While there’s an intriguing story that unfolds at a decent pace, it’s easy to get sidetracked with the overwhelming amount of optional things to do. While the story is about the right length, I eventually gave up trying to do everything as combat become a bit repetitive a few hours in. That said, Ghostwire: Tokyo was still a great playthrough and I’m glad it’s arrived for Xbox players to now enjoy as well.

While I expected a simple firefighting game with Nuclear Blaze, it is that, but has a decent story that kept me wanting to find out what happened until the very end. Sure it may be quite short, but there’s at least enough reason to play through twice as you try and find all of its secrets and rescue cats. What’s better than saving some felines in an underground nuclear base while putting out flames and uncovering a dark secret?

Tin Hearts is a standout for its puzzles. I’m not saying the story was weak by any means, but perhaps the puzzles were just that good that it made it feel weak. I found myself wanting to skip right to the next puzzle, that’s how much I enjoyed my time with them. It oozes warmth and charm and is filled with a sense of nostalgia that isn’t often seen in games from my experience. If you want an easy playing puzzle game that won’t leave you frustrated, or if you are a fan of heartfelt stories, I think Tin Hearts is perfect little game to tinker with.

Strayed Lights is short and sweet with a run time of around five hours to complete. A unique third person adventure game for a debut from Embers. The unique combat style was something I didn’t truly enjoy at first, but once you learned the cadence of each enemies’ attacks it became more intuitive and almost Zen like at times, especially with the soundtrack swelling during the boss battles. It’s easy to overlook the shortcoming with the finicky platforming mechanics or lack of variety in enemies when you were feasting on the sights and sounds around you. It’s a great debut from Embers and a reminder that sometimes simple things can bring you joy. In short, Strayed Lights shines bright.

With a healthy amount of interesting achievements to work towards, I didn’t even notice that a good five hours went by the first time I played before I realized what time it was. Very addictive and relaxing, Garden Simulator is a great way to de-stress when you need a gaming palette cleanser and don’t mind the ‘jank’ from simulator games. Flex your virtual green thumb and place those garden gnomes for all to see.

Full of puns, Cavity Busters certainly borrows heavily from The Binding of Isaac and Enter the Gungeon, yet does enough to make it stand out amongst others in the crowded genre. It’s chaotic, frantic, gross, and I enjoyed every minute of it once I was able to get over the learning curve and adjusting to the frenzied gameplay.

Full of subtle humor, I might not have laughed out loud but I surely chuckled a few times at the puns or situations, the ghost hamster being my favorite character of the bunch. While it’s a short adventure, it’s a memorable one. The world and characters are endearing and even though I’m usually not too interested in visual novels, Melon Journey: Bittersweet Memories is charming and endearing, feeling like one in a melon.

Bramble: The Mountain King isn’t a very long game; I’d estimate about 4-6 hours to play through it. I was fully engaged through the entire story and felt it never overstayed its welcome. It’s a beautiful game set in a dark and disturbing world. If you are a fan of narrative driven games, especially those with a dark undertone, I think you’ll enjoy Bramble: The Mountain King.

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is much more than a simple remake, it’s a new take on the original. It dives further into the psyche of Sherlock and lets you get to know Watson better. The sights and sounds have been reworked and it was an enjoyable experience even when frustrated with my skills in problem solving. It’s definitely a case worth investigating.

While original Bendy fans will certainly get the most out of it, it was difficult to feel invested as a newcomer with the clunky combat and forced stealth sections. That said, the world is created quite well and has a great atmosphere, I just didn’t feel all that invested and become frustrated at times with the backtracking.

God of Rock is an interesting title that blends the odd pairing of fighting and rhythm games, and while it may not always stick the landing due to its odd design choices, there’s some entertaining moments here and there. Even with online play and a track creator, it’s clear extra effort was made to have God of Rock be something special, even if it misses a few notes.

Don’t be fooled by the Casual difficulty setting, Guns N’ Runs is quite challenging and demands near perfection and quick reflexes to be successful and progress. While I struggled with the controls throughout, especially having to dash at specific angles or timing, there’s nothing inherently bad about Guns N’ Runs, it simply didn’t hook or excite me all that much.

Dambuster Studios has delivered a fun, immersive and very polished game that fans should really appreciate and enjoy. Thus, the wait was most definitely worth it!

Good things come to those who wait. We waited years for EA Sports to deliver a quality golf game, and not only have they delivered a quality golf game, but they have delivered THE golf game by which all future games will be judged. EA SPORTS PGA TOUR isn't just a new golf game, it's the standard. Deep character development, tons of different shot types to master, focus on accuracy and experience and the deepest collection of utilized data pertaining to golfers and their shots and performance are just a few innovations in EA SPORTS PGA TOUR that make it the uncontested king of Golf. The question shouldn't be are you getting this game, but when. A few slight blemishes within the game do, exist but now that the bar has been set, all of us Golfing fans are eager to see where the future goes with this sport's representation in video games. Congratulations to EA Tiburon for creating the best Golf experience any gamer could ever play.

With impeccable Lovecraftian vibes and a sinister story underlying the simple fishing game I thought it was, DREDGE was a masterclass on worldbuilding, suspense and fear - without gore and violence. DREDGE never really strays from what makes it great. It’s a tight indie title that knows what it is and executes it to perfection. I’ve never played anything like it before and I am beyond thankful that I was able to review this gem. DREDGE It’s definitely one of the best games I’ve played this year, maybe even the best. I’d even hazard to say it’s quite the catch.

ACL Pro Cornhole certainly looks and sounds like a match of Cornhole and has certainly recreated the sport, but getting consistently demolished by the near perfect CPU every single match only stays entertaining for so long. While it’s hard to recommend outside of the diehard Cornhole fans, those that enjoy the niche sport will surely find some entertainment here, even if the game is trying to constantly setup blockers to prevent you winning.

Although my experience wasn’t very broad in terms of my knowledge in multiplayer shooters, I will recommend Deceive Inc based on the fact that any skill level can play. If you enjoy titles like Overwatch and Apex Legends, they will feel at home playing Deceive Inc and still have a great time. Even I could enjoy myself and get in on the action. I had a pleasant time with Deceive Inc and I’m looking forward to the next time I can play.

At the end of the day, Resident Evil 4 Remake is a really good return of a classic. It looks better, plays better (especially since Leon can move while he aims and shoots now), and features some appreciated changes. However, it still feels somewhat dated, and doesn’t feel as polished as the Dead Space Remake that came before it. I also question some of the developers’ decisions that made it harder/cheaper and more frustrating early on.

While not overly difficult until the later chase section and boss fights, there’s just the right amount of challenge. Your first playthrough will probably take around six hours or so, more if you want to find every secret. While it didn’t grip me as much as I expected, it certainly has charm to it and definitely worth the play if you’ve been craving a new Metroidvania to check out.

I played through the story three times before writing this and will play a few more to see additional details for sure. If you only play through once, you are shorting yourself from finding out more of the world of Petria. Road 96 was one of my favourite indie games of last year as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, and although Mile 0 doesn’t hit me in the same way (I think that is often the case with prequels), it’s a solid game and brought new elements and stories to a world I already loved. It’s clear that DigixArt loves this world and the characters, and I hope we will see more of them in the future.

Priced at under ten bucks, it’s hard to not find some nostalgic enjoyment within, even if the knockoff games aren’t quite the exact classic games you remember playing decades ago. While the story is a very brief jaunt, you’ll no doubt want to come back now and then for one or two of your favorites, though I wish every game had the Leaderboards to entice more plays and virtual quarters.

Pirates Outlaws is the first roguelike game that I’ve played where I wanted to keep playing it even after covering enough to write a review. In fact, this review took a few days longer than anticipated because I kept wanting to check a few more things out in game before committing to the words. I really enjoyed my time with it and think I will spend a lot more time playing it in the future. It’s worth setting sail and discovering the bounty to be had in Pirates Outlaws.

SimAirport isn’t easy by any means. The learning curve is almost a sheer cliff, though that’s more due to the terrible controls of porting from its PC origins. With better controls I probably wouldn’t have had as many frustrations, but even hours in I was still struggling and constantly having to remind myself which buttons to use in different menus. The $25.99 CAD price point may deter some if you were judging solely based on its screenshots, but there’s an immensely deep management sim underneath if you can spend the time to figure it out how to best develop your dream airport, down to the smallest details, just be aware of the frustrating controls.

As for my recommendation, if you’re looking for just Catan as a barebones game, go for it. But, if you’re looking for an re-energized version of Catan and you’re looking for any shred of challenge beyond the base game, Catan: Console Version is not for you. I’m going to set sails on the open sea and find another island to embark on for now.

Fight’N Rage may initially look like any other Beat’em Up brawler out there if you judged it solely on some screenshots, but for a solo developer, it’s quite impressive. That said, Fight’N Rage is incredibly challenging and I question some of the design choices for being unlockables instead of default options. No online co-op is a bummer, but if you have friends and family to play with on the same couch there’s some fun to be had. I missed Fight’N Rage the first time, but this is the best version to check it out if you've never heard of it before like myself.

I did quite enjoy the narrative from its opening moments and was compelling me to continue to move forward, even if combat could be a bit challenging and save points sometimes a bit too far stretched out, causing frustration when I had to replay a good half hour all over again. Combat does get repetitive and tiresome over time, but as an overall package, Scars Above feels like a much larger story wrapped in a AA package.

Blood Bowl 3 was lackluster at launch due to many problems, but the core gameplay was solid and could be fun once you got past all of the issues that will hopefully be fixed shortly in the future with some patches. Most of the aforementioned issues can be patched later, but the version I played on felt like it did not change much from its prequel.

I find myself coming to the same conclusion as last year’s entry, hence basically the same score; if you have the previous year’s game, there’s really not much here to warrant a repurchase. Sure the diehard fans of the sport will enjoy all the 2022 rider and arena updates, but if online play doesn’t interest you, there’s a lot of repetitiveness and really not all that much new this year to excite everyone else.