Moonlighter is one of those titles that suffered a little because I played it as an early adopter. I enjoyed Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, and so I was immediately sold on that concept as a modern experience.

Moonlighter, for the most part, was a fun time in its early state. The weapons provided a nice variety of options, and the gameplay was simple but satisfying. It was a clever angle to have an upgrade tree that either focused on raw power or speciality weapons that inflicted status effects.

Finding secrets by falling into pits provided a nice additional angle to exploration, and the item curses gave item management a twist. The dungeons were varied with a specific theme; the forest frequently caused poison and the technology dungeon is heavy on enemies that shoot lightning. Although the dungeons are formulaic (written off in the story as being that way on purpose), they are just the right size to make an overwhelming number of items a blessing and curse.

But, whilst the earlier version of the game was fun, I thought it suffered from balancing issues. I quickly bought the upgrades and had no reason to keep the shop running. With things heavily money orientated, I could gather loot and get my shop assistant to sell what I didn’t need for upgrades. Maxing out the character and defeating the final boss made for an extremely short endgame. With the game finished and the remaining achievements feeling tedious, I felt that I had no reason to go back at the time.

With the Between Dimensions DLC giving me incentive to go back, I am glad that I did, because things feel much improved with costs being balanced with improvements. The DLC adds a much-needed endgame dungeon with a steep difficulty curve that requires plenty of funds to obtain the upgrades to survive. Prices feel adjusted accordingly, with the Banker offering more of a gamble, and I soon found myself running out of cash and having to run the shop. There is also a new haggling system, with villagers offering trades for rare items and giving more much needed incentive to occupy the store. Villager quests and materials needed for upgrades give more incentive to go back to earlier dungeons.

Although it is often simplistic, Moonlighter is a fun time. My only real gripe with the updated version is how confusing the DLC can appear to be sometimes. There are new wanderer dungeons in the regular dungeons, offering both an alternative route to the next floor, or an additional floor with chests. Cool? Yes. But it’s easy to assume that’s all the DLC is, as the real wanderer dungeon doesn’t appear until after the main story.

But considering how cheaply the whole experience can be picked up these days, I recommend it as a fun week-long RPG with a neat shop gimmick.

The Mummy Demastered is excellent. It's almost a joke; the derivative being better than the product it's based upon.

Games based on movies tend to be awful, so much so, there are very few that stand out as great. The Mummy Demastered has no right to be as good as it is, being based on a heavily panned movie that flopped so badly that it killed the cinematic universe it tried to jumpstart.

The soundtrack is also full of bangers, with some nostalgia-feel songs that work well with the surprisingly plumbed environments which blend seamlessly. The graphics are great and blend Egyptian mythology perfectly into a contemporary British setting that worked around the limits of the movie. It genuinely feels like Ahmanet is invading, with London streets covered in sand. Mummies rise alongside contemporary zombies, templar knights and skeletons. Locusts make for great fodder enemies as well as a means to work in a persistent Egyptian theme, and bosses are based on Egyptian deities and myths.

The metroidvania elements blend perfectly with a rogue-lite system. Dying results in a new agent being sent out and having to recover upgrades from the zombified former player character. The later in the game things get, the more deadly the predecessor becomes. Upgrades feel like upgrades, with a variety of weapons, artifacts and subweapons. Finding a new weapon in a barricaded room feels so satisfying, especially when it comes to learning what works effectively on different enemies.

Do I have any gripes? Not particularly. The metroidvania elements are superb, but there aren't any hidden rooms in the standard sense. The sealed rooms are closer to Metroid's doors that require a missile or beam. An upgrade later destroys walls, but as a means of creating a convenient path with very few secrets to be found like this.

The relics felt a little tedious, as they are little more than a rising number found in random containers, with no real variety or lore tied to them (but, then again, the movie it was based upon was as deep as a soup spoon, so...)

I feel a little sad that the franchise is dead in the water and dragged down any hopes of a sequel to this game with it. I would've loved to have seen different mythologies being tackled and how this would effect gameplay.

The game is short, so it definitely does not outstay its welcome. But it's an excellent experience, especially with challenges like trying to get through the game with one agent.

Wholly recommended as a game to blast through in a few short days, and it's worth going back to after a few years.

A fun action roguelike, with a smart amount of strategy that involves moving from ship to ship in search of what you need most at the time. All pulled together with a neon-punky British sci-fi aesthetic that wouldn't look out of place on British snacks from the 80s and 90s.

A variety of hazards and character quirks inject some much-needed variety into the stages. A dash through oil spills to make it to a healing machine can be equal parts hilarious and frustrating, and it was fun to dash to the exit with bullets trailing after me.

It's deeply saturated with anti-corporate humour. Anti-climatic conclusions serve as both the punchline but also an unsatisfying ending to many things. Don't expect dramatic boss fights or plot twists.

Wholly recommended to sci-fi fans and those looking for a quirky FPS rogue-like that relies more on motion than stats.