The show's trademark knack for satire staves off the sameness in this wintry brawler
Moral murkiness helps preserve the tension across Swansong’s duration. There’s always something at stake – your life, the masquerade, your integrity – and that does a lot to infuse some meaning into all the talking and scouring rooms for notes. I doubt that Swansong is set to become a vampire RPG of legend, like 2004’s Bloodlines, but it nonetheless makes vampires scary again.
Uncover a grim conspiracy and sweet-talk snooty bears in this genre-hopping indie game
This is a gripping tale of crime families, sharp shooting and sharper suits – but has this remaster lost some of Mafia's charm?
This top-down retro journey into the 1980s criminal underworld pairs car chases and con artistry
A slow-paced and overly simplistic take on city building and war waging, but blessed with wholesome looks and a relaxing atmosphere.
Arcade offroad racing of the like we've played four times previously.
A rough-edged but worthwhile spin on historical 4Xs that oddly leaves Civ's greatest flaws untouched.
Broad in shoulder, wide in scope, rough around the edges. Nevertheless, an enjoyably meaty survival game.
With its fundamentals unchanged and last year's foray into classic cars removed, F1 2014 provides very little beyond a perfunctory car and track update.
A fiddly take on management, survival and city building that you can still lose a weekend to.
The beginnings of a PvPvE cult hit. Extinct animal slaughter is fundamentally fun, but the foundations are sparse.
A lumbering historical murder mystery with little regard for tension or pacing, but one that packs in such dense detail you can't help but respect it. Pentiment immerses you in 1500s Bavaria and that's the main event.
Built on the foundations of several fantastic games, and those qualities remain – but you already own them. F1 22 simply doesn't offer enough for a full-price purchase.
Gripping supernatural subterfuge meets perfunctory mechanics. Worth it to explore the World of Darkness, though.
A haunting journey through a woodland with a real sense of place, but its breadth of mechanics silts up the pacing. Phil Iwaniuk
Changes on the battlefield don't make for a Total War experience to match historical and Warhammer entrants, but there's still a deeply involving strategic layer in Three Kingdoms that sits well with its licence.Phil Iwaniuk
With the advent of its final release, H1Z1 demonstrates a level of thoughtfulness in its design that reflects how closely its developers have listened to players. Whether it's enough to draw those crowds back to Daybreak and the progenitor of battle royale games is a different story, but H1Z1 deserves a lot of credit for the strides it's taken towards polishing an inherently rough and ready genre.
At its core is a rewarding driving model, hundreds of gorgeous and unusual cars, and some imaginatively designed solo championships to tackle in them. In time, it will probably be unreservedly brilliant. But, right now, I can't overlook the technical problems that I'm having. And, to continue this candour, I can't overlook the VIP pass nerfing or the exclusion of a season pass from Forza's Ultimate Edition either.
Not the finest physics simulation ever, but good enough to convey a uniquely challenging discipline-plus, all the customisation items in the world.