2.5/5 Review

Despite the name, Freddy Spaghetti 2.0 is a step backwards. It has less ideas, less levels and less ambition than the first game. As a fan of the original, I was hoping for something more from the oddly lovable strip of slinky sentient spaghetti.

Wasteland 3: The Battle of Steeltown is the very definition of “okay”. The story is good, choosing which side to champion does add a bit of replayability, and the weapons are fun to use, if only really relevant in the DLC bubble. The problem is, the bugs that seem to crop up regularly now spoil the taste somewhat. If all you want is more Wasteland 3 story to follow and play through, this is an easy sell, but the rest of us should think a bit more carefully.

We never expected metal detecting to be a Michael Bay movie, but we did expect the moment of finding a treasure to feel exhilarating. In Treasure Hunter Simulator, you just toss it onto the pile of identical treasures behind you, and press on with a weary sigh. 

The Last Rolling Hero will deliver you some enjoyment for the few hours it will take to complete. It's as cheap as chips, comes with a basic premise, looks okay visually but is never ever groundbreaking. The camera in the cutscenes and some other little bits do seem a bit broken, but gameplay-wise it works fine.

There’s not enough of a difference to materially change the experience that Synchro Hedgehogs offers versus the Butterfly games - it’s more of a slight tweak of the gameplay. As a result, the game has more than a strong sense of deja vu about it.

Should you fancy yourself as a commercial fisherman and want to prove it in the virtual world, Fishing: North Atlantic is the new game of choice. However, this is a very niche genre, the competition isn’t awfully strong, and saying that feels like faint praise.

Should you be looking for a simple, casual little playthrough in which interactions are kept to a minimum, the mysterious world of Beasts of Maravilla Island may just about keep you quiet for two hours tops. But don't expect to be wowed by what could have been a magical journey into the unknown.

Butterfly 2 brings almost nothing new to the table, providing more of the same platforming action as the first game. However, a lack of appetite to improve and evolve the game is disappointing, and makes it hard to recommend.

Despite its cutesy graphics that hark back to early Game Boy Advance titles, the shallow gameplay of Mina & Michi is rarely nostalgia-inducing. Puzzles are repetitive, enemies lack any invention and Mina is just a bit useless. It is just another game useful for achievement fodder that many will put down as quickly as they pick up once every achievement has been unlocked.

With a little more care put into the tutorial and explanation side of Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf, the card based gameplay could well have been a lot of fun, but that fun is nipped in the bud sadly.

Should you be coming to Tour de France 2021 looking for a proper bike racer which will let you replicate the real-world grand tour, this isn't the game for you. And unfortunately unless those behind it take a season out to prepare themselves for future years, it’s hard to see how this franchise can ever begin to appeal going forward.

Deep down, under all the skimpy clothes and comedy nudity, there is a solid game trying to get out of Empire of Angels IV. The story is good, the actual battles themselves are fun, and seeing your ragtag band of ladies become badass through constant fighting is quite rewarding. However, this has to be balanced against the frankly juvenile way that women are portrayed.

Rust Console Edition is shonky, feels unfinished and looks like an Xbox 360 title. It is stuffed with the most hostile player base ever, and even surviving for five minutes feels like a win. However, there is fun to be had, particularly if you enjoy grinding for materials and living on your wits.

There may be someone, somewhere, who can master the counter-intuitive controls of Rift Racoon and have a good time. But we are not that person. It’s a puzzle-platformer that demands precision with its taut levels, but then hands you teleporting abilities that are chaotic at best, cruel at worst.

0 Degrees’s two big guns, the creation and freezing of ice blocks, are loaded with blanks. By applying physics to its ice blocks, and not tightening up the ways in which you create them, it feels like you’re climbing a mountain with all the wrong tools. Adding insult to injury, 0 Degrees creates a complex obstacle course that would only have worked if those tools were fit for purpose. Somewhere in all that snow and ice, there’s a fun puzzler with precision controls. We chipped away as much as we could, but couldn’t find it. Then we went back to playing Celeste.