Good characters, strong performances and well-engineered dual timeline storytelling are let down by pacing that’s utterly arhythmic and gameplay that’s fighting you at every step.
Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak is an excellent expansion that will please those Hunters desperate for something new.
A year from now we’re unlikely to be able to recount an incredible puzzle or ingenious solution, but Silt’s lasting impression of incredible art and perfectly pitched atmosphere will be giving us nightmares for some time.
It feels like TT knows that this is very likely its last chance to do this series justice, and it's not only done that, it's created what is the very best Lego game, and frankly, one of the best Star Wars games that has ever been made.
At times it feels like the game’s incredible art direction, music and visual style deserve a game that’s better mechanically, but when it all comes together, Ghostwire Tokyo is one of the more memorable recent games in the triple-A space, if you can ignore its gameplay stumbles.
There is no one that we would recommend Babylon’s Fall to. It’s visually dated, consistently dull and features the most average PlatinumGames combat we can remember. On paper, the concept of a game like this bathed in the studio’s signature style is an appealing one, but sadly there’s nothing about the Platinum shine that’s evident in Babylon’s Fall.
If you can suffer through the clunky menus, endless dull dialogue and 100 visits to the cafe, then there’s an excellent racing game somewhere hidden in Gran Turismo 7.
Elden Ring is a fantastic game that can still deliver the unmatched thrill of defeating a tough boss after an hours-long battle. Those who worship at the church of Souls-like will find a game that’s basically everything they ever wanted.
Horizon Forbidden West is an incredible game set in a world that we wanted to return to many hours after the credits rolled.
Dying Light 2: Stay Human feels like it lost its direction somewhere along the way. It begins as an interesting zombie game wherein the threat feels tangible, your character feels weak, and the world feels primed for a dynamic story. However, the further you get into the game, a lot of its early ideas feel sidelined for a generic zombie plot, uninspiring combat, and the absence of any kind of danger.
Pokémon Legends: Arceus feels like the result of Game Freak learning lessons for 25 years, refining the formula, and finally taking the franchise in a new, incredible, exciting direction. With its emphasis on extremely rewarding exploration, addictive catching mechanics, a fine roster of Pokémon and a genuine sense of scale that's unlike anything in the series, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is quite simply one of the greatest Pokémon games ever made.
Both Uncharted 4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy are still fantastic games that deserve a second playthrough on PlayStation 5. Naughty Dog’s first outing on the PlayStation 5 is an incredibly strong one, and only makes even more excited for what it has coming next, and what they’ll be able to do with this technology.
We can’t recommend Rainbow Six Extraction if you’re planning on playing alone, especially on PlayStation platforms where you’re expected to pay £40 for the privilege, but if your regular gaming group is bored of the game you play every night, and they all have Game Pass, Extraction will provide laughs.
Even if you’ve played God Of War on the PS4, it’s more than worth going back for another trip up the mountain.
While some of the slower elements of the original games have been fixed, and The Grand Underground makes up for the comparatively weak Pokédex, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl's new art style and a few other stumbles make this pair of games a somewhat disappointing retread of Generation 4. They're also very clearly in the shadow of Pokemon Legends: Arceus, the upcoming open-world-like Pokemon game that has fans hoping it can take the series in exciting new directions beyond 20-year-old mechanics. If the remit of these remakes was to remain faithful to the original Gen 4 pair, we wish they'd also stuck to the pixel-art aesthetic. Aside from The Grand Underground – and the connectivity with the current games in the series – there's very little reason to play Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl over your original DS copies.
Portal and Hazard Zone save 2042 from being a real low point in the series, which has swapped iconic, high octane moments for needless scale, without filling in any of that space.
If somehow, inexplicably, you can overlook all of its issues then the three games in GTA Trilogy are undisputed classics. But if you want to revisit them properly, right now you’re far better off doing so on another platform.
Like a great album you put on at the end of the day to wind down, Toem is an incredibly relaxing experience that you'll wish you could experience all over again once it's finished. It almost makes us want to start capturing photographs of the world around us, but sadly, we don’t have a duck dressed as a lighthouse keeper to show them to. If only.
At launch, Call of Duty Vanguard feels like a solid step-up from Black Ops Cold War, but falls short of the benchmark that was Modern Warfare 2019.
Age of Empires 4 is a brilliant sequel to an RTS classic that plays it safe while streamlining some of the series' more tedious mechanics.