But there's enough solid stuff in how the game controls on a bulky home-joystick rig, plus how your campaign progress is rewarded with tons of mech-customization opportunities. Between that and the AI-squadmate stuff, MW5:M isn't a lost cause by any stretch. But it's firmly interested in appeasing a dedicated niche, not drawing in newbies. Which, based on my giddy HOTAS-fueled combat, is likely the point.

It’s been hard to be overly critical of a game that has all but forced me to log off and talk to friends for a couple hours each week. The downsides of Sunderfolk have mostly been the same as those of playing any tabletop game with humans: waiting, expertise imbalance, distraction, and someone’s dog needing attention...Beyond that, I think Sunderfolk is a success at what it set out to do: Put the cardboard, cards, and dice on the screen and make it easier for everyone to show up. It won’t replace the traditional game night, but it might bring more people into it and remind people like me why it’s so good.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire is a broad, deep, and excellent RPG in the tradition of Baldur’s Gate. And it has pirates. Buy it.

I’m not a huge fan of the tabletop version of Scythe, yet I found the app consistently enjoyable, even when I was still learning the game and getting my clock cleaned regularly by the easy opponents.

This isn't Nintendo at the height of its powers, but it's hard not to be smitten with Yoshi's Woolly World's wonderful visuals and throughly entertaining platforming.

Despite the gripes I’ve mentioned above, I’ve still found it startlingly easy to fall deep into Starfield’s (just-short-of-literal) galaxy of pure content. That fractal quest design pattern makes it very compelling to stretch out a play session for “just one more jump” until you look up and suddenly it’s three hours past when you planned to sleep...I’m not sure if that loop will be strong enough to push me up to and past the 150-hour mark. One thing is clear, though; if we have to wait another eight years for a Fallout 4-scale single-player adventure from Bethesda Game Studios, Starfield has enough raw content to keep a certain type of space-fiction-obsessed player plugging away for a good chunk of that wait.: ["a few dozen hours" impressions]

Destiny 2: Warmind is more of the same built on a shifting foundation. Try it if you’re curious about the direction the game is going.

[Tekken 7] blows other PC fighting games away in terms of scalability. If you want to play some solid rounds of time-tested 3D fighting, you can now do so on pretty much any modern computer with even the slightest bit of gaming hardware—or you can just as easily crank it up on a mid-high machine and a 4K screen.

The whole Double Fine team pulled it off. Psychonauts 2 is one of the best video games I have ever played, and if anything in this review sounds like you and your family's bag, don't hesitate to join me in loving the heck out of it. [Ars Technica Approved]

Nintendo took a safe chance with Link's Awakening, but it was a chance nonetheless. And in spite of graphical hitches and an adherence to the design of old, the full experience—however short and predictable it is in 2019—is absolutely worth diving into if you missed it the first time around... or deleted your old GameFAQs bookmark.

After years of overexposure, a few years of absence for this style of rhythm game has gone a long way to making my heart grow fonder for Rock Band. Now that some time has passed, Rock Band 4 is as good an excuse as any to remind yourself why the genre became a fad in the first place and to rediscover the joy to be found in plastic instruments that may still have some life in them yet.

Probably the best Dragon Quest, but if innovation and surprise are what you want, you'll need to look somewhere else.

It's easy to deride games that lack originality and favour existing ideas. But refining proven designs is just as important as creating them in the first place. This is where World of Final Fantasy shines, and if you're looking for a simple, accessible roleplaying game that stirs up memories past, then you could do much worse.

Potential meta-joking aside, The Beginner's Guide plays out like a diary, wholly and shamelessly. While there's an argument to be had over whether or not a straight-up diary counts as art worth celebrating, a video game trying to do the same thing, without meaningful interactive options or epiphanies, and without giving us as players the space to come to our own conclusions, doesn't respect the viewer or create interesting opportunities for either empathy or outrage.

Buy it if you can handle the constant anxiety behind some of the best speculative sci-fi in games right now.

Still, after 15 hours snapping thousands of photos of hundreds of distinct Pokémon, I feel like there are plenty of secrets left to be uncovered in New Pokémon Snap's varied environments. What's more, I'm eager to uncover them in quick, five or 10-minute safaris whenever I happen to have a Switch handy.

Knockout City is a blast for tried-and-true online combat fans, thanks to its mix of instantly intriguing and powerful abilities and rock-paper-dodgeball strategy pivots. It's also an incredibly easy recommendation for kids and families, since it finally cracked the nut of an "online shooter" that offers the fun of a gun game without in any way resembling gunplay. Its cartoony aesthetic has grown on me, too, thanks to an art team that has balanced simple geometry with bold, enticing designs in a very Nintendo-like way. Assuming EA doesn't screw this up in the months to come, expect Knockout City to land on my list of 2021's best games of the year. [Ars Technica Approved]

Worth buying, even if you have last year's game. It's really good. [Ars Technica Approved]

Steep wants to impart a sense of freedom, but it lacks the courage to offer true openness and underwhelms as a result.

Abzû is a beautiful audio-visual treat that's light on challenge but big on wonder.

At any rate, I'm hopeful that Final Fantasy's modding community can figure out how to inject some UE4-modifying code into this port before long. UE4 ships with so many easily customized variables, and as of this article's publication, Square Enix representatives have not answered my questions about why those options aren't available for FFVIIR's buyers.

Gran Turismo Sport might not be the world’s most accurate driving simulation, but it’s fun—a lot of fun, particularly with a steering wheel. And refreshingly, it doesn't try to make you open your wallet to unlock anything.

FIFA 16 is as good as FIFA has ever been, but that's exactly the problem. While it offers the same vast array of content, PES 16 has it beat where it matters most: on the pitch. Suffice to say, the series now has a lot of catching up to do.

The result is a Ghost Recon game that doesn’t really feel like a Ghost Recon game and an online game that doesn’t seem like it has the legs to carry most players through to its finale. Wildlands has all of the beauty and splendour of any big-budget open world—its rendition of Bolivia might be the greatest space that Ubisoft has created since Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s artistic replication of Rome—but it’s sparse in variety and slipshod in execution. An abundance of bugs, terrible writing, and repetition do their best to mar what is a solid, occasionally laughter-filled co-op shooter experience.

Before I go sending the developers my wish list for additional features, however, I should probably wait for them to finish the game (at least on the PC version). As a straightforward, reasonably priced arcade blaster with some unique flair, Squadrons has its charm—and is easier for me to recommend, especially to families, than Battlefront 2 ever was (not the highest of praise, but still). I'm just hopeful it gets closer to a recommended state of polish and bug squashing. [Impressions]

Dishonored 2 is one of the smartest, most well-designed games released this year. If you fancy a challenge, this one is a no-brainer.

Generations is a last, wonderful gasp of life for this aging Monster Hunter engine. If you’ve been on the fence, now is the perfect time to hop aboard.

It's hard to believe that throwing two disparate, popular franchises into a completely new genre works as well as it does. Believe it, though: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle is a fun and engaging introduction to the tactical RPG genre that can please neophytes and veterans alike.

Bowser’s Fury is a decent diversion for the four hours or so it'll take an experienced platform player to beat (with maybe four more hours of diversion for completionists). Overall, though, it feels like a half-baked proving ground for some new gameplay ideas that aren’t fully fleshed out as they would be in a standalone Mario release. But Bowser’s Fury works just fine as an added bonus packaged with an under-appreciated platforming gem from the Wii U era. If you’ve never played 3D World before, this is a great chance to catch up on a fresh take on 3D Mario design. If you’re mainly interested in Bowser’s Fury, though, maybe wait until the strong ideas get expanded into a full, standalone game.

Into the Breach is just as charming for boiling down similar thrills found in FTL and making them work for pretty much any experience level of computer gamer. [ARS Approved]

Necropolis at launch has just enough going for it for those who want a Dark Souls-styled experience that can be easily dropped into and out of. Instead of having to memorize incredibly tough passages like in the Souls games, players can boot Necropolis, tear through some randomly difficult sequences with satisfying weapons, and log off, having gotten a solid action fix. But the game would benefit from serious tuning and more variety in its random level generation. While some of the generated levels feel expansive, huge, and impressive, many of them feel a little sleepy and same-samey. (Also, Harebrained needs to turn on public matchmaking for co-op post-haste.)

It's not impossible to look at by any means (as you can see in the above gallery) and everything is still perfectly readable from a gameplay perspective. The fact that a small, relatively cheap portable system like the Switch is capable of running a passable version of a recent high-end release like Doom is an achievement in and of itself. Just don't go in expecting the Switch version to be competitive with larger, more-powerful hardware designed for the TV (or a PC monitor).

Onrush, at its best, absolutely sings as a tight, responsive, bright, and beautiful love letter to the likes of Road Rash 2 and Burnout 3: Takedown. I'd settle for Steam Workshop's wildest dreamers finishing what Codemasters Evo started.

A game at war with itself. The continuity from mission to mission encourages you to play in the most boring fashion possible, while the game's challenge and length never makes doing so necessary.

In my 25 years of professionally reviewing video games, I have never felt more confident recommending everyone check out a video game than with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. [Ars Technica Approved]

It's a structure that can feel punishing, unforgiving, tedious, and enraging in turns. But it's also a structure that leads to moments of the most genuinely satisfying sense of achievement I can remember having in modern gaming...It's about a miles-long journey starting with a single, halting step. It's about putting one foot in front of the other until you can't anymore. It's about climbing the mountain because it's there. It's about falling down 1,000 times and getting up 1,001 times.

I got tired of the game after 20 hours for the reasons stated above. There's beautiful, inventive fun within DL2, but Techland doesn't do paying customers favors with the game's dialogue, pacing, and execution. Wait for a sale.

The Crew 2 is going to need a lot of time and work to feel like a worthwhile purchase. I’m not sure Ubisoft, a company I’ve come to associate with that very post-launch polishing process, will manage it. I’m even less sure I should have to wonder. This is a barebones product without much of a foundation to flesh out in the first place. It’s not something I’d even consider giving the benefit of the doubt for $60. If anything, it’s enough to make me question giving the publisher the benefit of the doubt ever again.

Where LEGO games run out of steam pretty quickly (even unlocking new hidden characters doesn't really change your tactics), Minecraft Dungeons does a wonderful job incentivizing experimentation without making it difficult to figure out. Get new item. Equip new item. See how new item makes you stronger, more explosive, or just plain weirder. Kill mobs. Repeat. [Ars Technica Approved]

Gears 4, more than the other Xbox Play Anywhere games that have launched thus far, seems poised to scale across various Windows 10 rigs. This gives players real choice between higher frame rates and higher visual settings. A smooth 60fps refresh at Xbox One quality levels (or better) can easily be achieved with the right toggles on our test rigs. That may not prove out over every processor+GPU+RAM+HD combination in the wild, but so far, the game appears to be both highly optimized and infinitely customizable.

Pistol Whip could be great. Until then, it's mighty good and arguably the year's best new VR action game. After all, 2019 has mostly been the year where people finally bought headsets and discovered 2018's killer games. For the VR faithful starving for something fresh, this is it.

If you own an Xbox One, you'll have a fine enough time thanks to smooth, 60-frames-per-second multiplayer combat. But the game's best performance—with higher settings and resolutions, still easily locked at 60fps—can only be yours if you have a moderately powerful Windows 10 PC.

The good outweighs the bad. Get a PlayStation Plus trial and give this imperfect car-combat gem a spin.

The disparate gaggle of stories apparently set in the same universe might feel like required reading to some obsessive fans. As someone who just wants to know what’s up with King Mickey (and still kind of likes that theme song), this is an unnecessary, dissatisfying distraction.

I really like Returnal, but if you check the Ars Slack logs, you'll find that I complained quite a bit along the way. I needed a full 10 hours for its combat and universe to click in a crucial, "I want to beat this game" way, and I'm still left wondering how many good ideas and systems were left out of this game just to get its sky-high aspirations out the door. Maybe some of my positive bias comes from dreams of a sequel, which might build upon Housemarque's first stab at the genre. But I won't blame anyone for having less patience with Returnal's uneven ambition (or its $70 price point, which, from what I've seen, does not favorably compare to last year's $60 Last of Us Part 2 or Ghost of Tsushima, also published by Sony). But this is the stuff that keeps Sony fanboys drooling: ambitious new IP that succeeds more than it fails while turning the familiar into something fresh. Returnal clearly heralds a new era for Housemarque, in terms of turning the focused arcade-blasting likes of Super Stardust HD into quest-worthy 3D action. Keep it coming, Sony and Housemarque. [Ars Technica Approved]

If you missed out on Mario Kart 8 the first time around, Deluxe should be on your must-buy list for the Switch. If you already wore out the original version of the game, try out the Battle Mode and the portable play before you decide to reinvest.

If you have a Switch, get this game. If you don't have a Switch, get one, then get this game.

The other, bigger problem with Sea of Thieves’ player-vs-player combat is more damning of the game in general: what’s the point? The islands are devoid of anything to discover, the quests are tremendously tedious, there’s no story to speak of, and it’s all in service of cosmetics that aren’t nearly as interesting as some of their item descriptions imply. The Lowly Souls Tankard says it’ll make you drinking buddies with spirits, but really it’s just... purple.

Civilization VI isn’t the complete package, but it has the makings of one. Buy it now to get acclimated to the new mechanics before the inevitable expansions.

Longtime Pokémon fans can buy without hesitation. New or lapsed Pokémon fans will have an easier time picking up Sun and Moon than any other main series Pokémon game in recent memory.

Jagged Alliance 3 is a capital-P, capital-C PC game, and I think it succeeds at delivering what it promises. Some of the humor may make you groan or wince; some of the controls feel like a nuclear sub; and the story is easy to tune out of. But landing that perfect shot, whether from Mouse's silenced handgun in the bushes or Grunty's sub-machine gun on a cliff, will keep you coming back.

Your Crash bias will be reinforced, either way, by this mostly top-notch return to the originals.

If you're willing to exert energy forgiving Sega's ancient design decisions while wading through Suzuki's ridiculously dense approach to dialogue, task completion, and side hobbies, then this compilation is for you. Otherwise, if you're looking for Shenmue's spirit applied to more modern gaming ideas, finely position your tank-controlled body in the direction of Sega's newer Yakuza series (now available on Windows PC). [Impressions]

Nothing about GT7 is revolutionary, but the game feels like a GT title through and through, striking a careful gameplay balance with just the right amount of grinding. It's the kind of game that can turn a 30-minute session into a marathon before you know it, with a dose of comfortable familiarity thrown in for good measure...I'll be playing this one for quite some time.

Longtime Pokémon fans can buy without hesitation. New or lapsed Pokémon fans will have an easier time picking up Sun and Moon than any other main series Pokémon game in recent memory.

The modern-aesthetic upgrade more than makes up for the game's lowest lows. Horror fans should immediately buy.

A certain party-playing crowd will overcome the awkward bits and have a blast. Most won't. Rent, don't buy.

Try it if you want all the Metal Gear ridiculousness and overwrought drama with none of the stealth-action thrills.

It'd be easy to glance at Avowed and see just another all-too-familiar take on a well-trodden fantasy RPG space. But that would be a mistake. The game's zippy controls, tough but not overwhelming combat, and morally ambiguous perspective make for a memorable journey that sets itself apart from the crowd.

A quick, satisfying tale that should appeal to anyone interested in effective video game storytelling.

A beautiful, difficult, and masterful swan song for 2D platforming on the Xbox One. Buy it if you have any interest in the genre.

After all these years, the game maintains a sense of humor that lands somewhere between Flaming Lips psychedelia and Ren & Stimpy gross-out humor. As such the 3DS then leaves not with a bang or a whimper... but a really loud fart.

The Witness juggles the seemingly contrary concepts of precision and ambiguity in ways I've never seen a game, nor a book or play or film, ever do—and that, more than the beauty or the puzzles or the clever twists, makes it one of the most impressive video games I've ever seen.

Great if you like tough tactical games; a harder sell if you're merely a fan of the films.

Legion succeeds at making you feel important, even if Azeroth itself sometimes feels bland by comparison. Buy it.

For people who haven’t played it in a while, the Super Mario RPG remake is a fun opportunity to revisit a game you remember fondly. For those who are new to RPGs, this game is a great and low-stress introduction to the form, much like the original game was for kids in the '90s. The worst thing I can say about it is that it’s a little short, and for people who know the original, you might come away wishing that there was just more Mario RPG to play. Though that may just be me continuing to pine for the true sequel this game never got.

Origins is a triumph, of sorts. The feeling of perusing the ancient world in this fidelity is special on its own, and one of the best examples yet for a game's visual beauty alone being a stunning, inspirational experience. But, far too often that gives ground to more traditionally game-y bits that dilute Origins' best moments.

In all of the best possible ways, Bayonetta 3 is leaning into the parts of itself that are more earnest than ever—all while going harder than ever on doing whatever it takes to simply be cool as hell. If you're looking for a strong, coherent storyline, this was never the series for you. But if you are a fan of flashy spectacles, a varied and creative arsenal, and larger-than-life characters, Bayonetta 3 more than delivers.

The sheer scope and content in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor make it easily one of the biggest Star Wars games ever. This sequel largely uses the increased scale and depth to enhance its dramatic storyline and the core gameplay for Cal's adventures. Although this sequel's ambition shows some signs of buckling under its weight, it still manages to strike at the core of why a Star Wars adventure can be so satisfying and fun to immerse yourself in.

Despite its presentational flaws, PES 16’s skilled mechanics make it an instant classic, showing that sports games are at their best when the fundamentals are respected and imitated as a priority.

I'm a sucker for a game that teaches with transparent, easy-to-understand difficulty spikes, and Loot Rascals has plenty of those. I know why I'm dying. I have played enough to know that avoiding certain encounters and taking advantage of useful systems like warping back to home base, will keep me moving. In that sense, it's like someone took the concepts powering Spelunky—another brutally hard, randomly generated, permadeath romp—and completely flipped how and why you play it.

Miles Morales may not be exceptionally original, but it’s a well-told, exceedingly human superhero story built on a strong, proven foundation of open-world mechanics. What better way to show off a new console?

If you've ever posted on a comment thread about the good ol' days of offline first-person shooters, this is a must-buy. For anyone else, this mostly polished FPS will likely confirm your Eurojank bias—whichever way that bias goes.

If it wasn't clear by now, Battlefield 2042 is a mess in more ways than should be reasonably expected, with the laundry list above barely scratching the surface of its wreckage (I didn't even mention lag, persistent server issues, no game search, or countless other concerns). But for all the failures, missing elements, and bizarre revisions, the most telling thing I can say about it is also one of the simplest: I rarely wanted to keep playing.

The game's wet race simulations are exceedingly convincing, and I write that as someone who has driven in a lot of wet races and who enjoys racing in the rain. The selection of cars is eclectic, and they look gorgeous, particularly in ForzaVista mode, as do the tracks, both new and revamped. If you like cars or racing games and you own an Xbox One, you should buy this game.

Hello Neighbor is the worst game I’ve reviewed all year. Skip it with prejudice.

Mad Max doesn't play well with its intended audiences, or as a video game. Skip it.

As to whether or not the game is worth your money, for the F1 fan, I have few qualms recommending it. The game will keep such gamers busy for weeks with both Career and Championship modes. In fact, just the addition of the classic cars to the game is probably reason enough for someone to pick up a copy. For the gamer who's not quite as passionate about Formula 1 or racing in general, it might be worth trying out before coughing up your hard-earned cash. But even then, I think you'll find it engaging.

If you have any fond memories of 2D Mario games, you owe it to yourself to examine their construction first-hand; and you'll have a great time doing so, too. Buy it.

Buy it for a family-friendly casual romp through a fun, colorful world. Skip if you're looking for a deep, involved RPG experience.

Until Dawn is entertaining in all the ways it needs to be, even if it isn’t perfect in all the ways I’d like it to be. Try it, or wait for a discount.

If you need to get lost in over 30 hours of heroic gameplay right now, in a single-player adventure with no online connectivity gimmicks or content locked away as DLC, Sucker Punch has you covered with an instant contender for 2020's game of the year. [Ars Technica Approved]

First-time players should try Let's Go instead, but even without the full Pokédex this is a worthwhile entry for monster-catching veterans.

People expect their sequels to be bigger, better, and more complex than what has come before, while also demanding they stay true to what they know and love. Metal Gear Solid V is one of those rare occasions where a game threads the needle between those two somewhat contradictory expectations, to great effect.

I do think Sword and Shield are good entries for anyone who got into Pokémon through Go and Let’s Go and is looking for something a bit more difficult and larger in scale. Seasoned players can still enjoy the new monsters and appreciate the game’s story mode while it lasts (I cleared the main story in around 35 hours). It’s just too bad that, for longtime players, what’s missing is probably going to overshadow everything that’s here.

Need for Speed: Payback is a fruitless, grind-y, hard-to-control drive through a terrible story. Skip it.

As far as the above-and-beyond touches I generally expect from PC gaming, at least, the combined teams of Sony Santa Monica and Jetpack Interactive appear to have gotten this port right.

I do think Sword and Shield are good entries for anyone who got into Pokémon through Go and Let’s Go and is looking for something a bit more difficult and larger in scale. Seasoned players can still enjoy the new monsters and appreciate the game’s story mode while it lasts (I cleared the main story in around 35 hours). It’s just too bad that, for longtime players, what’s missing is probably going to overshadow everything that’s here.

Describing The Division, much like playing it, feels a lot like compiling and checking off a series of lists. There’s a lot of stuff on those lists, for sure, but very little to actually do. What you do, overwhelmingly, is shoot things. Sometimes you’re shooting at napalm canisters, sometimes at rioters armed with baseball bats and hoodies. Sometimes you find them, and sometimes they come to you while defending whatever it was you activated by holding the X button. As a reward, your numbers — armor, DPS, ability power, etc. — go up in order to help you shoot things even better next time...It’s an old formula, and often a good one, but one that still feels strange in the context of a shooter (even in this post-Destiny world).

The classic game runs efficiently on lower-specced machines, owing to its low-poly aesthetic, while the game's newer "Area X" zone will run fine at 1080p with some settings turned down on weaker systems. Should you have CPU and GPU overhead to work with, you can turn on updated 4K-friendly textures (yes, this game has some), full-blast anti-aliasing, and some serious super-sampling. As in, up to 250 percent. In the original game, I cranked this all the way up to a 9,600 x 5,400 resolution without a single stutter on my 1080 Ti rig!

If either Dragon Quest or base-building games appeal to you, try it with an open mind and a willingness to buck convention.

People will talk about this game as an ideal escape during uncertain current events, but I'd like to emphasize how much I enjoyed AC:NH even when I had other viable social and outdoor entertainment options. Animal Crossing games have always delivered a compelling version of self-quarantine, and this one overflows with quantity, without sacrificing quality, to do so at a scale series fans have never seen. Consider this a very high recommendation for anyone who thinks shooting the breeze with neon-colored, gym-loving ponies and hot-pink, coffee-chugging kangaroos is a great idea for a video game. [Ars Technica Approved]

PES 2017 asks you how you want to interpret the beautiful game. There's no higher praise for a sports game.

Then there are the boss battles, which give a strict time limit to hit court-filling opponents with enough balls to reduce their energy to nill. These bosses are tedious and frustrating in equal measure, often requiring perfectly timed returns against eminently predictable and repetitive shots...But if you have other people to play against (or a willingness to find such people over the Internet) Mario Tennis Aces is an easy-to-pick-up but hard-to-master game of psychological trickery and reflexes.

If the online multiplayer remains as smooth and engaging as it was in our pre-launch tests, Battle League could end up being the competitive grudge match of the summer.

Halo Wars 2's campaign is an exciting enough ride with a very plain final drop. Thankfully, there will be plenty of multiplayer modes to run with what the campaign teaches. Try it.

A collection like 3D All-Stars would have been a great chance to celebrate Mario's recent history. In-game extras like concept art, developer interviews, or even playable prototype areas could have given fans a new appreciation for games that many players probably feel have already been picked clean. And while the ability to play each game's soundtrack inside the game is nice, the included songs are not hard to find all over the Internet. It might seem petty to ask more from a $60 package than to collect some of the greatest 3D platforming games ever created. At the same time, games this great deserve more respect and attention than the slapdash collection Nintendo has put together here.

Agents of Mayhem has spirit, but not as much as its Saints Row predecessors and not enough to completely outshine the paint-by-numbers design.

Torment's uneven gameplay is pulled to the finish line by its engrossing world and story. Assuming you can get over the introductory hump (and all that text), it's absolutely a story worth reading, if not always playing. Buy it.

I came out of Eliza with the sense that I'd been on a journey of juggling grief, hope, and joy through the existential dread that is living a modern, tech-filled life. And for that reason, I recommend this visual novel as a must-play experience. [Ars Technica Approved]

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider frees itself from the franchise's usual restrictions, while putting its usual tools to satisfying use. Buy it.

All VR headset owners should own at least one Owlchemy Labs game, and this is the company's best yet.

It feels like a frustrating proof of concept, unworthy of its evocative title...a good idea poorly executed over and over again.

Play RE7 first. If you want more of the same, lower your general expectations and revel in RE Village's improved gunplay. If not, skip.

This is a survival game made by people who really like survival games—but don't necessarily like the genre's tedium....We've put games in our year-end lists for less potential than what I've already enjoyed in Valheim thus far, and I don't see us getting out of 2021 without repeating praise for this killer multiplayer adventure option on PC. [Early Access review]

Even in my limited pre-release testing period, with only a few creators' levels to pick through, Super Mario Maker 2 has already proven itself a wonderful package. Course creators can look forward to an amazing game-making tool set whose depth is matched by its accessibility, while players have a functionally endless set of Mario courses to dig through over the course of years. What’s not to like? [Ars Technica Approved]

Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't always feel like a modern, polished open-world game, but it has all the weight of one. If, like me, you're okay with some bugs, some goofs, and some randomly punishing difficulty in service of a big, impressive adventure, I think it's worth the pain. Destiny calls you toward the dragon, but the real victories are the goblins we toss along the way.

You won't find more pure whimsy in a 2019 game...Puzzles strike a delightful balance between tricky and fair, all while letting players reset and retry in a "Super Meat Boy meets point-and-click puzzlers" way; we've really never seen anything like it. [Ars Technica Approved]

Most important of all is that Oculus had a full year of lead-up time to nail Wilson's Heart... and the company didn't.

If "classic 2D adventure on Switch" puts the same tingle in your spine as it does mine, Mercury Steam will not lead you astray with this impressive sequel. Buy.

It's not perfect, and, on top of the problems we have with the reward structure, the perverse incentives against clean driving, and the prize crates, the load times can be lengthy. (It's also massive, clocking in at 67GB on the Xbox One.) And yes, Forza might be a little artificial at times—some bleed in from the Horizon games perhaps—and its engine might be biased toward flair and fun. But games are meant to be enjoyed, and this one is most certainly enjoyable.

It’s testament to Taro’s talent for storytelling that the game inspires replay as much through its narrative hooks as its baser promise of trophies and a 100% competition record. And it’s testament to Platinum’s talent for action game design that the game’s systems remain crisp and engaging with each reinvestment. Indeed, this is bold, exciting game design from two of Japan’s most noteworthy creative powerhouses.

Yooka-Laylee stays true to its '90s platformer roots, even to its detriment. But there are just enough modern touches and excellent platforming to make it more than just another nostalgia play.

If you're hungry for a new weekend-filling zombie adventure on PS4, Days Gone is an easy rental recommendation. If you're already working your way through a big-game backlog, on the other hand, you should probably spend your days on other fare. [Impressions]

For a game that takes place in such a wide-open wilderness, the actual story is almost claustrophobic in its quick pace and clipped storylines—a short story rather than a great American novel of rugged adventure in the remote mountain west. It's a shame, too, because by the time the game ended I was finally starting to be able to feel my way around Firewatch's unique landmarks and winding paths without relying on that map overly much.

I can definitely see ways for an expansion pack or sequel to continue the story that Stray started, and its mechanics and puzzle-solving ingenuity both seem ripe for further exploration from a cat's point of view. In the meantime, this is a tremendous first effort from an entirely new game studio, and I'm confident in recommending it to anyone who's happy to trade conventional, been-there-done-that gaming adventures for something a little slower, shorter, sweeter, and more feline. [Ars Technica Approved]

Buy it if you're still on the Brood War bandwagon. Try the free, old-school version if you're just curious how deep your nostalgia is for the game.

There's $60 of content here, undoubtedly, but I'd happily pay Ubisoft for a slimmed-down non-interactive version with the unfunny game portions trimmed out. I loved how well Obsidian nailed the balancing act of "make it funny and make it interesting to play" last time. Ubisoft deserves credit for trying something new but not for how badly they stumbled.

Infinite Warfare takes the series to its logical conclusion, delivering one of the best single-player campaigns in ages. But the trademark multiplayer modes need a serious overhaul.

While the game does eventually die to repetitive cuts, it’s a slow death. The game’s charm, visuals, and novelty hold up for a quite solid few hours of fun, and the premise isn’t completely wasted. But it’s also not utilized to its fullest potential. Maybe an expansion or two can bring this one back from extinction down the line.

There are bound to be some people who see TR-49 as akin to a homework simulator, with painful flashbacks to all-nighters spent desperately researching a last-minute college term paper. For anyone who knows the inherent appeal of diving deep into a previously unknown world, though, TR-49 is an engrossing work of world-building fiction presented in a truly memorable way.

The more hardcore sim fans might find things a little too arcade-ish for their liking. Although there are circuit races on street tracks, they'll never compare to lapping Spa or the Nordschleife, and the off-road driving isn't the same test of skill that you'll get from DiRT Rally. But for fans of previous Horizon games or the Project Gotham series, this sequel will probably tick all your boxes.

The more I look at this week's launch of WarCraft III: Reforged, the more I shake my head. I've grown up playing Blizzard games for a majority of my life, and while I can think of Blizzard game launches with technical issues or critical shoulder-shrugs, I can't recall a retail launch for a product that, quite simply, wasn't finished. WC3:R changes that.

After over 20 hours spent in this kind of explore-and-bounce-off-a-boss pattern, I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of Elden Ring’s entrancing world (not to mention the many magical systems that aren’t really available to my character’s warrior class). I’m not sure I’ll ever have the patience or discipline to endure all of the punishing boss battles I still have ahead of me. But I can easily see myself just hopping on a horse, picking a direction, and galloping off into the many unexplored corners of Elden Ring.

Compared to other always-online games meant to draw users back time and again, Hitman is something quite novel: a game meant to be replayed and eventually exhausted. Sooner or later you'll run out of challenges, optional targets, and nooks and crannies to explore. More are on the way, sure, but eventually those too will dry up. It's a nice, alternate school of thought to games that build a continued connection on semi-random drops and repeated actions, rather than execution. How novel.

But that's nothing compared to how dismally the collection runs on the Nintendo Switch. A sub-720 resolution in portable mode—and something close to 800p in docked mode—is arguably forgivable for PS2-era graphics. If anything, that fuzziness sometimes softens up the weirdness of the original trilogy's animations and body constructions. But there's no getting around it: the Switch version of the GTA Definitive Trilogy needs to go back into the oven before anyone considers spending even $30 or $40 on the package, let alone the full $60 MSRP. Whether played in portable or docked modes, each of the trilogy's games performs terribly, with frequent drops into the 20 fps range and noticeable stuttering into the low 10s. This all happens in spite of a massive reduction in visual elements like texture quality and shadow resolution. All too often, cars, pedestrians, and buildings magically appear quite close to the camera while you're peeling away during an epic car chase...Worse, unlike the Xbox version I tested, I ran into at least one full Switch hardware crash in each of the collection's games. I didn't even rack up massive counts of police stars in these scenarios. (Though, let's be clear: when I did court mayhem, it brought the console to its knees.)

There are plenty of better games to spend your time and money on right now. If you absolutely, specifically need an inoffensive couch co-op brawler right now, try it.

You absolutely want this if you liked the previous games, but newcomers should at least play Virtue's Last Reward first.

Put off by DiRT Rally because it was too hard? This is the game for you. (Fans of DiRT Rally will also have fun.)

The series' best stuff returns at a fair price. Buy if single-player puzzle games are your jam.

Perhaps it's surprising how much I ended up enjoying DiRT 4. After all, Forza Horizon 3 was the last "accessible" spin-off of a racing game I truly loved (Forza Motorsport 6), and I never gelled with that game at all. Perhaps I'm drawn to the closed—as opposed to open—world of this new game, or maybe I like "DiRT 4" because less of the hardcore sim got lost in translation. Either way, if you like your racing to be as sideways as possible, you'll want to try DiRT 4.

A solid if unambitious expansion pack—and that should tell you whether to buy this one or catch up on Hitman 2 instead.

Try it if you’re OK breezing through the stealth-action gameplay while enjoying a competent story.

Don't expect the intense theorycrafting of a more complex game here; there's no deep interplay between cards, trinkets, consumables, and other mechanics like you'd see in Slay the Spire. But Dicey Dungeons does what it sets out to do: provides an approachable roguelike strategy game—certainly a much smoother on-ramp than many of its genre compatriots...Most importantly, it's very fun.

As it stands, Donut County makes for a light, airy snack of a game—it's a tight circle of satisfying, empty calories. But like a real donut, finishing one often just means you want another.

The most “Nintendo” game from Nintendo in years.

Spend this game's five-hour runtime catching up on a better story game you might have missed.

Absolver trades in tutorials for mystique, but if you think you can climb the learning curve, you should try it.

Shadow stands as near the best version of what it sets out to be. Luddington's finale is a grand one, and well worth it for fans of the series. Even if it can't quite manage to keep all its balls in the air.

So yeah, I’m pretty hooked on Darkest Dungeon 2. If it had Steam Deck support, I'd be in real trouble (it's coming in the future, Red Hook, says). Yes, there are issues, and I don’t know how far into the end game it will keep me engaged. But the combat is so good, and the roguelite elements are enticing enough, that it has entranced me in the same way the first game did.

Buy it if you're an Xbox One owner who could use a deep dive into classic, super-hard games.

If you come to God of War Ragnarök hoping for a story that's as tightly focused and emotional as its predecessor, you're likely to come away disappointed. But if you go in looking for a well-written and well-acted romp with the same kind of high-impact, tactical action combat as the 2018 game, you'll come away with a smile on your face.

Whatever platform you play this on, ReCore is not a particularly stunning game. This desert isn't glittering with cool particle effects, and while you might expect laser-blasting robots to be smothered in cool lighting or metal-shimmering effects, you won't see those here. Everything from level geometry to texture quality to facial animation looks more like a high-end Xbox 360 game than a proper Xbox One title; the only exception, really, is that draw distances on New Eden stretch pretty far.

AC Valhalla gets just enough stuff right in its RPG-ized transition without blatantly copying fare like Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Witcher III, or Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Ubisoft's latest history-trotting murder-for-honor journey strikes a proper balance between "familiar sequel," "RPG homage," and "just fresh enough," while still being quite fun to play. In some respects, particularly its handling of side quests, it's actually better than Ghost of Tsushima, a similar 2020 game that I otherwise prefer. If you've got the time (quite a bit of time, in this game's 30+ hour case) to invest in the bloody, honor-bound journey of some cool Vikings, and the proper hardware for it, don't miss what AC Valhalla has to offer.

Despite its polish and best ideas, I wish I'd just reinstalled both Force Unleashed games, and I encourage anybody eager for a fun, Force-filled, third-person Star Wars experience this year to do the same.

Buy it if you want to remember what beating a game into submission through pure skill feels like.

Too much content is missing. The plot is thin; the upgrades aren't meaningful; and the developers clearly ran out of steam (or, who knows, maybe budget) and put out what they'd gotten done in a certain amount of time.

Try it if you have found modern platforming games to be too "soft."

Rift Apart is a welcome and well-polished return to the Ratchet & Clank formula that has served Insomniac well for nearly two decades now. As long as you go in expecting that—and not yearning for some thrilling gameplay revolution driven by new hardware and technology—you’ll come out feeling satisfied.

It crushes the car-action competition. Rocket League draws inspiration from over a decade of games like Twisted Metal, Vigilante 8, and Mario Kart's battle modes, and it spit-shines the pure driving and maneuvering parts to make its core gameplay loop feel like no driving game ever made before it.

For a so-called "automatic" game, Loop Hero sure presents enough questions and choices to get me invested in its missions, its accumulation of city structures, and its organic lessons about how to max out a particular loop. I haven't felt this surprised and engaged by a mix of new and familiar in a game since Slay the Spire. That description should terrify anybody who is not in need of another unique gaming obsession, because if my addiction is any indication, Loop Hero could very well burrow into your brain for the next few weeks. You've been warned. [Ars Technica Approved]

Rocksteady's previous Arkham games found a solid balance of established and original tales that made you feel the Batman fantasy while still being fun to play. With so much focus shifted to new characters and the Batmobile in the twilight of Rocksteady's run on the franchise, it feels like the developer didn't have enough time to mix them all together quite as thoroughly.

Massive Chalice doesn't surpass XCOM: Enemy Unknown as the tactical strategy RPG of note, but it does offer a bit of the same satisfaction with a great deal less frustration. Try it.

It's an absurd value proposition for a game where every moment seems hand-crafted. It's not flawless, but the game's few faults won't diminish the growing return on your investment. Buy it and set aside some time.

There is absolutely fun to be had in a good Splatoon battle, but the catch here is the future tense. Splatoon reveals more than a few signs of immaturity in the online gaming space, but its worse offense sees Nintendo catching up, unfortunately, with another big gaming trend of late. This is yet another retail launch of an unfinished game. The version of Splatoon we'd like to play—different from the one people are about to spend $60 on—evidently hasn't been made yet.

If you have the bandwidth for the minimally interactive stuff of a visual novel, you won't find a more compelling and captivating example of the genre. [Ars Technica Approved]

A love letter to die-hard DQ fans. See if you like Dragon Quest VIII when it comes to the 3DS—if you do, circle back around for this one.

One of the pleasant side effects of Invisibile, Inc.’s speed and pressure is that it’s easy to predict how long a campaign will take, how long a mission will take, and that you’ll get rewarded even if you fail. This means that, despite the pressure and difficulty, Invisible, Inc. is a surprisingly relaxing game. In the imagination, it’s big. In actuality, it’s small—now that’s a trick.

If you're curious about the plot, and the technical issues haven't scared you off, it's probably worth giving Toren its $10, 90-minute shot.

Sonic Origins' issues may have been excusable at a lower price point. But this little content at $40, plus a gouging-by-DLC headache, moves our call from "maybe" to "nope."

If the thought of having a steering wheel in your living room isn’t one you’d ever entertain, Project CARS probably isn’t the game for you. But if you’re the kind of person who keeps their shopping cart on the racing line at grocery time, you’re in for a treat.

Visually stunning but wholly underwhelming, Tokyo 42 fails to capitalise on its inventive premise.

Fire Emblem Echoes is a sparkling remake without much variety or strategy to scratch beneath the surface. Try it.

Doom Eternal is a thrilling return to form and a high-water mark for fast-paced twitch shooting. Buy it.

It's not a perfect experience by any stretch. Technical hiccups and pacing issues are glaring enough to leave Grand Theft Auto V's open-world crown unmoved—but just barely. Watch Dogs 2 builds upon a pretty good foundation from the last game with most of the trappings you'll want from a zillions-of-hours open-world quest.

This game's aggressive sales pitches for microtransactions leave me pessimistic that Activision Blizzard will relent in the weeks to come. This company already went through the Diablo III auction house debacle, and it wants to do it again! Good luck with that. At this point, sadly, it looks like market forces, as opposed to fan outcry, will determine how much Activision Blizzard will backtrack. As a longtime Diablo fan, I would love to see this game get consumer-friendly updates that make its eventual endgame feel fair. Otherwise, the game's ample selection of classes, abilities, and monsters will careen straight to the "uninstall" option. [Impressions]

Codemasters provided preview code for DiRT 4’s PC version, but we were asked not to review it. The dev promised further graphical optimizations, both in visuals and performance, in a day-one PC patch. We’ll post an update here once we’ve put this PC update to the test. For what it’s worth, DiRT 4’s “unfinished” code got up to 60 FPS performance on our 4K machine (i7-4770k, 1080 Ti, 16GB RAM) with all settings maxed and driving in a rainy, particle-loaded course. [Review in Progress]

$20 isn't much to spend for a night's entertainment, but there are much better games of this type for about the same price. Skip it.

This breakout horror game stumbles occasionally, but it still stands tall as a thrilling survival-horror experience. Buy it.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm doesn’t have that arc. Its strengths remain strong; its weaknesses stay weak. So, if the first episode doesn’t grab you, it’s safe enough to bail and jump into the more complete and energetic original.

Ultimately, SMP feels more like a goodie bag for anybody who's worn out Sonic Mania than a red-carpet, welcome-wagon package for anybody new to the series' 2D revival. If you still haven't played the game, ask yourself whether a physical copy is worth a few more bucks to you. And if you've already spent $20 on this fantastic game and like the idea of it getting a "master quest," don't hesitate to throw $5 more on the pile.

There’s something for everyone here. If you’re an old-school Street Fighter player like me, the game is alive and well, waiting for your return. If you’ve never really felt like fighting games were accessible to you, this might just be the game to welcome you in. [Approved]

There is definitely fun to be had simply running through Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s beautiful cityscape like some sort of all-knowing speedster god. It’s all the stuff that surrounds that simple, joyful running that ranges anywhere from annoying to downright frustrating. In the end, combining a game about running as fast as possible with one about exploring a vast open world ends up being a pretty awkward pairing.

This is my favorite quick-burst, brain-busting puzzle game in years.

TSP:UD is better equipped than its predecessor to offer a substantial comedic reward when messing with players' apparent choices (or lack thereof). Between novel camera cuts and out-of-nowhere environment transformations, the game constantly shows how development studio Crows Crows Crows has only gotten better at this stuff after both the original game and the madcap nonsense of Accounting. [Ars Technica Approved]

While The Old Blood does manage to achieve greatness, it doesn’t quite have the scope to do so consistently enough.

Ultimately, there's more meat on the second act's puzzle bones, especially due to a memorable final-blast puzzle, and while the game's ending was more of a whimper than a bang—and it included some cockamamie ways to tie up the plot's loose ends—I appreciated the restraint on the writers' part to not force melodrama or melancholy on what eventually transpired.

Night in the Woods wastes just a little too much time before getting to the heart of a story about the value of life when life doesn't seem worth living. Buy it.

If you're on board with his insane premise, this is best version of Death Stranding to get.

Until Tekken, Street Fighter, and the rest of the fighting-game crowd makes a current-gen splash, fighting freaks should waste no time buying this.

Horizon is huge in every way that counts, and it should be celebrated for doing what too many games don't these days: telling an enthralling, time-consuming journey that's already complete on the disc—and one we'll remember for years to come.

Honestly, if you've ever wanted to fake like a xenomorph in a video game, Carrion offers a better facsimile than any officially licensed Alien game. [Ars Technica Approved]

Starlink is a great outing for folks of all ages. The toys are costly but well-made and great fun both in and out of game. Buy it.

If you like flying in space (especially with complicated HOTAS rigs) and you're a fan of the original 1984 Elite, this is an insta-buy. If you've never played an Elite game but you love the genre—like, if your game shelf has a bunch of Wing Commander and Freespace and Lucasarts' X-Wing and TIE Fighter boxes on it—then you should definitely give this game a shot. If you're in the market for a game that's mostly EVE but from a cockpit perspective,wait for EVE: Valkyrie instead.

If you can power through these mouse-related annoyances, though, Drag x Drive is one of the more unique and fun action-sports games out there. I hope a critical mass of people give it a chance because I’d love to see some professional e-sports athletes madly swooping their Joy-Cons across a desk in a near-future Twitch stream.

For now, I'm finding that FFXV is mechanically sound but fundamentally missing the point. There's no Midgar-like push of momentum anywhere in the first 10 hours. The game meanders and sputters in terms of making me care about the plot or its primary characters. Even the cheeseball JRPG plot staples of angst, love, and angsty love are in short supply. [Review-in-Progress]

Super Mario Run never amounts to much more than a conveyor belt coin hunt, without the kind of exploration-based depth that characterizes the best of the Mario series.

Sonic Mania comes packed with enough delicious, best-in-series goodness for any self-proclaimed Sonic fan to buy it immediately, with the caveat of a few bugs in the near term. Lesser series fans should tread carefully between those bugs and the pacing issues mentioned above.

But if you forced me to pick only one February game to recommend, I'd point to H:FW as the month's best testament to how beautiful, thrilling, and emotional video games can be. It also gets bonus points on the recommendation matrix for its healthy accessibility sliders, which, among other things, let anyone downgrade the combat to either "simple" or "cakewalk" difficulty levels. I still think H:FW is more fun with difficulty cranked up, so that players can't stupidly melee their way through some of gaming's most thrilling herd combat. But that's your choice to make, not mine. [ARS Technica Approved]

Even as a short-and-sweet game, it's hard to say goodbye to Gorogoa's story so soon.

It may not surpass Dark Souls as my favorite game in the series, but Bloodborne is still a wonderful way to usher the franchise onto a new generation of consoles, for new and old players alike. Buy It.

Firaxis still hasn't built a truly great Civilization to stand the test of time here, but it does feel like history is marching in the right direction. Remember Civilization V's first expansion didn't quite get it there either, but the second did. I remain hopeful that I'll still be diving into Civilization VI a few years from now.

If you're an F1 fan then it's probably a no-brainer. It has the latest tracks, includes all the latest rules, and the current line up of teams and drivers. If you're not an F1 fan but still like racing games it's still probably worth your time, thanks to an engaging career mode and enough granularity in the settings to make you work for that win.

This is a step backward for the series—and not just chronologically. Skip it.

Battlefield: Hardline offers a couple of tweaks and modes worth checking out for the die-hard series fans, but I wouldn't bet on its lasting appeal after the inevitable release of a full Battlefield 5.

A high-water mark in the "interactive narrative" genre. If that sounds good to you, buy it.

A competent, carefully crafted but ultimately safe iteration in a long, storied franchise that, frankly, has much better entries. Yet it's also one of the most distinct Call of Duty games, an obvious bid at turning the series into a one-stop-shop multiplayer extravaganza—the only game Call of Duty fans will ever need. Until next year, at least.

It's not that The Order leaves room for a sequel—it's that The Order leaves space for an ending. More than the combat, more than the quick-time events, more than the time spent watching the game rather than playing it, this calls into question whether the few hours spent playing The Order are worth it.

Thimbleweed Park is an unabashed adventure game throwback with all the good and bad that brings. When it parlays that love of a bygone era into interesting challenges, it borders on great. When it simply emulates the past, it's a real slog.

The basic gameplay pattern of hunt, trap, and fight is wonderfully unique among games of this sort. The shell surrounding that single thread, however—the matchmaking options, the balance across different modes, the personality of the environment and characters—feels under-thought...None of this helps assuage the fear that Evolve is a great gimmick and little else: something we'll play for a month or two, and not much longer. With more time and attention from the developers, maybe it could be something more long-lasting. Either way, there are worse things for a game to be than fun for a short time.

If you can survive the rough edges, it’s a great chance to finally see what all the fuss is about or relive an adventure classic.

Buy it if you have kids or casual-gaming friends to share it with.

By the end, Ratchet and Clank (2016) isn't just a better-playing copy of a now-classic action game; it packs in enough surprises to keep a decade-plus fan like myself surprised. For that matter, "better-playing" doesn't do this remake justice. This is the best blend of shooting, hopping, and humor the series has struck yet. Whether that's enough to overcome origin story fatigue—or general Ratchet and Clank fatigue—is an open question.

Grey Goo is definitely a throwback, albeit one with some compelling innovations. Those who remember the heyday of the RTS genre should get a kick out of it, while the unprepared may be scared away.

If you have the bandwidth to play this emotionally brutal adventure one more time, or if it's new to you, TLOU Pt 1 is the best version yet. If you need more than upgraded combat to put you over the top, wait for a sale.

State of Decay 2 is a smart, messy idea without much of a game to go with it… again. Try it if you don’t mind bugs or repetition too much.

When it comes to capturing the core Mario Party formula established over two decades ago, Superstars is as pure a distillation as you'll find. Taking the best bits from a large collection of uneven games has resulted in a pretty satisfying collection.

Project Scorpio doesn't yet exist, but comparable hardware does, and FH3's phenomenal 30-frame-a-second performance is a pretty good money-where-the-mouth-is declaration of what level of performance we should expect from the company's next living room box.

Like so many classics of the 8-bit era before it, Cuphead extends its length via a brutal difficulty that will require hundreds of cumulative deaths for all but the preternaturally gifted.

By incorporating the UK's political landscape, Football Manger 2017 becomes the deepest, most inspiring take on the beautiful game yet.

Transformative controls, mostly steady 30 fps combat make this a must-own on Switch.

Randomness keeps Darkest Dungeon's signature grind in a holding pattern, but new content breathes life into the whole experience.

After a disastrous demo launched weeks ago, we wondered whether we'd even get a playable game...The good news is that we did, and at its best, Anthem feels brilliant, beautiful, and thrilling. At its worst, though, this is a stuttering, confusing, heartfelt mess of an action game.

I've not driven an F1 car in real life, but I do get to drive a fair few different racing games each year, and I'm happy to report that F1 2020 is up there with the best of them in terms of being fun to play. It's incredible engaging with a wheel and pedals, and you can customize the game to match the difficulty level you're looking for. It looks good and sounds as good as you can hope a turbocharged hybrid F1 car to sound. If you're a fan of the sport, it's probably worth picking it up.

Let's be clear: this is nowhere near the rushed mess that we got from 2018's Radical Heights. There's plenty of fun to be had here for the low, low price of free (or at least "free"). But it's also a really strange release from Respawn—as in, this is the first playable product they've released since Titanfall 2 in late 2016. (And it's apparently the only thing we'll see for a while, as the team has confirmed in interviews that there's no Titanfall 3 in the wings.) Just one map? Barely any new combat ideas? More originality and spark in its microtransaction store than its "TF2 but slower" gameplay? [Impressions]

Though technically rough and uneven, The Good Life is memorable and anything but predictable.

The slight story also makes going back to the game that much easier. Without much overt plot to get in the way, there's less to chug through in the search of collectibles. These extras are mostly hidden behind optional side paths and puzzles. If you just want to play Unravel without worrying about the story, it's probably worth making the return trip. By the end, I was certainly engaged enough with the game to make that return trip.

The finished product accomplished what it needed to: it proved that Valve still knows how to make a classic single-player adventure—one that will inspire a whole new generation of game fans. It left me hungry for more, which is saying something for a single-player game of this length and scope. The masses may not rush out to buy a VR set to play Half-Life: Alyx. But anyone who loves video games should look at this game as a next logical step in the possibilities of dramatic, interactive storytelling. Bravo, Valve. Bravo. [Ars Technica Approved]

If you have a decent gaming PC, this is a must-buy. If you love online shooters, this is a must-buy.

I went into the new God of War expecting a cheesy, mindless action game with a lot of flash and pizzazz. Instead, I got one of the most thoughtful and well-constructed reboots since Tomb Raider, with plenty of story beats and images that will stick with me for a while. It's not a revolutionary standout in its genre, but the new God of War is still a solid example of how to reinvent a well-loved series for a new generation without ruining what came before.

The adorable relationship between young Pauline and the silent Donkey Kong is the icing on a very satisfying cake here. Even though Mario is nowhere to be seen, Donkey Kong Bananza seems destined to be thought of in the same breath as the Mario games that have come to define earlier Nintendo hardware launches.

I Am Setsuna skims the surface of games long past without always understanding what made them memorable. Try it if you just want a game that looks the part or to see its admittedly cool combat.

Mafia 3's first few hours are some of the best you'll play this year—but the next few dozen are among the most disappointing.

Every version of the game is perfectly playable, but you want to play BF1 on a souped-up PC if possible. The console versions of the game are locked at a crisp 60fps refresh and offer beautiful lighting and massive draw distances, but explosions, particle effects, and textures are clearly better on PC.

I will treasure my time with Kena: Bridge of Spirits and look forward to even bigger projects from Ember Lab to come. [Ars Technica Approved]

Worst of all, the game seems to be rendered at a far lower resolution than I was setting it to, looking like a 720p game blown up to 1440p. It's a bizarre mix of occasionally good looks contrasted with some supremely bad ones, and it tops off an already lacklustre game.

Don't let the saccharine looks fool you: Arms is deep, challenging, and an essential purchase for the Nintendo Switch.

Enjoy this with a willing friend (or three) if you like the idea of RTS games but suck at them. Jump right into online matchmaking if you're a pro. Test it out if you're RTS-shy.

If the game's eight-hour runtime (which doesn't count returning to levels to find secrets) had been sliced in half, I'd be more likely to recommend any random passer-by flip through pages of text, confusedly laugh, and then enjoy a few sensational, memorable battles. Instead, I urge casual action fans to steel themselves for lousy pacing, disappointing co-op, and surprisingly fun text. If Suda51's singular sense of humor is your cup of tea (or, in this game's case, your bowl of ramen), you will likely forgive these lapses—and particularly appreciate some of TSA's crazier reveals.

It's 50 hours of arduous combat trials speckled with some of the best boss design this series has ever had. And just like so many times before, it's a battle of attrition I came to love.

A must-play for FPS addicts of old and a gleeful return to solo FPS action for modern teens who missed the '90s.

Don't just wait for a sale; wait for a major overhaul.

The world of The Last Guardian is an architectural and graphical masterpiece that you'll want to explore every inch of, with well-animated characters that can evoke some real emotion without a word. So when you're stuck for 15 minutes at a time wondering where to go and fighting with an uncooperative Trico to go there, rather than exploring that wonderful world, it can be pretty grating...The Last Guardian is beautiful enough that it might be worth the struggle. But I also wouldn't blame anyone for giving up on this flawed masterwork partway through.

You'll never have more fun being nagged to work faster. Buy it.

So long as you appreciate how much better VR can be, and that Nintendo has been soundly trounced in the good-VR-design department by the likes of Astro Bot, Tetris Effect, TiltBrush, Vacation Simulator, Superhot VR, Moss, SuperHyperCube, Space Pirate Trainer, and on and on and on... then, sure, give Labo VR a whirl. Just don't say I didn't warn ya.

Stardew Valley is a sweet, well-made, and forward-thinking meditation on country life that borrows intelligently from games like Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, and Zelda, without simply being a tired copy.

Deathloop may ultimately go down as my biggest gaming disappointment of 2021. I love its "bonding" system for earning and keeping upgrades, which forces players to make some compelling choices from run to run. I like getting to know this game's cast of characters. I smile when a particular stretch of finding paths and sneaking around evokes the genius of this studio's best Dishonored levels. And I'm always down for shameless homages to Majora's Mask. But the total package collapses beneath a mix of too much ambition and not enough content. It's just hard to ignore signs that seem to imply someone on the production end said, "Eff it, let's ship this game already."

I wouldn't call Far Cry 6 "good," exactly, but it has its moments of silly entertainment. Next time Ubisoft should either pick a lane or remake Far Cry 2.

I had a blast. Boltgun makes for a nice little break from today's far more complicated first-person games—or just from modern life itself.

Those nitpicks aside, Free Roam mode is what I'd consider the best realization of Mario Kart World's open-world ambitions. The more traditional racing modes can be too frantic and time-sensitive to let you enjoy the obvious care and attention to detail that has gone into building out the world around Mario Kart's racing tracks. And while racing around those tracks feels as satisfying as ever, this time around, the game's structure tends to get in the way of that satisfying core experience.

But even the "great for portable play" sales pitch suffers from a big issue: Obsidian has opted not to include any form of cloud-save support. You can't transfer your progress from the Switch version to any other console or PC version, or vice versa. (This pales in comparison to cloud-save support for the likes of Witcher 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2.) And that makes the visual downgrades much tougher to suggest for anyone who owns other ways to play this game at home.

This isn't Animal Crossing. This is a scam. Nintendo should be ashamed for attaching such predatory practices to one of its most family-friendly properties, and nothing short of a full-scale redesign will fix the FarmVille-level rot within this shiny-looking game.

Buy it if you have an ideal co-op partner, want a simpler co-op alternative to MMO-like shooters, or just really, really like newer Wolfenstein games. Otherwise, proceed with caution.

It's not a perfect collection. Still, I'll take a re-release that's doggedly old-school over the microtransaction alternative. DrillLand is exactly the kind of unique, satisfying, and cutesy puzzle-action game I want right now.

In great news, everything you do in the game looks tremendous thanks to MachineGames' use of the idTech6 engine, which is an upgrade from the last game's idTech5. I tested the entire game on a souped-up PC and had the game cranking at max settings in 4K with zero hitches in frame rate or responsiveness, and this was in spite of the game throwing up all matter of gorgeous particle, shadow, and lighting effects.

Keep an eye on Milestone's patch and update plans. If the company moves forward with customer-friendly moves, HWU may be a must-buy for arcade-racing fans. Until then, wait and see—unless the sales pitch of "Trackmania but prettier and more arcade-y" makes you want to immediately purchase. In which case, you'll have a good time.

For all its individually familiar mechanics, the holistic experience of Dawn of War 3 is as different from its predecessors as the second game was from the first. It doesn't feel like either older game as a whole. Instead, approach this as its own self-contained vessel: an RTS with a better-than-average campaign and an approach to multiplayer that has a lot of potential if it can find a community of players that hasn't already dedicated itself to one of the two styles of play it emulates. If, however, you're a longtime fan simply looking for a second lap around for either of the first two games, you'll be sadly disappointed.

Frostpunk might not be the open-ended city builder to revitalize that genre, but its linear focus on specific undertakings could be nearly perfect with a few tweaks. As it is, I’ll likely keep on coming back to the last city on Earth, convinced that this time I’ve got the perfect build order to keep its residents happy and fed. Tough choices be damned.

Ruiner has a lot in common with other top-down action games but blends bits of all of them into a uniquely demanding, satisfying shooter.

It's the best open-world adventure of the year. [Ars Technica Approved]

No doubt these will sell well regardless of what I say, but if you're not already dying to play these, I would save the $60 for Pokémon Legends: Arceus, due out in January.

When you're not dealing with combat-related annoyances, there is some fun to be had just running and jumping through Crackdown's brutally beautiful authoritarian world, looking for shiny orbs. It's too bad that this is only half of this half-baked game.

No doubt these will sell well regardless of what I say, but if you're not already dying to play these, I would save the $60 for Pokémon Legends: Arceus, due out in January.

Overwatch remains one of the best multiplayer shooters I've played in years, and I'm impressed with how well it translates to the Switch—especially if you're open to the gyroscopic aiming. And with playing the game mobile and undocked now an option, maybe I can avoid making that OLED burn-in worse with my next thousand hours of Overwatch. [Hands-On Impressions]

Creating a coherent branching narrative of this scope would be exceedingly difficult for even the most experienced and accomplished Hollywood scriptwriter. It proves to be utterly impossible for the writer behind Detroit.

I'm a big fan of HZD, and on my most powerful PC, I can currently play a tolerable-if-blurry 4K version at a nearly locked 60fps (or a native 1440p version at around 68fps on a variable refresh rate monitor). And it's a great action game at 60fps and above, especially when you juggle hero Aloy's selection of weapons and traps to fake like a real robo-safari hunter. There's no modern action game quite like it.

Shadow of the Erdtree is definitely an expansion, both outward in area and upward in base difficulty. If you've already purchased it and find yourself bouncing off it, give yourself some time, some grace (in-game and out), and come back when you're ready.

After 20 hours or so, I'm excited to continue inhabiting the fascinating world of Night City and to discover more of its secrets as I meet its fascinating characters. But I'll be moving on prepared to turn a blind eye to some pretty big holes in that facade. [20 Hour Impressions]

If Digital Eclipse addresses even half of my nitpicks in a future patch, that would take this collection past its current state of "good enough" to "easily recommended" territory. In the meantime, weigh your own particular nostalgic appetite before reaching in for a slice of the Cowabunga Collection—or order a tastier pie from the competition with Shredder's Revenge.

But by the time I got done with Star Fox Zero’s incredibly annoying final boss, roughly five hours after I first started the game, I found myself not all that eager to replay any of its levels a second time (though I did, for the sake of completeness). Instead, what I really felt the urge to do was replay Star Fox 64, which captured all the good parts of Star Fox Zero 20 years ago without any of the chaff that constantly gets in the way.

Persona 5 weaves engaging JRPG combat around a thoughtful, exquisitely stylish tale of thieves and the struggle to survive in an unfair society.

Only near the end does the game crank up the difficulty substantially, mainly by rehashing old content with a few more enemies and fewer health items thrown in. At that point, though, you'll have upgraded Kirby's health and power, too. By the time I was refighting a bunch of old bosses, now with higher health bars, I felt like I was just going through the motions...But Kirby games have never been about mechanical challenge. Players come to these titles for a lighthearted romp where Kirby's ever-changing abilities provide a fun and dynamic diversion. Kirby and the Forgotten Land is more of the same, providing a smooth platforming experience that goes down so easy, you'll barely even notice you swallowed it.

There is a story, told mostly through notes left strewn around the environments, but I’d be lying if I said I paid any attention to it. The draw here is the gameplay loop, and if what I’ve described above sounds tedious to you, the game is absolutely not for you. Rogue Legacy 2 is a game about repeated failure, and only slow, incremental progress will lead to your success.

If you are a die-hard Mass Effect fan who has a personal Shepard head-cannon, Andromeda is an insta-buy, no questions asked. It's the first Mass Effect game we've gotten in five years and potentially the starting point for a new series. It has many of the same traits that made the original Mass Effect trilogy great, and it feels right. If you’re not a die-hard Mass Effect fan, watch some YouTube videos first to make sure the game will be for you. [Early review in progress]

Prey feels like the mirror image of Bethesda's recent Doom remake. That game let you dance around endless hordes of disposable beasts, making you instantly feel like a super-soldier that could single-handedly take on whatever came at you. In Prey, you constantly feel besieged by unseen horrors that you can barely handle even one-on-one, and you often pray that you can just get by without being seen. Maybe this feeling will go away as I approach the end game, but part of me kind of hopes it doesn't. By limiting your power and resources as you scrounge through its amazing architecture, Prey makes you feel like, well, prey. In a genre that seems more often focused on letting you fulfill your every power fantasy via heavy artillery, it's kind of refreshing so far.

Spider-Man 2 definitely doesn’t rewrite the book of Insomniac’s superhero series. But that’s because it doesn’t need to. Even after pouring well over 20 hours into the game, we’re eager to dive in again to explore every hidden nook and cranny that this expanded New York City offers...And if Insomniac offers another barely different version of the same gameplay formula in a few years' time, we’ll probably sink dozens more happy hours into the same basic gameplay loop.

We admit that Tharsis lacks the key aspect that often makes dice-rolling board games so much easier to stomach: a way to include other friends' successes, failures, and diplomatic strides in the mix. Failure by luck always goes down smoother as a communal activity, after all. But we're not sure how well this game's design would adapt to multiplayer play. So long as you gird your single-player loins for that failing, you're in for the slickest board-game/craps-table hybrid to ever reach gamers' bloody, cannibalistic hands.

In the end, the London of Watch Dogs: Legion feels a mile wide but only a few feet deep. What promises to be endless variety in character choice and hack-driven gameplay options quickly boils down to the repetition of the same old gameplay and plot tropes.

GW2 has a lot of value as an online video game to play with kids and kids-at-heart. But it might be even more valuable in a different way: as an anthropological document of what happens to a great studio like Popcap after a $1.3 billion buyout. As a result, GW2 is probably a lot more fascinating than anybody at EA ever intended it to be.

Trying to extend the story of The Last of Us in a meaningful way was always going to be an uphill battle. What’s so frustrating about Part 2 is that the game seems to have all the pieces necessary to do just that. But those pieces end up getting lost as the game also tries to tell an entirely new story, one that tries to expand the Last of Us world into a generalized setting for an anthology of loosely connected stories. The end result never comes together in a satisfying way.

There’s a good game to be built on the bones of Valkyria Revolution, but the game itself is too one-note and ill-considered to get anywhere near it. Skip it.

I'm in love with my biggest gaming surprise so far in 2020. SoR4 is easy to share with friends and easy to get hooked on. Its levels are choreographed with tons of enemy types from across the series so that you don't land in the usual "ugh, same enemies again" fatigue that even the Genesis originals suffer from. And, heck, Lizardcube and Guard Crush were kind enough to bring back the cheesy two-player "battle" mode—and it's actually kind of legit, since it neatly implements the special attacks' new risk-and-reward proposition. If you're on board with the scant length and the game's urging that you replay it a few times for maximum value, I heartily encourage you to spend 10 satisfying hours with this beat-'em-up rebirth. [Ars Technica Approved]

A must-play if you already subscribe to PlayStation Plus. A hearty party-game recommendation if you can convince online friends to join in. A tough sell for loners or couch co-op players.

And since this is an older game being smashed into working shape on PC, that means we can rest (mostly) assured that Xbox Game Studios won't be bolting extra obnoxious systems on top, particularly microtransactions. Halo Reach now is like Halo Reach then. And that's arguably the greatest comfort of all this time around.

Splatoon 3's existence feels like a corporate decision, meant to fill a release calendar, as opposed to being driven by good design ideas. I rarely find myself thinking that about a Nintendo game, but Splatoon 3 is that disappointing.

War of the Chosen is the definitive way to play XCOM 2. Even if you weren't impressed with the original package, this feels like a whole new game.

If EA flattens the game's economy so that players start out on a more equal footing, then we may be on to something. Even then, there's still the issue of online combat that favors cheap BP gathering, lone-wolf slogs, and boring tactics over either satisfying tactics or down-and-dirty arcade fun. I will keep my eyes on the game for any major, tide-turning changes that could redeem the game's solid, glossy bits. Until then, EA's talk is cheap, and its product feels even cheaper. Avoid Star Wars: Battlefront II.

Far Cry 5 just isn’t very polished. When the supporting cast does speak, it’s often the same three lines repeated ad nauseum, sometimes layered over someone else’s words in an incomprehensible cacophony. But the most ridiculous moments come when AI allies scream and moan on the ground—dead-still in a messy rag doll pose—then jerkily jump straight into one of their oft-repeated lines after a two-second revival animation...Skip it.

MK11 is a mixed package. The presentation is great, but the animations can get a bit tiring, and the over-the-top violence can get numbing. The gameplay is really solid, but the grind to get the cosmetics and upgrades feels even more tiring and numbing. Hopefully the grindy parts are adjusted, and the long animations aren't a deal breaker, just an annoyance.

After a half-dozen hours with Atomic Heart, I’m eager to see where it takes me. I’m currently exploring the college town around a mag-lev train station, looking for a dead comrade with a ticket on them. The game’s promotional screenshots suggest far more varied environments than the underground tunnels I’ve been through and a wider mix of malfunctioning worker bots...Atomic Heart is loaded with little loving details, and its combat is notably more fluid and involved than the somewhat plain shooting typically associated with its sub-genre. I suspect the answer to what went wrong with the grand robo-workers’ utopia is going to involve some well-worn sci-fi tropes, but I’m fine with it. It’s a fun, ambitious shooter with a distinct style and worth the occasional kick in the head. [Impressions]

Splatoon 2's basic gameplay has clearly benefited from a full two years of patching and examination of the original title's uneven launch. This is all we've wanted from Nintendo for years: to come up with wild new ideas, then actually adjust and respond to player demands for a better experience.

The larger issue, arguably, is the lack of online multiplayer. Unlike Streets of Rage 4, Battletoads is offline-only, so if your ideal playmate can't get to your couch as of late, I'd recommend other superior beat-'em-up options. Should you have a good two- or three-person posse on your couch, and you already pay for Xbox Game Pass, expect a funny, brief, 10-and-older cartoon romp. But Dlala has implemented just enough obnoxious stuff between Battletoads' good bits to stop me, a pretty freakish Battletoads fan, from recommending that anyone buy it outright.

FIFA 17 is a typically slick offering from EA, but if you want the best football game PES 17 is the way to go.

FH5 is an easy recommendation as part of a paid Xbox Game Pass subscription, and it's a great excuse to flex your newest gaming hardware purchase. But if you're already happy with Forza Horizon 4 or were bored by that one, take your sweet time sitting behind this game's wheel.

While it's not new for indie and experimental games take on ambitious, emotional concepts and existential crises, never has one come along that has been so frank, so nakedly autobiographical, and so imbued with its creators' spiritual identities.

In very good news, all of that time in the oven did nothing to stymie or complicate the basic, satisfying thrust of the original game. Instead, Back in the Groove is boosted by even more roguelike weirdness and multiplayer support.

If Nintendo gets around to unlocking a true multiplayer mode or opening the game up to battles larger than on 8x6 grids, I could see myself sticking around. For now, I'm glad there's enough good gameplay to occupy me for at least a day without spending a single dime. The entire presentation—slick battle animations, beautiful full-screen character art, polished music, a full suite of appropriately cheery Fire Emblem voice actors, simple tap-to-battle controls—helped me enjoy what I've quested through thus far.

Quantum Break’s story and visual prowess are reason enough to recommend this game to anyone looking for a rote shooter with a more-than-usual focus on compelling narrative. The best I can say about the action sequences is that they’re tolerable en route to uncovering the game’s core of science-fueled existential crises. So while I feel comfortable recommending this ultimately uneven adventure, in a gaming world where we’ve already played so many super-charged, inFamous-styled action games, I feel pretty disappointed by “just good enough" for QB's action portions.

The best kinds of games are the ones that hook you into that "just one more mission!" mental feedback loop, and Duskers hits that for me and hits it HARD.

If you're looking for more Uncharted, then Lost Legacy will definitely provide it. If you're looking for more from the Uncharted series, though, you'll be pretty underwhelmed.

Anyone who skipped Sun and Moon has no excuse not to buy their Ultra successors. Returning players should know they're in for a slow start but should consider buying the new games anyway.

Anyone who skipped Sun and Moon has no excuse not to buy their Ultra successors. Returning players should know they're in for a slow start but should consider buying the new games anyway.

You're going to need one seriously iron stomach to withstand Iron Man VR's lows, and they don't come with any payoff in terms of addictive action or satisfying comic-book storytelling. I'd hoped for more from what appears to be the last major PSVR game for PlayStation 4, but sadly, my expectations turned out to be virtual, not real.

FFXII: The Zodiac Age offers some fundamental changes to make a great game even better—even if it could have used one or two more minor improvements.

DX:MD packs in more Deus Ex, mostly polished, with tons of plot that we don't want to spoil, a bazillion side quests and optional plot to sink your teeth into, a likable story, missions so good that I have described them to friends as "boss levels," and a free side game with a tolerable microtransaction system. I'm still shocked. August is usually the triple-A dumping ground of the game-industry calendar, but August hasn't seen a game this good in years.

Before the Storm is at its best when it focuses on the untold elements of Life Is Strange. So far, those moments capture the spirit of the original, but I’m anxious to see if it can hold up as the timelines converge.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey offers a lot to do but very little to say. That’s a shame, since many of history’s greatest tales have leveraged an immense scale to weave equally impactful tales. That’s not quite the case here.

A near-perfect sequel and a great strategy game. XCOM 2 has the style to match its systems’ substance, and it rightfully stakes a new claim to be the king of tactics games.