Crime Boss: Rockay City is an overly ambitious air ball on all fronts, from its sloppy moment-to-moment gameplay to its largely abysmal voice acting – the worst of which sound like single takes spliced in with mistakes intact. There’s an earnestness with which Crime Boss has been put together that I do admire – as a kind of direct-to-VHS knockoff of Payday on a promising ’90s backdrop – and there is an inescapable novelty in seeing these de-aged Hollywood stars steering the story here. Unfortunately, the hokey charm on display is nowhere near strong enough to offset the repetitive and regularly frustrating mission design, its roguelike single-player rapidly becomes a total chore, and its co-op juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. Sadly, Crime Boss: Rockay City’s coked-up ego has been writing cheques its budget-priced body couldn’t cash.
Rally Adventure is more conventional than last year’s outlandish Hot Wheels expansion, but fusing the open-world foundations of Forza Horizon with the arcade accessibility of Sega Rally is still a winning combination.
Atomic Heart is a highly imaginative, atompunk-inspired attempt at picking up where the likes of BioShock left off that makes missteps but definitely has the ticker to punch well above its weight.
Need for Speed Unbound hasn’t strayed very far from the fundamentals of 2019’s Heat, but its bold new animated style impresses.
With its absolute mountain of rally locations, WRC Generations is uncommonly generous package for gravel groupies, asphalt addicts, and mud-slinging maniacs alike.
The Valiant is a serviceable, squad-based RTS with a sturdy story, but it’s bogged down by backtrack-heavy battles and a bad final boss fight.
Dakar Desert Rally has a fabulous sense of scale and is capable of some great, unique racing, but it's undercut dramatically by frustrating handling, uneven performance, and some progression-killing bugs.
An unapologetically tricky ode to street skating, Session is packed with a palpable love for the sport, but bugs and unsympathetic tutorial and mission design decisions undermine its approachability.
A gorgeous and well-honed remake of one of the biggest boppers in the PlayStation pantheon, The Last of Us Part I is the best way to play – or replay – Naughty Dog's esteemed survival classic.
It isn't as surprising and novel as it was the first time around, but Forza's high-speed brand of life-sized, toy-themed stunt racing is still a riotous good time.
Part visual novel, part lightning-fast FPS platformer, Neon White's angst-ridden assassins are unbearable but its airtight level design and fantastic sense of momentum ensure its gameplay is something to celebrate.
F1 22 maintains this series' run as the most fully-featured and accessible mainstream motorsport sim on the market, but the flashy new F1 Life mode feels largely pointless.
Mixing the original GT's trendsetting format with GT Sport's stern but very successful focus on competitive online racing, Gran Turismo 7 makes a few errors but is a potent podium performance from developer Polyphony Digital.
Grid Legends is a sure step up from Grid 2019 – and its new story mode that looks all the way back to 2002's TOCA Race Driver is a cute and effective flex for a racing series with such history – but it's definitely treading water in some core areas.
Forza Horizon 5 is the result of a racing studio at the peak of its craft and the best open-world racing game available.
Cruis'n Blast is an endearingly earnest arcade racing time capsule, but it's also a very lean package that struggles to disguise its origins as a wafer-thin 2017 arcade cabinet.
Carefully detailed, highly customisable, and buoyantly uncynical, Hot Wheels Unleashed is a surprising and brilliant arcade racer.
Skatebird is a cute and original arcade skating game supported by great music, but the skating itself is crude, the objectives are boring, and the camera is a regular hassle.
Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions is easy to pick up and play but it simply doesn't have the content or the atmosphere to truly go the distance.
WRC 10 is another successful example of KT Racing's commitment to fantastic stage design and frantic, fast-paced, and occasionally unforgiving fun.