The first level of PowerWash Simulator 2 is cleaning the moving van that just brought you to your fancy new office. 'We're not in Kansas anymore,' say developers FuturLab, as you take in the map wall where you can select levels in an expanded PowerWash world, the open warehouse…
Neva is a beautiful platformer about nature and decay that takes Nomada Studio to the next level. The platforming and combat are imprecise enough to distract from a world of dangerous beauty - but not so much that you won't enjoy the journey.
Arranger is funny, surprising, and builds a simple movement puzzle concept into complex, layered head-scratchers. It's a very charismatic puzzle game that won't outstay its welcome.
Flock flexes your curiosity to chase down strange and wonderful little animals. It can be a little repetitive, but it's full of freedom and playfulness and is a treat after a long day being a grown up.
Galacticare is a smashing space management sim in the Bullfrog tradition, with a great implicit and explicit sense of humour. It's not super challenging, but its levels are imaginative and fun.
Crow Country puts more emphasis on puzzles than the survival part of survival horror, but it's a well-observed love letter to the genre with great attention to detail all over the place. It's somehow equal parts charming and creepy.
A lovely looking game with a sweet, restrained story, Harold Halibut is probably a too long for its own good.
A great premise with fun characters becomes a boring, empty wasteland in itself, as Sand Land makes adventures in customised tanks uninteresting and desperately repetitive.
Tales Of Kenzera has a sensitive story and is beautifully designed, with an intriguing world to explore - but some imprecision lets it down in the platforming and combat. It's still more than worth a go for players looking for something fresh.
Bore Blasters is a very well-designed destructive roguelite that takes good bits from a lot of games to create a dwarfish cathart-'em up where you explode mud and goblins
Despite some frustrations, Children Of The Sun is an intense shooter-puzzler with bags of style and originality.
Botany Manor is a beautiful, focused and entirely peaceful game that creates an oasis where you solve puzzles and marvel at the world. It's wonderful stuff.
Horizon Forbidden West on PC is a great open world adventure, with all the dino hunts you loved last time but bigger, with an engaging story that rips along
Open Roads is a well-observed, empathetic story about families and secrets, wrapped up in some lovely art and with barnstorming voice acting performances at the heart of it. It's short but bittersweet.
Last Epoch is a worthy mid-point ARPG that has fun with its fantasy time travelling world, and makes crafting and building towards percentage point increases actually rewarding. Even fun!