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]

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.

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

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.

Battlefront scratches that itch for Star Wars wish fulfillment, but when the twinkle leaves your eye, there's not much left to discover. Try it.

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

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.

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.

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]

Mario's "battle royale" is too repetitive and rough for long-term play.

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.

It’s extremely disappointing that a review of a game that can be so joyful when it’s working has to read like a simple bug report...Just Cause 3 is a wonderful game—if it runs properly on your system.

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.

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

Buy it for the excellent collection of built-in Nintendo-made levels. Get the Wii U version if you want to actually make your own.

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.

Despite the Zelda name, Triforce Heroes feels more like an uneven spin-off than a core part of the franchise’s storied legacy. The frequent hopping between difficult combat and relatively straightforward three-man puzzles feels a bit disjointed and empty without the series’ usual sense of adventure and advancement. Still, if you have a couple of friends who want to goof off with their 3DS systems in tow, you could do worse.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.