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Nintendo Switch Sports feels familiar, yet still remains fun after all these years, especially when played with groups of friends. Whilst the offline offering is a little bit basic, we're hopeful that what's on offer online will take advantage of the easy to play, hard to masters gameplay mechanics.
When the twin suns set on my time with LEGO Star Wars The Skywalker Saga, it was obvious to me that this production is lavished with love and worth every stud of its asking price. I've been around the block(s) with TT's games for some 15 years now, and this is without a doubt the best thing they've ever snapped together. If you're a gamer who's young or young-at-heart-container, I'd be very surprised if this didn't instantly click with you.
It's far from a best-case port, but Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition serves up a cult classic JRPG that deserves to be appreciated by everyone that hasn't had the legal means before now. The Radical Dreamers part is a very welcome bit of history given some genuine love from Square Enix, too. If you've already smashed out a Chrono Cross replay in the recent past though, you might be okay to skip this package for now.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land takes the Kirby franchise to new heights in new and interesting ways. Whilst it's not the full step forward that I was hoping for, it's still super enjoyable and excites me for what could be next in the Kirby series.
While Tiny Tina's Wonderlands doesn't offer a vastly different experience from what came before, it does venture outside of its comfort zone enough to establish its own identity. It's an excellent extension of the already great Assault On Dragon Keep, and is a worthwhile adventure for any fan of the series, with extensive build crafting, an entertaining cast of characters, and a world worth exploring.
Even though it's not the 'Expanded and Enhanced' version we were hoping for, Grand Theft Auto V on current-gen is the best way to play the game on console. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles showcase their finest traits, improving load times drastically while adding minor technical improvements that make the experience that much better.
A compelling concept and a beautifully realised world, Ghostwire: Tokyo leverages Japanese folklore and a unique combat system to provide a unique open-world experience. While some aspects of the combat feel underdeveloped and the game structure has been done-to-death, Ghostwire: Tokyo's uniqueness helps it stand well above where you'd expect it to.
Ghostrunner: Project Hel, fortunately, feels like a carbon copy of what came before it. Hel, like Jack, handles beautifully and makes traversing Dharma City a treat. And while it is brief, it's exciting to get a window into ways this team can continue to expand upon this great cyberpunk universe
Shredders, in an analogous sense, is more Session than it is Skate. It's hard to see the odd story resonating with anybody, the generously proportioned terrains are sparsely populated and, as a package, it feels feature-poor. This is all despite it feeling super confident in its controls and systems. It's a small slam from which the developer can dust themselves off, but it's far from a wipeout.
Where Beyond Light and Shadowkeep felt like foundational expansions, The Witch Queen is the fully realized, feature-rich pay off that players have been waiting for. While it's easy to see that PvP is still comparably neglected to PvE, a superbly focused campaign, an excellent raid, and reinvigorated Void subclasses are just a few of the inclusions that build The Witch Queen up as the best Destiny expansion thus far.
After some time away from the ring, Visual Concepts has re-emerged to deliver a wrestling game packing more than a few (superman) punches. WWE 2K22 is a significant step up from what has come before, and I'm hopeful this becomes the building block for future entries in the series.
Underneath cringeworthy writing and a nonsensical story, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin leverages storied Final Fantasy fanservice with a fast and deep combat system to offer up fans a celebration of the franchise like no other. While the presentation is inconsistent and the equipment system sorely lacks focus, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is great fun from beginning to end.
Triangle Strategy is pretty special. Through its challenging yet adaptive battle system it is approachable to newcomers to the genre while still offering an engaging challenge to veterans.
Chocobo GP offers up some fantastic core racing mechanics that are otherwise held back by a lacklustre offering of content. Hampered by tedious progression systems and typical microtransaction practices, Chocobo GP barely makes it past the finish line to be the best kart racer it could be.
Gran Turismo 7 is a car-lover's dream. Whether you love cars already or have just started your journey into being a car person, GT7 wants to welcome you to the community with open arms, get you up to speed and give you everything it can to help you enjoy cars in whatever ways it's able. It has a wealth of car history to share, incredible feeling driving and some of the best visuals I've seen in a driving game. There are some cars I wish were included (Mount Panorama and no Aussie V8 Supercars? Come on, mate!) and the always online requirement might be a deal breaker for some, but even with all that Gran Turismo 7 is the friendliest, most approachable driving simulation I've played with all the depth of options you'd expect for seasoned car enthusiasts.
While I enjoyed a fraction of my time exploring Martha is Dead's gorgeous Tuscan farmlands, the thing I'm most thankful for is how mercifully short the game is. The closing credits shocked me back into coherence like a bolt out of the blue to cap off what is-and I'm being generous-an interestingly imperfect experience.
While it feels like the impact of Breath of the Wild is waning as the open world genre starts to stagnate again, Elden Ring stands out as not only an achievement in FromSoftware's hall of fame, but also as an open-world RPG. Elden Ring is without a doubt, FromSoft's most ambitious undertaking yet, and like Dark Souls before it, I believe it will leave a permanent mark on both the open-world genre and the games industry in general.
Cyberpunk 2077's long-awaited next-gen console update is here, and the extended wait looks to have been worth it. The Performance Mode corrects all of the poor frame-rate issues in one fell swoop, not to mention the several thousand bug fixes that 14-months and change can bring. There's even some new stuff to discover, from the ability to purchase/rent apartments to an overhaul of enemy AI. As a reboot of sorts it's by no means perfect, but it's now a great foundation on which to deliver more Night City stories.
Horizon Forbidden West is an exceedingly clever sequel, a deep and addictive action RPG, a dense world that unfolds with an impeccable sense of pace, a visual tour de force and the masterful delivery of a promising concept.
Through neoteric ideas around what combat can be, many of which were conceived with Absolver, Sloclap has carried the classic beat 'em up into the present with Sifu. It might be brutal and unforgiving, but it never feels cheap and it's a pleasure to continually learn the complexities of kung fu while bathing in the world's surplus of flair and ferocity. So push through and persevere, because there's one hell of a game on offer here.