WellPlayed

If you have never experienced Rhythm Paradise, this one comes with a hearty recommendation. Snatching cake with your mates has never been so fun. [Hands-On Impressions]

By deftly combining its stealth-sim expertise from the Hitman franchise with big-budget, blockbuster sensibilities, IO Interactive has crafted a stellar action espionage romp. Most of all, it’s a reverence for the source material, and a willingness to tell new Bond stories, that elevates 007 First Light to greatness.

I walked away from my time with Star Fox with a solid understanding of the appeal of the game – but more so, the desire from so many people for more of it. I now understand the cries for more, the wails of those who are tired of remakes… but also perhaps the reasoning for why Nintendo may have visited the well one more time. Is this the launching point for more Star Fox? Have the Arwings finally aligned to get the Star Fox brand back on track? Perhaps a remake on the Nintendo Wii U couldn’t grab the data. Maybe the Nintendo 3DS version was a fun experiment. But this, this incarnation, feels special. I daresay it didn’t hurt our fuzzy friend to have a nice chunky cameo in the Super Mario Galaxy film. [Hands-On Impressions]

Replaced’s jaw-dropping pixel-art visuals elevate the slower plodding place of the 2.5D platforming, with a beautifully realised dystopian setting aiming for the high-concept of Bladerunner but perhaps landing on the enjoyable romp of Total Recall.

Bluey's Quest for the Gold Pen is a safe, cozy, and distinctly Bluey-styled adventure that understands its audience perfectly – even if it trades adult-sized thrills for a perfectly calibrated, frustration-free quest for the little tackers.

With my eyes, ears and fingers plunged deep into Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, I came away with relative awe at what the team was managing to put together. Any revisit to something beloved can be fraught with peril, but the mastery on display from the team here shows that they know how to navigate those choppy waters. It’s more than a cutting edge overhaul of visuals, it’s a carefully considered enhancement to things that were deserving. My only gripes came from the gameplay session, where my fast-forwarded journey put me deep into late-game piracy, and I didn’t quite grasp the amount of Assassin’s tools at my disposal alongside some of the more fearsome enemies, but that isn’t Edward’s fault – it was mine. I hadn’t quite found my sea legs yet. [Hands-On Impressions]

Directive 8020 is Supermassive’s most ambitious choose-your-own-adventure in both tone and gameplay to date. Disappointingly, poor voice acting, boring characters and a simple gameplay loop means that it doesn’t live up to its potential.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a brilliant, quirky experiment that proves being a dinosaur-shaped scientist can easily give traditional platformers a run for their money. If a cosy, unsupervised science fair full of "Eureka!" moments sounds like your jam, prepare your tongue for a new career in book-based ecology.

Legacy of the Dark Knight’s excellent combat and stealth systems, fun open world, and clear reverence for the World’s Greatest Detective bring it close to plastic perfection.

Mixtape’s style, soundtrack and unique storytelling flair all combine to elicit feelings both new and long forgotten. Simple moments make you appreciate life for what it is: a continuous evolution rather than a static state of being. Our adolescent selves relished in that freedom, and Mixtape seeks to recapture the magic.