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Bringing motion controls back with a bang, ARMS can feel surprisingly retro, yet it also fits in perfectly with Nintendo's modern twist on gaming and the Switch. ARMS exhibits Nintendo's flair for game design to its fullest, confidently taking a well-known genre and injecting it with colour and character to craft something that's inimitably their own.
Despite the promising names behind the title, Dark Rose Valkyrie stumbles over its own ambitions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the parts of the game that were the responsibility of the Tales series veterans, the art and the writing, were the most successful, but where other collaborations have been able to balance each party's strengths an diminish their weaknesses, that's not the case here. Rather than find collaborators who could help balance Compile's consistently lukewarm gameplay design, this joint effort substitutes Helvetica for Times New Roman instead of fixing 10 pages of typos.
The Town of Light isn't a game you play for fun. There's nothing enjoyable about the true face of mental illness nor the fear and isolation it engenders. Instead of aiming to reward players with a sense of enjoyment, LKA.it strives to help them empathise with the character of Renée and the unspeakable horrors she's forced to endure. There's a sobering, meaningful story to be witnessed and while its delivery is imperfect, The Town of Light still makes for one of the most thought-provoking games of this year.
In the end, Dirt Rally was just a glimpse of what was yet to come, with Dirt 4 bringing this long running series back with not just rallying, but more full-on wheel to wheel action alongside it. In going for a more focused style of game and a more demure attitude, it's lost some of Dirt 3's hyperactivity and fun, but with a limitless supply of new stages to send you car hurtling along, Dirt 4 is a rallying game for the ages.
Tekken 7 is a phenomenal fighting game experience and one I'd highly recommend. It's by no means perfect, as the game is not without a few technical issues online, some long loading times, and minor continuity errors, yet as far as most people will be concerned, it delivers a stunning, up-to-date fighting game experience from one of the masters of arcade fighting games. A solid return to form.
Wipeout Omega Collection pulls together some of the series' most recent highlights and uses the power of the PlayStation 4 Pro to keep the franchise on the technological bleeding edge – and it does so in spectacular fashion. This feels like far more than a tentative step towards a fully-fledged new entry, proving that as long as there's PlayStation, there should be Wipeout.
I wanted to like Lock's Quest. For a fan of strategy, RPG, and puzzles Lock's Quest could have been one of those titles that brought the three together properly. Nine years ago on the DS, it probably did it fairly well, but this port has a number of issues that could do with addressing. The camera and lack of explanation for your abilities are the most glaring ones, and once you settle into a tactical groove early on, things soon become dull. Lock's Quest is a game that had potential, but it feels squandered.
A colourful and silly VR shooting gallery, Dick Wilde is simply let down by being too difficult. Stick with it and, over time, you might start to see some progress. But those players wanting to kick back, throw on their headset, and have a shoot up in virtual reality may want to reconsider.
The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker is an extremely polished text adventure that you absolutely must experience. Its characters can invoke a deep curiosity that only tunnelling down that rabbit hole will ever satisfy, and the multiple endings and randomly selected elements help flesh a game in a genre that's usually a "one and done" affair. At only £6.99 or your regional equivalent and having very low hardware requirements, there is little excuse not to dive into the madness.
As far as debut projects go, Tokyo 42 is a great game with a fascinating sense of style and a confident swagger, let down by a handful of little things. Controlling how to shoot takes some getting used to and that sharp increase in difficulty was unwelcome to say the least, yet I had a fantastic time sneaking around and assassinating targets however I wished. A great effort.
Playing Star Trek: Bridge Crew is every Trek fan's dream, giving you the opportunity to sit on the bridge of a Federation starship. It's a great co-op game for VR, but takes a few direct hits when played with AI and when you think about the balance between roles and the mission structure. Even so, with the Trek license lending this game an awful lot of atmosphere and the paucity of must-have VR games right now, this is still a near essential buy.
Overall Fractured Worlds does have some good additions, but the core hook will have limited appeal and the performance issues unique to it badly need ironing out. ... Motörhead: Through the Ages, on the other hand, looks as if it's had more care and attention put into it.
Vanquish does have its problems, but very few of them are tied to the PC port, which incidentally makes this version the best one by default. It's B-movie nonsense at its best, with a science fiction setting, and very cool action sequences. It could definitely do with a bit more variety in enemies at times and it's a little on the short side, but it's still a great romp seven years later.
Good games make headlines and bad games will also generate column inches, the one thing you don't want you game to be is average, but sadly that is what Demon's Crystals is. It plays perfectly well and is free from problems and bugs, but it's totally forgettable without a speck of originality. At just £3.99, it's a good price for a few hours entertainment if you have some friends on the couch to play with.
While Way of the Hado feels tacked on and ultimately a pointless gimmick, this is still a great version of Street Fighter II and currently the best way to experience the classic game on today's hardware. The additions to the main game are minor at best for the astonishing price tag, with Evil Ryu and Violent Ken just being amped up clones of existing fighters, but it still plays like the classic arcade fighter. Just don't expect anything revolutionary.
Tequila Works' efforts these past few years have delivered a game that's full of beguiling charm and beauty, one that can stand up to many of the comparisons with some of the most fondly remembered games of the last decade. It doesn't always meet those high standards, but Rime has been well worth the wait.
Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 is an fantastic game, there's no doubt about that. Revelator was already an incredible fighting game, and for anyone who's yet to experience it this is an easy purchase to make. When you look at the game simply for what's new and compare price points, things start to get a little dicey. There are other additions, but they're so minor, and if you're a player only interested in the competitive scene, they don't matter to you at all. Rev 2 is an amazing all-around package, and deserves just as good a score as the last game, but as an add-on it's a bit too light for the premium price-point it's boasting.
Having opened up this review with a clear split between good and bad indie games, it is perhaps inevitable that The Last Stitch Goodnight sits squarely between these two extremes.
Even, if for some reason, you happen to take a liking towards VR Karts, it's not worth £34.99 of anyone's money and exposes the imaginary premium that studios are putting on games simply because it says VR in the title. It's such a sour point to end on, but even if it were priced accordingly, VR Karts rarely peaks above mediocrity.
Ultimately, Portal Knights aims to put RPG elements and Zelda-style combat into a Minecraft-like game. Minecraft works because everything is systemic. It's huge, but everything you can find conforms to particular conditions – diamond only appears below a certain height, sugar cane is found on sand next to water, etc. – so you know where to look. When you remove these systems, you have a Portal Knights island; the resources are all over the place, at any height, and if you can't see them, you want you need another island. It removes the incentive to explore, because there is nothing to find.