I can’t stress enough how close Embers is to something great here. Strayed Lights is just a few design decisions, tweaks and adjustments away from being fantastic. It’s a beautiful world you want to explore, but you just need a touch more guidance to feel less aimless. Even as someone who cares little for story in games, a little something here might help players feel more connected with the world.

If QTEs are up your alley (or you can endear ’em), 1f y0u’re a gh0st ca11 me here! is a cool little experience with great art, an interesting story to tell and multiple endings. It’ll cover an afternoon no sweat.

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.

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.

If you are curious about this game, I think you should just jump in and experience it. If for nothing else besides going through this surreal and bizarre story.

All in all, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) is, at its best, a safe and minimal upgrade over last year’s episode and, at its worst, a visibly rushed, somewhat poorly designed, and unbalanced collection of game modes. Sure, it builds upon the excellent technical and mechanical background from last year’s game, but much more worryingly: it offers a short Frankenstein monster of a hybrid campaign with much of it being essentially repurposed Warzone content; a Zombies mode that also feels like an unbalanced and unpolished rehash of things we’ve seen in said battle royale mode and last year’s DMZ; lastly, with multiplayer limiting itself to fairly superficial (if generally positive) changes, alongside merely introducing remakes of old maps.

At the end of each mission/day, it’s hard to tell how much food everyone needs, there isn’t a bar or gauge to let you know. I also ran into the issue where I couldn’t access my crafting tables and machines … half the game is crafting and building your base. If you can’t do that at the end of the day when you get supplies, what’s the point??

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.

Catie in MeowmeowLand is extremely niche: unless you are a child, a parent playing with a child, or you simply like really weird and bizarre things.

As it stands, REMEDIUM: Sentinels is a fun and cheap (only about 5 bucks) little top-down indie bullet heaven roguelike bonanza, but mainly because this formula doesn’t need anything fancy to work and be fun. But with even consoles having far better alternatives already, I can only recommend this one to hardcore fans of the genre who already grinded the hell out of Vampire Survivors, Army of Ruin and so on.

Hot Wheels Monster Trucks: Stunt Mayhem is a simple stunt game, not really a racer, as players have to do flips, donuts, smash stuff and so forth with these giant-wheeled behemoths in Hot Wheels fashion. It lacks the depth or variety of most Monster Truck games on console, and in particular the lack of any race modes is a bit disappointing, but the focus on younger audiences and a forgiving difficulty should make for a decent Hot Wheels experience, for those that seek such a game. The lack of almost any multiplayer, aside from the 2-player local play is a big bummer for the longevity of the game, but if you want an enjoyable solo romp to run through, it’s a good time.

It is a really solid platformer with a tonne of variety and stuff to do. But I want to be very clear, I don’t think this game is for the gamer who actually grew up on the Smurfs. It’s for their children, who probably don’t even know who the Smurfs are.

In conclusion, NORCO is a bit of a mixed bag. Whilst it looks and sounds stunning it is let down by a story that pushes itself so far out there that it has no way of coming back. Although already critically acclaimed this could be one of those games that is far more beloved of reviewers than the people who actually play it. Only time will tell. At least its availability on Game Pass means that it can be picked up and easily dropped if it turns out not to be your cup of tea.

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.

For all its clunky aiming, messy visuals, glitches and limited content and variety, I still wanna say I enjoyed running through the campaign on a summer evening. Bloodhound is like a cheesy Z-tier movie. You know it’s far from great, yet getting demons splattered left and right for the duration of a summer blockbuster might just be worth your time and money – if not at the full price of 10 bucks or so, maybe on a deeper discount.

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.

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.

I’m the kind of person who can sit in front of an idle game for hours, as I multitask something else like writing reviews or watching a TV show. Yet, Tap Wizard 2’s bizarre game design initially made me want to log off after a couple minutes at a time, and I really had to force myself to sit through various ascensions and countless deaths just to see if something more exciting came along. Eventually, the game evolved to a point that I could say I was having a decent amount of fun. But unless you’re a hardcore idle game fan and need a fix, you can likely this one out, as the first 10-20 hours of this game are easily the least enjoyable part of an otherwise quite okay game.

Control was a 9, and Alan Wake 2 was a 10 for me. I love Remedy’s games – normally – but FBC Firebreak seems to have lost their usual magic in a search for a wider audience. I get it, but I do not like it, and I think it hurts the title in the long run.

The big question I asked myself when it came to writing a review was this: Is this just a low-effort cash grab, or is it worthy of the fantastic show? I’m pleased to say, I feel they’ve landed firmly in the latter camp. The usually impeccably imparted ‘lesson’ each episode of the show delivers arrives here in the game exactly where it should be, heart and warmth intact.

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.

Defend the Rook is a solid roguelike-tower-defense-tactics game. It’s a unique spin on a handful of genres that I like, but it has some control and difficulty issues that hold it back.

Though Sociable Soccer 24 offers fun arcade football action (and with a lot of teams to boot), its slower speed and poor AI makes matches feel samey very quickly. This impacts the progression more than I would have liked, making climbing the ranks very uninteresting. But there’s a solid arcade game in here and I hope to see improvements made to the core gameplay overtime.

Unfortunately, for the good that Infinity Strash does for the serialised manga, it shorts itself through poor retellings of the anime episodes, simple but ultimately boring combat, and a Temple system that really doesn’t mesh well with the main campaign. But if you’re a shounen or Dragon Quest diehard, Dai’s adventures are a fun spectacle—but I think I’d rather watch the anime.

A new score and weapon mechanic compliments Contra: Operation Galuga’s fun gameplay, but they can’t cover for levels that feel poorly paced and uninteresting enemy design.

God of Rock is a unique rhythm game experience that offers a lot in the way of gameplay options and content. Online and crossplay are also present alongside a custom notetrack maker for songs that easy to use. And even if I like the idea and the aesthetics, I felt that the game doesn’t really know whether to focus on being a fighter or a rhythm game and I ultimately left the game with middling feelings.

Ultimately, Adore offers good ideas, trying to combine ARPG with monster collection, but ultimately doesn’t play them as well as I’d hoped especially as a roguelike. Still, there are a few reasons to like this game, just not enough to ‘Adore’ it.

Lifeless Moon takes on the challenge of describing the root of evil, taking to detail what the product of one’s environment is. And even though the game struggles to tell it, it’s a novel story set in the backdrop of space and time (and occasionally the pretty vista). If you can put up with weak platforming and light puzzle solving, you can knock this one out in an afternoon and have something to think about for the evening.