Halo Infinite feels like a big step forward for the franchise, a slick shift into the open world arena that manages to strike a fine balance between the traditional narrative-driven Halo of old and all-new levels of freedom and emergent gameplay.
Battlefield 2042 is a bit of a mixed bag as things stand right now with the excellent Portal mode overshadowing almost everything else on offer. The futuristic large-scale battles are spectacular stuff, for sure, but it's all a little disjointed so far with the all-new Specialists underlining a feeling that solo soldiering has somehow taken precedent over the series' signature teamwork. There's still plenty to enjoy in this meaty package for early adopters, and we've no doubt DICE will be busy improving things as the months roll on but, outside of a mode that celebrates the series' history more than it embraces what's new in this latest entry, what's here struggles to feel absolutely essential at launch.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition on Switch delivers three of gaming's true greats in a shockingly rough package that manages to suck pretty much all of the fun out of Rockstar's stellar crime epics. This is a poor port, a shoddy, stuttery, low resolution mess full of bugs, glitches, audio problems and more besides. If can grab this one on any other platform, we'd advise you do so or, at the very least, hold off until it's been patched and hopefully improved in the future. As things stand, this is a very, very long way from 'definitive' - this isn't the way we want to remember these games.
Just Dance 2022 is okay. It's more of the same with some cool new tracks, a slick and smooth experience overall that plays it safe and works just fine as a result. However, it also constantly pushes its subscription service and ends up feeling a little convoluted and tacky as it spends more time flogging tracks you don't own over letting you enjoy the ones included with the base game. Fans of the series - or anyone who's just danced to even a single track from the series - will know exactly what they're getting here, but newcomers should be aware that they'll need to fork out more cash after buying the game in order to enjoy the full experience.
World War Z is an unremarkable zombie shooter that serves up a decent five-odd hours of action if you can find a few friends to play with. It's repetitive stuff; basic and unsurprising for the most part, but this Switch port is solid, managing to provide the full-fat experience without too much in the way of technical issues or other shortcomings. If you're in the mood for blazing through bland masses of zombies with a few friends in tow, this one's got you covered – just don't expect much more than that.
Riders Republic is a fantastic open world sports game that delivers big on massively multiplayer arcade mayhem whilst also giving solo players a ton of content to dig into. There's an enormous, breathtakingly beautiful world to explore here that delivers carefully curated tracks and events for each every one of its sports disciplines, whilst also giving you free reign to head on out and cut your own path through its seven national parks' worth of wonderful wilderness. Yes there's some painful dialogue here and there, as well some issues with bugs and crashes during this launch period, but none of that is enough to put us off getting stuck in and just enjoying the smorgasbord of arcade sports action that Ubisoft Annecy has served up.
The Crysis Remastered Trilogy arrives on Switch in a fantastic set of ports that deliver the full-fat super soldier experience with very little in the way of stutters, bugs or other technical failings. If you're picking this one up as a complete set, you've got a ton of excellent shooter action to blaze your way through in a trilogy of games that's aged remarkably well over the years and looks and plays great on Nintendo's hybrid console. Individually, however, things get a little more complicated, with the first two games easy recommendations, whilst number three is a little on the short side and feels rather threadbare without its multiplayer aspects to beef things up.
Crysis 3 Remastered stealths its way onto Switch in a fantastic port that delivers super solid gameplay and very little in the way of noticeable technical issues. However, with its mutliplayer aspects completely excised, this is now a fairly slim package that ends up being the hardest to recommend of the three Crysis titles available on Nintendo's console, especially if you're considering picking it up as a standalone title. What's here is still top-notch stuff, it's just a little too short-lived.
Crysis 2 Remastered is a super solid port of an excellent FPS that looks and plays fantastically well on Switch. Yes, you lose out on multiplayer, but there's still a generous single player campaign to get stuck into here that does a great job of funnelling you through its blockbuster setpieces whilst ensuring you get plenty of opportunity to tool around and experiment with your crazy Nanosuit powers. Crysis 2 may well be the very best entry in Crytek's franchise, and it's absolutely one of the finest shooters currently available on Nintendo's hybrid console.
Metroid Dread is a triumphant return for both Samus Aran and developer MercurySteam.
Embr has the potential to be a good time, a slapstick bit of carnage with friends that provides a decent amount of missions to blast through and plenty of unlockables and variations on modes to keep you and your party of first responders busy. However, on Switch this potential goes almost entirely unrealised as the online component of the game is a bust. Get a few Switch-owning friends to set up a match and you may find some fun here but without crossplay, and factoring in a few other gameplay irritations, this one is quite hard to recommend on Nintendo's console.
Darksiders III on Switch is a poor port of a distinctly average entry in the series. Constant technical issues make fighting and platforming more frustrating than fun, long loading times follow every death and the further along you get, the worse these issues seem to become. It's a shame as we're pretty big fans of the series in general, but if you have any other means of playing this one we'd advise you give this clunky version a miss.
RiMS Racing is a super complex motorcycle sim that provides players with a ton of depth in terms of tinkering, tuning and customising. However, once on the track, this Switch port is let down badly by performance issues that make it a frustrating, messy experience. There's definitely a market for this type of in-depth motorbike action on Nintendo's console but, in this state, it's very hard to recommend diving into this particular offering.
Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom is an excellent action-RPG that's arrived on Switch in a fantastic, feature-packed port. Evan and Roland's antics across this game's sprawling world are stuffed full of great characters, exciting combat and adventuring and a kingdom building mechanic that's a delight to get to grips with. It looks and sounds every bit as good as its predecessor and, although the story might be a little more hit-and-miss here, we were completely hooked into this one from beginning to end. This is a sumptuously crafted adventure you won't regret diving into.
NBA 2K22 is another fine entry in the franchise that continues the developer's habit of delivering satisfyingly solid ports of their basketball sims on Nintendo Switch. Yes, most of the modes don't try anything massively new - beyond MyCareer's revamped Neighbourhood setting - and the loading screens will have you pulling your hair out from time to time, but refined core gameplay and enough content to keep you playing until the end times make this one an easy recommendation for b-ball fans.
