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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Insurmountable is much more engaging and in-depth than at first glance with a good balance between challenge and the excitement of exploration. The tile-based terrain navigation gives you various options as you climb higher, and the allure of the next event challenges your thought process.
Base One is an enjoyable space base building game with great ship interior detail, a decent story and good challenging gameplay. Without a multiplayer component, custom games will extend the gameplay beyond completed the campaign free of mission objective shackles. It’s well worth the purchase price though and I’m looking forward to the first DLC.
King of Seas is a fantastic isometric pirate action game with a good story and plenty of loot to plunder. It’s great for short bursts or long loot hauls as I worked towards the next best ship.
I had a lot of fun playing Paw Patrol Mighty Pups: Save Adventure Bay co-op with my 4-year old daughter. This is a great game for parents to play with their kids, and one safe enough for them to play on their own once they’re able.
Imagine Earth is a well-designed sci-fi strategy sim that is suited for novices and veterans of the genre. The excellent graphical representation of the planet and resources immediately caught my eye, and the tutorial planet and story missions progressed the complexities of the game without overwhelming me.
The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom is a lot of good light-hearted fun and another great game for young gamers over eight. Even this almost 40 year old gamer got right into it and couldn’t put the controller down. It’s a decent challenge for the target age group and the content is balanced with great cartoon graphics and humourous story elements. It has all the hallmarks for an aRPG with 4-player couch co-op and lots of collectibles and upgrades to extend your playtime.
Red Solstice 2: Survivors hits all the marks of a good sequel with vastly improved graphics and gameplay elements, gritty atmosphere and intense battles requiring thoughtful tactics.
Beautiful Desolation is a decent isometric game with outstanding voice acting featuring South African dialects and slang, amazing environment art and a gripping story. It will not be for everyone and is more of a slow burn story progression which suits me just fine as a gaming dad with limited time.
I didn’t expect to like Jupiter Hell as much as I did with a good mix of nostalgia and fun, yet challenging gun-play. Being a roguelike with permadeath, planning your moves was key and I enjoyed exploring the procedurally generated levels, clearing as much as I could before eventually being overwhelmed. The permadeath was an opportunity to learn for the next run and it’s a game I can come back to with alternate modes to change up the gameplay.
Song of Horror is a decent horror game with enough scares to make me a jump a number of times, and should satisfy most horror game fans. There’s no combat in the game but be aware of permadeath. The option can be turned off, however this added some extra tension to the game making you care about your character(s).
Lawn Mowing Simulator turns the mundane everyday task of mowing lawns into a relaxing, zen-like experience that I can play for hours.
Paw Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls is another enjoyable game in the Paw Patrol universe for all ages. There are however some niggling issues such as long load times on Xbox One and missing interaction icons in main missions.
Golf Club: Wasteland is a fantastic golf game with an amazing sound track, but geez did it tilt me at times. It’s easy to chill out and play with a good level of challenging pars for the 35 holes across the game. However the controls are frustratingly inconsistent, especially on console.
Dice Legacy is a fun take on the city-builder genre with dice as your workers, though it did take me several hours to get my head around all the main mechanics and research better build/research orders.
Sheltered 2 is a fantastic survival management game with good crafting and resource expeditions. Combat was of lesser quality but still interesting enough, though it wasn’t my focus if I could avoid it.