Novel and cleverly designed, Roguemance makes for a delightful, tempestuous little fling while its ideas are still fresh, but its failure to make the most of them may leave you with a spot of premature exhaustion.
All the creative problem-solving satisfaction of algorithm design with minimal nuisance coworkers. Algo Bot is a little bland and tiresome at times, but it's still far cleverer than you and I.
The Red Strings Club is a clever (and occasionally quite confronting) narrative experience that blends a compelling cocktail of ethical quandaries and social engineering, with a fresh slice of low-stress minigames. Served chilled.
A polished, well-presented skin wrapped around thoroughly unremarkable stealth fundamentals. Serial Cleaner is not an actively antagonistic experience, just draining and unrewarding.
Charming, playful, and scrappy as a sweep's stovepipe, A Hat in Time has its ups and downs, but if it can win your heart, it's well worth the ride. A modern platformer that can truly hold its own.
Over-the-top and frequently overwhelming, Ruiner might be the first cyberpunk game to give an inkling of what it'd be like to have a deluge of sensory stimuli downloaded directly into your head. A guilty pleasure, and a damn good twin-stick shooter to boot.
Greedy Guns is a relatively humdrum and uninspired - if perfectly functional - Metroidvania-style adventure that makes an admirable effort to spruce itself up with light shoot 'em up elements.
It may not consistently live up to the standards of Volition's recent pedigree, but Agents of Mayhem's cackling supervillains, destructive vigilantism and satisfying combat make for a jolly good open-world adventure nonetheless.
This revival of the miniature racer has a promising core, but poorly-handled multiplayer and a lack of replayability leave it sputtering on the starting grid. Micro Machines World Series might fulfill a night of local matches, but that's about the extent of its strengths.
Tokyo 42 offers a stylish, polished, well-presented open world that's unfortunately just not an awful lot of fun to do anything in. A few nice touches put a spark in its heart, but they can't light up the overall experience.
The Surge is a remarkably solid action-RPG that uses its premise to wedge a number of interesting design quirks into a familiar formula. Not terribly deep, but a wrench-swinging, robot-pulverizing good time nonetheless.
It falls a bit flat on some of the more traditional fronts for an open-world shooter, but The Signal From Tölva still makes for an atmospheric, absorbing trek across a strange and ancient landscape. Impressive effort.
It’s not going to win any hearts and minds any time soon, but as an open-ended stealth experience, Styx: Shards of Darkness more or less does its job without major stumbles. Less of the lip, though, please.
A fast, punishing, stylish first-person shooter with a unique character-action-style formula and nuanced combat to boot. Hardcore and rewarding, if you can get a handle on it.
Bleed 2 is a lovely little slice of modernized run and gun side-scrolling pandemonium that evokes the likes of Contra without paying needless lip service to its heritage. Good stuff.
Diluvion is a submarine adventure with lofty goals that largely falls short. Still quite a serviceable experience, but ultimately a rough and insubstantial one.
The latest 8-Bit strategy game isn't without its shortcomings, but its offer of streamlined, accessible, Starcraft-esque retro RTS combat is no less tempting than those that came before it.
For all its design missteps, Clustertruck makes a one-note experience more engaging and exhilarating than it has any right to be. A wacky 'try, die, retry' first-person-platformer with some unexpected subtleties up its sleeve.
The McDonalds ball pit of first-person shooters: disorganized, colourful, daft, and a surprisingly good time considering its limited avenues of entertainment. Shadow Warrior 2 is well worth your attention.
When it's on top of its game, Redout is a nuanced, no-nonsense anti-gravity racing experience for your inner speed demon to gorge itself on. When it's not on top of its game… well, it's still pretty good.