Well Played

• PC
• 9 / 10
• Australie

• PC
• 9 / 10
• Australie

• PS5
• 5 / 10
• Australie

Although I really wanted to see Airoheart join the upper echelon of indie ‘Zelda Clone’ experiences, its numerous issues see it fail to reach anywhere near as high. Its overworld is fun to traverse, and its several dungeons can be entertaining if you don’t fall victim to their lack of in-dungeon maps, but the story is generic and predictable and its combat and movement is mediocre at best.

• PC
• 8 / 10
• Australie

With a narrative that offers more hits than misses, New Tales From The Borderlands is a modern, gorgeous glimpse into what the nobodies of the Borderlands universe get up to on their shittiest days.

• PS5
• 5 / 10
• Australie

Gotham Knights sets itself apart from the Arkham series in all the wrong ways, leaving players with a disappointing action-RPG that’s in desperate need of refinement.

• PS5
• 8 / 10
• Australie

• PC
• 9 / 10
• Australie

• PC
• 7.5 / 10
• Australie

• PC
• 9.5 / 10
• Australie

Return to Monkey Island is a nostalgic and fun swashbuckling experience that delivers an adventure that fans of the series and genre have been waiting years for.

• PC
• 9 / 10
• Australie

• XSX/S
• 7 / 10
• Australie

• XSX/S
• 6 / 10
• Australie

• PS5
• 7 / 10
• Australie

Steelrising is a game of halves, adapting genre staples in fun and welcome ways while failing to stake much of a claim on their newly discovered grounds. Spiders have implemented some genuinely exciting changes in approachability and welcome players into an aesthetically rich and mechanically decent world. But as the writing misfires, and the world design leaves you feeling a little adrift, you can’t help but wonder if all this should have been in service of a better realised game.

• PS4
• 3.5 / 10
• Australie

There is no catharsis, nor horror, only monotony and an ironic sense of nausea that comes from starting into this abyss. Some ideas here would have drawn curious players of niche, B-tier Japanese adventures back in the PS2 days, but beyond the tight four-hour anime recap, this is truly an irredeemable adaptation.

• PC
• 10 / 10
• Australie

• PS5
• 7 / 10
• Australie

The success of Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed as both a remake and preservation of the original work’s tonal intent is to be admired in some ways. This is a visually appealing, relatively streamlined version of a game pushing twenty that reads as a love letter to fans of the original. It maintains the core thrust of the experience nicely – a sandbox full of colourful chaos and extremely silly concepts. However, in doing so it captures why games like this have aged out of the market. An overly long run of uninteresting missions and painful attempts at comedy make this one strictly for fans of the genre. A decent remake of a game I’d rather never think about again.

• PS5
• 8.5 / 10
• Australie

It’s been a great year for TMNT fans, and the Cowabunga Collection keeps that ball rolling. For those fans like me, or those coming across from Shredder’s Revenge that are curious about the past, there’s plenty here to enjoy both locally and online despite some of the included titles not exactly setting the world alight. As compilations go, Digital Eclipse again prove they are the best when it comes to delivering quality collections.

• PS5
• 8 / 10
• Australie

Soul Hackers 2 does an commendable job of presenting another solid JRPG experience, albeit one that suffers from a lack of quality and variety in areas where it could have been bolder in its execution. A sense of similarity aside, it’s still a worthwhile story to follow and fans of the franchise will find more than enough to keep them happy, even if there aren’t quite enough new and fresh ideas here to set it apart from the pack. The Persona shadow continues to hover over the rest of the Atlus stable, and it remains a high-quality ceiling to beat.