Recent reviews by Barry Wheeler

One of the best survival/builder games I've played. Intuitive and addictive. Bit of a slow burn, but if you invest your patience, your villagers will reward you!

Terraforming is so fun. I love how those little green specs start to appear on the surface of the Red Planet.

There's been much talk about the new UI. It wasn't a big issue for me, despite the fact that I've been around since Ye Olden CM Days. Some learning curve, sure, but I kind of like it. Some things were better in the old one, but some are better in this one.

The match engine is fantastic. It looks much better than the old one. I'm a bit of tinkerer, so I also enjoy the new tactics overhaul. All in all this new FM is a needed overhaul. It's certainly not perfect, and there are some speed bumps along the way, but the old one had been done to dead. FM26 is a good game and I expect that future iterations will be even better. I'm also pretty excited for the World Cup license, which will be added before summer.

Can't believe how addictive this game is. There's is just something extremely pleasing in digging deep under the ground and getting your paws on that black gold. It's casual enough to keep you entertained, yet challenging enough to keep you coming back. And now with the multiplayer added it has even more longevity. If you like very light strategy and/or tycoon games, give it a go.

Good Lovecraftian yarn. Decent graphics, suitably weird story and great atmosphere. Nice balance between investigation and action.

It's Football Manager, what can I say? If you don't love it by now, maybe you never will. This year the animations are better than ever and the transfer market overhaul gives you a wide range of options to wheel and deal the best players to your club. Won't say it's a must buy for an FM fan, but if you missed last years forgettable FM 23 and maybe even few more of the recent versions, this is a good time to update. Or if you're just hardcore and want to play the latest and greatest. I think FM 22 was probably the best we've seen since 2017, but this doesn't fall much behind.

Absolutely legend.

It's a fun game. Needs more meat on the bones, but now that the servers are working, it's a good solid co-op shooter. More grind-y than it's predecessor, but I'm all for it. In PAYDAY 2 95% of the stuff was quickly unlocked and accessed. This one makes you work for it. Needs more heists and some tweaking on the EXP system, which currently favors stealth missions too much.

Challenging adventurous rogue-like. I liked the colonial expedition theme, unlike many other themes it hasn't been done to death. And they tackled it nicely without resorting to overt political correctness nor ignoring the more sinister sides of colonialism either. Cool, colorful graphics and simple to get but hard to master mechanics.

The previous installment of the FM series I played was FM17. While I liked it a lot, in wasn't too excited about the direction of the franchise. SI had the tendency to get bogged down in details. Getting through season was becoming a time consuming slog. But when FM21 was -50% off I decided to give it a chance. After watching the EURO 2020 (Azzurri!!!) I was craving for a fresh football game. I've not been disappointed. SI has given the game a new direction without scrapping too much of the old familiar stuff. The game feels sleeker and quicker without compromising the realistic 'feel' of the game. Good Stuff!