Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 checks all the boxes of what a fighting platformer game should be. It has a wide variety of Nickelodeon characters with their unique movesets, detailed levels, and responsive controls that are easy to pick up. It's an enjoyable experience even if you only play the single-player campaign and the arcade mode. It's enough for you to get a taste of the competitive side without the need to immerse yourself in sweaty multiplayer lobbies.
Headbangers: Rhythm Royale is a fun musical take on the elimination-styled battle royale genre, and brings a host of creative mini-games that feel diverse, and make good use of its premise. While the eventual repetition does settle in, it's a fun game to play with your friends, or on stream.
Sticky Business is a great cozy store management game where you have the freedom to test out your creativity by designing your own stickers. The charming customers in-game have their own personalities and it's hard not to develop a connection with them. This is a must-have especially if you're a Twitch streamer as you can play this game to bond with your viewers.
Ravenlok is a charming fairytale voxel adventure game that features a decent variety of enemies and puzzles. Despite the lackluster storyline, it's a fairly short game that's worth playing with its simple combat mechanics easily accessible for everyone. Although Ravenlok might not appeal to players that prefer a challenge, this simple simple action-adventure title will certainly eat up your afternoon.
9 Year of Shadows is a challenging but rewarding metroidvania with some lovely pixel art, an intriguing story, excellent soundtrack, and an exciting armor system based on Greek mythos. Navigating the map can be a bit tedious, and some of the combat encounters fall into a repetitive cycle, but if you're looking for a unique metroidvania with a lot of style, 9 Years of Shadows gets a lot right.
Shoulder of Giants is a fun roguelike with tons of customization, immersive planets, and fluid melee combat. It does struggle with world-building and dialogue, and some weapons aren't as fun to use, but there's a lot of fun to be had if you're looking to spend a few hours exploring alien worlds.
One Piece Odyssey is a great JRPG with plenty of twists on the genre's tropes to engage new and veteran players alike. The presentation, voice acting, and score combine to create an authentic One Piece experience that can serve as an introduction to anyone curious about the franchise and an expansion for fans as well. The combat is fast and dynamic, and the "Dramatic Scene" mechanic keeps things fresh in almost every encounter. While some aspects are a bit unrewarding, and exploration can be stiff, the constant sense of wonder makes this the best One Piece game yet.
Impaler is one of this year’s underrated gems in the retro shooter category. The mix of old-school Doom with a hint of roguelike mechanics is a perfect recipe for gamers to hop in for a quick shooting session. I just wish they would add more content in the future, but it’s also understandable if they don’t.
Knights of Honor II: Sovereign definitely immersed me into medieval times filled with hundreds of historical kingdoms to explore and lands to conquer. The “Total War” RTS combat style didn’t really stick due to the abundance of management tasks that take priority over combat, but the game has plenty of resources, politics, and tech trees to discover. It felt good once you get used to the routines of trying to make your kingdom the best in Europe. With exceptional presentation and hours of replay value, this is an RTS you can’t miss.
Ship of Fools is one of the best sea-themed co-op roguelites that you can play in 2022 that features a ton of content. Tailor your ship according to your playstyle, strategize and beat sea creatures, discover valuable merchants, and seek the best loadout for clearing an entire run.
Thymesia is a mixed bag and simply doesn’t do enough to stand out. There are some neat ideas when it comes to how you approach combat encounters with plague weapons, but a lack of polish remains a constant obstacle in almost every facet of it. When it works, and all the systems line up, you can have a lot of fun, but that rarely happens. Despite its excellent visuals, the world feels shallow because of its linearity, and the use of annoying enemies to compensate for a lack of intricate level design makes an already difficult experience, exhausting.
Retreat To Enen is a relaxing take on the survival genre with an immersive atmosphere and captivating level design. In fact, this game looks more suited for VR rather than for normal PC gaming alone. If you’re a seasoned gamer who’s immersed in the Survival genre then it might take time for you to appreciate what Retreat to Enen has to offer but if you’re a casual gamer then this might be your cup of tea.
I wanna root for this game so that it’ll have more content in the future but at the state of this build, I can’t really see any longevity when it comes to replayability. You can get bored once you’ve collected the weapons and cleared all the bosses. It’s probably a good top-down shooter game if you want to get introduced to a less stressful version of bullet hell. There are plenty of better ones in the market and this game may still have a long way to go.
With plenty of characters to choose from, a good variety of biomes, and different combat platform mechanics, B.I.O.T.A. gives a great modern remake to retro gaming
Phantom Breaker: Omnia is a breath of fresh air in the fighting game genre. It offers tons of playstyles and lowers the entry barrier with simple core mechanics, that offer complexity for those that want to learn it. The story is a bit lacking, but the voiced dialogue is a welcome addition despite the repetitive presentation.
ELEX II reels you in an immersive chaotic planet where you try and unite different factions against a new breed of invaders. Despite its stiff combat mechanics that we’re not used to anymore because other games have set the bar in this category, it truly is a huge improvement from its predecessor. Try not to die from fall damage once your jetpack fuel runs out.
There are tons of strategies in Hero’s Hour and I feel like I barely scratched the surface. I really enjoy watching armies battle it out despite its steep learning curve at the beginning. But you’ll get the hang of it after hours of playing it. This is one of those games that I can plug in during my streams if I just want to chill and play some solo strategy. I would consider getting this for my phone, to be honest. If the devs can figure out how to port this on mobile, with the right attention, I can see it perform well in the long term.
Expeditions: Rome gives you a mix of social intrigue and hex-style turn-based strategy. Relive the glory days of Rome as a high-ranking military official. Meet companions and hire trusted legionnaires in your quest for dominance. Get immersed with tons of quests and random world map events while maintaining order in your regions and learning more about Roman culture.
Heavenly Bodies is a space ragdoll physics game that's a great couch co-op game. Put your teamwork to the test and solve simple to complex puzzles the longer you immerse yourselves in the game. Playing this solo has an added challenge and if you've mastered zero-gravity movement, then you may want to speedrun this game in the future.
Manage a band of companions and explore the vast world of Wartales. Recruit different mercenaries from different regions and create the best roster of fighters and become a well-known force to be reckoned with. Be an ambitious adventurer or a most wanted outlaw. This is an RPG sandbox game that every medieval strategist has ever dreamed of playing.