Finger Guns

Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered brings the 25 year old classic hack-and-slash title back to life. Fresh lighting and overhauled visuals sparkle, while modern combat elements elevate the slicing and dicing nicely. While there's plenty to cut your teeth on here, the old frustrations with stun-locking enemies, less interesting mission designs and getting crossbow mobbed irk sooner than they should. At least the dialogue is absolutely hilarious and the series' charm remains fully intact.

Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve is a triumph of sheer, thrilling joy. Dogfighting amongst the clouds is an exhilarating ride, one matched by the strength of its mechanics and brilliant presentation. While its story is a mixed success, the overall design of this aircraft is almost unparalleled, with a superbly crafted campaign and fully fledged online offering, it will keep you coming back for ever more takeoffs and engagements.

Well Dweller is Kyle Thompson's best game yet. Consistently seeing his Metroidvanias evolve through gameplay and level design, Well Dweller feels like a culmination of every other Thompson game thus far and is a thoroughly enjoyable time for it. Whilst the story this time around is left to be desired, this distinct take on puzzle platforming meets Metroidvania make for a fantastic game.

Whilst nowhere near as good as its two fantastic predecessors, Infinite Rush nevertheless offers a variety of fun, vibrant and expansive playgrounds to explore. The magic seems to be a little lost when you're not just playing Hot Wheels on your bedroom floor, though.

A wildly successful fully cooperative experience, Orbitals is an absolute essential purchase for Switch 2. It is demanding for non-gamers, but also highly rewarding, dishing out challenge, fun, and laughs both scripted and emergent. Definitely the most perfect recreation of an 80s anime gaming has ever achieved.

A stellar opening bite from Rebel Wolves, The Blood of Dawnwalker demonstrates it can claw and battle with the toughest of the vrakhir. While it's not quite at the level of the very best in the genre, it delivers a superb open world adventure, filled with intrigue and compelling combat. Give it enough time to feed and this Dawnwalker could grow into a titan, and I can't wait to see what blood feast will come next.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault manages to loot everything that was great about the original and bring it into glorious cozy 3D in a huge backpack, ready to sell to the masses. The loot-and-sell loop is as addictive as ever, and anyone coming in fresh at this 1.0 release is getting a deal that will put a smile on their face. However if you were on board in Early Access, 1.0 doesn't add a whole lot to the the plinth for consideration.

Blood Dungeon may not be as deep as its peers in terms of offerings; it may feel aimless to play once you’ve unlocked the easy stuff, but the act of going on your runs is flawless. I love how chaotic and frantic I feel platforming across the breadth of arenas. The arenas themselves more or less feel the same, except for a couple that have a gimmick, with varying results. Rounding the game out is the inclusion of daily runs, leaderboards and characters whose style you can get adept at, and you’ve got a game you can really get stuck into. This may be an overall safe pivot from Messhof, shooting for a popular genre, but they’ve proved once again that they can create a gameplay loop that’s sticky and craving.

The next step in a clear path from Innocence, through Requiem, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy confidently switches to a full on action-adventure in the vein of Uncharted. A good combat system, simple story-serving design choices and a great story, make this a joy and to play, even as the dread mounts and you descend into the heart of darkness towards scenes every bit and terrifying and memorable as that tsunami of rats.

If you want a traditional game of Monopoly with Star Wars trappings, then this isn't the game you're looking for. If however you want to play something quite new for virtual board games that uses Monopoly as its basis, introduces a dozen new rules that transform the game and covers it in Star Wars regalia, the force is strong with this one.