Rock, Paper, Shotgun

These problems spin together and mean Nighthawks as a whole never quite comes into focus. The couple at the counter are painted in exquisite detail, and at times I feel I’m inside the warm diner, perhaps even brushing hands with a loved one. But the rest of the picture doesn’t evoke the loneliness that casts these moments in sharp relief. Instead of deliberate emptiness, it feels like an uneven sketch.

If you have any kind of tolerance for extended, somewhat formulaic stealth, I recommend giving Townhall a go. As grating as the sneaky pattern recognition can be, I was always curious to delve deeper into the mystery of St Amelia, which gets more and more engrossing in the second half, once Screen Burn have gotten the initial shows of fidelity to expected Hillian devices out of their system. You could argue that Bloober's Silent Hill 2 remake is the more accomplished game, but this one is much more interesting, because it's a battle to assert the developer's cultural specificity and choice of period narratives over the imported Konami code. I guess that's what any locally grown Silent Hill should be: a fight to put Silent Hill back in the grave.

For the moment, though, I just want to stress that there's nothing out there like Roman Sands. Certainly, I've yet to play a two-parter that is quite so compelling and devious in its asymmetry. It's more ritual than game, at times, a sacrificial dagger wielded against both itself and against other videogames that are more at ease with their age. It is witty and expressive, doom-ridden and cathartic. It's a hideous thing, a total nightmare, absolutely no fun whatsoever. You must play it at once and tell me what you think. [RPS Bestest Bests]

Control Resonant's roaring melee battles and grasp of cosmic weirdness put this unlikely sequel up there with Remedy’s finest work. [RPS Bestest Bests]

All in all, everything I’ve detailed here is perfectly pleasant and easy to recommend. But it elides the thing that surprised me most about Moonlighter 2, which is that every single thing I’ve talked about is a detail that blows the original game out of the water. They’re either new additions, or they’re something that’s been significantly improved. That goes for tiny but intensely important quality of life changes (you can see the base sale price of an item without having to press any additional buttons) all the way up to the overall structure of the game (having the challenge be making huge amounts of dough rather than beat all the dungeons means it can be much more relaxed and enjoyable). And every single one acts as a multiplier that turns something that could have been decent into something much more remarkable.

There’s always that sense that something important or unexpected could be lurking around the next corner, to pull you into a quest dripping with depth and intrigue. It works to ensure the more busywork-esque tasks attached to angering Brencis and his Boyars never make Vale Sangora feel home to a string of boring boxes to tick. It’s a vibrant, constantly changing place with a thousand different threads metaphorically criss-crossing just beneath its surface, just as ancient ruins literally criss-cross beneath its swamps, crags, and forests. And all it can take to start pulling one of them is to humour someone’s request as to why their peat digging sibling’s not turned up to help tend the fields. [RPS Bestest Bests]

I know this review is coming across negatively, and I don't mean to suggest Resonance is a bad game. It's a very competent action game, but in exploring new ground, Asobo have left behind much of what set the series apart from the Tomb Raiders and God of Wars of the genre, games it compares well to but doesn't equal.

Playing out both branches reveals that real effort has gone into making the Duty and Freedom paths feel distinct. Their respective post-breakup missions are almost entirely unique, and even when they violently reconverge under that damned magic tree, objectives and traversal routes are sufficiently mixed up. I don’t necessarily believe 'replayability' should be a contributing factor to a singleplayer game’s worth, but I did enjoy the dark thrill of fighting on the opposite side of a battle I’d won a few hours ago, countering and undoing my own manoeuvres.

If Dark Souls and Elden Ring are the equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons in this genre, spawning a million imitators, then Mortal Shell 2 is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, or perhaps even Fighting Fantasy. An alternate choice - perhaps notorious for its oddball characters and setting where everything is a little bit shite - but one that will delight you with its bizarre unorthodoxy. So take a seat at The One Legged Wolf, pour a glass of moonshine, and stay a while, brevs. That lute sounds mighty fine in the background, and here's hoping you'll take to the stage and rock alongside it. Just try not to rip the poor mook standing beside you to shreds, ya hear? [RPS Bestest Bests]

To an extent, it's only as repetitive as you allow it to be. Why not send different knights on different quests? Why not throw your lot in with different counties or factions? Still, if you've settled on a throughline for your Sovereign, it may be irritating to click through the same dialogue choices. In my case, I played uninterrupted for three hours, but lost a lot of enthusiasm after hitting my first reset. I suspect there's greatness on the other side of that ennui – a proper timeloop intrigue. But for the moment, I'll be shelving Sovereign Tower and waiting till my impatience has ebbed away, along with the savour of Ursula's appalling wine.