No Man’s Sky doesn’t beat you around the head with lore. It doesn’t have the veritable library of fluff that seems prevalent in most RPGs nowadays. It lets you discover its secrets for yourself and the result is that it’s a far more rewarding game for it
It’s the sort of plot with so many layers, so many questions and so few definitive answers that it’s likely to keep you up at night
While Bon Apetit! feels more like a fan-service spin off than a real game at times, it’s actually a lot of fun… It’s light-hearted and witty with a silly side that helps to de-sexualise the more lewd content.
The Flame in the Flood successfully captures the intricacies of a better class of survival games and wraps them in a very neat, very pretty package.
Despite its age, Ys Origin is a solid dungeon-crawling RPG adventure to rival the best of current gen games.
Everything is, at once, utterly bizarre, brilliantly hilarious and incredibly profound.
If it's anything at all, Thimbleweed Park is a brave game. It's a standalone adventure with no sequel tie-ins. It's a self-contained story with interesting characters and an intriguing mystery to solve. It's unafraid to embrace its heritage and it's not afraid of modernising to improve on the old formula.
Dawn of War 3 is a well-crafted RTS that eschews some of the tired old tropes for a faster pace and a tighter experience.
Bar some buggy controls and slightly mediocre gameplay, it might have been an enjoyable blast of nostalgia… But Starfighter Origins flaunts its influences so brazenly that it's difficult, no matter how much I tell myself that it was made by a small team of indie devs, not to compare it to those giants of the genre.
I've spent hundreds of hours playing video games before now and, at the conclusion, felt good for having completed it… but it's those shorter games, games like Pinstripe, that stick out in my mind as having formed a real connection and left a lasting impression.
Circuit Breakers is incredibly good fun. It might not entirely scratch my gaming itch but if you've got a love of arcade action or you're after a pick-up-and-play game to dive into for a few minutes at a time, Circuit Breakers is absolutely the time-waster for you.
Rabi-Ribi's magic really lies in being relevant right now, as an innovative, deep and well-crafted 2D platformer complete with cutesy retro/Anime artstyle. It's incredibly good fun to play, engaging and witty, easy to pick up and almost impossible to put down.
Sure, there are a few flaws here and there but for anyone who grew up on the classics from Sierra and Lucasarts, who cut their teeth on Beneath a Steel Sky or Broken Sword, or anyone who is, just now, discovering a love of graphical adventure games, The Journey Down presents the perfect opportunity to see just how fans, like you, can take what they've learned from games they love and turn them into a shining example of what this genre can offer.
There are way worse games out there, though, and while I'd never personally recommend Hidden Dragon Legend to anyone, if you like the setting, style and the sound of it and you've got money to burn, you might as well give it a go, I guess.