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One of the all-time arcade classics, and a charming retro experience today–unless you're set to actually play it through, that is. In that case, prepare for mind-boggling frustration. It was a game designed to consume coins, not to give pleasure. Even for players of modern "masocore" gamers, the stiff controls and minimal space for mistakes might prove more frustrating than exciting. On the other hand, Capcom Arcade Stadium gives you plenty of ways to cheat your way through the game, by rewinding mistakes and saving at arbitrary points–or even slowing down time. That's a great opportunity to brute-force your way to the levels that you couldn't experience back in the arcade. (Of course, the above doesn't apply if you're specifically a fan of this series and you *enjoy* the unfair challenge. But if you are, then you don't need my review.)

The stretchers is a physics-based two-players co-op slapstick. CONS: IT GETS REPETITIVE: While the game does introduce a few new elements over time, they're not enough to offset the repetition. After the first few missions, the rest is basically more of the same. VERY LITTLE CHALLENGE: This is a game for families. Don't expect to be challenged in any way–and considering the imprecise controls, that's for the better. PROS: FUN IN THE FAMILY: This game shines when played by two people with good communication, even if one of them isn't a "gamer". The borderline-casual gameplay will provide a few hours of fun. FUNNY SLAPSTICK MOMENTS: The characters' antics and the ragdoll physics will get old eventually–but you will laugh a lot before they do. ZANY HUMOR: From the inventor in his underwear to the unlikely baddie, the characters are weird enough to make The Stretchers stand out from other recent ragdolly games.

An 8-bit side scroller that takes a few twists and turns before turning into a mixed 8 and 16 bits metroidvania adventure. Yes, it's a weird game. CONS: RAW AROUND THE EDGES: From the core mechanics to the levels, some parts of The Messenger are way better than others. That handmade feel is charming in its own way, but it grows old as you keep playing. IT GETS WORSE AS IT GOES: The game starts very strong. After the main plot twist, however, it sets on a descending path of disappointing challenges, excessive backtracking, and disappointing bosses. Collecting all the power seals was a particular disappointment for me. WILD DIFFICULTY SWINGS: The difficulty is where the "amateur" origin of the game is at its most jarring. The game is never too hard–just quite frustrating at times. Some bosses (including the last ones) are pushovers, and some platforming challenges will leave you wondering what the whole point was. On the other hand, the unrefined mechanics turn some sequences into tedious button mashing marathons that are heavily dependent on sheer luck. PROS: A HEARTFELT GAME: Even at its rawest, The Messenger still gives you good vibes. It's clearly a labour of love from a small, dedicated team. I had to add one point to my rating just because of The Messenger's sincerity. VERY ADDICTIVE: I had a lot of fun with this game for a few hours. Even the last third of the game, that I criticised, couldn't drive me off. I simply couldn't stop playing until the end. IT WILL MAKE YOU SMILE: The continuous fourth wall breaking might be cliche, but it does elicit plenty of smiles. The writing is witty and lively, but the game never takes itself seriously–and that attitude makes you feel part of it.

Out of nowhere, a huge new wave of tracks for Mario Kart 8. This is the first pack of 8. PROS: MORE MARIO KART: It's hard to say "no" to more content for one of the best racing games in existence. GOOD NEW TRACKS: A very welcome injection of freshness for long-time players, and they're good too. LOTS OF VARIETY: From wide open speed tracks to tricky corners and environmental hazards, each of these tracks has its own character. Even if you're not fond of all of them, there is sure to be something for you in here. CONS: SMELLS OF MOBILE: A deep-pocketed company like Nintendo could have done a better work of porting these tracks to the Switch. The level of detail is recognizably inferior to the existing tracks, and it's clear that the new tracks were ported quickly, often from the mobile Mario Kart game. We're talking about one of the flagship games on Nintendo's only console. There is no justification for Nintendo not spending some extra care adding more details.

A welcome new environment for one of the best sports games in recent years. PROS: MORE LONELY MOUNTAINS: Four new tracks and plenty of new challenges? I'm game for that. AS INSTANTLY RECOGNIZABLE AS EVER: The team who made this game succeeded in making every environment feel different from the others. The grandiose vistas and crazy shortcuts of Eldfjall are no exception, and these tracks feel uniquely their own. CONS: A BIT TOO "FANTASY": Lonely Mountains strikes a great balance between realistic environments and awesome grandiosity. Eldfjall seems to push a bit too far in the direction of gaming spectacle, with environments that feel more appropriate to a fantasy movie than a sports game.

Toree 3D is a very short game in the style of early 3D platformers from the 90s. PROS: THE NOSTALGIA FACTOR WORKS: Toree 3D does a decent job of looking like one of those ugly but colorful Nintendo 64 games. CHEAP AND QUICK: It costs close to nothing, and it doesn't last long enough to become boring. IT DOES HAVE A CERTAIN CHARM: Toree 3D is colorful, mildly fun, and it won't frustrate you enough to leave a bad memory. CONS: GAMEJAM-LEVEL QUALITY: I cannot understand all the positive reviews for a game that looks like someone's first experiment in Unity. From the uninspired level design to the uneven difficult, Toree 3D can only be described as amateurish game. SLOPPY DESIGN: I spent 20 frustrating minutes to beat a level that felt weirdly difficult, only to discover that Toree has two jump button: one for high and one for low jumps. Pity that the game never bothered to tell me. This game is full of inconsistencies like that one. Rather than a well thought out game, Toree feels like the developers were making things up as they went.

A short, simple Zelda-ish adventure with cute characters and weird dark humor. PROS: - A SHORT, RELAXING EXPERIENCE: I was looking for a chill game that could keep me busy for two or three hours, and that was exactly what I got. - UNIQUE DARK HUMOR: Don't get fooled by the "kawaii" characters. Before the end credits, this game goes to some strangely dark places. - MADE WITH LOVE: You can see that the authors of this game had fun making it. Their loving care pushes the gameplay forward. CONS: - LAME MECHANICS: Good thing that the characters and atmosphere in this game are good, because the mechanics are quite sloppy. Most "puzzles" consist of going from one place to another and talk to NPCs. Combat is equally weak, and I found it overly simple even though I never understood how to use the dashing move. - BAD PERFORMANCE: There is no excuse for such a simple game struggling to keep a smooth framerate. - IS THAT… A MESSAGE? There seems to be some political message in the game, but what is it? Taxes are evil and politicians are corrupt–is that it? And what should I make of the references to pandemic lockdowns? It all feels more annoying than anything.

A first-person action game based on an original movement scheme: your weapon doubles as a teleporting device. That dynamic allows you to stay in the air indefinitely, and to move at blazing speed around a series of fighting arenas. CONS: A ONE-TRICK PONY: The whole game is all about the movement idea. While that idea is good, it's not always great: movement often feels a bit random, because your boomerang is too fast for precise control. SOME STAGES JUST AREN'T FUN: The last few fights draw out for a long time. The game only saves after you've finished a fight–so those long stretches of fighting result in annoying artificial difficulty. BAD SUPPORT: I could barely play the game because of a very frustrating bug in the gyro controls. The problem has since been fixed, but it took months for the team to address it. I tried to give this game a fair rating, but the truth is that those technical problems destroyed the fun for me. PROS: MOSTLY FUN: At its best, Boomerang X is a fun game. Zipping around the arena without ever touching the ground is nice for a while, even if I personally didn't find that mechanic as compelling as other reviewers. UNIQUE STYLE: Boomerang X is a short, stylish game. Its graphics might not be for everyone, but they're instantly recognizable. If you're into short and unique indies, this one might be right up your alley. GREAT FINAL BOSS: After the infuriating level that precedes it, the final boss rekindled my faith in the game. It's not drawn out, and it makes great use of the best aspects of Boomerang X, while doing away with the boring protracted fights.

A free-to-start Pokémon MOBA that aims to enroll casual and semi-casual gamers into the genre. PROS: - IT'S FUN: I've never been into Pokémon, but the game still managed to hook me. It doesn't feel like a depressing grind, and that's more than I can say for almost every other free-to-start I tried. - NOT THE USUAL CASH GRAB…: Free-to-play games have a deserved reputation for shallow gameplay and greedy microtransaction. Pokémon UNITE can reasonably be played for as long as you wish without paying a dime. Money helps, but it's not a requirement unless you want to try different builds and characters. CONS: - …BUT IT'S STILL OGLING YOUR MONEY: Yes, the game isn't "pay to win". Still some cosmetic items have immoral, unreasonable prices that no game should ever attempt, and there are gacha mechanics that should be illegal in a game targeted at kids. - THE GAMEPLAY FEELS SLIGHTLY SHALLOW: There is a lot to do and to learn in this game–but even with all the different characters and builds, a sense of repetition sneaks in almost immediately. It's not bad enough that you want to stop playing, but it does make you wonder whether you should be doing something else with your time.

One of the best party games ever, Towerfall is an exercise in subtle balance: low-fi but crisp and clear graphics; immediate pick-up-and-play mechanics that are also surprisingly deep; and hectic gameplay that feels at the same time like you're always in control, but always on the point of losing it. If you have other gamers at home, this is highly recommended.

The new game from the authors of "Agent A" is a bit of a disappointment. It's a simple hidden items / fiddler puzzler affair with a bunch of small worlds to click through. --- PROS: RELAXING AND UNDEMANDING: You might have trouble solving a puzzle or two, and finding the last item or two–but otherwise, this game won't really challenge you, and it allows you to play at your own (slow) pace. It will be over in a couple of hours. NICE GRAPHICS: This game isn't quite as charming as "Agent A", but its nice low-poly graphics is easy on the eye (if often choppy in motion). --- CONS: AS CASUAL AS THEY COME: It's hard to play this without feeling like you're playing one of those bland casual games for mobile. Some of the puzzles literally consist in pushing a series of buttons for no discernible reason, as if the touchscreen is the whole point the game. It just doesn't feel at ease on a console. COULD USE SOME POLISH: With as little text as there is in this game, you've got to wonder how hard it would have been to ask someone to fix the punctuation. Also, the touch controls are clunky, and the performance on some levels can drop into one-digit FPSs. DUBIOUS PRICING STRATEGY: This is one of those games that is sold at an absurdly high price (about 20 euros) just so that it can be regularly discounted by as much as 95%. It's OK to elbow for visibility on the eShop, but this kind of pricing borders on the unethical.

A decent but flawed party game in the Mario Party series. It got a bit better after Nintendo updated it to support online play. PROS: - A boatload of minigames. - Accessible and fun. - Nice motion controls. CONS: - Just a few boards. - Requires one joy-con per player. - Nintendo didn't give it much support, and already replaced it with another Mario Party game on the Switch.

The Procession to Calvary is a point-and-click adventure with a unique style inspired by Monty Python's animations, reinassance paintings, classical musics, and goofy humor. PROS: AN "AUTHOR" GAME - Some indie game authors have a unique style that makes their games instantly recognizable. Joe Richardson, the author of this game, is one of them. We need more gamemakers like him. WEIRD AND FUNNY - I'm usually not a great fan of mixing historical settings with modern language and quirks, but I couldn't help laughing while I played this game. It comes across as a sincere, good-natured effort, like the author was having as much fun as you do. (MOSTLY) LOGICAL PUZZLES - The puzzles in The Procession to Calvary aren't generally hard, nor they require a lot of lateral thinking. However, they're usually just logical enough, and challenging enough, to be entertaining. CONS: ONE BADLY DESIGNED PUZZLE: I got stuck on the very last puzzle in the game. I consulted a walkthrough, only to find out that I'd done almost everything right, except for one badly clued specific action (or rather, lack thereof). NOT FOR EVERYONE: If the humor doesn't work for you (or, god forgive you, you're easily offended by nudity or religion jokes), then you might find this game distasteful or boring. Me, I was having a ball.

A collection of the first three 3D Mario games. CONS: NINTENDO'S EXPLOITATION AT ITS WORST: This game was only available in shops and on the eShop for a limited time, creating artifical scarcity. Nintendo is not always anti-consumer, but when it is, it stoops pretty low. MARIO 64 IS MORE ABOUT NOSTALGIA THAN ANYTHING: Mario 64 was revolutionary when it came out, and it's still uncanny how many new ideas this game nailed–but it didn't nail *all* of them, and today it often feels frustrating and unfriendly. That darn camera! SUNSHINE IS HIT AND MISS: Of the three games, Super Mario Sunshine is the most controversial. Whatever your thoughts, it's certainly a game that should have been better balanced, ridden with frustrating moments and difficulty spikes. PROS: THREE IMMORTAL CLASSICS: You can dissect each game and evaluate its strenghts and weaknesses. Still, nobody can deny that ach of these games deserves a place in the history of videogames. A HUGE AMOUNT OF CONTENT: Just completing these three games can keep you busy for dozens of hours. If you ever decide to 100% one or more of them… prepare to spend a very, very long time on this collection. SUPER MARIO GALAXY: Super Mario Galaxy is still a fantastic game. If it came out today, it would still be one of the best games of the year, and one of the highest notes ever hit by the Mario series.

Mario Kart isn't just a game–it's a whole genre. The Mario Kart series is the one that created the genre. Mario Kart 8 is the best in the series. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the best version of Mario Kart 8. Draw your own conclusion. MK8 is an endlessly fun racing game with an incredibly broad appeal, from the most casual player to serious gamers. It's hard to give it a perfect score, because it's ultimately just refining the same old formula, and it feels like it could use some kind of "story mode" for single players. However, it's definitely a classic, must-own game, and a staple of Nintendo's catalog.

Death's Door is an isometric action adventure with elements of Zelda and metroidvanias. It tackles themes of death and loss in a cartoonish, humorous way. _________ THE GOOD: BEAUTIFUL ART: Death's Door music is easy on the ear (if a bit repetitive) and the graphics are gorgeous. Indeed, the game looks so crisp that I feared I was playing one of those mobile darlings that are all style and no substance. I shouldn't have worried. SOMBER, DARK HUMOR: It's rare to find games where you feel bad for the boss you just killed. Death's Door treats characters with respect: after killing a boss, you attend their funeral. This kind of darkly philosophical humor runs throughout the game. MEMORABLE CHARACTERS: From the sad story of the Urn Witch to the hilarious owner of the Stranded Sailor's tavern, some of Death's Door darkly funny characters stayed with me after I finished the game. FUN: The game doesn't overstay its welcome, and its difficulty is set just right. It was fun from start to finish–at least until I reached the endgame. ________ THE BAD: SHALLOW COMBAT: Combat in Death's Door is fun, but it loses some of its shine once you realize that the fights tend to feel all the same, including boss fights. WEAK ENDGAME: Granted, you have plenty to do in the endgame–but that "plenty" mostly consists **** fetch quest that I found extremely boring, even after reaching for a guide. And once I got my final piece of lore as a reward, I found it unnecessary and inconsistent with the game's tone. DIALOGUES COULD HAVE USED AN EDITOR: In a game that's so carefully polished, it was jarring to see sloppy punctuation in the character's dialogues.

The Forgotten City is a piece of 3D interactive fiction with optional action sequences. Unfortunately, it's only available on the Switch as a cloud game, even though it costs more (and looks worse) than many quality native games. Aside from the unjustified distribution choice, the game itself is quite good. It has been painstakingly crafted by a tiny team, and their love shines through every detail. The story is intriguing: you end up in a mysterious underground ancient Roman city that is stuck in a time loop. By investigating the city's inhabitants, their secrets and their plans, you must find a way to escape the timeloop and return to your world. PROS: A COMPELLING CENTRAL MYSTERY: The premise of the game is a great hook: if anybody in the city commits a sin, then everybody dies. Why does that happen, and why do some specific actions count as sinful, while others don't? These questions stay mostly unanswered until the final moments in the game. KEEPS TWISTING UP TO THE END: The game has multiple endings, but it's worth reaching the "best" one for the twists it provides along the road. The final sequences might be somewhat naive, but they’re also an unexpected cap-off to the adventure. NOT YOUR AVERAGE GAME: Indie games often go places that triple-A games don't dare approach, and you don't get much more indie than The Forgotten City. From the ebbs and flows of human history, to the darker sides of religiosity, to well-developed disputes about the meaning of laws and morality, this game isn't afraid to introduce elements that you don't typically associate with gaming. CONS: IT'S IN THE CLOUD: The fact that this is a cloud game might be a showstopper for many players. I know that it almost was for me. Even on a 50 Mbps connection, the game was utterly unplayable on a TV, and still occasionally painfully choppy in handheld. The cloud might be a necessary evil for games such as Hitman 3, but the graphics in Forgotten City doesn't justify it in the slightest. This should not have been a cloud game. IT HAS MOST OF THE ISSUES OF CONVERSATION-BASED GAMES…: The problem with games based on conversation choices is that they tend to devolve into a systematic exploration of the conversation tree. The Forgotten City also has this problem, although it goes to great lenghts to alleviate it. …AND ALSO THOSE OF "DETECTIVE" GAMES: Many investigative games struggle to find a balance between holding your hand and letting you come to their own conclusions. Like other such games, the Forgotten City is often too on-the-nose with its hints. Sometimes I grasped bits of the backstory simply because my character got there before I did, and his deduction appeared in a conversation tree. Those moments made me feel like a passive spectator of the investigation rather than its protagonist.

Saints Row IV is like GTA on meth. Like GTA, it's set in an urban open worlds where you can steal vehicles and drive to missions. However, you'll soon get superpowers that are so over the top that they make driving entirely unnecessary, and they turn the game into a lunatic power fantasy. PROS: - CRAZY AND OVER THE TOP: From running over the side of a tower to jumping over buildings, stomping away trucks, and blast-freezing entire squads of enemies, Saints Row IV pushes the power fantasy to places that even videogames usually can't reach. - UNAPOLOGETICALLY TRASHY: This game is self-conscious about being in general bad taste, and it wallows in it. Everything is lurid and tacky. I loved it. - PLENTY TO DO: There is plenty of content in this game. The main missions won't keep you busy for long, but even after playing plenty of side missions, me and my co-op buddy were well below 60% completion. CONS: - TOO BUGGY FOR RELEASE: This is yet another untolerably buggy high profile release. In particular, the Switch version has a crippling bug when played in co-op: sometimes the game freezes at the end of a mission, forcing you to replay the entire mission from scratch. The game has been out for a long time already, but the publisher didn't bother to fix even this major bug. For your perfectly good money, you're getting a defective product. - OUTDATED VISUALS: This game is dated, and it shows. Some graphics age well. These don't. - ULTIMATELY BLAND: The "superpowers" feel good for sure, the story is wacky, and there is plenty of variety–but all those positive elements can't hide the fact that the moment-to-moment gameplay is often bland and uninspiring.

A very short point-and-click (or rather, thouch) adventure. It's cheaper than a coin for your local arcade, and less than 30 minutes long. PROS: - BITE-SIZED CASUAL GAMING: Escape Lala won't stretch your brain. It also has a good hint system in case you get stuck. - LO-PIXEL RETRO GRAPHICS: Whether it's "retro" or just amateurish pixel jam, it's up to you. It did work for me. CONS: - SAME AS THE PROS: With such very casual and short gameplay and simple lo-res graphics, this is not a game for "gamers".

A brilliant and original idea for a game: KTaNE is an asymmetrical co-op experience where you play a classic spy movie sequence. One of the players must defuse a bomb, while the other provides instructions. While the idea is great, though, it didn't work too well for me and my co-player. We had fun for an hour or so, before the game started feeling like work. Good, mildly enjoyable work–but work none the less. The problem with this game, for me, was the same that I had with "Overcooked!": both games force you to streamline and accelerate communications between players under an increasing time pressure. For many people, the concept seems to work. For my co-op groups, however, it never does. After a while, people feel like they have to focus on optimizing, rather than having fun. While KTaNE is a great concept, it quickly becomes too stressful to work as a game.

An interactive fiction mystery based on a 10 minutes time loop. PROS: COMPELLING MYSTERY: The story starts as a mundane slice of life, but it quickly grows into a violent mystery rooted into the characters' past. You'll want to sort it out (and die dozens of violent deaths in the process.) THE TIMELOOP HAS THE RIGHT LENGTH: There is, inevitably, some annoying repetition–but the fact that you'll complete each loop in ten minutes or less will keep you pushing. GOOD VOICE WORK: With Willem Dafoe on board, you'd expect great voice acting. It's actually not great, mostly because the script doesn't manage the character's emotions in quite the right way–but it's still good. CONS: LACKS DIRECTION: In interactive fiction, you can get stuck in different ways–some worse than others. In Twelve Minutes, sometimes you get stuck because you just don't have a proximate goal to reach. It doesn't last long when it happens, but it's still annoying to blindly try out actions and conversation options in hope to stumble on a way forward. WEAK ENDING: The game builds up nicely up to the last stretch–and then it deflates. The central twist dawns on you before it should, and it leads to a conclusion that doesn't feel satisfying. SOME IMPLAUSIBLE DIALOGUES: Some dialogues feel quite real, but others are cringey. Given the gameloop's brevity, it's hard to imagine how they could be any different, but they still damage the game's feeling.

The second game from the authors of Limbo. PROS: AMAZING ATMOSPHERE: Inside is creepy as heck, set in a post-industrial hell that is in equal parts gorgeous and oppressive. FANTASTIC ART: This game has some of the most impressive graphics and animation, and the most amazing sound, ever seen on the Switch. Resolution aside, many scripted sequences are worthy of an animated movie. Inside deserves to be played on the biggest screen you have, with a headset. SURPRISING ENDING: While Limbo kept a consistent tone until the ending, the last few sequences of Inside include a pretty jaw-dropping twist. However… (See the "cons".) CONS: THE ENDING IS SOMEWHAT WEAK: The last few levels are surprising, yes–but it's also a bit weak compared to Limbo's goosebump-inducing final sequence. Also, the sudden change in tone might leave some players cold. IT'S BASICALLY MORE "LIMBO": While Inside introduces plenty of new mechanics of its own, the basic idea is the same as Limbo: move left and right, climb and push stuff, solve puzzles. By the second game, the style is starting to feel like a formula.

A Nintendo-branded collection of 51 classic games. PROS: SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: 51 games are a lot, and they range from classic board games such as chess and backgammon to card games, dice games, simulations like bowling and slot cars, and even mini-videogames such as golf. If you don't find something to like in here, then you probably don't like games, period. PERFECT FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY: I enjoy having quick games after lunch with relatives on the Internet. When we meet, we still pick up our Switches every now and then to play side by side. This is the perfect casual game for everybody. EXTREMELY POLISHED: This collection is painstakingly curated, and the excellent graphics and sound go a long way towards making each game feel "real" and satisfying to play. CONS: NO MIXING FRIENDS AND RANDOS: When you play on the Internet, you can "Play with friends" (and computer-controlled opponents) or "Play with strangers"–not both. While that's probably a way to avoid cheating, it still feels weirdly constraining in this kind of casual games. NOT A PARTY GAME: This game assumes that each player has their own Switch. If you want to play with multiple people on the same Switch, you're mostly out of luck. THE CHARACTERS ARE ANNOYING: The short dialogues that introduce each game are a great idea, but those kids (and some of the adults) are pretty obnoxious.

SGC #1 is a collection of very short indie games. These are the kind of games that win Game Jams: they mostly last a few minutes, and they focus more on creativity and art than gameplay. PROS: - SHORT AND SWEET: You might like some of these games and not others–but even the ones you don't like are only going to take a few minutes of your time to complete. - IT'S NICE TO SUPPORT CREATORS: Buying this means giving money to a labor of love. You never know when one of these teams will move on to produce the next Hollow Knight. - SOME INTERESTING GAMES AND ART: It's nice to see what creative people can come out with when they don't have commercial constraints. CONS: - SWEET, BUT SHORT: The longest game (that is also the most mechanically frustrating) is maybe 40 minutes long. The shortest is a few minutes. With only 5 games, the package is light for the (pretty high) price. At a discount, this is a collection worth getting. At full price, it's hard to recommend. - SLIM ON EXTRAS: You get the games, a pretty but clumsy 3D environment that acts as a launcher, and nothing else. For this kind of product, it would have been great to get some extras–maybe short interviews with the developers, or the history of how the games were created. - NOT FOR "GAMERS": This is a collection for curious people that are interested in the indie scene. None of these games offers a significant challenge, and all of them have derivative or uninteresting mechanics. Either you're into "artsy" stuff, or you're going to be disappointed. I hope for a sequel, or maybe even a series.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The first Guacamelee was a brilliant metroidvania that mixed tough platforming, combat, silly humor and great art. This sequel refines the formula, at the risk of feeling a bit unnecessary. PROS: - IT'S STILL GUACAMELEE: This game doesn't just look as good as the first one. It also maintains its central mechanic: the combat moveset doubles as movement commands. This trick was, and still is, a strike of genius. - AS TOUGH AS YOU WANT TO MAKE IT: You don't have to–but of you're willing to collect every treasure, you should be prepared for a stiff challenge. Many platforming sections are complicated enough to feel like extremely dynamic puzzles. - FANTASTIC FOR COUCH CO-OP: Guacamelee was great with two players. Guacamelee 2 supports three, and they can drop in and out freely throughout the campaign. This is one of the best couch co-op experiences for the Switch. CONS: - IT'S *STILL* GUACAMELEE: As good as this game is, it doesn't really improve over the original. The skill trees are a nice addition, but they don't change the feeling of the game. All in all, this sequel runs the risk of feeling like more of the same. - HIT-AND-MISS HUMOR: This is series is known for breaking the fourth wall. Guacamelee 2 goes even beyond that, with a constant stream of in-jokes and an over-the-top "Mexiverse" narrative. The dorky humor is generally nice, but having the silliness perpetually dialed up to 11 gets to feel tiresome. In conclusion, Guacamelee 2 is still a no-brainer for fans of the first game–only don't expect anything new. If you're new to the series, then both games are equally recommended.

Superliminal is a dreamy first-person puzzle game that plays with spatial perception and optical illusions. PROS: EXTREMELY TRIPPY: If you're looking for an oneiric, doors-of-perception kind of experience, it's hard to imagine a better game to scratch that itch. UNIQUE CORE CONCEPT: I cannot think of any other game that relies on the same idea of playing with perspective and your perception of scale. A FEW MEMORABLE SEQUENCES: One of the later levels pushes the idea of rescaling objects to interesting lengths, and results in a few moments that will probably stick with you. CONS: A FEW GOOD IDEAS, STRETCHED TOO THIN: Most puzzles are based on the same handful of good ideas. As the game progresses, those ideas get reused once too many times. SHAKY PERFORMANCE: The Switch struggles to keep a decent frame rate in some of the game's environment. DRAGS ON TOWARDS THE END: The final level or two could have been a memorable acid trip, but their flow is spoiled by too many arbitrary riddles and annoying maze-like puzzles.

An original, lovely built actional roguelite. Also a scathing satire of the world of technological startups. PROS: - UNIQUE GRAPHICS AND STYLE: Primary colors and characters that look like inflatables. Love it or hate it, no other game looks quite like this. - THE SATIRE IS SPOT-ON: The social commentary and smartly designed characters start strong, and they only get better until the end. From cryptocurrency freaks to annoying founders, no one is safe from this game's scathing sarcasm. - PLENTY OF CONTENT: The game is longer than you'd expect. Just when you think you're hitting the end of a short game, you realize that you're barely halfway through. - MADE WITH LOVE: This is the first game from this team, and it's surprisingly good for a debut. After seeing how much care and love went into Going Under, I'm looking forward to the next work from Aggro Crab. CONS: - MAYBE A BIT *TOO MUCH* CONTENT: Even if Going Under tries to keep things fresh, it's still a roguelite. Only the best in the genre manage not to overstay their welcome–and Going Under isn't quite up there with the best. At times, the game feels like it was padded with narrative tricks to force you to play through similar levels multiple times. - THE MECHANICS AREN'T QUITE UP TO THE TASK: This is by far Going Under's biggest shortcoming. It's an action game, but the fighting mechanics aren't good enough to stay fun until you hit the final credits. The fighting isn't exactly bad, but it does feel a bit sloppy. In particular, the fact that you must commit to your moves and cannot interrupt them results in a game that feels unresponsive. I lost count of how many times I lost a run because my rolls couldn't interrupt my swings. I completed Going Under, but I didn't always enjoy the experience.

Maybe for the first time in the history of this niche genre, Nintendo managed to produce a training game that actually encourages you to train. I played Ring Fit Adventure for a very long time before I completed it, and I didn't feel bored once. PROS: - FINALLY A TRAINING GAME THAT WORKS: While other training games (including Nintendo's own Fitness Boxing) rely on your own drive to be fit, this one manages to make you *want* to come back to the game and break a sweat. - ALWAYS MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD: This game doesn't judge you, it doesn't set lofty goals that you struggle to reach, and it doesn't use your guilty feelings against you. Its tone is consistently gentle, inclusive and encouraging. - ACTUALLY MAKES YOU WORK HARD: By letting you progress at your own pace, and giving you a lot of freedom in the exercises you select, Ring Fit Adventure removed my typical self-excuses for skipping training. CONS: - IT'S A GREAT TRAINING GAME, NOT A GREAT GAME: The gaming component of Ring Fit Adventure is adequate for a training game, but the challenges, story and the maps would feel a bit too repetitive and shallow if this were a regular game. Thankfully, it isn't.

The sequel to The Darkside Detective is another pixellated, episodic point-and-click adventure. Like the first game, it has plenty of dorky humor and a charming pair of protagonists. PROS: - VERY PLEASANT PSEUDO-RETRO ART: The very lo-pixel graphics and the chiptune music are as good as ever. - THE EPISODIC FORMAT WORKS: It's hard to resist a quick game when you know that your next micro-adventure can be completed in a couple of hours. - SOME EPISODES ARE A LOT OF FUN: While some of the episodes are forgettable, others (like "Class of the Titans") manage to keep you engaged with plenty of funny twists and turns. CONS: - SLIGHTLY OVERWRITTEN: The one-liners of the first game somehow morphed into short dialogues, losing a lot of their charm. They're also unskippable, and too easy to trigger multiple times. - MOST PUZZLES ARE MUNDANE: Most of the puzzles can be solved without much lateral thinking. They tend to lack that dopamine shot of nailing a difficult riddle. - LACKS THE CHARACTER OF THE PREVIOUS GAME: The game feels like the first ho-hum season of your favorite show–the one when the writers started to run out of ideas, and tried to make up for that by adding random changes to the formula.

Castle Crashers is a minor cult game that's welcome on every platform. It's a pretty classic belt scroller beat 'em up, but it spruces up the formula with great animations, loads of unpredictable humor, and plenty of enemy variety. PROS: - BRILLIANT ANIMATIONS AND ENEMIES: The fun, absurdist graphics and out-there fights had me and my friends chuckle from start to finish. - PERFECT FOR CO-OP: This isn't a game to play alone. Call your friends! Two, three or four players can tackle the campaign together. - SURPRISINGLY DEEP: Classic beat 'em ups aren't know for their depth, but this one has enough moves and techniques to reward more technical players. CONS: - BADLY DESIGNED ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT: On the Switch, the game only saves progress for one character per user. You can work around this unnecessary limitation by assigning each player to a different user–but the game doesn't warn you about the issue, and we were disconcerted when we lost a lot of our progress. - MAYBE "TOO" CRAZY AT TIMES: Wacky, fun, yes, all good. But sometimes, the game feels like it's been weird for weirdness's sake. - IN THE END, IT'S STILL A BELT SCROLLER: The mechanics in this genre are implicitly repetitive. Even with its wild cast of characters, Castle Crashers does feel samey after some time.

"Paper Mario: The Origami King" is a competent entry in the Mario RPGs series, but it's saddled by a repetitive combat system that struggles to feel exciting. PROS: - STRONG CENTRAL IDEA: The game picks up the idea of a paper-based Mario world and really runs with it. The central story, pitting "flat paper" characters against origami and papier-mâché villains, is good fun. The idea has enough steam to sustain the game throughout its long duration. - MEMORABLE CHARACTERS: Some of the characters and their dialogues made me smile throughout the adventure. Buoyed by its characters, PM:TOK also dares to go places that you wouldn't necessarily expect in a Mario game, and it's all the better for it. - GOOD BOSS BATTLES: I have my reservations on the combat system (see below), but some of the boss battles do work fine. I found myself looking forward to the next large-scale clash. CONS: - LACKLUSTER COMBAT: The puzzle-like combat system is one of those weird one-off ideas that only Nintendo could decide to use in a triple A game. It's daring, but it gets old real quick. As I went through the same process for the hundredth time, I wished for a way to skip regular combat encounters and move straight to the bosses. - PACING ISSUES: There is a cliche that RPGs should be long, but this one could have used some trimming, especially in the combat department. The ending tries to feel epic, but to me it felt like a Disney movie dragging on for too long. All in all, I enjoyed PM:TOK, but I wished it would end a bit sooner. - WEAK RPG MECHANICS: This game clearly tries to be an RPG, but the RPG-like mechanics feel mostly irrelevant, and feel like they could have been scrapped safely.

Isolomus is a surrealistic point-and-click experience that explores themes of social isolation and psychological horror. It's very short (less than 20 minutes), but worth re-playing once or twice to explore alternative actions. Isolumus can only be played on the Switch's touchscreen. Unfortunately, the touchscreen controls are very poor, as they were clearly designed for a mouse. Fortunately, the game is short and easy enough to make the awful controls tolerable. If you manage to ignore the crappy controls, then Isolomus is quite good. It has claymation-based graphics, a disturbing atmosphere, and a strong artistic vision. I'll definitely check out future works from this author.

A heady, fast and fun revisitation of one of the most iconic videogames ever. PROS: - LIKE PAC-MAN ON HIGH: Between the 80s neon lights, the banging electro music, and the insane speed, this game really takes you to the zone. - WEIRDLY SATISFYING: The feeding frenzy when you slam at full speed into a "ghost train" can reach ASMR levels of gratification. - IT'S STILL PAC-MAN: This game and Pac-Man 99 prove that Pac-Man is a work of art–one of the few games from the early arcade era that lost nothing of its weird appeal in the last 40 or so years. This classic just needs a fresh coat of paint to return as addictive as ever. CONS: - A BIT SHALLOW: The adventure mode, score chases, and especially the co-op mode are all nice. However, I missed a mode with more sense of progression. Speaking of which… - ADVENTURE MODE IS ABSURDLY UNFAIR: The only mode that isn't a pure score chase feels like it's cheating on you. First, it's basically just a semi-random sequence of levels with very little feeling of an "adventure". Second, this mode turns nasty right at the end. What's the point in having a stars-based unlock system, if the last level suddenly changes all the rules to require *all* the stars in every single earlier level? Getting all the stars is an absurdly difficult task that the game never prepared you for, and should have been left to elite players and maybe achievement hunters–certainly not for the regular "ending".

After the transcendent Tetris 99 and the disappointing (and now unavailable) Super Mario Bros. 35, Pac-Man 99 is Nintendo's third iteration of the same idea: mash up battle royale with classic games from the 80s. I'm glad to say that this one is another winner, and a potential contender for king of the subgenre. PROS: - ADDICTIVE, IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY: Pac-Man 99 has fun, fast action, and hectic risk and reward mechanics that continuously push you forward. Even after dozens of runs, it's hard to say no to yet another go. - FEELS MORE BALANCED THAN ITS SIBLINGS: Where its two predecessors required monster reflexes or speedrunner-level insight, Pac-Man 99 makes you feel like you always have a chance. And when you die, most of the times you can only blame yourself. - IT'S PAC MAN: Most classic arcade games are just curiosities today. Not Pac-Man. It's truly a timeless classic that's still as fun to play as it always was, especially with modern touches like the satisfying "ghost trains". CONS: - SURPRISINGLY GREEDY: You already need Nintendo Online if you want to play multiplayer battle royale. To play additional modes, you're asked to fork out good money on top of that. - STILL A BIT THIN: Like other games in the same mold, Pac-Man 99 has no real sense of progress. It's nice for a while, but the tight "one more go" loop eventually gives way to a **** feeling that you're just wasting your time.

Everybody's 2020 indie darling isn't my cup of tea–but it's so good that I had to play it to the end. Whatever you think about it, there are good reasons behind the universal acclaim. Hades isn't just a good game: it's an indie game that makes most "triple A" look like shallow, repetitive grindfests. PROS: - ASTOUNDING AMOUNTS OF CONTENT: Roguelikes are repetitive by nature. Hades spices up that game loop by surprising you at every step with an incredible amount of quality content, that lasts well beyond the final credits. - FANTASTIC SCREENPLAY AND ACTING: At their worst, the writing and acting in Hades are Hollywood quality. At their best, they put most movies to shame. - SOUND MECHANICS: All the carefully curated content and the top-class dramatic work are nice–but at the bottom of it, Hades is still an action game, and a very good one at that. You'll be suitably amused and frustrated while learning to escape the underworld. CONS: SOME REPETITION: No matter how good, Hades is still a roguelike. You do the same thing over and over. This game does a great job of throwing new unexpected things at you, but a feeling of repetition still sets in after a while. UNBALANCED WEAPONS AND BOONS: Hades is carefully curated and balanced–but even then, some weapons are so much better than others, that the game has a hard time convincing you to vary your build, no matter how hard it tries. After the first successful run, you'll know exactly what you need to "win" multiple times in a row.

This collection includes the indie darling Hotline Miami and its sequel. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where the sequel is so bad, it spoils the memory of the first episode. The first game, Hotline Miami, is good. In 2020, it already feels like a product from the early times of indie gaming: rough around the edges and brutal, like a middle finger to triple A gaming companies. It's everything a big company wouldn't produce: a drug-soaked, demented bloodbath. Hotline Miami is an aggression to your senses, starting with the fantastic psychedelic menu screen. The graphics are in the "so bad, it's good" category. Even with those minimalistic pixel graphics, the violence feels orders of magnitude more direct and vicious than it does in most big-budget action games. The gameplay is all about stealth and action, but sometimes it feels like a puzzle game of sorts: enter a place, then find a pattern to kill everybody in the most brutal and efficient way. It's ruthless, rough, and quick, and it all holds together pretty well. As good as the first game is, Hotline Miami 2 is a disaster. The first game had a focused, narrow scope. The second game pumps all the dials up to 11, and loses its way in the process. The skeletal story of HM becomes a overly ambitious mess with too many characters, flashbacks and flash-forwards. The soundtrack, so essential to the first game's character, contains one too many bland loop. The tight mechanics of the first game become a spoiled broth of ideas where the additional ingredients never quite gel together. Most importantly, Hotline Miami 2 doesn't seem to understand what makes a game fun. Like many people said before, being shot five times in a row by an invisible enemy outside the screen–well, that's not fun at all. Neither is having to use the game's auto-aim arrow to get a hint of the enemies' positions. Beyond those glaring design flaws, however, the game gets even worse. Like in the first game, you must find patterns to clear out a room–but the patterns in HL2 are extremely finicky. Expect to restart levels from scratch dozens of times for the most maddening reasons: because you got jammed in the same door multiple times in a row, or because you pressed a button one frame too late as a dog attacked around a corner. There is even a borderline offensive "Ah, ah, you died" level that has you fighting nearly in the dark, and getting killed repeatedly by barely visible enemies. That's a maddening pile of steaming bad design decisions, coupled with a terrible enemy AI. To be fair, HM2 is addictive in its own way. It's hard to say "no" to just another frustrated go at a failed room. However, you usually restart a room with the feeling that you've been punished unfairly, and your main concern is to right that wrong. That's a myrthless game loop, and HM2 is all about that. Bottom line: if HM could be bought on its own, it would deserve a 7, or even an 8. The shadow cast by its failure of a sequel, however, turns this package into something that I can't recommend buying.

Sniper Elite 4 is a good single player game for fans of military shooters, sniping and stealth–but it becomes fantastic when played cooperatively. PROS: - ONE OF THE BEST CO-OP GAMES, PERIOD: With a communicative buddy or two (or three), SE4 is engrossing. The campaign can be played start to finish in co-op, and the game even throws in a couple of asymmetric "sniper and spotter" mission. The result is a riveting shared experience that creates endless moments worth remembering. - VERY SATISFYING SNIPING MECHANICS: It's a game about sniping, after all–so we all know what we came for. In that respect, Sniper Elite 4 doesn't disappoint: those long-distance perfect shots are immensely satisfying. - BEAUTIFULLY RENDERED LOCATIONS: The picturesque Italian locations are meticulously crafted, if a bit postcardy–and the graphics of the game does a great job delivering the beauty at (mostly) decent frames per second on the humble Switch. CONS: - TERRIBLE PROTAGONIST: The story of the game is mostly forgettable, and the beefy protagonist in particular is two-dimensional and hard to relate to. - THE "DEATH CAM" IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY: Yes, this is a sniping game, so you know what you're getting into–but even then, you might find those incredibly gory slow-mo sequences slightly disturbing in a "realistic" game such as this one. - NOT QUITE AS GOOD WHEN PLAYED ALONE: Sniper Elite 3 is still a good single-player FPS, but if it were not for co-op, it wouldn't be nearly as memorable.

A dense piece of deeply experimental interactive literature, Kentucky Route Zero was released over a period of seven years. It's a unique game that touched people in ways that no other game could. PROS: - SETTLES THE "ARE GAMES ART?" ARGUMENT: You might debate whether KRZ is a game, maybe–but there's no doubt that it is art. The game's relentless, uncompromising experimentation resonated with a surprising number of people–and that's a reason to be hopeful about games as an art form. - GORGEOUS GRAPHICS AND SOUND: From the obsessively detailed low-poly environments to the fantastic sound work, there is a lot of beauty to savor in this game. - IT TAKES YOU PLACES: Kentucky Route Zero didn't always engage me, but when it did, it did it with power. Some sequences, especially the ones that involved songs, will be hard to ever forget. CONS: - THICK SYMBOLISM: The game sells itself as "magical realism", but it feels more like surrealism–and ten hours of surrealism in a row can be overkill. The most plain and mundane dialogues were often a welcome break from the endless waves of oniric weirdness. - SUBVERTS ONE EXPECTATION TOO MANY: The game takes joy in continuously subverting your expectations, and throws more experiments at you than a dozen experimental games. Sometimes that might be a bit too much, and alienate you from the story's protagonists. - TOO VERBOSE AT TIMES: Some sequences, especially in acts III and IV, simply drag out for too long. KRZ wouldn't have lost anything if the authors had cut one or two hours of content. I play games mainly because of the pleasure they give me. KRZ was beautiful, but not always pleasant–so I cannot honestly give it more than an 8. However, if you have any interest for interactive fiction or "art house games", then this is a milestone game that you can't miss.

Olija is a short, evocative 8-bits action game. During victorian times, an impoverished local lord and his sailors get marooned on a faraway eastern archipelago. While longing to return home, the castaways discover a lurking evil, a mysterious oriental lady, and a magic harpoon. PROS: - SHORT AND SWEET: Just a few hours of gameplay, but there's absolutely no fat on these bones. - GREAT ATMOSPHERE: Between the evocative story and the brilliant sound design, Olija takes you to its world and doesn't let you go until the end. - STRAIGHTFORWARD, SATISFYING GAMEPLAY: Olija doesn't mess around with complicated challenges and grinding. It's a simple, straightforward action game that takes you from combat to satisfying combat. CONS: - DOESN'T LAST: Short and sweet it is, but maybe a bit too short–and once the credits roll, it doesn't give you any reason to stay around. - NOT MUCH OF A CHALLENGE: True, not every game needs to be hard. However, a bit more challenge might have made Olija more substantial. Even the hardest boss fights took me two or three attempts at most. - SLIGHT MECHANICS: The combat side of Olija could have used a bit more depth. As they are now, the mechanics encourage you to button-mash your way through most combat encounters.

Borderlands mixes open world FPS mechanics with a “looter” game loop–a lightweight RPG whose entire point is to gain levels and find bigger and better gear. Think “Far Cry meets Diablo”, and you're not too far off. PROS: - STELLAR PRODUCTION VALUES: If it's content that you're looking for, Borderlands deliver. It's a triple A game with nice graphics, full voice acting, dozens of huge maps, and enough missions for an extended endgame. - FUN CO-OP: I wouldn't care about Borderlands in single player–but the game's low-stakes action works well for co-op, and Borderlands also has a rare and commendable “combo co-op” feature: you can play with another player on the same console and a third or fourth on the Internet. - LOTS OF GUNS. I mean, *lots* of them–even though they're all based on random combinations of attributes. The game has enough gear to make every loot fan very happy. CONS: - NOT MUCH VARIATION: For such an expensively produced game, Borderlands doesn't have much variety in enemies and environments. Play the first hour of the game, and you've basically seen what the entire game is like. - LOW STAKES: The game suffers from the classis problems of looters: it ultimately feels shallow. You throw yourself at masses of randomly generated enemies again and again, reaping loot in the process. Rinse, repeat. The story is irrelevant. So is, ultimately, your character's progression, because the enemies are adjusted for it. - LOW-SKILLS LOOP: A consequence of the previous point, and the reason for my relatively low score: like Diablo III, this game gives you a feeling that your skills don't count. Enemies will magically hit you from pretty much any distance, making fighting tactics irrelevant, with the exception of cheesing exploits. Much of your precision and effectiveness in combat depends on your gear, not on you. Enemies below your level cannot even touch you, and enemies above your level are impossible bullet sponges. All in all, the game rarely hits a sweet spot where you feel like your skill matters. All that matters is your level and your gear.

Cyber Shadow is painful to review. Most of it is good. It's built with love and care, and it really nails its aesthetics. It doesn't just look and sound like an 8-bit action game: it *feels* like one, plus the modern amenities. Overall it gets close to being a great game… except that right before hitting its target, it takes a left turn and misses the mark by a mile because of its design flaws. Cyber Shadow tries to be a modern take on the classic ultra-hard ninja games, but it doesn't understand what makes hard games fun. Weirdly, the best level and bosses are also the hardest: the final ones. For most of the game, however, Cyber Shadow confuses difficulty for cheap instadeaths and soul-breaking frustration. Here is an example: Cyber Shadow asks you to slowly build up your health. You even go through multiple challenges for those additional health slots. After a while, however, you realize that the additional health has almost no effect on the game. With the exception of boss fights, you rarely ever die by running out of health: you mostly die by some variation of cheap instadeaths. The reason why the last level feels fair, even though it's the hardest, is that it doesn't rely on those cheap shots. The cheap deaths are only made worse by the game's controls. While the controls mostly work fine, some sections demand absolute precision–and that's where the controls fail. During the "monkey" challenge, I noticed that the jump command has a slight input lag on the Switch, and that's enough to make that section quite unreliable. In some later levels, tight platforming can become a hit-and-miss affair. Making a very hard game isn't easy. Not every "tough as nails" game can come close to Hollow Knight, Celeste, or Dark Souls. Joining that circle requires absolute fairness and very precise controls–and Cyber Shadow has neither. If only the whole game were as good as that last level!

I only got the free package so far, that includes one game (1943), plus a second game for a limited time (Ghosts 'n Goblins). Even with just one or two games, it's already clear that this is one of the best retrogaming packages on the Switch. I'll probably buy the three game packs. Pros: - GREAT GAMES: With a back catalog like this, Capcom can't go wrong. Many of these games are classic masterpieces that made arcade history. - GREAT EMULATION: Multiple video options, TATE mode… You won't be longing for accuracy here. - PLENTY OF MODERN AMENITIES: From "cheat modes" like save states and instant rewind to detailed online leaderboards, this virtual arcade has all the modern bells and whistles. Cons: - YOU CAN'T CHERRY PICK: The additional games can only be bought as three large packages, not individually. - NO HISTORICAL DETAILS: The games are great, but it would have been nice to see some historical notes and additional material. - LEAVES YOU LONGING FOR MORE: Not really a "con", but a couple of my favorites early Capcom arcade games aren't among the available packages. I'm crossing fingers for more packages!

Dicey Dungeons isn't quite a deck-builder. If it were, however, it would be the best deckbuilder on the Switch. It's often been compared to the excellent Slay the Spire, but it's much more varied, addictive and–in my humble opinion–fun than StS. It didn't let me go until I'd beaten the final boss–and that was no easy feat. Pros: * Brilliant mechanics: The game is a mix between a dice-thrower and a deck-builder–a deceptively simple combination that pretends to be all about luck, but it's actually about understanding the rules and using them to your advantage. * Astounding variety: Each character, level, and enemy introduces its own spin to the rules. Dicey Dungeons is essentially a simple idea twisted into dozens of variations–and it keeps introducing new radical changes until the very end. * Many hours of gameplay: With six characters, each with six episodes, plus one final fight, this game should keep you busy for a long time. And after that, there's always "Hard Mode", if you can stomach it. Cons: * Can be frustrating: Some levels are a breeze, but others are hard enough to be discouraging. The roguelike-inspired loop really bites when you fail the same 30-minutes level for the 10th time. * Sometimes, luck *does* count: Yes, this game is mostly about strategizing and managing your options–but there are times when your sophisticated planning gets undone because you encountered the wrong enemy or powerup. * Some levels feel repetitive: It's great to have so much content, but even with all the variations, some levels feel a bit too similar to each other.

Biolab Wars is a tiny budget retro-styled game that pays homage to the classic run-and-gun games of the 80s. Pros: - So much fun in a tiny package: In 1 or 2 hours of gameplay, Biolab Wars packs a lot of classic arcade-y fun and a great chiptune soundtrack. The difficulty is just right, a bit on the easy side–which is appropriate for this kind of game. - Silly in all the right ways: Remember those trashy games and movies from the 80s? This game is self-consciously like that. The graphics are so bad, they're good. The "story", if you can call it that, is as incoherent as the worst classic arcade games. Good stuff! - Dirt cheap: This game is less than 2 euros on the Switch, and often on sale for 1. It's a steal, considering that many retro arcade games are more expensive, shorter, and not as fun to play. Cons: - Play and forget: As fun as it is, Biolab Wars has very limited replayability. It doesn't support co-op play like many games of its type, and the four available characters don't seem to play any different from each other. - One bug: That's all I got–a single blocking bug that forced me to restart the game and replay the sixth level all over again. Not a big deal, but I thought I'd mention it. - Limited fire options: There are just a few weapons, and you can only shoot in two directions. But seriously, you can tell that I'm running out of negative points here.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that Aborigenus is some kind of self-conscious tribute to old Flash games. This isn't a "retro" game. It's more like some guy's first experiment making a game. It does look like an old Flash game, but only because it's equally bad. To be clear, the authors of Aborigenus do show some talent. The general art direction makes sense, and the soundtrack is surprisingly good–so much that it seems to beg for a better game. Instead, that decent sountrack is stuck with a game that looks like the result of a Unity "build your own game" tutorial. Aborigenus is a mishmash of half-arsed action platformer mechanics that don't work together. The whole thing lasts less than an hour, even though it's artificially lengthened by misplaced checkpoints and comically verbose text explanations that shift wildly from second to third person. After a handful of amateurishly designed levels, and a quick boss battle that could easily be beaten on first try, Aborigenus showed me the closing credits and crashed because of a bug. That was a fitting end for a game that shouldn't have been put on the eShop–especially not for 5 euros. I bought it on 80% sale for 99 cents, that I covered with Gold Points. It still felt overpriced.

Inmost is a quasi-metroidvania with beautiful graphics and a grim story of pain and loss. Unfortunately, it's also unplayable in its current state on the Switch. Pros: - Brilliant art: Striking graphics that mixes lo-bit pixel art with modern lighting effects. Very good sound effects. - Gut-wrenching story: The backstory only becomes clear in the end, but it's possibly the most intensely dramatic series of events I've ever seen in a game. - Constant sense of dread: Even with its overabundant allegories, Inmost maintains an uncanny feeling of impending doom throughout. Cons: - Crippling bugs: Six months after release, the game is essentially unplayable on the Switch. My playthrough was disrupted by a dozen bugs, including a blocking one that forced me to replay a long stretch of the game multiple times. An even more ridiculous bug blanked out the game's emotional final sequence, spoiling it completely. - Terrible controls: The game is a mobile conversion, but that's not a valid excuse for its clunky controls that confuse you and frustrate you at every turn. - A missed opportunity: Inmost could have been a good game–but that fact only makes its absurd bugs and control issues more painful. The game should never have been released in this half-done state, especially at its price point.

ABZÛ is a short but gripping underwater adventure with spectacular art. Pros: - Powerful art: The graphics and the music combine to make this game a fantastic experience. A few sequences might give you the goosebumps. - Emotional gameplay: ABZÛ smoothly cycles through emotions that range from a calm, meditative mood to flashes of wonder–and even subtle anxiety. - Perfect diving feeling: This game is the closest you can come to the blissful experience of scuba diving without actually getting wet. Cons: - A “swimming simulator”: ABZÛ is a very linear game in the mold of "walking simulators". Apart from playing around with sea creatures, the only interactivity consists in finding and activating switches. - Small screens need not apply: Playing this game handheld is like watching "Star Wars" on your phone. I started playing on my Switch Lite, and immediately dropped the game until I had access to a giant screen and a good sound system. - Very short: This game can be completed in a single sitting. Is that a pro or a con? You decide.

Wolfenstein II is one of Panic Button's "impossible" Switch ports. It's a high-budget game with plenty of action, content, story and cutscenes. The whole, however, is less than the sum of its parts. The action and mechanics in Wolfenstein II are OK. They don't bring any new idea to the genre, but they seem eager to use every idea that already exists. All those options feel overwhelming. By the end of the game, I rarely ever tried some of the mechanics and weapons. You can deal with combat in multiple ways, including pure stealth-but stealth doesn't feel very well implemented. I always started with stealth, and always reverted to the classic blazing guns. The worst part of Wolfenstein II, to me, is also the one that the critics liked the best: its story. To me, it feels like an haphazard mess. The game never decides what its voice should be. It starts on an outright depressing tone, and it often comes back to a somber, serious mood. It constantly reminds you that the people you're killing have families and feelings, that you're going to die as well, that you're a bit of a monster. Then it seems to shrug ("Ah, screw it!") and reverts to a joyous **** gore-fest. You're left not knowing what you're supposed to feel. I was hoping for a nice piece of pulp fiction where you kill **** in mech armors, and found something that's about… what? It's never quite clear. With all the effort that went into the story and the cutscenes, the result is puzzling at best and infuriating at worst. On one side, the game is really dark. It hints at concentration camps, it deals with themes such as racism and child abuse. But then, in the same breath, it throws buckets of gore at you as you gleefully dismember and kill hundreds of people. This schizophrenic attitude is also evident in the characters: on one side, the game wants to be "woke" and involve minority characters, no matter how awkward their presence is. On the other side, most of the characters are so absurdly cliche that they're borderline offensive. Black people in this game swear a lot, they play jazz music, they like to have random sex with white chicks. Even as a white person, I felt slightly insulted by these caricatures of blackness, and I found it impossible to care about the characters in general. PROS: - An "impossible" port: Wolfenstein II runs like a dream on the Switch. Aside from some texture blurriness, you can easily forget you're playing on a portable console. - Top production values: From the slick motion capture to the meticulously designed levels and abundant content, the game screams "triple A". - Brilliant gyro controls: I thought I'd never ejoy an FPS on a console. Wolfenstein II's gyro aiming is the closest you can get to play with a mouse and keyboard. CONS: - Mood Swings: Between serious themes, B-movie pulp, and straight-out farce, the game never finds a consistent tone. - Irritating characters: I was supposed to care about these people. I didn't. They were just too flat and cliche. - Just another FPS: It doesn't do anything particularly wrong, but it doesn't really ever shine either.

Darksiders Genesis is a prequel to the popular franchise. Compared to other games in the series, it introduces two major changes: an isometric perspective, and a tight focus on cooperative gameplay. Pros: - Great co-op: I played through this game with my sister over the Internet, and it was a blast. The two main characters have very different abilities, and you can even switch roles when you want to. - Good mix of genres: The game has plenty of combat encounters, but also enough platforming and puzzles to break the pace. - Exploration aplenty: If you're the completionist type, you'll enjoy combing the levels for the dozens of different powerups that are hidden everywhere. Cons: - Quite buggy: We found new bugs every time we played, including a few that forced us to restart the game. We lost count of how many times we got stuck in the scenery. - Uneven difficulty: On the default difficulty, combat can be challenging early on. By the last few levels, however, even major bosses have become pushovers. - Frustrating perspective: The camera view is good for co-op, but it makes for some frustrating platforming, and forces you to squint to see stuff on the Switch's screen.