From the promise of the Kickstarter and the people behind it, you might have expected Yooka-Laylee to be like a great band, getting back together for a new album after a long hiatus. What we've ended up with is something that feels like a cover version – of something a bit old-fashioned, not especially relevant today, and more than a little bit flawed – but if you loved Banjo-Kazooie, then you'll probably love the cover version just as much, and that's just fine.
The Signal From Tölva looks fantastic, with an intriguing setting and some interesting ideas working together for an incredibly strong start, but the game is quickly bogged down by it's inability to escape the vortex of open world busywork. Also, it contains a lot of robots.
Rugby 18 is a solid, workmanlike first effort at what is probably the most difficult sport to translate into a playable video game. It's not as easy to pick up or as slick as FIFA, but it puts in the hard yards and, for the most part, gets the job done. As a result, Rugby 18 is probably the best rugby game in 20 years.
Horizon Chase Turbo is a slick, polished, pulsating love-letter to the arcade racing games of yesteryear. It's just a shame that in a genre known best for what felt like endless rolling roads, what's on offer here – thanks to its transition to tracks and unlock-to-progress mechanics – feels rather more repetitive in comparison.
Like the movie it's loosely based on, World War Z is in no way scary. It's not even particularly compelling as a piece of horror. But like the movie, it is a relentless piece of AA action fluff that, if played with the right group of people, makes for a riotous and frenetic – if shallow – action tower defence game.
It may be clever, scary and intriguing, but Man of Medan rarely reaches the heights of its stablemate and elder sibling, Until Dawn. Perhaps its a case of difficult second album syndrome, or more likely, it’s just too weighed down by the tropes and trappings associated with the genre. (And the sooner Supermassive ditches its penchant for fourth-wall-breaking, creepy old narrators, the better.)
Doom Eternal features all the raw, raucous action of the 2016 reboot, but for reasons we can’t comprehend, is dragged out to an interminable length. Technically solid, blistering in parts, but lacking in soul.
We're not saying that We Happy Few is all style and no substance, but have you seen how bloody stylish it is?
Other than the portability – which, without tilt aiming, feels like an opportunity wasted – there's no compelling reason to pick the Switch port of Hello Neighbor over any others. Worse still is the feeling you've already seen all the best bits, just like an all-too-revealing movie trailer, but that's an issue with Hello Neighbor on all platforms.