You'll have an example off the top of your head, but I'm struggling to think of the last twin-stick shooter that put a big emphasis on downtime between blasting, with NPCs, a decent chunk of story, and an RPG-style upgradeable roster of characters. That's what Tower 57 rather modestly offers, all through very pleasing chunky 16-bit art.
If you want a new Lego game to sit down and play with your kids, or indeed by yourself, then this is the one you've been waiting for since 2013.
The most bizarre combination of ambition and the complete lack of it in one game. Astonishing, but flat.
Need For Speed Payback is really very terrible indeed
Given how bad it could have been – hell, was expected to be – it's quite the pleasant, sometimes harrowing, surprise.
Engare is definitely too short – more levels would have been very welcome. And it's definitely very simple. It's testament to what a smart and interesting game it is that neither of these things put me off. In fact, it's a game that just kept putting a smile on my face as I solved each level.
Gosh it's fyn. It's ytterly ridicyloys, bombarding yoy with new items like nothing else, jyst constantly asking yoy to go have some fyn. "How aboyt trying that level with this?!" Okay! "Now this!" Syre thing! And that's enoygh.
Hob is like a beautiful example of how to make a third-person action game.
A super-tricky game with a wonderfully smooth difficulty curve, and a masterclass in design when managing to offer real depth and challenge despite limiting itself to just two buttons from start to finish. You'll feel amazing when you succeed.
It's not the deepest game, but it's smart, ridiculously pretty, and has me completely hooked.
A slightly less good version of the two year old phone game. Which is still a top game, but, you know, not really something to write home about.
With Atlas Rises, it's worth returning to No Man's Sky
For whatever reason, this feels like a game that wants to reach as high and far as the games that came before it, and simply can't.
A completely wonderful Metroidvania, but at the same time, another Metroidvania.
I tried so hard to like this one, because of its immediately attractive qualities, and the huge promise of that opening phone call subterfuge puzzle. But despite eventually revisiting that idea once, it never lives up to any of the early promise. Gosh though, someone ought to make that game.
With a better, more involving path, this could have been really something. As it is, it's the glorious The Long Dark with a reason for surviving, and that definitely proves enough.
If you put up with its clumsiness, there's a tough-as-nails isometric twin-stick action-me-do (that's the one!) here to play. Just one that doesn't really stand out from the crowd.
I've not gone deep into the game, despite having given it a whole pile of my hours, because it's the sort of thing that'll take me ages to chip away at until I wonder how I ever used to be so bad at it. Which is the sign of this mishmash genre at its finest, for me. I hope for you too.
I've had such a splendid time just mellowing and wallowing in Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, not needing to care why it has such a terrible name, not being rushed along, or nagged to do anything. Sure, I now want to also play a game that rushes me along and nags me to do things, ideally with a sword to swing around, but what a wonderful piece of balance Yonder offers.
For me it felt far too derivative of Inside (it was of course in development before Inside's release, but looked awfully different), which was itself derivative of Limbo, and without the precision of either. Utterly beautiful when it remembers to be, but more irritating than fun in execution.