]Dordogne's beautiful scenery, comforting gameplay, and heartfelt story make it just as much a piece of summer art as it is a game. There are the occasional technical issues that affect visuals, but it's nothing that will impact the best parts of the gameplay for most players.
While Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow might lure players in with its cute designs and promise of Little Nightmares-like gameplay, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. The gameplay itself is frustrating, often leading to unnecessary and pointless deaths, with no real understanding of how to do better the next time. On top of a myriad of other bugs, it would be hard to recommend this game, unfortunately.
Diablo IV is the monumentally fun game that such an iconic series deserves while still being approachable for new players to enjoy. The gameplay relies a lot on the grind, but you’re almost always rewarded with something of equal quality to the effort you put in. The story would get stale if you had to play through it each time, admittedly, but you can skip it for any additional characters once you beat it once.
Fictiorama Studios has managed to do it again with Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099, an addicting big brother desktop simulator where players will decide the fate of their Primates. While it might not be a perfect sequel, there’s enough evolution and interesting new content that fans or new players alike will find it plenty enjoyable.
From the beginning, Tartarus Key engulfs the player in a Saw-like mystery where they’re responsible for the lives of a group of misfits. The puzzles are easy enough to figure out thanks to their escape room simplicity, but some will still have to take time to figure out each step. While it’s not the most revolutionary puzzle game, the low poly aesthetic and fulfilling puzzles make it an enjoyable one.
While LotR: Gollum seems to get all the important names and locations right, the feel and look of the Middle-Earth that many have come to expect isn’t there. The few short entertaining moments aren’t going to be enough to keep anyone’s interest beyond the first hour, with much of the game’s activities after that feeling like an ever-increasing chore.
While Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun might be one of the more visually impressive retro shooters in a long time, it also provided me with plenty of frustration during my playtime. The monsters, guts, and gore make for exciting gameplay, but it feels like Auroch Digital is trying to milk it for all that it’s worth at times. Boltgun is a natural successor to retro 90s shooters, for better or worse.
Miasma Chronicles is a pretty interesting strategy adventure, even if it doesn’t try anything exceptionally revolutionary. It’s a great entry in a genre filled with XCOM clones and has a world faced with a threat that is genuinely interesting to learn about. It also adds the benefit of free exploration, even if the world you find yourself looking around in falls a little flat in representation.
Tin Hearts is a great game that puzzle fans are sure to fall in love with thanks to the easy-to-understand but hard-to-master gameplay. While it may be slow, it often picks up when you least expect it to provide an expanded world. Rogue Son clearly put its heart into this title, with countless moments feeling like they were pulled from a fairy tale.
While Tears of the Kingdom suffers from noticeably more visual bugs and dropped framerate than its predecessor, this can largely be attributed to the sheer size of the world. As with BOTW, players will be comparing every game to this for the next five years, at least. It’s one of those things that you can’t understand unless you play for yourself and it’s wise to go in as fresh as possible.
In a world filled with 2D rogue-lites competing for our attention, Death or Treat isn’t able to stand up to the competition. There seems to be a myriad of visual and technical bugs that are keeping this game from reaching its full potential, but even that seems to be only half of what it could be. It’s not a bad game, but players should likely wait until it’s fixed and goes on a discount before they decide to purchase.
Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is one of the best visual novels that I’ve played in a long time. It draws you in at the beginning, feeding you the vaguest pieces of the overarching story to keep you interested before opening to a wide-ranging mystery. While the pacing can be a bit slow at times, it’s worth putting up with to understand what’s really happening in this small Tokyo ward.
Throughout your time in The Last Case of Benedict Fox, players will be confused, intrigued, frustrated, and rewarded for the effort that they put in. While the combat isn’t the best in the show, the exploration and mystery-solving aspects will likely be enough to keep players coming back for more. It will be really exciting to see the theories and community that build around what has the makings to be a cult classic.
In a world where the latest half-baked Pokémon has taken up most of the bandwidth for a creature-catching game in people’s lives, Cassette Beasts is a feast. Players are bound to spend countless hours in the game as they come to understand what a fresh perspective using current-gen tech is able to accomplish in a genre that has been more or less stagnant for decades.
While God of Rock has a cast of unique characters and some amazing tracks to keep the rhythm to, the inability to see the actual fighting makes it hard to recommend as a whole product. That’s a shame because the concept is genuinely interesting and the fighting on the beat looks really cool in the few instances where you get to see it.
Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist is the natural evolution of the first game, introducing players to a new location filled with quirky townspeople with varying tastes. Throughout the game, players will come to understand their own creativity as they approach each new opportunity. While there are issues Flamebait needs to overcome, the final product is something that amateur and professional artists alike can enjoy.
While Innchanted doesn’t manage to do anything revolutionary, it does play with some fun concepts while evolving on Overcooked’s style. This game will likely be enjoyed the most by those who can play with friends as it’s a really good time when you get everything right. The game encourages the player to reach better milestones, but it may not engage the player long enough to reach those benchmarks.
Deceive Inc. is a great title that allows players to put their stealth and sleuthing abilities to the test in ways that feel really rewarding. While there are a number of bugs in the game right now and it’s still missing some major features, it will be interesting to see if and how this game is able to evolve as we get further out from the release date.
Overall, Escape from the Red Planet is a really enjoyable arcade tower-defense game that’s joy comes from the simplicity of the gameplay. While the controls aren’t perfect, there’s still a lot of fun to be had eliminating Martian bugs as long as you’re careful. The gameplay loop provides enough challenge and requires enough strategy that fans of this genre are likely to find hours of fun in this title from Frosty Pop.
Hotel Renovator is more than just another addition to the simulator genre, elevating what it means to create a property renovation game. No matter how you play, there’s a lot of satisfaction that will come as a result of seeing a room you created fully come together. While it has occasional issues with textures and NPCs, anyone who enjoys a good home makeover will have a lot of fun in this game.