Below are all the games in 2025 that I spent more than a few hours playing, along with my brief thoughts. This is roughly chronological from start to end of 2025, although some games I’d often return to here and there.

To be honest, I forgot to keep this updated throughout the year, and I’m coming back to this late so I’ve probably left some out.

Arizona Sunshine Remake (VR)

A great deal of zombie shooting fun. Good mechanics and just the right difficulty as I did repeatedly die at a few points, but always kept on going. Had to also play through the bonus DLC content as I just wanted more. Only real downside would be long loading times which especially impacted reloading on death.

Thank Goodness You’re Here

The most british game I’ve ever played, and I love that about it. Ended up going through it in one sitting in a few hours, but well worth it to experience the fun drawn visuals and excellent writing.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

While I liked the look of the art style, the older mechanics made it tricky to get into the game and I had to stop after finding myself not enjoying it.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

After enjoying the original, I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy even more of the same, but I ended up enjoying the sequel even more. They made various little changes to improve the pace and gameplay while also improving upon the out-of-combat exploration/gameplay to be less tedious.

Control

Wasn’t sure about it going in, but really found myself enjoying the combat, story and environments. I like how focused it felt, and how well presented everything seemed to be.

Spider Man Remastered - Extra Content

Returned to this for the extra content. It was okay, but after completing the main quest, and fully upgrading my character, these side elements can feel inconsequential. The core game is still good though, but I’ve now got Miles Morales at the ready to get deeper into another main story.

Dave the Diver

Loads of great elements, and a surprising amount of depth here, but I couldn’t help but feel frustrated about being constantly distracted from the main gameplay loop when I just wanted to focus on fishing and my sushi restaurant. A case where I think that less would have been better.

Frostpunk

Being a fan of management and city builder games, I thought this would be a good fit, but the theme just felt too depressing and non-interesting to me. Didn’t play for long.

Minami Lane

A real cosy yet short town builder with a lovely design. A nice way to zone out for a few hours.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 (2025)

It wasn’t bad, but something just felt off about it, unlike the (IMO better) 1 + 2 remake from a few years before. Maybe it was the bigger changes for pro skater 4 causing misalignment with past fond memories. Maybe it was something in the details. Still worked my way through all levels though. I hope they remake THUG + THUG2 too, but stay a bit more true to the originals.

Super Mario Bros Wonder

I don’t get too excited about 2D Mario, but Wonder provided an unexpected amount of variety and fresh ideas for such a well-known format that kept me enjoying it until the end. Definitely one of those games that shows the special Nintendo quality and dedication in it.

Donkey Kong Country Returns (Switch)

Took a chance on this as trickier platformers are not really my thing, but didn’t get along with it. Just found it too frustrating to enjoy, with all other elements not being able to make up for how I felt about the core gameplay. It’s probably just a skill issue.

Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe

I really enjoyed the original version of the Stanley Parable back in 2016, but I was concerned more of it may wear the joke thin. Fortunately, the additions made were quite substantial and fresh providing a good few extra hours of gameplay and amusement with its meta commentary.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

I was hoping this was a return to a focused (non-endless) Assassin’s Creed which would focus on gameplay and story instead of amount of content. It may be that somewhat, but it didn’t hit the mark for me. The gameplay still seems not quite right, and the characters & story are off. I’d like to see a narrower, grittier and more technical Assassin’s Creed one day, but I doubt that day will ever come.

Arizona Sunshine 2 (VR)

After enjoying the remake of the original game so much at the start of the year, I decided to get its sequel. Unfortunately, my time in this game was massively more buggy which ruined my enjoyment and made me stop playing. Just loads of little things, like bad tracking of actions such as reloading & gun swaps, and guns flying out of my hands.

There’s something about bugs in VR. Since VR provides so much more immersion, bugs result in a bigger distractions and breaks in that immersion.

Metroid Prime Remastered

After enjoying Dread, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get into the older 3d Metroid format also, but this took me by surprise. Everything was well rounded: It performs well, kept moving forward, looks pretty, okay puzzles, a nice challenge, enjoyable gameplay. I’d still say Dread is better, but this older game is still a fun time.

Battlefield 6

As a long time battlefield fan, it was nice to see a much better launch. Really enjoyed getting back into Battlefield for a while, as the gameplay and overall experience just seem really well balanced.

Unfortunately, the UI sucks, and the few maps got old after a couple of months. The gameplay also felt like it dropped off once folks started to understand the game meta. Feels like there’s less team-work and much more need to be engineers compared to launch. Hoping they can add variety and balance.