The Station looks great, plays well, and builds suspense through its well designed atmosphere. I was quite disappointed with its short length, and whether or not this will be built upon in due course remains to be seen. This is an easy ride for completionists, but will certainly leave those that enjoy a meaty sci-fi serving, wanting for more, much more.

Technical issues aside, Absolver’s deep and innovative combat system, together with its seamlessly integrated social elements, easily stand as the game’s greatest achievements. Unfortunately, the game’s gorgeously ruined world is merely superficial beauty, being that outside of necessary acquisition, there’s little else to enjoy. This lack of overall depth is surely going to have a negative impact on its player count before too long.

Football, Tatics and Glory is a novel football manager game and sets itself apart from the larger franchises by being more compact and allowing you to be more involved in the game with the turn-based action on the pitch. But with a save facility that needs a red card and the action showing more reliance on luck than strategy, this game may struggle lasting the full 90 minutes.

Fade to Silence offers quite an accessible survival adventure that knows exactly when to push your buttons. The game’s seemingly interesting world is full of possibilities and dangers of equal measure, ensuring that there’s always some event to take on throughout. The drawback, however, is that of its lack of polish and mechanical depth, together with its awkward combat. Shame really, with more time in the oven, this could have been a big hit.

Children of Morta has a very compelling story and the way they use death in the game to help progress the story is refreshing. However, there is so much that you need to unlock in the game to try and balance the difficulty in your favour to even complete the first dungeon. This, in turn, ruins the experience by having to play the same dungeon over and over. It is a shame that the same level of effort that was put into the story line was not put into the gameplay, things becomes repetitive quite quickly.

Is it very memorable? Not really.

There’s clearly a lot of time and effort that has been put in to Citadel: Forged with Fire. An impressive amount of detail has gone into the systems and world and for those who get into the swing of things, this will likely hold their attention for quite some time. Unfortunately, the gathering and combat is tedious, the UI and control scheme is maddeningly unhelpful and to achieve anything noteworthy takes far, far too long.

JoJo Siwa: Worldwide Party is an auto-runner platforming game where you will be running, ducking, and bashing your way through obstacles to eventually make it to the big concert. The game doesn’t provide enough variety in my opinion and the limited gameplay they do have can be improved (re: timing). Granted, I doubt I’m the target audience so I asked my young daughters and they were more impressed than I so check out the video and decide for yourself!

Apple Slash is one of those simple games where it feels like the developers have put a lot of effort and love into making it and you’ll feel it when you play. I actually wish there was more to play and do. I’m hoping that Agelvik will take what they’ve learned here and bring it to an Apple Slash 2.

Inner Ashes is a game that tries very hard to deliver facts about a terrible real world disease mixed with an emotional story in a videogame and it misses the mark for me. As a walking simulator at it’s core the gameplay is expected to be a little slow, however they can hold their own ground when they come with great stories. Unfortunately Inner Ashes is mediocre for me. I appreciate all of the interesting facts I learned about Alzheimer’s Disease because of this game but the mechanism they used, a videogame, doesn’t quite align with this presentation as something interesting enough to hold my attention.

Royal Roads is a Gnomes Garden game in a different skin, and as such, the same issues found in those titles are present here. I’ll credit the game for its improved handling, for being visually superior in comparison to its related peers, and for its depth of content, but it still falls rather flat overall. If you’re in the market for a deep resource management game, look elsewhere. If you’re just here for more of the same, Royal Roads will serve you well.

In short bursts there is fun to be had with Rightfully, Beary Arms, and once we nab a few permanent upgrades some of the issues are less pronounced. But we simply didn’t find it all that engaging enough to want to repeatedly play and progress, with one-note combat and occasionally cheap deaths.

Wheelspin Frenzy offers a passable racer that functions and performs quite well throughout the entirety of play. The biggest drawback here is that the game is just far too basic to stand anywhere near as tall as its peers. The lack of meaningful progression and the bog-standard visuals certainly doesn’t help in this regard. Though with that said, if you’re simply looking for a quick and simplistic arcade racer, Wheelspin Frenzy should do the trick.

All in all, Once Alive is a promising first outing for solo dev Cem Boray Yıldırim, at least in the potential they show at being able to craft a world that is intriguing and somewhat unique in the crowded genre of the post-apocalypse. Unfortunately, the finished product here leaves too much of that promise on the table, with mechanics introduced and forgotten immediately in favour of slow walking and linear progression, and technical aspects that punch above their weight in not being optimised effectively.

There is some fun to be found in Moons of Darsalon at times, and some of the more balanced levels offer a decent challenge. But too often I found myself cursing at the game for yet again killing me or making me fail more due to the fiddly mechanics than actual game design.

For its asking price Loot Hero DX to me is a game you can play if you don’t have anything to play and you’re just bored. Even so, I got bored playing after an hour after finishing almost everything. It’s a mindless game to play but for someone like me, it can’t keep my attention for long.

There’s a lot to get your teeth sunk into in Tiebreak, but with matches on medium difficulty lasting over an hour, this certainly won’t be a pickup and play game, and with the mentioned issues with gameplay, Tiebreak won’t be something I return to on a regular basis.

The Raven Remastered isn’t a bad game. Besides its sub-par control mechanics and linear feel, the game actually has a compelling story with interesting characters. It’s no Sherlock Holmes, but it does have its good points and may well appeal to fans of such games as Black Mirror.

Wildcat Gun Machine delivers some great sound and art design but unfortunately that doesn’t make up for lack of explanations and repetitive gameplay loops. I do think isometric shooter fans may want to check it out but gamers wanting to try the genre have better choices out there.

If you would like a sweet narrative and you’re into coffee, then Sunny Café is your Visual Novel. But if you’re looking for a game to keep you locked in and engaged with the story, you may have to get your caffeine fix somewhere else.

The longevity for HTTOYM is not great. It comes from a developer who deserves more recognition and might finally be getting it after all of their hard work they’ve invested in the series. But this isn’t a true remaster with updates to visuals and sound, and it shows through cropped images with the UI (pause menu option) and the audio issues in the intro. I don’t agree for the price range on this title, but that is expected in comparison with other titles in the genre. Most of the people interested in this title will be playing it for buffing their gamerscore total since it can be done in less than an hour with a guide. However, if you’re interested in the graphic novel genre, then you might enjoy the brief few hours journey of this steamy love story.

Technically speaking, the game handles well and performs well, but due to some baffling design choices and an inconsistent difficulty curve, Verlet Swing is a lot more frustrating and a lot more restricting than it needed to be. That being said, if you’ve the patience and perseverance to overlook said drawbacks, you’ll find quite a bit of fun to be had here. Just, be sure to check the warranty on your controller first.

Retro gamers or those of a certain vintage will find something to enjoy here, but if you’re outside of that demographic this is a title that’ll likely not last a long time on the hard drive.

Haimrik’s interesting concept is ultimately held back by its weak story and some poor gameplay elements. The game is certainly distinct, that much goes without saying, but its mechanics often fail to blend together particularly well. This isn’t a bad game by any means, on the contrary, it’s actually quite a competent puzzle-adventure game when it wants to be, but it’s hard to overlook these issues when they’re frequently in your face.

As a remaster, it’s well done if basic; some upspuffed visuals, a few QoL improvements, and an easier way to revisit the game. But unfortunately the game itself is showing its age, with obtuse objectives and maps and combat that rarely feels fun or exciting to engage in. One for old fans, and cautious new players looking to see what the series is all about before the new Onimusha: Way of the Sword next year.

Overall I enjoyed Micetopia more than most pixel platformers published by Rataliaka. Personally I like feeling like I got something of value for my money and don’t like spending $5 on a game that takes less than an hour to complete. If you don’t follow a guide Micetopia will take roughly 2-3 hours as long as you have some platforming experience – there’s not really any replay value but one playthrough leaves you fairly satisfied. A somewhat decent game and a quick completion aren’t bad for a fiver. I look forward to seeing what the developers do for their next project.

All in all, God Bless, or Goddess is an odd curiosity. On the one hand it has some decent special effects, some interesting characters and some added gameplay elements you wouldn’t normally see in an FMV title, as well as some tongue-in-cheek humour. On the other, it’s clearly aimed at a certain (mostly male) audience for certain, obvious reasons, and the plot and characters can become a tangled mess of names and proper nouns that are hard to keep track of, especially with the rapid pace of the subtitles going by.

Hovership Havoc is exactly what its title suggests; you steer your hovership around the enemies and navigate areas of complete havoc. The game starts very tough, though that is by design as you would get bored if it was too easy. It is a competent arcade twin-stick shooter for skilled gamers, stick at it and upgrade wisely, and you will start to get a knack for things.