Mick Fraser's Reviews
Ultimately, Sniper Elite VR has the goods where it counts. If you can find the right level of comfort or, perhaps, the right position, the sniping is very good.
Monster Hunter Stories 2 is a fantastic adventure filled to the brim with challenge, heart, and - most importantly - monsters.
As a tactical rogue-lite, Crying Suns feels kind of unique. It has some things in common with FTL, but really it's very much its own beast.
Red Solstice 2: Survivors is a decent game hindered by iffy AI, spiking difficulty, and a feeling of disconnect between player and game.
If you fell in love with all over again with Cloud and co. in FF7 Remake, you'll fall in love with Yuffie in Intermission.
Chivalry 2 is an excellent large-scale multiplayer game with enough humour, mission types and classes to appeal to any fan of medieval warfare.
Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection is a big, loud spectacle of a trilogy and absolutely deserves to be experienced by all fans of brutal action-adventure.
The family-friendly blasting of Earth Defence Force: World Brothers should tide over the franchise fans until the arrival of EDF 6 later in the year.
Fast-paced, loud, and unashamedly grim, Necromunda: Hired Gun is a competent, fun shooter when it all works.
Legend of Keepers is a decent dungeon manager with enjoyable if overly simple combat. It does nothing badly, but also does nothing in particular well enough to stand out.
Beautiful Desolation is an enjoyable point and click adventure in a unique world, but the slow pace and obtusiveness may put some people off.
Biomutant is a game that overreaches early, and spends the rest of its run time trying, mostly successfully, to regain its balance. It's lovely to look at and its world is a joy to explore, boots on the ground, but the combat lacks impact and precision, and technical issues mar the experience.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids presents a good 12 to 18 hours of new story and side content, with loads to get stuck into.
Hood: Outlaws & Legends is a pretty good craic with a group you know, or people who know what they're doing, but a bunch of amateurs without a mic between them may struggle.
Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition presents the original game along with all the DLC and greatly enhanced ray tracing technology.
Returnal's fluid, graceful movement and satisfying, punchy gunplay combine with a sense of exploration at once both wondrous and morbid, and a drip-fed progression system that makes you feel like you're always discovering or unlocking something new.
Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is quite simply like nothing else in the medium. If you missed it on PC, it's absolutely worth picking it up on console and investing some time and effort in its wonderfully complex world.
Demon Skin isn't a bad game, but it is ropey and certainly needed more work where the animations and menus are concerned.
Lost Words: Beyond the Page is a gorgeous, moving tale of two young girls facing an increasingly frightening world and eventually finding beauty where those less innocent might not, and that's the kind of writing that transcends mediums.
Trials of Fire is a masterful combination of several genres that manages to establish its own identity early on and build on it throughout.