More than just its nostalgic visuals, Crow Country is funny, self-aware, and extremely hard to put down.
Gory and exacting, Children of the Sun mixes the highs of tactical precision and cracking a killer puzzle.
Great ideas and a storied history are mired in mediocre combat and a disappointingly unpolished delivery.
Silent Hill: The Short Message shows glimmers of the classic horror series at its best - despite the very heavy-handed metaphor, a frustrating chase sequence, and the long shadow of P.T.
Despite an uneven start and a woefully predictable story, Supernormal can offer some sincerely spooky scares.
Despite some occasional frustrations, Cookie Cutter is a gory, gorgeous, and bloody good Metroidvania.
We're still making progress through Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but so far it's been just the game you'd expect: a lush and vibrant world spread over the typical Ubisoft formula.
A shallow shooter that doesn't offer anywhere near enough bang for your ill-gotten buck.
A delightfully macabre homage, this asymettrical horror could finally threaten Dead by Daylight's crown, if you didn't spend more time fighing the servers than Leatherface himself.
Remnant 2 is an ambitious sequel stuffed with delightful - and deadly - surprises.
Amnesia: The Bunker corrects the missteps of its predecessors and adds in a sense of invention, creating a truly unsettling adventure.
The Outlast Trials is excessive and frantically enjoyable - but can occasionally tip over into frustration more than fear.
An intimite, mindful story of journalling what matters hits a few small bumps in the road.
Dead Space comparisons are impossible to avoid - but while The Callisto Protocol's missing some of the depth and tension, it makes up for it with production value and bloody-minded fun.
Simultaneously both full of heart and unapologetically in-your-face, it takes everything you loved about its predecessor whilst gently – almost invisibly – buffing the things you didn't like so much, too. What a treat.
In Scorn, a game of wonderfully horrible atmosphere and smart, hands-off puzzling is undermined by some dodgy checkpoints and wonky combat.
Grounded's charming, Honey I Shrunk the Kids premise is elevated by its uniquely welcoming approach to wonder.
Volition's Saints Row reboot won't set the world alight, but there's a punchy game here with some pleasant surprises.
Those few quibbles aren't quite enough to sully Cosmonaut's otherwise thoughtful game, though, and it sank its talons in deep enough to keep me experimenting with "just one more" event into the wee hours. It's possible some may mislabel its careful pacing as slow, and others may think its prosaic presentation boring. For me, however - whilst it's not without its flaws - Eternal Threads presents its story, characters, and mechanical systems with care and precision, weaving together an entirely captivating experience.
If it hadn't have been for that thoroughly unjust Rewind right at the end of my playthrough, The Quarry - with its stunning visuals, wonderful voice work, fabulous score, and intriguing plot line - would have been one of my favourite games of the year thus far, and one of the best horror romps for some time. As it stands, though, it's hard to feel anything but disappointment for a game that took all my time and effort and just discarded them without warning. It's one thing to kill off a character; it's another to kill off a player's enthusiasm.