Digimon Survive is one of the best visual novels to come out so far this year, with plenty of heart and tension to carry you through to the final act. Fans looking for an engaging story with well-written and presented characters that deal with life-and-death situations will enjoy the ride, while players focused on the combat will probably find that the game comes up short. Despite its sluggish, padded start, Digimon Survive is well worth the long wait.
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is the strangest thing you'll play from Nintendo, bringing with it laughs and creativity in abundance. But even with improvements over the 3DS game, it follows a familiar structure that isn't always enthralling or hilarious.Tomodachi fans will certainly be living the dream with this new entry, but I'm not desperate to keep coming back to my island. A little more variety would've been welcome, but the customisation, and the thought of my cat being best friends with DMC's Dante, will have me peep in every so often for a little pick-me-up.
Thanks to its somewhat higher difficulty level and a wider cast of characters, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 is an extremely solid game that very slightly edges out its already excellent predecessor, and old-school Castlevania fans will absolutely love it.
If you’re looking for something to fill that post-Animal Crossing hole in your life, or are just simply a fan of the farm sim genre in general, don’t miss out on this one.
Veterans of the first game won't be expecting a technical tour-de-force, but Deadly Premonition 2 still manages to underwhelm in pure performance terms. However (and this is a big however), it's a game with real character and it's very tough to dislike, even as you stutter your way around Le Carré on your skateboard. If you've ever been intrigued by the original, we'd recommend giving this a go. It's janky and derivative, yes, but it's also irresistibly wonderful and strange, and there's no other video game quite like it.
Will Superliminal resonate with everyone as much as it did with us? Possibly not, but regardless, if you’re looking for a game in a similar vein to Portal, you’ll be right at home here.
If you’re looking for a puzzle game with a carefully considered supporting narrative, you need look no further. The Almost Gone is a game that demands your attention but never feels overly difficult or complex. Our only major issue is that once you’re done and dusted, there’s very little incentive to go back and start again.
it's really cool that a cancelled 1994 game can get a new lease of life like this, and Ultracore is a good example of its genre. The lack of a save feature, though, is a black mark against it – we can't understand why such an option wasn't included, given other modern features (twin-stick control, the switchable soundtracks) are present and correct. Still, this is solid retro action and a fascinating "what could have been" experience. Of course, in this case, "what could have been" eventually was.
Outbuddies DX tries to mix things up a bit with unique features like a playable drone partner. The problem is, it tries to be a little too clever for its own good, and its failure to effectively pull off solid fundamentals like the controls and the map system means that the gimmicks suffer as a result. There's a lot we want to love about this game, but its constant annoyances make that hard.
Urban Trial Tricky mashes together elements of the Trials series, Tony Hawks and Joe Danger resulting in a fairly decent motorbike stunt experience that's fun when you're speeding around and pulling off ridiculous tricks, but is let down by some shoddy level design and an overall lack of finesse. If there was more space to manoeuvre and environmental obstacles and general placement of objects had been more carefully considered, this could have been an absolute blast. As it stands, it's a fairly decent time in short bursts that slides into infuriation a little too often to heartily recommend.
Infini is a deeply unusual spatial puzzler with an ingenious portal mechanic. Its rough, abstract art style and psychedelic storytelling won't be for everyone - or even for most people - but it deserves to be played and savoured as a genuine attempt to do something new.
Biped is a lovely co-op game that's bursting with unique challenges and obstacles to overcome. It's fun both on your own or with a friend locally, and despite the fact there's not a tonne of meat on its bones, the game nevertheless displays a level of polish and charm that's rarely found in smaller titles such as this. Definitely one to keep an eye on if you're after a fun co-op experience, but be warned that it's more limited in scope than you might expect.
An interesting combination of kingdom management and point-and-click adventuring that doesn't always form into a cohesive whole. Yes, Your Grace has a flavour all of its own, though, and you'll genuinely come to care for the royal family at its core.
Ninjala is a good-looking and impressively tactical free-to-play arena fighter. It's currently lacking in modes and maps, there are problems with how the lacklustre opening tutorial goes about onboarding new players and the rock-paper-scissors aspect of proceedings is sure to be controversial but, overall, the game is off to a pretty strong start. We can't wait to see where GungHo takes its cast of pint-sized bubblegum protagonists in the coming months.
Blair Witch starts off strong, throwing its players into a setting that comes with some pretty terrifying baggage for anyone who's familiar with the film upon which it is based. It's got a handful of fun mechanics, including the absolute star of the show, Bullet, and its story comes on strong towards the end, injecting the final third with some real tension. However, this is also a game that plods along for the most part, making no real use of its spooky setting, instead hemming players into small areas and forcing them to partake in a string of simplistic and rather hackneyed puzzles and busywork at the expense of any real tension. Overall then, Blair Witch is something of a mixed bag; it's not the worst horror game we've played recently, but it also doesn't do enough to earn a hearty recommendation.
The word of the day here is "absorbing". Urban Flow's title isn't a misnomer; the gameplay is as smooth as the graphics and once the pieces are in place you shouldn't have any trouble getting your head around it. Accessibility has been rather masterfully welded to a relatively complex, punishing task, here. We dare say it might be difficult to think of your own ventures out into the city centre the same way again. After all, Urban Flow will quickly make you an expert at directing traffic.
