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.

Despite a few quality-of-life tweaks, the package is otherwise faithful to the originals—almost to a fault—while its compatibility with modern PCs is mostly good enough.

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.

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.

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.

The overall effect is a good simulation of what it must feel like to have super-speed and recalls some of Quicksilver's memorable scenes in recent X-men movies. But there are a few clever design choices to prevent your superpower from becoming super-overpowering in a gunfight.

[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.

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

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.

By mixing some of the best features of comics, video games, and animation, Florence tells a sweet and memorable tale that isn't belabored with a lot of fluff or busywork. In a gaming world full of immense, sprawling epics, we could use more inventive short stories like this.

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.

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

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.

This is a frame-perfect game of twitchy reactions, which is hard to recreate online, but if you don't have a couch playmate, you just have to settle on Pyre's brilliantly drawn and wonderfully told interactive story. Not a bad consolation prize.

An expertly crafted, improvisational playspace for stealth mayhem. Buy it.

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

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.

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]

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.

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.

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]

While Mega Man 11 doesn't completely eradicate the tried-and-true Mega Man formula, it isn't afraid to make changes big and small to the way a mainline franchise game looks, feels, and plays. Not all of these changes are for the better, but enough of them are worthwhile that the break from form seems worth the effort.

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

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.

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.

This is the most complete version of Football Manager yet, offering up something new for both seasoned veterans and newcomers alike.

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.

Online or off, Overcooked 2 is still some of the most accessible and over-the-top cooperative fun you can have gaming with a group of friends. The structured chaos is perfectly designed to generate the kind of laughing and screaming that makes for memorable moments.