McPixel 3 has opened my eyes to the series and has made me want to look at the previous games as it is such a joy to play. With games these days taking hours to get into and days to complete it’s nice to have a pickup-and-play game like this which is great to relax and enjoy an amusing experience. If you like playing quick games and have a childish or crude sense of humour then you will have a lot of fun with this game.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a game that you expect quality, and it delivers. When you aren’t crafting and battling with your deck of hero cards there is a deep story to progress and a world to explore. Not only does the exploration feel rewarding but so does the relationships you will be building with your fellow heroes. The best part is these relationships are optional if you are in it just for the card-based battling system, however I implore everyone to give that half of the game a shot. The missions you will be going on are where the game shines the most though. Gathering your favorite heroes and building their decks to work off of each other to pull awesome combos and KO as many enemies in one turn as you can is just so much fun. Very rewarding feeling when you win. Very little in terms of negatives and Marvel’s Midnight Suns is definitely in my game of the year conversations!

Togges is as a unique game as its name. In this 3D puzzle platformer, you aren’t controlling some bipedal human or creature trying to get to the right side of the screen but rather a vacuum like robot that with the aid of the togges, solves puzzles to traverse this free roaming landscape. The traversal is likely my favorite schtick as you have to manage the amount of togges you have while keeping them next to each other as they are the keys to the puzzles. As with a lot of 3D open-world-esque games to me the camera is very middle of the road and leaves some to be desired. The puzzles are hit or miss as to their understandability but at least it’s a pretty game. This beautiful puzzle platformer would give the fan of the genre plenty of content to stack the deck with.

Thinking back on the game as a whole, though there’s obviously that Dead Space DNA running through it – from the over the shoulder camera, the stomping on corpses for items, the diegetic UI and more – this feels like the successor we probably should have received instead of Dead Space 3. The action is here but it still managed to keep the survival horror flavour and tone intact. It’s not perfect, but it’s a solid outing for Striking Distance and one we hope they can build on in the future.

The Chant offers a thrilling foray into the survival horror genre. The acting and crafting elements make Jess’ plight feel incredibly dire, while the story remains gripping throughout. Despite some technical limitations, this grim island teeming with tension is still an eerie paradise worth exploring – especially when confronted by the mysterious Gloom!

Mechanically engaging, and morally bankrupt. Police Simulator is a very accurate portrayal of cops.

While the yearly Call of Duty is experience still remains fun, retreading old ground yet again is beginning to give off the feeling that there’s nowhere else to go for the franchise right now. I had fun playing Modern Warfare II, and those looking for solid shooting action will enjoy it, but I’d liked to see something new from the series going forward. Warzone 2.0 feels far fresher and more enjoyable to me, and is where I’ll be spending my time with COD until then.

OlliOlli World has released it’s last and final DLC aptly titled Finding the Flowzone. This expansion gives us 17 more levels of this game as you’d expect to see with fun twists. The levels have a new addition of wind that will carry you to newer and greater heights. Veterans will speed through the content but there is still fun to be had.

Evil West was recommended to me months back as a potential blockbuster. A game set in the Wild West where you are a monster hunter that you can play with a friend sounds pretty awesome. It delivers all of that with an interesting storyline that feels quite Van Helsing at times and stunning graphics. The linear layout coincidental traversal of maps is a very retro way of playing a game now but I quite enjoy it as that simplicity is quite refreshing at times but could be repetitive for others.

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

Despite its announcement on April Fools Day, Return to Monkey Island is no joke, even though the game is full of them. Crafted with respect for veterans and newcomers alike, Return to Monkey Island shows that the puzzles in puzzle games can be just as memorable as the story and characters. Yes, the ending is a squib, and clicking on items in tight-knit spaces is annoying, but otherwise this is a true belter of a puzzler. An exceptional love letter to 90s point and click adventuring, and a faithful-but-remodelled experience from top-to-bottom, Return to Monkey Island is definitely worth this return visit and then some….no disguises necessary!

The mixture of exploration and puzzle solving is solid but the unsettling weirdness of its location and story is what makes Broken Pieces a must play for all point and clickers out there.

The Devil In Me is a solid round-off to Season One of The Dark Pictures Anthology. It has some of the best character and story work so far, with gruesome, inventive horror that kept us on our toes. Once the online woes are sorted we’ll be jumping back in for another go, and can recommend fans alike do the same.

When things are flowing smoothly and we’re swinging and jumping all over the place, it’s as fun as we could hope it to be. That classic collect-a-thon itch is well and truly scratched, the pixel art visuals are lovely to look at, and there’s a charm to the whole thing that just makes it a joy to play at the end of a hard day.

Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is a different type of game not seen in a long time as it’s partly educational and partly feels like you are watching a documentary. There are a lot of classics in this package and also a lot of meh games which you will gloss over. This will interest the older games who experienced some of this history and the keen gamers who will enjoy the experience that Atari have put on here.

Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising Could have been a massive step up from the first game which was in all fairness a cash grab. But rather than producing a quality product they just released a buggy mess and I can only assume this was because it couldn’t wait any longer. The Series is now on season 5 and this game was to tie in a much earlier season. Fans of the series might consider picking this up but I don’t think I could recommend it.

Tanuki Sunset started off as a free-to-play game, and like any good games “journalist” I tried it out before writing this review; while there are some major improvements in the expanded, for-purchase version, I can’t help but think that it should have just stayed as a free to play game. Transforming an endless runner-style game into one with semi-procedurally generated levels does not work in this case. The aesthetic might be off the charts and just your style, but the gameplay is a real bummer, not even a cute and furry main character could stop me from wanting to bail at the first chance I got.

Gungrave G.O.R.E is a clever-dumb game that finds ways to turn mindless shooting into an alternative character action model. Sadly, it is brought down by trying to be too smart and muddying its objectives. When it sticks to what makes it enjoyable, it excels.

Constantly surprising, packed with clever puzzle design, and with an interesting story to boot, The Entropy Centre has just cemented itself as one of my favourite puzzle titles ever. Too many combat sections let it down a little, but they are worth persevering with to see just how Stubbington can show off his puzzle acumen next.

Though it may not be quite as thought-provoking as the games that inspired it, Somerville is a promising effort from a new studio, capably evoking its themes and happenings through its visual storytelling, in a way that makes you ponder and feel for the characters and their situations. Unfortunately, Somerville can’t remove itself from the shadow of Playdead’s works, so it is inevitably stuck in the position of inferiority, because it doesn’t do much we haven’t seen before. Having said that, it is a worthwhile adventure that may start slow, but picks up momentum the more you play and is backed up by decent puzzles and some pulse-quickening and heart-thumping drama. All told Somerville is a pleasant slice of thought-provoking adventuring.

Those looking for tough, but fun, arcade shoot-em-up action should absolutely check out SophStar. It plays well, offers a great challenge, and has a decent amount of extra modes to check out when we’ve been beaten down for the fifth time in a row in the main game.

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.

We’ve been wanting to see more co-op puzzle titles and The Past Within is a fantastic entry to the genre. Smart pacing and an interesting premise and set-up make for an evening well spent with a friend.

Whether you are playing single-player, co-op online/split screen, Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood & Teef is fun. Light-hearted and a significant change of pace for the Warhammer universe. I really enjoyed playing this with my son. Controls were straightforward and easy to get used to, though I was a bit taken back when I found out A wasn’t jump however this didn’t spoil my enjoyment. I would recommend Warhammer 40,000 if you want a local co-op shooter with drop-in and drop-out functions.

Arkanoid Eternal Battle is fun for a while but can get frustrating very quickly. With no option to save your progress, this hampers my score. I wish there was an option for an offline/easy mode, a bit like Tetris 99 has, but otherwise it’s a solid title if you loved the original. I would, however, recommend waiting for a sale.

Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a fighter at it’s core that didn’t wow me. The controls felt like they were made for a fight stick and the controller just got mapped after the fact. The game has an interesting story mode however that at least makes it stand out and is different enough than your standard fighting game fare. Online lobbies are existent but the population is almost not. Hopefully more players will fill them in the future.

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.

It seems like there is a new Souls-like game coming out every other week but they always fall short of the real thing. The Last Hero of Nostalgaia is the best Souls-like I have played, it doesn’t stray too far from the source, and it doesn’t try to do too much in terms of its core mechanics. However I think it has a wider appeal than just Souls fans; long time gamers will love all the references, which range from the classics like Mario and Zelda to more modern games like Halo, Dead Rising, and Bioshock. Some people might be turned off by the difficulty, which ramps up somewhat in the second half, but if you’re hesitant then keep in mind that you can play the entire game in co-op. The Last Hero of Nostalgaia is a must-play title for any action-RPG fan and is definitely near the top of the list of my favorite games I’ve played this year.