The best adaptations feel like they exist in the world of the original, rather than trying to redo what has been done. Starship Troopers: Extermination accomplishes that. It gives you the familiar action from a new perspective. The fights herein are chaotic, seemingly-insurmountable, tactical, and satisfying. The Troopers' signature assault rifle feels as it should, the Arachnid are tough-but-not-to-tough, and building defenses feels meaningful. The biggest knock against its effort can easily be addressed as the game lives on: it is entering a crowded market without much innovation, and a relatively light plate of classes and weapons. As a package, it can be exhilarating, especially with a group of friends, big or small. [Early Access Provisional Score = 90]

While no one would call Knight Crawlers especially innovative, the game that is here is far from charmless. The game has a cozy, relaxed vibe that goes some way towards giving the game an identity of its own beyond indie roguelike number 10,000,000. All the characters, both friend and foe, are cute little fellas that look like they were made from Duplo blocks. This low-stakes, low-intensity charm is bolstered by the game's mellow combat system. Your main attack is a projectile that automatically hits the nearest enemy and only fires when you are standing still. All the enemies will chase you so you need to judiciously run away and stop often enough for your automatic projectile to land a few hits.

Despite the several issues I had with graphical glitches and needing to restart on a couple of occasions, Redfall is an enjoyable experience. The story is somewhat of a slow build, told through its visual novel style approach, but kept me wanting to find out more about how Redfall came to be in such a predicament. But it is the combat and setting that provides for the most enjoyment. The opportunity to tackle problems from literally different angles and heights allow Redfall to be played with a variety of strategies. And when you team up with several friends in co-op, a whole new way of playing the game emerges with each character providing for a different approach.

In all, Mail Time is a fun, if short, experience that can remind people what it is they love about 3D platforming without requiring a lot of investment to learn controls or plot related subjects. The only real issue from my perspective being the lack of a map. That being said that lack isn't too much of a problem compared to the tranquil and enjoyable atmosphere of this easy-going game, making Mail Time a charming delight of a game that has left this reviewer wanting quite a bit more.

Showgunners has its fair share of new ideas, and it's best when it uses them. Moving around the world to find useful rewards adds an additional, relatively low stress, layer to a solid tactics experience. Meeting new contestants and fans, who are varied, expands the world and those that live in it. Inside combat, a lot will feel familiar to tactics veterans, but fresh elements are at least complex enough to sustain a playthrough. Forgoing procedural generation in contestants, defenders, and levels limits replayability, but it also eliminates pressure. You will never lose your favorite playable contestant for good because of a miscalculation. Their worst fate is a battle restart. Once the season is over, it's hard not to imagine the next as one with a plethora of characters who could be knocked out of competition for good, but the first season is at least good enough to leave you wanting a second.

Folks, the new WWE 2K23 is such a massive yearly game enterprise that has brought the goods yet again for 2023. This is a great game franchise and Visual Concepts and 2K Sports have delivered. I hate to admit that even though I played the PC version, my game pad expertise wasn't up to par to begin with and I struggled to perform all of the many required finishes and special moves. However, as I slowly got used to the controls by using the great included tutorial that is narrated by Xavier Woods, it became easier. Being able to deliver John Cena's smashing "Attitude Adjustment" finishing move or Triple H's trademark "Pedigree" is something that every WWE game wrestler should strive to accomplish. Practice does make perfect and the same holds true for real wrestlers along with in-game make-believe ones too.

Dead Island 2 is a remarkably solid game, one that doesn't make any attempt to reinvent the wheel, but nevertheless is a more than satisfying mindless casual zombie-killing gorefest. It won't be a game held up in years to come as the go-to model for open-world zombie games but given its decade-long tenure in development hell, it's nothing short of a miracle it ever managed to crawl across the finish line as anything less than a complete mess.

Innchanted is a fun co-op game for all ages. The mechanics are simple enough for younger players but the game still provides enough of a challenge for more experienced gamers. The indigenous Australian story and characters and vibrant cartoon style visuals give the game an exciting atmosphere. Each of the new mechanics and recipes are introduced regularly so that the gameplay always feels fresh. The co-op works well whether you're playing alone or with a group of friends on the couch, with the AI being particularly proficient. With the restaurant upgrades and bonuses, costume unlocks, as well as trying to achieve the three (or four) stars on each level, Innchanted has heaps of replayability and is a must-have for fans of cute co-op games.

Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is the direct product of an excessively-rushed development cycle. It suffers from questionable narrative direction, poor visual fidelity, and generic puzzles that will entertain the player at first, but quickly become tedious over time. While this is by no means a Sherlock Holmes game at its worst, it certainly falls short of the gold standard set by Frogwares themselves with their past entries. If you're an absolute Holmes diehard, The Awakened might scratch your itch, but if you're not already hooked by the Sherlock Holmes IP, then The Awakened probably won't do anything to pique your interest.

Stranger of Paradise is a game that has a bit of a slow start and the painful edginess of Jack contrasting with the world around him can be difficult to take seriously, but if gamers can persevere through that the combat more than makes up for it, making for a very fun game - and as time passes the surreal contrast of Jack begins to make more and more sense. That being said the game is a little bit of an investment at first, but once the ball starts rolling Stranger of Paradise is a fantastic Action RPG with very engaging combat that’s all centred around a fun and compelling Job mechanic that helps gamers play the way they want as they quest to kill Chaos and bring balance back to the world.

Anyone with a passing knowledge of H. P. Lovecraft and adjacent works will immediately get the idea, but the vastness of the sea alone paints an adequate picture. You are a small fisherman, doing what he knows how to do to answer a litany of questions, and the world is big, dark, scary, and fascinating. It's a mystery worth seeing and an experience worth having, because every satisfying game mechanic shines bright even in the blackest of fog drenched seas.

Overall, Supplice is a standout game that really emphasizes the aspects that people remember of the 90's FPS, but one final bit of attention to detail that should make any fan of the genre give Supplice a closer look is the pricing. The game is $15 on Steam base price, not counting any potential bundles or deals that may be occurring at the time. This price point makes the game feel a lot easier to swallow despite the short length, relatively speaking, meaning that players itching for something along the lines of a so-called 'boomer shooter' may want to pick up Supplice.

The Great War: Western Front excels at making you feel the pressures of World War I. Sometimes that leaves the gameplay lacking, but most often it requires a level of engagement that is hard to find in a lot of other strategy games. At a certain point it can feel like massive grand strategy tactics, while simply throwing walls of men at each other on the smaller scale. Spending additional time with it, however, will yield additional tactics and technology that transform battles. It is a game clearly made in the image of its namesake, so it is no wonder that the result is a gruelling series of meat grinders that lasts for quite some time. It successfully uses that earnestness to differentiate itself from its competitors enough to make it easy to find joy in the seemingly endless war.

Ravenbound comes across as an internal playtest version of an unreleased upcoming game. The barren open-world, the clunky and bugged game mechanics, and rampant balancing issues, makes the game feel like it's not ready for Early Access, let alone the full launch it's been given. It's easy to feel sorry for the many developers who likely put their hearts into this project, but sometimes it's not just ok, but often wise, to leave a game in the development oven for just a bit longer, rather than releasing it so prematurely.

In all, Arena Renovation has a lot of potential to be a very fun game, especially once the Early Access period is over and the developers have time to make certain that everything is prepared for a full release. The act of witnessing these dilapidated sports centres being brought back to life makes for a particularly satisfying experience, the level up system lets players feel a real sense of progression, and the game provides plenty of options to furnish areas to suit your aesthetic purposes. There are still some kinks to work out, particularly in long load times and clunky feeling controls, but this reviewer feels it's safe to say that Arena Renovation is a game to keep an eye on, especially if you're a player that enjoys the more grounded 'Simulator' games!

Terra Nil is the ultimate Zen experience when it comes to city builders and the perfect escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Resident Evil 4 is an excellent remake that more than satisfactorily manages to pull in a new generation of players, while still managing to stay true enough to the spirit of the original game so as not to offend the sensibilities of veteran players. While far from perfect, it nevertheless scores high among the long list of prior RE titles. Whether you prefer the original or its remake, however, will largely depend on your expectations from it. Being old is not inherently a sign of quality, but neither is a new coat of paint and a reinvented story necessarily an inherent virtue either.

Folks, Barotrauma is a very detailed game. It's suspense filled, has sudden horrific events that need to be resolved, lots of combat against Europa's monster population and a whole lot more. After adding in the sub design feature, the fan mods and the very detailed game world with slick game play how could you not give this title a two thumbs up. I would highly recommend this title, especially to those that enjoy playing online cooperative games with other human beings.

In all, The Last Spell is a genuinely enjoyable game that allows for strategic planning and makes use of a dark atmosphere. That being said there are times when the atmosphere feels almost too crushing and difficult - leaving it up to the player to latch onto hope as best they can. The Last Spell is the end of days for this world wreaked by war, and your group of Heroes is all that stands between what remains of humanity and a slow demise as the fog encroaches and the undead approach. The dark atmosphere and challenging gameplay can make for a really satisfying experience however, and it is in the darkest of times that one’s worth as a hero is truly shown.

While Destiny 2: Lightfall presents a visually-interesting cyberpunk art style, it's one that clashes horribly and feels out-of-place compared to the more serious tone established by past DLCs, and is especially odd for what is supposed to be the penultimate expansion in Destiny 2's planned remaining lifespan. While not as overtly disappointing as Curse of Osiris, Lightfall definitely ranks among the lowest entries for Bungie's longstanding live service game. While the new addition of a grapple hook is a neat gimmick, it does very little to make up for said expansion's lackluster contributions in both overall story and gameplay. Unless you are a Destiny 2 diehard looking to keep your DLC collection up-to-date, there isn't much reason to spend an outlandish $50 on only a meager few hours' worth of content.

Blood Bowl 3, at its best, never manages to even equal the quality of its predecessors at their lowest, but it would also be wildly inaccurate to say that there is no hope whatsoever for some at least partial redemption moving forward, as Cyanide Studio desperately attempts to salvage both the game, and their unfortunately-marred reputation. Hopefully the hard lessons learned here will result in a more faithful, and less monetization-crazed, future sequel, whenever they get around to working on such. In the meantime, longtime fans and newcomers alike would do well to keep their distance from this particular bloody field.

This replayability, along with the fact that most of the characters are genuinely likeable, allows Ten Dates to be a fun dating simulator. The actors do a wonderful job of conveying their feelings towards your responses and questions and although there is the relationship breakdown feature, you can often tell purely from the actor's expressions what they think of you. The choices you make certainly matter, and if it all starts to go south with the potential love of your life, you can always start fresh and attempt to woo them again. I would even argue that playing through Ten Dates could give players some potential pointers for real life dating – especially if, like me, you've been out of practice for some time.

Toy Tactics has quite a few cool ideas. It is an accessible RTS game with enough potential to change, and possibly help revitalize, a dated genre. If they continue to build on this solid foundation they'll be well on their way to accomplishing both of those goals. It is hard to recommend a game based on promise, though. Gameplay issues aside, there's just not quite enough length or variety in the campaign to make it a lengthy play for RTS veterans. It’s exactly what I would have wanted as an imaginative kid waging war on my bedroom carpet, but I may have set my sights a little too low. [Early Access Review Score = 65]

If you're someone who likes building a city from the bottom up, being in control of every aspect of the citizens life, then Pharaoh: A New Era will definitely be up your alley, more so if you have an affinity for Ancient Egypt. With more than fifty campaign maps and the sandbox mode, this is a game that will have you playing for days, with each of the missions providing a different challenge. In the end, watching your cities expand to become a flourishing ancient metropolis is enjoyable and rather relaxing, with all your cartoon citizens scampering around the city like tiny worker ants. It can be hard work keeping them and the gods satisfied, but it is well worth it.

Despite being a black sheep of Tango Gamework's library, Hi-Fi Rush is quickly setting itself up to be a standout in popularity as well as genre, having already become a massive hit despite being a complete unknown mere hours before it released. With any luck, the budding success of Hi-Fi Rush encourages more game developers to stretch their wings and experiment. Sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone can really pay off, and in this reviewer's opinion, Hi-Fi Rush epitomizes that.

Scars Above seems to have borrowed traits from several games that all combine well to make Scars Above and enjoyable experience. This mixture of simple puzzle-solving and light combat may not suit everyone, but I certainly enjoyed crafting weapons and gadgets that helped bring down the Custodian.

Although Kukoos: Lost Pets does have some frustrations, namely the camera angles and the irregular checkpoints, is it a fun game to play, especially with friends or family. It has a familiar feel for gamers who grew up with 3D platformers such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon or Super Mario Galaxy, with bright fun colours (for the most part) and cute characters. That nostalgia goes a long way to making Kukoos fun, but the platforming and level design nail it. Each world is distinct from the last and with new pet abilities to play with in each, Kukoos: Lost Pets never becomes stale.

In all, Shadow Warrior 3 is a fun game with a few minor issues that may not even be issues depending on the player. The game is also receiving constant support, with a Definitive Edition next-gen upgraded release that is free to anyone that already owns Shadow Warrior 3 and will be available at a discounted price for anyone interested in the fast-paced combat that Lo Wang specializes in.