An excellent unofficial sequel to the classic Jet Set Radio games and a smart evolution and modernization of the formula to better fit modern sensitivities and to offer more variety. Sure, the story could have been better and maybe Team Reptile could have swayed farther from Jet Set Radio… but this is exactly the game fans of the franchise want and deserve.
A fun and cheap (only about 5 bucks) little top-down indie bullet heaven roguelike bonanza, but mainly because this formula doesn't need anything fancy to work and be fun. But with even consoles having far better alternatives already, I can only recommend this one to hardcore fans of the genre who already grinded the hell out of Vampire Survivors, Army of Ruin and so on.
World of Solitaire is one of the best videogame versions on modern consoles of 5 famous solitaire games, and at an inviting price around 10 bucks, it's definitely worth playing for fans of the genre. A lot of cool features extend its longevity, but perhaps allowing more customization of the rules, more actual gameplay variety and some extra quality-of-life changes would have made it a truly unmissable experience for card fans.
But ultimately, F1 23 remains a great racing game, more accessible than ever for newcomers, more authentic than ever, more customizeable, and most notably featuring the comeback of the excellent Braking Point story mode. It is by all means an iterative upgrade with not many standout features, but the unified F1 World experience and various smart changes make F1 23 a worthy addition to F1 fans’ libraries.
Chasm: The Rift is an old-school FPS that didn’t set the world on fire at the time and is quite far behind some of its contemporaries. Yet, a rather original level design style, good action, and a cool gibbing mechanic make it a worthy playthrough for hardcore “boomer shooter” fans, while casual fans should probably find one of the many, more iconic alternatives from the era.
Nostalgic gamers and people dying to play something resemblign a new 3D Mega Man are still bound to have a pretty fun time with Protodroid DeLTA, and here’s hoping that the title can be successful enough to warrant a sequel that fixes some of its shortcomings.
TrackMania (2020) is in many ways the highest point of the series so far, with more game modes, events and updates than ever. It may not be the racing game for everybody, but if you’re willing to dedicate yourself to an adrenaline-packed yet technical arcade racer for months or years to come, you’ll find a lot to love in Nadeo’s and Ubisoft’s latest racer.
LEGO 2K Drive is one of the most fun arcade racers in recent years and already one of my favourite games of 2023, and one that I really hope to see become a long-lasting franchise.
with only the limited variety of tracks that the island offers, an unimpressive and frankly unnecessary open world addition, flat graphics and rather basic game features, it’s hard to recommend the rather average experience that is TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, one that I hoped would be a bigger upgrade from RiMS Racing.
Unless you feel the desire to try every single kart racer on Xbox, you are safe to skip this one and go towards the dozens of better alternatives on the market.
Pinball FX is for the most part a sensational pinball game, and to be fair the closest competition is Zen Studios own fantastic pinball games themselves – who, for yet another installment, remain the kings of pinball in videogame form.
Mad Head Games' first foray into the cinematic third person games doesn't try to reinvent the formula, yet offers an engaging, memorable and atmospheric adventure that I can wholeheartedly recommend to any fan of the genre who's able to appreciate the game's relatively limited scope.
There is a lot in Remoteness that could have worked out well on paper, but the game’s good ideas clash with a disastrous execution where even the basic controls are nearly unusable and almost all elements of the game are severely unfinished and often straight up not working, making it near impossible to even aim and shoot at enemies.
Hogwarts Legacy borrows a lot of design choices and ideas from other open-world titles, and yet, it creates a truly unique product, unlike any title in the genre, with a true focus on world-building rather than non-stop combat encounters. It’s a game that should be experienced, even by those who aren’t Potter fans at all.
It isn’t the most complex or riveting gameplay loop, but then again the popularity of titles like Muse Dash show how simplicity and polish walk hand in hand, and now Rhythm Sprout is furtger proof of this. Recommended to all rhythm game fans looking for a more humorous take on the genre.
At its core, OddBallers is a fun game with an engaging gameplay loop and good enough variety to last for a while, but with little marketing, a seemingly nigh non-existent playerbase and some technical woes it’s hard to recommend this one just yet, unless you’re guaranteed have a group of friends to play with.
Need For Speed has found its identity, and while a few concepts require some finetuning, it’s the best episode in a long while and one of the most stylish and generally finest racers of the generation thus far.
WRC Generations upgrades the general feel of Nacon’s yearly rally experience, tweaking the physics, handling, and smartly recreating the new challenges of the hybrid cars that are racing in the real-life series this season.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II impresses, albeit without revolutionizing, with a Campaign that smacks of the saga's "best of," a Spec Ops mode that is fun but dares little, and most importantly, a multiplayer side that is damned entertaining even if it rehashes some of the series' unfortunate design choices of recent years. All this is accompanied by an increasingly stunning technical compartment. Call of Duty is alive and well, and this is definitely the best chapter in several years.
Review in Italian | Read full review
In the end, Signalis is a rather fascinating adventure with gorgeous retro visuals and excellent audio colluding with an exciting story and lore and great story to offer a world absolutely worth exploring.