Dave Ozzy

Bright Paw: Definitive Edition is not Stray. It’s a single-player board game where a lack of freedom of movement is the point: where you are at the whims of the cards in your hand. The ponderous gameplay and the very, very gradual difficulty curve might lose it some admirers, but if you show it some patience and love, then this cat is inordinately charming and rewarding. 

August must be good if we’re having to cram thirteen new Xbox games into our Up Next. Yep, rather than edit the Up Next down by trimming out some of the fabulous games coming in August, we decided to include every single one of the Xbox games that got us excited. And there is a lot to get excited about. 

BAFTA take note, because South of the Circle - in a few categories - comes preciously close to being best-in-class.

It’s the day that Inside arrives on the Game Pass service, and we couldn’t recommend it more. 

It’s rare to find a debut game as confident as As Dusk Falls. It’s rarer still to find one that unerringly finds your belly for an emotional gut punch like this one does.

Aery - Vikings glides pretty close to all the Aery games that have come before it. It is as serene and welcoming as its flight-sim forebears, but also as glitchy.

There’s something of an adventure game resurgence going on, as Monkey Island returns with Ron Gilbert at the helm. It’s a perfect time, then, nearly thirty years after the original, for Simon the Sorcerer to make its return. Developed by Smallthing Studios, Simon the Sorcerer Origins is picking up the baton from where Adventure Soft left off. 

If you’ve enjoyed games that absolutely drench their 2D platforming in artful, kooky narrative, like Wandersong and What Lies in the Multiverse, then you are going to find a £4.99 treat in The Wizard and the Slug. 

DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace might not be the game you expect. A diluted Star Fox, it’s too repetitious in its enemies and levels for an adult, and too buggy, difficult and clumsy to control for a pre-teen.

There’s no connecting the two games that are new to the Game Pass service today. They’re chalk and CCs. Which is welcome, because it means that at least one of them is likely to offer you something you want. 

With so much going on in Dicey Dungeons, we thought it would be a fine time to chat with its originator and sole developer-designer, Terry Cavanagh. We had a lot to ask after falling under the spell of its new Reunion DLC

We have a warmness of affection for Surface Rush, but nothing stronger than that. It proves that you can elevate the coin-pushing games of your youth to a full-blown video game, and it doesn’t skimp on the levels or game modes.

Patient gamers celebrate! One of 2016’s best games has just been added to the Game Pass service, and if you’ve been holding out on buying it, then prepare to be rewarded.

Long Live the Queen is an odd one. A visual novel with delusions of grandeur, it folds in some kingdom management and lesson timetabling with mixed-to-poor results.

A relentless volley of J-pop bangers, the setlist of MUSYNX is a lesson in quality and quantity. And while MUSYNX may be simple, it plain works.