Recommendations

Devil May Cry is a 2001 action hack-and-slash game made by Capcom. It was the first videogame I ever played, and I have remained a steadfast fan of the series since. It essentially spawned the character action genre of games, and - in my opinion - it still holds up to this day. The franchise has five main instalments, with a reboot developed by a different developer slotted between four and five. It's fun, flashy and stylish, and at times very challenging; it promotes a level of mastery, meaning you can put hundreds of hours into the game and still find ways to improve.

Scott Pilgrim is a series of graphic novels released between 2004 and 2010 by Bryan Lee O'Malley. It got a live action movie adaptation, an animated short, a tie-in video game, and a Netflix animated series. This series has been rattling around in my brain since 2010, the movie adaptation has remained my all-time favourite movie, the graphic novels are among my favourite of the medium, and I have an unhealthy amount of hours in the game.

Balatro is a 2024 roguelike deckbuilder game, built around the prospect of playing poker hands to score points. It was my game of the year for 2024. The amount of content, the polish, and the raw fun I have had while playing this game is astonishing. This is one of those games that came out of absolutely nowhere and took the indie scene by storm. It's engaging, and at times incredibly difficult, and requires a bit of mental maths, making it an all-round masterclass in Good Game Design. It's also pretty cheap, has no microtransactions, and all the money goes to the indie dev to fund his next game. Play it.