examples of games (Marble Blast Ultra, Road to Ballhalla) that involve rolling a ball around a course, and outside of some easy G’s I’d struggle to recommend this to anyone.

It’s hard to write about this game as it’s just not very much fun. It’s a cheap and average run-and-gun side scroller. The music has a nostalgic feel and the achievements are nice and simple. It’s a one hour run and you only need to beat the first 15 stages. It’s a shame the 3 characters don’t have unique abilities and that boss fights aren’t more challenging.

I was quite looking forward to a new local multiplayer party game to add to the rotation; sadly, Lunch A Palooza won’t be filling that void. There’s a neat idea here, but the hard to decipher combat, wonky physics and general lack of, well, fun mean that we’re best off warming up some of our leftovers for now.

I came away from my time with The Otterman Empire feeling very little at all. Despite some good looking character designs and multiplayer ideas, there’s a distinct lack of atmosphere or excitement to the whole affair. Vague, tricky to decipher mode mechanics lead to confusing opening rounds, the shooting feels inaccurate and unresponsive and despite the dev’s best intentions, I just don’t feel it’ll be sticking around many people’s gaming night playlists for very long.

Super Soccer Blast is more of a bore than a blast. The first game is enjoyable, but then you notice the flaws very quickly. However, I do take pleasure in shooting from 50 yards out and scoring with ease. The create your own team and player is a nice addition, but it’s a shame there isn’t more content and teams to pick from from the off.

Strawberry Vinegar has 6 possible endings, with 1 play through possibly taking you around 6 hours. If you’re keen to see them all, then you’ll get a lot of content for your money. I liked how characters moved within the scenes, rather than being just static images too. However, it’s likely you’ll know if this is for you from the visuals above, and sadly I do not fall into that camp.