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]

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.

Probably the best JRPG this year, and definitely one of the best in a good long while. If you think you can stomach the early difficulty, try it.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

A well-presented story told in a fresh way. Buy it if you have any interest in new storytelling forms.

As of press time, Xbox One X is woefully behind compared to PS4 and PS4 Pro on performance. While we lack discrete pixel-counting gear, we can confirm that both PlayStation consoles do better at locking to a 60fps refresh, and XB1X noticeably stutters in the act of play. RE3 is one of the more action-oriented entries in the series, so frame rates count.

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.

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

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.

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]

Tetris 99 is more than a classic game with a bunch of strangers piling on. It's a tantalizing (and surprising) taste of new game design potential, where the cloud is the limit.

Life is Strange makes some odd design choices, but its ability to make your choices feel important to its strong leading protagonists more than makes up for it. Buy it.

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]

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.

The PC-conversion team at Nixxes has done it again, and while we know better than to announce a game's PC version as a clear winner out of the gate, our experience with the PC build has us leaning towards calling it the definitive version.

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

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.

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]

Yakuza 6 sums up its lead character succinctly and emotionally, while shaking up enough to make the return ride feel fresh.

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

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 makes up in manic energy what it lacks in elegance. Its mountain of ideas don’t always work, but the core of the game justifies its experiments.

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.

A fun playthrough for longtime fans who have gotten bored of the mainline Pokémon games or a good entry point for fans of open-world RPGs who want to build their first Pokémon team.

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.