IGN

If your only option right now is playing Cyberpunk 2077 on either of the base console platforms, I highly suggest you don’t play at all until its many terrible performance issues are fixed. And if you’ve already bought it and had an experience similar to what I’ve described, you should absolutely get a refund if possible.

Even if Keegan, Mac, and Lahni don’t gel into quite as cohesive a team as Marcus, Kait, Del, and JD, the fun, varied fights in beautiful new island, jungle, and volcanic environments make for a tense, action-packed expansion. It’s an excellent reason to fire up Gears 5 again and see how amazing it looks and runs on a new Xbox Series X.

Its single-player campaign and Survival modes are enjoyable and offer a unique way to experience famous World War 2 battles reenacted in VR, but don't do much to distinguish themselves beyond that in terms of shooter mechanics and the bullet-sponge Nazis aren’t that much fun to shoot at.

Don't get me wrong: this one ranks highly in the pantheon, up there with Legion and Wrath of the Lich King, partly because it makes some honest and substantial attempts to reinvent the tired endgame formula. I'm just still not sure if it goes far enough to hold my interest, and subscription dollars, in between the meatier story drops in major patches.

Through small tweaks and refinements, FIFA 21 plays as well as it has done in recent memory, but lacks the relatively big features that are usually used to justify a new version of an annually released game.

It delivers a short-lived but engrossing experience through stunning art direction and an excellent voice cast, with the biggest of its minor annoyances being a slow movement speed. If a fun, but emotionally affecting adventure is what you’re searching for then Call of the Sea most definitely answers that call.

Cyberpunk 2077 kicks you into its beautiful and dazzlingly dense cityscape with few restrictions. It offers a staggering amount of choice in how to build your character, approach quests, and confront enemies, and your decisions can have a tangible and natural-feeling impact on both the world around you and the stories of the people who inhabit it.

With an unusual approach to roleplaying games that focuses on the relationship of its protagonist couple as not just the story but also its mechanics, Haven stands out from every other sci-fi adventure I’ve played. Were it not for soul-crushingly tedious rust cleaning and hillside foraging taking up so much of the campaign's runtime, Haven might've cemented itself as an all-time great RPG.

Empire of Sin's criminal management sim and turn-based tactical combat combo sounds brilliant on paper, but it completely fails to live up to its aspirations due to major imbalances and bugs.

Twin Mirror is a frustratingly uneven adventure; it feels slow-paced yet ends too quickly, it features a wide cast of characters but doesn’t give them enough depth, and it presents you with crimes to investigate without letting you play much of a role in solving them.

Immortals Fenyx Rising gives us a gorgeous world to explore, filled with mythological beasts, deities, and powers to wield. Its combat is satisfying, with plenty of choice in upgrades, while its central characters, comedic tone, and storytelling are a real highlight. Seeing Fenyx’s saga through to the end, with amusing commentary from Zeus, Prometheus, and other gods along the way, is a treat.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity offers a welcome trip back to a world I’ve clocked hundreds of hours in. Its hugely varied roster of characters, solid combat mechanics, fun progression and clever adaptation of Breath of the Wild’s vision of Hyrule is a joy to play and discover. While there are some missed characterisation opportunities, Age of Calamity is still a blast from start to finish.

If you’ve never played Marvel’s Spider-Man...what have you been doing the last two years!? But your procrastination has paid off, because the remaster is a much better way to play thanks to the PS5’s fantastic lighting effects and loading times. Even as someone who platinumed the original, it’s a treat to revisit this improved New York City.

Dat zorgt ervoor dat ik bij Trackmania in 2020 heel vaak de handdoek in de ring heb gegooid. Ik was na het oneindig vaak dezelfde track rijden gewoon een beetje zat. Ik zal af en toe de game bekijken voor nieuwe toevoegingen en hopelijk weet de community de komende tijd een hele hoop nieuwe tracks toe te voegen zodat ik een reden heb om echt terug te keren naar de game.

While I applaud the developers for daring to transform its established brawling into more tactically complex team-based battles, the grueling progression system it brings along with it means that Yakuza: Like a Dragon ultimately takes some bold steps in a new direction for the series but neglects to completely maintain its balance.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe makes an already excellent game even better and transplants it onto a console where far more people have a chance to see how good it really is. Its Side Stories and difficulty modes aren’t massive additions, but they gave me more of the already clever and fast-paced fun that made me fall in love with the original game seven years ago.

Amnesia: Rebirth beautifully tackles the battle between light and darkness, not just thematically but mechanically too. The areas where it clicks strike an excellent balance of problem solving and pure adrenaline, even if some of the later sections drag due to uninteresting puzzles and infrequent ghoul tussles.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain feels so incomplete that I'm surprised I managed to complete it at all. While Ashmann Inn is rich with suitably menacing horror movie-inspired interiors to explore, the actual encounters with its inhabitants are frustratingly clumsy and Jennifer’s moth ability is a poor substitute for the more cerebral puzzle-solving of 2018's Tormented Fathers.

Super Mario Bros. 35 is an extremely fun twist on the classic platformer and the battle royale formula with plenty to love, although it starts to lose its luster after just a few hours because repeating level 1-1 and a handful of other early levels becomes a chore.

The Walking Dead: Onslaught is just fine for a zombie-themed arcade shooter. It brings a few beloved Walking Dead characters and locations into VR, but it doesn’t offer much more substance than that.

Desalniettemin is Crusader Kings III een unieke, overweldigende ervaring, met ongekende diepgang en variatie. Als je er de nodige moeite in steekt, krijg je er een spel voor terug waar je vermoedelijk uren, maanden, zo niet jarenlang je ei kwijt kunt.

Iron Harvest zet een sterke RTS neer die vooral sferisch de juiste toon raakt. De campagnemissies zijn weliswaar traag, maar leveren voldoende variatie in zowel gameplay als verhaal om je erdoorheen te loodsen. Zelfs de skirmish-modus heeft een bepaalde aantrekkingskracht, ondanks het gebrek aan diversiteit in opties en speelstijl.

Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions is dus niet de meest diepgaande game, en de lompe, maar vermakelijke actie wordt ook nog eens geremd door de enorme hoeveelheid ellenlange dialoog in de verhaalmodi. Toch weet Captain Tsubasa een ervaring neer te zetten die we sinds de jaren ‘90 nauwelijks meer hebben gezien: die van de arcade sport games.

No Straight Roads wil veel te veel en werkt te weinig van die ideeën uit. Maar het doet het dat met zoveel enthousiasme, dat je het de game nauwelijks kwalijk kan nemen.

Al met al is Going Under een wat oppervlakkige, maar erg degelijke Roguelike. Het vergt weinig strategisch inzicht van de speler, maar daar geeft het je een boel vermakelijke, chaotische actie voor terug. Als dat alles was, zou Going Under niet boven de zee van vergelijkbare games uitkomen, maar door de presentatie, de humor en rake satire van laatkapitalistische start-up cultuur, weet het de middelmaat te ontstijgen. Het is alleen spijtig dat het zo snel voorbij is.