Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
A short, sparky and colourful 2D PICO-8 blaster about a space captain fighting fascist robots.
A short-lived yet slowburn sci-fi drama about two engineers exploring a spooky, beautifully designed Martian base that's let down by a general lack of inspiration and especially, a dissatisfying plot.
A splendid, engrossing blend of visual novel and card creation game, where the cards you create are the means of navigating dialogue and pursuing a story about outcast witches, their griefs, lusts and more destructive tendencies.
Persona 4 is a twisting tale of dreams gone rogue in a town sapped of purpose. It brings personal demons to life in gaudy but plausible ways, and uses this to rejuvenate the dog-eared framework of a town-and-dungeon fantasy RPG. Unceremonious as it is, the PC port leaves all of that peculiar magic intact. It’s just a shame that the insight and empathy on show here doesn’t extend to everybody.
This is far from the most polished remaster I’ve played, and the original was a hit-and-miss affair to begin with. Judged in terms of Platinum’s own end-of-level trophies, this earns a silver award at best.
Even though Kine does a great job of drip-feeding you its complexities, I hit a wall once I reached the main stage.
Origins handles its creative inheritance more elegantly than some open worlders, not least because unlike, say, the first game's Altair, its protagonist actually feels like he is of this realm rather than merely in it. And if the levelling and to-do list grate, the series has never offered a society and a landscape so worthy of close attention.
The measure of an open world is ultimately not the story it tells but whether you're happy to kill time within it, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance offers plenty of ways to do that, even if a lot of them will, in fact, get you slaughtered.
A couple of nifty concepts can't save this uninspired genre piece from its shortage of character or fear.
A blatantly unfinished and uninspired nostalgia project that sheds a certain, peculiar light on the immersive sim at large.
A miserable cocktail of ideas from other action-platformers and the worst parts of Rick and Morty.
Technically shambolic, obsessed with hoarding, and a waste of a once-promising society simulation.
A woeful continuation of the Blood Dragon universe that splices Trials' brilliant handling with some torturously bad subgames.
A straightforwardly accomplished zombie action-RPG that doesn't quite make the most of its Californian setting.
Blending fishing with Gothic horror and Lovecraft is a fine hook, but Dredge is too defined by simple loot-and-upgrade rhythms to reel you in.
All the confusing yet irresistible energy of early-noughties double-A gaming, marred by awful writing and a core gimmick that doesn't ignite.
While a fine piece of craft and a sumptuous reworking of the setting, EA Motive's Dead Space remake sheds a little of the 2008 game's enchantment.
An aimless-feeling revamp of 2016's best multiplayer game, slightly coarsened by free-to-play grinding.
An exhilarating, fluid, incredibly broken mage-'em-up set in tortured procedural worlds.
A bold, atmospheric yet dissatisfying ensemble RPG shooter, full of untapped promise.