Redout Space Assault feels like two games; an enjoyable arcade shooter on rails, and a free-movement space-sim with no exploration. Glitches, unbalanced difficulty, and a lack of any worthwhile story weigh down what could have been much better.
Gods Will Fall should have been so much more fun. An average action-adventure with a few roguelike elements, it’s combat is both fiddly and too simplistic to engage. Its Gods fail to inspire, and its world lacks tangible reward, while hurting the player with its high-stakes warrior loss mechanic.
Ys IX Monstrum Nox may come from an established franchise, but it treads the line of least resistance, trying to be as safe as possible. While its painfully slow narrative ends strongly, combat remains its strongest asset. It takes no risks, ending up as an almost cookie-cutter version of the previous title in a different setting.
Project Starship X is a well put together retro shmup with tons of style. It’s simple and hones its small selection of moves into well-handled and white knuckle sections of gameplay. However it’s also relatively short, and lacks any real depth unless you’re a score-chaser.
For a game about spirits, Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is pretty soulless. A by-the-numbers backtracking horror game in the vein of Clock Tower, it’s structure and content feel lacklustre and a little disappointing if you went in expecting cyberpunk themes.
Neoverse is a deck-building roguelite with some impressive systems and lots of room for intricate strategy, however its presentation, lack of modes, narrative or personality really make it feel a few cards short of a full deck.
A dream-like point-and-click story of love and grief told through memory vignettes, When The Past Was Around is memorable but when you can finish it in a few hours, it feels oh so fleeting.
The game adaptation of Orwell’s Animal Farm tells a disjointed story, without the kind of buildup and nuance that makes it a classic novel. As a game, it lacks the kind of options and menus necessary to make you feel like you’re ever in control of your farm.
Mornia is a top-down 2D pixelart world that is a gruesome joy to explore and attempt to liberate. It’s difficulty will put some off, but Morbid: The Seven Acolytes is a competent and accessible souls-like experience, that gives everyone a level playing field with its minimalist systems and simple move sets.
Timeless and strange, Katamari Damacy is as original now as it was when first released. There’s nothing else like it. REROLL is a faithful remaster, but on PS4 that means retaining a very out-of-date control scheme, and no new features, but even that can’t hold back this big ball of fun.
etris, the granddaddy of all puzzlers, has hit the dance floor in his sequined disco outfit. It’s the best you’ve ever seen him, dazzling, blinding even. He’s dancing with your friend who’s half his age, but the moves he’s rocking are old-school dad-dancing and oh so dated.
Some accomplished character work and a narrative full of heart, sits next to a deep and detailed rice-farming mechanic that will have you sinking hours in trying to get the perfect crop. However, fiddly combat and shallow platforming take their toll. If you’re anything like me, you’ll get lost in the farming, and let the other parts lie fallow.
An interesting experiment that many players will find too taxing, Untold Stories shows what unique things can be done when telling stories through the medium of gaming, but ultimately fails to deliver on its own narrative.
The Falconeer lacks an actual Falconeer protagonist to hang its adventure from and ends up impersonal and fragmented. Odd dis-incentivizing design choices seek to undermine what is an otherwise wonderful lore-filled world and some of the most fun and frenetic aerial combat this generation.
A very special point and click visual novel, Chicken Police is the perfect hard-boiled detective game you always wanted, just populated with animals. Atmospheric and funny, with some fantastic writing and voice work, Chicken Police is one of the best indie games of the year.
A satisfying platformer aimed at a younger age group, Yestermorrow is memorable for its aesthetics and inspirations. However it’s gameplay doesn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before, and fumbles what could have been more interesting uses of its Everlight and time-based premise.
It’s not just the moths that bug Remothered Broken Porcelain. It’s the fundamentally broken narrative structure, nonsensical cut-scenes, unimaginative gameplay, and tired, badly implemented mechanics. Then there’s the masses of crippling bugs. There’s no amount of patching that will fix this game.
With a muddled story that leaves much unanswered, and a series of half-baked mechanics that feel a decade out of date, it’s hard to recommend Amnesia Rebirth as a way to satisfy your scares this Halloween. You’ll more than likely want to forget all about it.
A deep cyber detective tale, with a unique take on the tools of the trade, Lucifer Within Us is special for its use of intuitive timelines and mechanics to control and manipulate every part of the mystery. Add an engrossing narrative and interesting characters, and you have a recipe for a short, but very cerebral experience.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is the perfect distillation of classic gameplay, and modern gaming demands. It is full to bursting with content, things to earn and masses of replayability. Though its difficulty may be too high for some, it’s definitely the best Crash Bandicoot has ever been and deserves its place alongside the original trilogy. A classic modernised and a modern classic.