Blade II: The Return of Evil is a mobile born game that has been revamped and introduced to the Switch for its second instalment.
Falcon Age is a first-person adventure game developed by the small, Seattle-based studio Outerloop. Your journey begins by awaking in a prison cell on a fictitious planet, colonised by an organisation known as the Outer Ring Community (ORC). ORC has stationed robots to farm the planet for resources and uses its inhabitants for manual labour. You play as one of these inhabitants, Ara, whose days consist of monotonous material gathering under the watchful eye of the enslavers. A chance encounter with a baby falcon allows you to escape from the regime and begin your training as a falcon hunter. Fighting alongside her people, Ara plots a rebellion against ORC to reclaim the land that was once theirs.
The actual interactive component of The Grand Tour Game is really quite poor, with awful handling and dated presentation making the races and challenges vastly inferior to the segments they attempt to replace, in between clips from the show you've already seen.
Though the idea of a Warhammer 40K themed ARPG certainly seems appealing, Martyr largely fails to capitalize on this potential due to unfocused design, clumsy gameplay and an abundance of technical and performance issues, despite boasting strong audio-visual presentation.
While Sir, You Are Being Hunted is a competently made game, its British personality and enemies aren't enough to save it from bland environments, ugly visuals and an overabundance of food and weaponry.
Compared to its predecessor, Ghost Recon Breakpoint takes one step forward then tumbles down a hill.
Guiding a clan of primates through generations as they evolve certainly makes for a unique experience, and there are times when Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey comes together. But a lack of guidance on basic gameplay mechanics, as well as some clumsy controls and unsuccessfully executed ideas, make for a highly uneven game.
The twist at the core of Minit, that you play it sixty seconds at a time, is initially intriguing and engaging, but ends up clashing with the puzzle and exploration-heavy gameplay in a way that left me feeling agitated rather than charmed by this nostalgia-driven indie title.
Severe performance problems and a misguided implementation of Souls mechanics in Darksiders 3 tarnish an otherwise perfunctory, but at least occasionally enjoyable return to one of last generation's better action series.
Only saved by its incredible style and often intriguing storylines, Hotline Miami 2 is riddled with poor design choices, gameplay issues and various bugs and glitches.
Though GRIP offers up some exciting racing and vehicular combat on a really wild and creative set of tracks, a frustrating singleplayer campaign and serious technical issues with the online multiplayer make it difficult to recommend in its current state.
Mirage: Arcane Warfare has some of the most fun and exciting melee combat around, but squanders the unique mechanics on dull game modes with low player counts in a transparent effort to ape Blizzard's recent smash hit, and this ultimately works against the strengths of the gameplay to the point of bringing down the entire experience.
Kyn is a well-conceived, albeit slightly broken, party-based Action RPG that succeeds in creating interesting mission scenarios but struggles at character building and consistently enjoyable combat.
Though Frozen Synapse 2 struggles to effectively convey its new ideas, especially in the ambitious but ultimately disappointing offline campaign, the multiplayer remains a unique and engaging challenge for aspiring tacticians.
TrackMania Turbo is missing some crucial features from the past PC iterations, however the core formula of racing for times on crazy tracks is intact enough to still provide some basic fun.
Though Mafia III has a strong story, great setting and some satisfying mechanics, the mind-numbing repetition and technical issues make it a letdown compared to its predecessors.
Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault has some good ideas and atmospheric levels but the ludicrous asking price, lack of difficulty balancing and problematic AI leave this expansion out in the cold.
Dawn of War III is a surprisingly inconsistent RTS with a disappointing campaign, coming from one of the most consistent development teams in the genre. The steep initial learning curve, muscle memory and furious multitasking required to fully enjoy the game's multiplayer will likely alienate many series fans, but there are enough good ideas here that you can at least see what Relic were going for with this flawed but occasionally exciting sequel.
Sea of Thieves has provided some of my favorite gaming moments this year, but the repetitive voyages and reliance on currently infrequent player encounters to keep things interesting mean the seas are a bit shallower than you might expect in a full-price game.
Fallout 76 retains the same captivating immersion, atmosphere and organic exploration that made Fallout 4 so enjoyable thanks to an excellent open world, though you'll have to contend with a poorly implemented online component and the typical Bethesda technical hiccups and rough edges.