It’s been more than 25 years since I last played a Sam & Max game and playing Sam & Max Save The World felt like it was yesterday. The graphical and audio improvements are outstanding, with the same great humour and whacky fun to be had.
Silicon Dreams is a fantastic cyberpunk interrogation simulator that takes inspiration from Blade Runner’s Voight-Kampff test, but adds much more life and emotion and tests your moral compass.
Ashwalkers is much deeper than just a walking simulator, with it’s survival elements and choices that affect the outcome of your party and the story. It really is a choose-your-own-adventure game while you manage the survival of the squad and leading them to safety.
Sanity of Morris is a decent horror puzzle adventure game with a terrific story, though it is aimed more at casual fans of the horror genre. It is a short game which suited me perfectly as a gaming dad, but may feel lacking to other hardcore horror game fans.
In Rays of the Light is another successful game from Sergey Noskov and Sometimes You with good puzzles and outstanding sounds and music creating a tense atmosphere. It is a short game but a good one to finish over a couple of nights and is worth a playthrough for puzzle game fans after a thought-provoking story.
Hot Brass is an intense top-down shooter involving SWAT operatives utilising tactics and gadgets to apprehend suspects within missions. It’s a game best played with mates as it can get quite punishing playing solo, especially if you try run-and-gun the mission. There’s an emphasis on thoughtful and tactic approaches to each mission and your patience will be rewarded with better gear and more missions unlocked.
Green Hell is one of the more difficult survival games I’ve played, but I enjoyed the learning experience with each death and the story mode is fantastic. It did get frustrating being so realistic with the sheer number of ways you can injure yourself or get violently ill. It was a bit like playing through Groundhog Day whilst learning the gameplay loop and learning crafting recipes, but it’s worth persisting and building regular save points to allow you to explore more and open up more of the story.
Whilst being a short game at just over two hours, I found it very enjoyable, relaxing, and fulfilling. Voyage is an excellent game to unwind after a busy day and I am very interested in the game’s soundtrack as most of the tracks put me into a very chilled mood as I played.
Gears 5: Hivebusters is a short an enjoyable change of pace, playing as Scorpio Squad through their origin story. It runs and looks incredible on the Xbox Series X and it’s the type of expansion I love because it adds more story to an already awesome base game.
Deleveled is not as easy as it looks, testing your patience and mental fortitude. I did struggle early on with the difficulty and it took me many attempts at some levels. It’s an interesting take on the platforming genre and you get a good sense of achievement finally nailing a difficult level and being rewarded with a gold star.
Despite being an Early Access title, Everspace 2 is amazing to play and there’s a whopping 25 hours of gameplay available to play now. There’s twelve hours of fully voice acted story which drives you forward, but it’s the free exploration of open space that is the most exciting aspect. The puzzles are cleverly designed into asteroids or derelict ships, and exploring planetary atmosphere was thrilling.
The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav is a fantastic point-and-click adventure game that does not feel at all 9-years old. I played this on the Xbox and it was a great experience, though the control mechanisms were clunky from time to time. The hand-drawn art is amazingly detailed and with the game’s music, sets the mood perfectly.
The Medium is another fantastic game from Bloober Team. Whilst not as scary and anxiety-inducing as previous games, it’s more creepy and supernatural dealing with the spirit realm. The dual realities feature is by far the best element of this game and I loved exploring both the real and spirit worlds for clues to solve puzzles and progress the story. I sometimes felt restricted with the fixed camera angles, and had an occasionally glitch in a cutscene, but overall the voice acting enhanced an awesome story that is well worth playing through.
The Touryst was a surprise hit that kept me coming back for more as I delved deeper into the puzzles and adventure. There are some frustrating sequences, particularly the more complex platform puzzles where the camera angle can be a bit of a nuisance.
Dirt 5 is an excellent racing game and is awesome fun to play with various race modes to suit all types of racers. Fans of the Colin McRae/Dirt series will sit in the drivers seat with ease, but there’s enough variety in game modes and track locations that it feels like a fresh iteration. On the Xbox Series X, the graphics are insane, however I did notice a drop in overall look and performance when I played on my original Xbox One.
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes is a decent action RPG that fans of the genre will enjoy. It has a dark souls style to it so be sure to keep an eye out for those shrines. Death isn’t to be feared but you will have to fight the monsters you just cleared, and in the later levels, this can mean a decent amount of time lost. Still, I enjoyed the progression from each zone with terrific music and I liked the art style that softened the sometimes graphic content. If you’re up for a challenge, Morbid is for you.
I really enjoyed my time playing Nine Witches: Family Disruption. The element of switching between Krakovitz’s astral perception mode and the shooting elements with Kagasawa were great additions to this style of adventure game. The puzzles were relatively logical to work out and the journal was a good feature if you do get stuck. I really enjoyed the balance of humour in the game, though I can see it wearing thin for others.
I did enjoy playing Welcome to Elk and I’m glad I made it through the whole game. By the end I really felt for the main characters and their stories depicted, even more so for the real life people who tell the stories. The ending was a nice warm way to round out the whole experience.
Bridge Constructor: The Walking Dead is an awesome addition to the Bridge Constructor series given the added feeling of survival in The Walking Dead universe.
I enjoyed Shut In and whilst it was pretty dark and brutal in parts, it was balanced with challenging puzzles and good humour. I managed to complete the game in 1 hour 11 minutes but it’s a game worth experiencing if you like puzzle games. It’s also a fascinating glimpse for me into mental struggles of life in lockdown that many around the world have no doubt experienced or even still going through.