I can't get Fish Sticks out of my head. Not the food, but the stray cat with a squished face and stubby legs that I wrangled into my shack in Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel’s new roguelite strategy game, Mewgenics. The shop, the pub, the dentist; no matter where I go, I…
I was, like so many of my 1990s-born peers, a huge Sims girlie. I spent hundreds of hours as a teen and young adult making people I knew, characters from shows I was obsessing over, or original characters I wanted to experiment with, and diligently following their life paths and…
Warhammer 40K: Darktide is deliciously gory and grim, but a lackluster progression system and short, repetitive missions hold this Vermintide successor back
Ixion elegantly balances the dynamic play of a colony simulation with a grand, meticulously directed sci-fi narrative. Its perilous journey through a cold and dangerous universe is vivid and engrossing, although its complex routines occasionally obstruct its storytelling ambitions.
It's Dwarf Fortress as we know it, but much more approachable for both new and returning players. The new interface makes it easier to get started, but there's still a huge amount to learn and the game isn't great at teaching you. If you can give it the time and patience it requires, you'll be rewarded with one of gaming's most intricately detailed and deeply satisfying story generators.
Folkloric life sim Kynseed is like a gingerbread house with a witch inside: made up of excellent parts and unpleasant surprises. The pretty bits are delightful, but not nearly enough to hold it together.
Two final girl sprints forward and one terrified limp back, The Devil in Me is the strongest Dark Pictures to date, but still feels like Supermassive are yet to find the right balance between fun and frights, camp and terror, and interactivity and storytelling.
Probably the best Sonic has been for a while, with open zones that make for scrappy fun and incredible frustration in your hunt for the Chaos Emeralds.
Vile Monarch's post-apocalyptic city-builder puts its people first to great success but walks a fine line between providing too much or too little to do.
A thoughtful, wry and vivid exploration of future tech and its impact on humanity, Flat Eye is a gripping narrative management hybrid game from the makers of Night Call.