Assassin’s Creed was a masterpiece of its time: Eidos Montreal developed a brand new engine just to capture Altair Ibn La-Ahad in his truest form, directed his story in beautiful detail, and gave gamers their first taste of being part of the brotherhood and taking up the creed.

I’m a huge fan of the AC games, having played through most of them, but I cannot, in earnest, recommend you play this game. A masterpiece once but for the standards of 2023, it will merely frustrate you every time you want to take it seriously. The revolutionary free-running movement system is unforgiving at the best of times; incredible direction is met with generally wooden dialogue; and a fulfilling target hunting experience is met with painfully repetitive information-gathering experiences and assassination experiences.

If you want to tap into what amazon Altair’s story has, Oliver Bowden’s novelisation of this game (with bits taken from later games) is a brilliant read, and you’ll enjoy it far more than the miniscule detail this game gives you.

Hogwarts Legacy is an adventure of a Wizarding World experience in the most fantastic way -- in a way unseen since 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on PlayStation 2. A game I very much sunk similar time in Wingardium Leviosa’ing random objects around Hogwarts. Hogwarts Legacy brought the best version of this experience ten year-old me could’ve asked for, and one of the best games I’ve played fifteen years later.

This game can often feel like a very large, very shallow, ocean. You will definitely notice elements of repetition, copy pasting, and monotony -- but the joy it’ll bring you, whether casting spells, riding your own racing broom and Hippogriffs, or attending Transfiguration Class and keeping beasts of your own, you’ll love it as much as me.

Avalanche have found a great balance between a really nice RPG and a really low barrier to entry. Whether you’re a kid with little patience, or an adult with little time, spending forty hours in the first game since The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim where the mechanics have a smooth learning curve and a simplistic enough resources, fighting, side mission (etc) to pick right up where you left and get back on the broom to kill another ten hours.

It’s also worth mentioning how creative Avalanche have been with Hogwarts Legacy. It looks incredible, sounds as magical as the movies, the story feels like a Wizarding World story, and the voice actors do a great job bringing life to each of the characters. You won’t help notice a little stiffness in certain areas, but damn if you’ll be having a whirlwind of a time to notice these things -- other than, of course, that minute you mount your broom and the beautiful music sets in.

Enter a dystopian world where all the humans are gone, and only cats remain. One day you're chilin' with your homies in an old construction site, purrin' the day away -- the next, falling down a dark hole, only to hope you can find your way back up.

Stray is definitely in my top games for being accessibly fun. Whatever your gaming style, for the eight hours you can get out of this game, you'll enjoy every minute. It takes the best bits about storytelling without dialogue and applies the technique to a world without any humans to speak. Explore the world where humans are long gone, littered with interesting puzzles, characters you can really imagine yourself, and remember to annoyingly press the 'meow' button to annoy anyone in your vicinity.

Ratchet & Clank was a big part of my introduction to video games. I can never remember what edition I had on PS2, but I always remember constantly replaying through a particular mission where you had to jump around on trains and then getting stuck when you finally got your ship back. I always remember the random weapons with particular ammo, the quirky Captain Quark, and Clank's mischievous laugh. Sony delivering such an iconic piece of intellectual property has helped it survive over twenty years.

Rift Apart is an incredibly good call back to those days. You get a whole host of weapons, you get a ship, and you get Clank's mischievous laugh. In fact, you get a whole lot more: the beautiful remaster you can witness in a modern resolution, the brilliant cut scenes and charming characters, and a story missions that really do their best to remain original and remove too much focus from those repetitive aspects.

I'm not sure this is the best Ratchet and Clank game I've ever played, nor Sony one, but this is another release that goes to show that Sony is doing a brilliant job of bringing really good experiences to gaming. That they release them on PC now too is honestly golden.

Riding on the tailcoats of 2033 and Last Light, Metro: Exodus aims to explore the world outside the metro, said to be a baron wasteland. Turns out it's not empty, shock horror. It's definitely still a wasteland; an extensively boring, dull-coloured, Anakin-Skywalker-sand-levels, wasteland.

I adore the Metro franchise, and I went into this game knowing that I should've expect a lot given the majority of the reviews capture how poor it is, but I cannot express how true that is. It's a fine game, and there are definitely points that feel very Metro, but as soon as you reach the half-way point, it turns really, really monotone. I couldn't even be bothered continuing.

This is hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. Disclaimer where it's due: this game is a jack of all trades. It does everything really well, but nothing perfectly. It looks stunning, feels awe inspiring, and captures the tone of the franchise within which it is based incredibly, but it definitely has flaws, even if they can be ignored.

Guardians of the Galaxy takes you on an adventure across the stars. I honestly can't impression any more of the plot without spoiling it, and trust me, there is so much I'm holding back on. The narrative behind what is ultimately a superhero game, kept me guessing at every turn, and never failed to impress. The action, while a tad repetetive, felt as satisfying as ever and moreso when you adjust to intuitively creating your own combos. The characters had their own place in this story and chemistry with one another, and developed equally. The boss fights were fair, far and few between. The soundtrack, like with everything in this franchise, was incredible and genuinely helped the immersion. Shooting baddies while listening to The Final Countdown by Europe has never been so insanely cool.

This game is genuinely just fun to play, and has a format that I can see going really far, but also allows the game to stand on its own two feet should this be all we are to expect from Marvel's future gaming endeavours. Being a Marvel fan already just made it even better.

I've had a lot of fun with Control over the past couple days. Primarily, I have to give this game credit for it's genuinely intuitive controls/mechanics. They make this game worth playing solely to run from area to area smashing everything up and getting to grips with how you like to fight best. You can upgrade your whole load-out, articulate your abilities however you like, and craft different weapons to suit your approach.

Besides that, though. this game is fairly mediocre. It runs poorly, looks fairly average, and delivers the narrative pretty anemically. Very few characters feel anything more than dry and lacking chemistry with the main character, and the fighting can get very repetetive if it weren't forgiven for how purely satisfying it is to throw boxes at enemies like you're some kind of Jedi.

You can always count on the Dead Space franchise to provide you a horrifying atmosphere with blood-curdling screams at every corner you turn. Dead Space 2, however, is an unfortunate example of how a sequel can do it's story a disservice.

While Dead Space 2 packs in new mechanics, more upgrades, and enough save points to keep your heart rate down. It's also got plenty of dry dialogue, emotional moments that don't resonate, and a plot that is stretched across fifteen chapters rather than the five it probably fills.

If you wanted a Dead Space game and not a Doom clone, this isn't the one.

A deeply upsetting, but profoundly spellbinding, take on a journey through paradigm-shifting grief surrounded in mythological themes, intense battles, and an unforgettable experience.

Packed with extensive cinematics that hook you right into Senua's world, immersive scenes that question life through a schizophrenic's eyes in an entirely sensible fashion, and an utterly satisfying combat mechanic you'll never want to put down -- even for such a short game, if you don't have it completed: you're missing out.