Helldivers 2 official artwork and logo for the satirical shooter

Inspired by Starship Troopers, Helldivers 2 is a highly satirical shooter that has you spread peace, liberty and managed democracy across the stars through the use of overwhelming firepower. And much like Starship Troopers, despite obviously being cannon fodder with the life expectancy measured in minutes, Helldivers 2 does a phenomenal job of making you feel like you're an unstoppable badass... all the way until you accidentally call down an orbital bombardment directly on your head and send yourself flying into the stratosphere Team Rocket style!

So if you're curious about where exactly Helldivers 2 excels, as well as where it misses the mark and falls flat on its face, allow me to share with you my thoughts after spending well over 70 hours playing it since launch. Spoiler alert: it's pretty darn good!

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader artwork and logo showing off the characters

Following in the footsteps of Owlcat's previous games Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is an immensely vast and deep ocean of cRPG goodness! It's filled with all sorts of interesting characters to chat with, locations to strip bare of anything that looks even remotely valuable, a plethora of insane cultists to squash in turn-based combat, and as is tradition, a dazzling array of bugs that would make even Papa Nurgle proud!

So if you're curious about what exactly Rogue Trader does well, as well as where it strays a big too close to heresy, allow me to share with you my thoughts after spending a frankly unhealthy amount of time playing it over the past week.

Indie roguelike World of Horror screenshot of a giant head rising from a deep hole

Heavily inspired by the works of Junji Ito and H. P. Lovecraft, World of Horror is an extremely stylish, 1-bit tribute to cosmic horror as a whole. All of that is fairly obvious from even a single screenshot, but what isn't so easily apparent is that World of Horror is also a surprisingly compelling roguelike that will have you face an endless array difficult choices as you attempt to single-handedly avert the end of the universe as we know it.

So if you're curious about what exactly makes the gameplay tick, as well as how the horror aspects tie into everything, allow me to share with you my thoughts after repeatedly getting bludgeoned, devoured or simply going insane over the course of the past week.

Turbo Overkill artwork with the red logo

True to its name, Turbo Overkill is a celebration of over-the-top action, completely unphased by such silly little things like common sense or the laws of physics. Your guns can rip and tear enemies into thousands of tiny pieces, you can barrel through the levels at such insane speeds you might have trouble even seeing what you're trying to hit, and the fact that you can replace all four of your limbs with chainsaws isn't even the best bit!

So if you're curious just how ridiculous Turbo Overkill gets, as well as how the fully completed Version 1.0 looks like compared to the Early Access builds, allow me to share my thoughts after gunning down a couple of gods over the past week.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide artwork and logo for the co-op focused action game

[Update]: Warhammer 40,000: Darktide studio Fatshark are suspending new content, microtransactions and the Xbox version in order to focus on much-needed fixes.

Much like the Vermintide series that came before it, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a remarkably enjoyable co-op game that has managed to vacuum up all of my free time over the past few weeks. Its combination of extremely tight and satisfying gameplay, a world that couldn't be more Warhammer 40k if you plastered skulls everywhere, and an arsenal of intentionally absurd weaponry proved to be simply too fascinating to resist!

However, despite recently launching from beta, Darktide is still nowhere near finished. Core features like crafting are barely implemented, some of the quality-of-life tweaks I've come to know and love in Vermintide 2 are nowhere to be seen, while annoying technical issues frequently appear to throw a wrench into the works. So even though there's a whole lot to love about Darktide, there's also a fair bit to criticize!

As such, if you're curious about what sort of things Darktide does well, as well as where it stumbles and falls flat on its face, allow me to share with you my thoughts after nearly eighty hours of gameplay across all of the difficulty levels and classes.

Overwatch 2 artwork showing off Sojourn, Junker Queen and Kiriko along with the logo

[Update]: I'm afraid I have some bad news. Overwatch 2 will be drastically downscaling the scope and amount of its long-awaited PvE missions.

When Blizzard first announced Overwatch 2 back in 2019, their vision for the game included a plethora of co-op focused missions that would finally let us learn more about the world and its characters, an MMO-style talent tree to help us customize each hero and their playstyle to our liking, as well as more of everything we've come to know and love from the original game. It was exactly what me and a majority of the playerbase were asking for ever since the first PvE event arrived alongside the Halloween Terror update, so how could this possibly go wrong?

Well, as it turns out, in a myriad of ways as the freshly released version of Overwatch 2 is not even close to what was promised three years ago. It can barely even be considered an expansion, let alone a sequel, as all it really brings to the table is three new heroes, a new game mode alongside a couple of new maps, a new monetization system and an assortment of balance changes - all stuff that we could've received through the usual seasonal updates had Blizzard not prematurely abandoned the game.

Yet despite the disappointing amount of new content, I still found myself falling in love with Overwatch 2 as the core gameplay is so incredibly polished and varied that it's hard to stop playing once you really get into it! So if you're curious about what exactly makes Overwatch 2 so enthralling, as well as how it all compares to the original, allow me to share with you my thoughts after quite a few hours of exploring all of its game modes and characters.

There Is No Light indie action-RPG official artwork and logo

[Update]: There Is No Light's Enhanced Edition has added a whole bunch of new abilities and rebalanced most enemies, thus fixing some of the issues with the slow progression in player power.

In sharp contrast to most action-RPGs that have you start your day with a bit of mundane busywork to help you get acquainted, There Is No Light throws you into the deep end by having you make a deal with the devil and stab an eldritch god in the face within the first few minutes. What follows next is a lengthy adventure that will take you across a world riddled with corruption and teeming with mutated monstrosities, all of which you'll need to single-handedly best in combat while doing whatever you can to keep your soul from descending into darkness. And things only get weirder and weirder from there!

So if you're curious about what There Is No Light's bizarre world has to offer, as well as how the ever-present combat works, allow me to share my thoughts after spending a week slicing and dicing my way through its accursed halls.

The Iron Oath official artwork and logo

Much like any business these days, your mercenary company in The Iron Oath has to carefully manage its finances in a turbulent economy, strike a fine balance between relying on veteran workers and investing in new blood, as well as fight off hordes upon hordes of interdimensional demons that have come to destroy everything you know and love! In a way, it's the perfect showcase of what it's like to work in retail!

So if you're curious how you can save the world on a budget, as well as how the Darkest Dungeon inspired missions play out, allow me to share my thoughts after spending quite a few hours exploring The Iron Oath's pixelated world.

Peglin official artwork and logo

Unlike most rogue-likes that have you personally fight your way through hordes of baddies, in Peglin you get to passive-aggressively stare at your enemies while you throw orbs into a pit in order to see what kind of smackdown fate has decreed for them. It's a ridiculous premise, but after playing way too much Peglin over the past week, I must admit it's also quite an addictive one!

So if you're curious how Peglin manages to turn Peggle-inspired gameplay into a nerve-wracking rogue-like, as well as how it compares to the rest of the genre, allow me to share my thoughts after quite a few hours with the demo.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands fiery artwork and logo

Inspired by Borderlands 2's highly popular Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep DLC, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a charming and explosion fueled homage to the RPG genre. With some top notch action and an excellent cast doing their best to portray completely ridiculous characters as straight as possible, it's also a highly enjoyable game in its own right.

So if you're curious about just what all of this looks like in action, as well as how Wonderlands compares to its predecessor Borderlands 3, allow me to share my thoughts after a very explosion-filled adventure!