Wolfenstein II: The New Order is almost great but is held back by a number of issues. A few design choices Machine Games made far too often took me out of the game and frustrated me to no end. For such a great feeling game, the lack of damage indicators to and from enemies made the game feel off far too many times. An outdated health system forced me to play the game differently than I wanted to. Instead of the clear intent at fast paced chaotic action the game does so well, I was too often hiding behind cover, scouring for health packs, and dying in seconds due to frequent difficulty spikes. Even with these issues, I still had an overall positive experience with the game due to strong story beats and chaotic moment to moment action. Wolfenstein II is a game I would recommend to anyone but is a game that may leave you feeling a bit frustrated in the end.

Make no mistake, I had fun playing DRAGON QUEST III. I appreciate what it’s done and brought to the table. But over the course of its runtime, I found myself losing interest thanks to a bombardment of random encounters and not enough between all that. So many games have come since then (and are still coming out today!) that have been greatly influenced by this JRPG classic, bringing their own twists and turns to storytelling and battle systems. There’s a good time to be had here in the HD-2D Remake, but if you’ve never played DRAGON QUEST III before, walk in with tempered expectations and to be down a few more hours than the game really should’ve been.

The game has a lot of good things going for it. The narrative, puzzles, combat and new game mechanics make for an interesting and worthwhile experience but the extended game length is unnecessary and makes it feel like the story is being padded out to breaking point.

TUNIC is both an incredible and incredibly frustrating title. The combat lets down what otherwise is a masterpiece.

If you want to play games that respect your gaming time this is probably not for you. This game has a lot going for it but at the same time contains many things that diminish its playability.

Signalis is a rather fascinating adventure with gorgeous retro visuals and excellent audio colluding with an exciting story and lore and great story to offer a world absolutely worth exploring. It’s therefore also a huge shame that it’s let down by repetitive and annoying puzzles that have the player run back and forth in identical corridors, a painfully limited inventory and an unimpressive combat model. Fans of old school horror games and space sci-fi should still find Signalis an interesting experience, and those subscribed to Game Pass can try it day one on the service.

Magical Delicacy is a beautiful albeit tedious 2D Metroidvania. It’s fun is hampered by clunky platforming and resource management that get in the way of what I want to be—a witch that can cook, not a scavenger.

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is an odd return to what has been a mostly mediocre series. It fixes multiple issues, mainly control-wise from the past titles, without adding much else. It isn’t great to look at, and while it can be fun to play, its poor balance as you progress kills any joy to be found after not too long.

For fans of the series and its world, I think they’ll definitely find yet another fun, physics-based adventure here.

I think HYPERCHARGE Unboxed’s biggest strength has been its marketing over the years. They’re not going for some live service title that is your forever game. The base game is $30 and if you have friends to play with you’ll get a week or two of fun out of the campaign as you try to unlock everything. It’s never bad, it’s never great, it’s fine.

Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a mostly competent remake of an original that needed an update. The combat and upgrade changes are welcome, though those in the ending and its attempt to justify the expansion are not. If you’re a longtime fan of the series, there may be enough here to drive you mad. If you’re a lesser fan like me or brand new to it all, there’s enough fun to be had here that it’s worth checking out.

Now mind, if you do enjoy the oppressive approach to randomness and lack of resources, Daemonhunters is a great XCOM-like with your favourite band of Marines. Even a newcomer could pick up this game pretty quickly thanks to a solid tutorial and a decent user experience. It’s a blast up until the chaos begins and that just might be a make it or break it moment for the player.

Hell Is Us is a game of two tales. One of a gripping world with devastating stories of humanity and lack thereof, challenging the player to truly think about their actions, understand the morbidly beautiful world around them, be able to solve intriguing puzzles and challenges without holding their hand, including the soulslike-inspired combat itself. The other tale, however, is of aimless wandering, tons of trial and error, getting stuck on some convoluted multi-level puzzle in some needlessly large and maze-like area, or dying to to some clunky combat features in some oddly designed areas. Such incredible highs with such frustrating lows are a rare sight, and your overall enjoyment of the game will largely depend on how much you tolerate the latter. I still feel like recommending Hell Is Us, to some people at least, because it is a unique experience worth digging into. Just, remember to arm yourself with a lot of patience – and maybe a guide or two.

Another Crab’s Treasure is a balls-hard Soulslike that was one of the most frustrating experiences of my reviewing career until I gave in and used its game-saving accessibility options. Once the difficulty was better balanced the game’s humor and heart were able to shine through.

What kept me going was the excellent presentation and cool beats alongside the game’s short and sweet narrative campaign. The game supports multiple languages and the typeface for each one is simply gorgeous. I personally kept it in Japanese just because it almost looked like I was reading the game off an eReader. The game has plenty of bespoke panels that fly in and out effortlessly. If you are a fan of manga or manhwa and are curious about Asian stories (and in particular, those about countries under Japanese rule during the late 1800s), I can easily recommend this game. This is one of those few times I’ll take style over substance. I look forward to seeing what else this developer will come up with.

The Pathless has a nice visual design and cleverly designed puzzles to solve. The movement mechanic is different but may not be to everyone’s taste and could even be off-putting for some. My main issue is that once gameplay has been established in the first and second sections it is pretty much repeated for the remainder of the game. I am sure that there are people out there (completionists especially) who will love this game as it is, but I cannot help but feel that a bit more inventiveness and a less cliché story would have made it much better.

PGA Tour 2K25 is a golf video game. It is neither offensive nor special in any way. It can be shockingly expensive vs. the amount of content on offer, starting at $70 and going all the way up to $120. If you haven’t played a round of videogame golf in a long time it may be worth a go if you can split the cost with some friends. Outside of that, and especially if the crashing issues are happening, it’s tough to recommend.

Return to Grace is a short but sweet narrative adventure game. The puzzles are infrequent and never frustrating, while the storytelling and voice acting do an admirable job in telling this futuristic tale about the hopes and dreams of humanity. I think it’s well worth checking out on Game Pass.

I like every part of Alien: Rogue Incursion except for the most important one, the combat. It looks amazing, sounds great, and has a solid story. I am sad to say that I found said combat, and how often it was forced upon me, to make the game tough to recommend at launch. Not only that, but this is a ‘surprise’ Part One. At $40 I hope that the full package, many patches later, can find the brilliance that’s hidden underneath this game’s faults.

I wouldn’t recommend this at full retail price. However, it’s on Game Pass for Xbox and PC, which I would recommend if you’re interested and have about 8-10 hours to kill.

Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is a good action platformer that comes together remarkably well. Another score for Inti Creates’ catalogue of fun 2D platformers.

Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood, & Teef is a hilarious, fun, and joyous game. It knows what it is, and it leans heavily into being dumb and fun.

A Little to the Left is at its absolute best when it’s focusing on finding just the right spot for everyday things, and at its worst when it’s operating on its own, chaotic-puzzle logic. Those two worlds and design choices are at odds in my opinion, and collide to unfortunately produce an uneven end result. However, I feel confident in saying any puzzle game fan will find something to like and perhaps even love here, and with it being available to try on Xbox Game Pass, it’s worth a download.

Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition is an absolutely inessential upgrade for what is quite the timeless classic. It’s still a mighty fun and deep single player RPG campaign, with a ridiculously addictive core gameplay and plenty of content to boot. But the few changes and additions barely warrant a new version, especially if you already own the previous backwards compatible Xbox 360 or PC version, with the lack of any sort of multiplayer being a bizarre omission. It’s quite the classic single player experience, but this remaster doesn’t quite change enough to become an essential buy.

Big Helmet Heroes is a charming little cooperative beat ’em up that’ll be a delight to smaller family members and parents alike. A lack of unique objectives throughout most of the stages might be a bit of a bore and visibility issues can sometimes frustrate, but there’s enough here for an amusing local coop experience.

From cute visuals to the occasional brow-furrowing object hunt, Hidden Through Time 2 is a mostly relaxing object hunting game. Lots of levels to take on that’ll keep you busy for some hours. Though the time mechanism isn’t all that and the single-looping songs might get a bit unpleasant, it shouldn’t stop you from getting a warm feeling of finding a well-hidden book.

Overall I’d argue this is probably the best Double Dragon game yet. It does just enough to modernise the franchise without straying from the path well traveled and alienating fans of the franchise. Which is a particularly tough task given the age of the series and the seemingly directionless path it has taken over the journey. The omission of online co-op is a bummer, but given the state of online co-op in scrolling beat ’em ups, I feel like this complaint loses more and more steam with every game that doesn’t include it. I feel like Rise of Dragons lays a pretty good foundation should they choose to continue making more games going forward. If the next game can tighten and speed up the combat and go back to a more conventional control scheme it could be something truly great.

Soul Hackers 2 is a solid game. It’s not the most impressive technically and you can see the budget constraints, but it tells a fascinating story with a style few can match. If you’re a fan of Dungeon Crawling JRPGs then you should check this one out.