STALKER 2 is a survival shooter that nails the atmospheric horror and feeling of desolation that it sets out to achieve. You are a lone Stalker pitted against the vast Zone, and against the Zone and the way of life in this unique ecosystem, your existence or lack thereof has no impact. A common theme of the story reiterates how the Zone is both a provider and an oppressor, a cruel mistress of sorts that Stalkers have a love-hate relationship with. And that’s exactly the kind of experience you can expect going in.

Before getting started, I’m going to comment on the biggest issue this game faces, and that is performance issues. Despite playing on a 3070, I was forced to turn the game down to Low for any semblance of consistent playability. That still didn’t fix all the issues, and sometimes the game would start dying after a lengthy session or when you speak to certain NPCs or load into some areas. There’s a massive day 0 patch planned, and I hope it fixes up the major performance issues because, at its best, STALKER 2 looks drop-dead gorgeous.

As a huge Batman fan, the announcement of Batman: Arkham Shadow earlier this year came as a massive surprise. Almost a decade after the last core entry in the series (Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League not included), a return to the Batman-centric universe was certainly an appealing prospect. While I was expecting a good time with familiar themes and aesthetics, I didn’t know I was in for the best VR game I’ve ever played.

Set a short while after Batman: Arkham Origins, Shadow takes place across one week in Gotham City, but primarily Blackgate Prison. Gotham is under siege by the Rat King, an underground cult leader preparing for a ‘Day of Wrath’ to overthrow the current governing bodies and give power back to the people.

While a popular genre in the last few years, there is nothing easy about the development of a “life simulator” RPG. Stardew Valley focuses mostly on farming aspects, and Fable tries to take on a bit of everything at once. The new game by Bad Ridge, Mirthwood, is intent on mixing the two together – but promising the player quite a bit of freedom, too. Does Mirthwood accomplish this ambitious idea or does it falter and fall into a ditch? Let’s find out.

The game sees you fill in the shoes of someone thrown out of their war-torn land, ending up in the apparently quiet land of Mirthwood. There, they will have to find out what hides behind a mysterious ancestry and discover the history of the Valdin, an ancient race. It is the trite story of the “chosen one”, destined to restore balance (or not) to the land. It’s nothing we haven’t heard before and, with the narrative beats being very separated by increasingly difficult combat, they won’t be of much interest.

Mario & Luigi Brothership on Nintendo Switch

Mario & Luigi finally set sail on a home console for the first time ever, and my word is it a resounding success. The typical reaction-based combat of the series is back and more refined than ever, with the addition of unpredictable elements like Luigi Logic and some cool super moves with the new Bros. Attacks.

As the title suggests, the duo’s adventure takes them to the high seas using their hub-based ship. Wind Waker fans rejoice, as progression through the game consists of visiting islands and overcoming their unique obstacles. As with previous games in the series, the adventure doesn’t take place within the Mushroom Kingdom but rather in a disconnected land called Concordia. The islands of Concordia have been broken apart, and it’s up to the brothers and their newfound allies Connie and Snoutlet to connect them back together using their ship, ‘Shipshape’. The story behind the shadowy organization behind the island fracture surprised me, but the gameplay elements used to connect the islands back together impressed me just as much.

Movie tie-in games are something of a dying art. During the heyday of the sixth generation of consoles practically every film got a flashy video game adaption, but consistent misfires mean we rarely get to explore our favorite cinematic worlds in interactive forms in the modern era.

As such, I was quietly excited for A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. Rather than a direct movie adaption, it takes place within the first few months of the alien invasion that forms the franchise’s key complicating action. What follows over the next six hours is a taut but predictable stealth horror game, with its inspirations clearly on display, but never quite reaching those heights.

Announced during the Nintendo Direct presentation on 18th June 2024, Super Mario Party Jamboree is the third installment of the Mario Party franchise specifically made for Nintendo Switch. With the tried-and-tested Mario Party boards back on the block but with gameplay favoring that of Superstars, I was interested to see if what was new was, in fact, new enough.

First of all, the boards. It was a pleasant surprise to see how vast the boards were compared to their Super Mario Party counterparts. While this gives a lot of replay value, a ten-turn round averaging out at around ninety minutes, I can see younger players or those more used to quick playthroughs getting bored or frustrated by the time it takes to get around the board even once. However, the tiny boards of Super Mario Party are a thing of the past. With new dice, board-specific items, and different ways to keep opponents from getting the sacred Stars before you do, there is a lot to discover if you have the time to dedicate to it. Players can even go all the way up to thirty turns if they want a longer game experience, and the ability to save offline games is always helpful.

At last, New World: Aeternum arrives on console, inviting players to join the open-world RPG. Regular player numbers on PC have fallen off in recent years, so is this revamped launch on Xbox and PlayStation enough to save the game?

If you have already heard of New World, or played it on PC, you probably wonder how this differs from the original. In short, it doesn’t. The story and gameplay are basically the same; the only real change is the name. It has had a few little polish-ups here and there, with the promise of reliable and regular updates. All the base game content is the same, so for PC players New World: Aeternum will be nothing more than an update.

Until Dawn Review on PS5

Supermassive Games has carved out a niche for itself in the interactive horror movie genre, and it all started with Until Dawn. Yes, other games (like the criminally underrated ObsCure) have tried to bring the world of slasher cinema to gaming, but no game managed it quite like Until Dawn. Now, with a movie on the horizon and a sequel reportedly in the works, it might just be the perfect time to revisit the game.

Supermassive isn’t involved this time around, of course. Instead, Ballistic Moon has taken charge of development, with Sony Interactive Entertainment publishing. Don’t worry though – if you loved the original, you’ll find plenty to love here.

New horror comedy co-op game 7 Minutes In Hell is in early access, and we were lucky enough to join the fun. Players enter this hellish gameshow in a team of up to four or, if they dare, as a solo player. I played solo and in a duo to get an idea of what the experience would offer. I came out of it convinced this works better as a team game.

The basic premise is that you are a contestant in a horrific gameshow: 7 Minutes In Hell. The game thrusts you into a maze of dark rooms full of creepy creatures and deadly obstacles. Your job is to find money, pick up and use items, and avoid dying. If you get to the exit and survive, you can spend your money on helpful items for the next round. Each round becomes harder and more deadly as you progress.

Metaphor: ReFantazio Review on PC

In a generation filled to the brim with remakes, sequels, and re-imaginings of existing properties, Metaphor: ReFantazio is an odd duck.

While it may borrow mechanics and conventions from other Atlus games like the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei franchises, the game is a fresh IP at heart with a lot to prove. Its cast and world are new, and save for what it borrows from past works, there’s no existing source material that stood as proof that it could be yet another long-running AAA franchise.

Silent Hill 2 Review on PS5

Horror fans are eating well this autumn, but no game has been more anticipated than the remake of Silent Hill 2. The original isn’t just among the best survival horrors ever made, but arguably among the best games, full stop. A remake was always bound to be a tall order, so does it work?

Absolutely.

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 on PS5

With this release, there have been four spin-off releases in the Earth Defense Force franchise (not counting the 4.1 Wing Diver game). I have various problems with Insect Armageddon and Iron Rain, but World Brothers is where I felt they nailed it. While the other two skewed too far from the core concept, World Brothers perfectly captured the EDF spirit. I was excited to see how a sequel would improve on the already excellent first game, and I was happy with what I found.

If you played Earth Defense Force 6 when it was released a few months ago, there are some sizeable differences between the two. In contrast to the mainline EDF games being on the grittier side and their stories being downers, World Brothers is all color and cheer. Whereas you control one character in the normal games, you craft have a squad of four characters in WB from various classes that you can quickly swap through in missions. The other biggest difference is graphics, as World Brothers looks like it was made in Minecraft.

Finally, Zelda takes the helm as the main protagonist in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. After decades of being an NPC or relegated to spin-offs, Zelda now features as the hero in a mainline title. But does the game do her justice?

There is a reversal of roles in Echoes of Wisdom, as Zelda must now save Link and her kingdom from devastating rifts. From the outset, Zelda knows what she is capable of and is ready to fight – there is no hint of a damsel in distress. With the help of a fairy called Tri, she quickly gets to grips with her new skills. A Tri-Rod helps Zelda learn ‘Echoes’, essentially copying and pasting objects or creatures to help her through the adventure.

GreedFall 2 is a bold and ambitious project from developers Spiders that follows up on the incredibly popular GreedFall from 2019. Greedfall was a throwback to the golden age of Bioware games and fans with a love for AA titles from that generation of games found themselves with a nostalgic homage to the greats of the past like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It was not a shiny AAA title with tons of budget and polish, however, what the game did possess was a heart and a vision that resonated with over a million fans, which was amazing for a smaller indie company like Spiders.

Fast-forward to 2024 and fans have been eagerly awaiting a follow-up to the game fans always claimed suffered primarily from a lack of budget. Now that the developers had more budget and several years to cook up GreedFall 2, what are the results and what should you expect? It was a mixed bag for me as someone without much exposure to the first game. However, there’s a certain passion and charm present here from the old PS2 era of games that draws me into this strange mess of a game (Early Access) and I’m sure it will captivate many others as well.

It’s very rare that Disney is willing to get tonally dark with its marquee characters. The closest we’ve generally come in video game form is the gothic gacha game Disney Mirrorverse, and the Epic Mickey duology that released in the early 2010s. Those games were quite unlike anything we’d seen before from the House of Mouse: downcast in tone, devoid of the usual Disney color, and taking Mickey away from his upbeat cast of supporting characters.

As such, it was a nice surprise when THQ Nordic announced a next-gen remake of the first Epic Mickey game. Launching almost 15 years after its original version, Epic Mickey: Rebrush does exactly what you’d expect: modernizing the graphics, updating the controls, and adding slight quality-of-life features to make traversing the world more straightforward. There may not be enough on the new side for those who’ve played the original, but for newcomers, it’s definitely the best way to experience Epic Mickey.

Frostpunk 2 Review on PC

As my city of New London burns and the people revolt over years of conflicting policies gone awry, I’m already mulling over how I want to approach my next Frostpunk 2 run.

The last one, probably my 11th or 12th overall, went well until I hit a devastating stretch of cold seasons. Each one tore through my resources in a matter of months, and before long I was faced with day after day of complaints about scarcity and heat problems.

The Plucky Squire on PC

There is a kind of magic when reading a good book, where you find yourself transported into the worlds created by the author and wishing that the characters, setting, and the narrative could come alive right in front of your very eyes. That is precisely what you’ll get from The Plucky Squire. However, this irresistibly charming action adventure casts the storybook characters in the limelight instead of playing out from a reader’s perspective, and thus begins the page-turning journey of Jot and friends, one that proves quite hard to put down.

Like most fairytales, the story of Jot, the titular Plucky Squire himself, always ends with him on the winning side, saving the day by defeating the evil sorcerer Humgrump. But after discovering that there was an entire world outside of the storybook, the villain casts out our hero in a bid to rewrite his ending, and it will be up to players to right that wrong to ensure a happy ending.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster on PlayStation 5

Ah, Dead Rising. Has there ever been a zombie game that’s quite so much fun? Not fun in the sense that any game is fun, but fun in the sense that we all think such an apocalypse would be. Sure, realistically 90% of us would be dead in the first few days, but we all think we’d have fun doing exactly what’s done here.

Unfortunately, there are a few serious issues in the original version of Dead Rising. While it’s still a fantastic game, it’s also very much of its time. The controls are clunky by modern standards, the AI often feels like it was programmed by AI, and there are a few deeply questionable design decisions. Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster aims to modernize things, and oh boy does it succeed.

Enotria: The Last Song on PC

When talking about the fundamentals of combat, enemy design, and exploration, Enotria: The Last Song is the closest thing I’ve played to a FromSoftware-certified Soulslike. It’s a faithful recreation of the original formula from Dark Souls 1 with enough flavor and flare in its presentation to keep you entertained and engaged. Enotria: The Last Song will be an excellent albeit bumpy experience for lovers of the Souls genre, but it lacks certain aspects that hold it back from being a truly polished gem.

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that the market has been saturated with Soulslikes over the past year and many people are starting to be fatigued by it. You can only do the same thing over and over so many times before it becomes a chore. Luckily, Enotria: The Last Song does bring enough innovation and personality to stand on its own and not feel like a cheap imitation. However, some of this personality does come at a cost. 

Eight long years after the release of the original Planet Coaster, comes its sequel Planet Coaster 2. Frontier Development brings promises of player-requested features and a whole lot of fresh and exciting fun. Thanks to two hours of gameplay via an on-hands preview with the team, we have an insight into what you can expect.

Planet Coaster 2 offers something that players have been asking for since the first in this game series: water parks! Now in Planet Coaster 2, players have the option of adding pools, flumes, and lazy rivers to their parks. A park can build a coaster park with added pools and flumes, or focus on creating a water park without a rollercoaster in sight.