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.

It's rare that I go to this much trouble to dissuade people from buying a video game. I can be nitpicky or critical about perfectly solid games for one reason or another, but I know tastes can vary, so I try to make room for my experiences not necessarily reflecting other players'. But Saints Row is such a mess in its current state that I would only recommend it to Twitch streamers who make a living out of riling up their chat feeds. That's all this is: the 2022 video game equivalent of The Room or Showgirls, a spectacle to be experienced with a group... and not for the reasons its creators intended. [Avoid]

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]

Highly recommended on high-end gaming PCs. Everyone else should wait for day-one impressions—or take the plunge for roughly one hour, then use Steam's built-in refund service in the event that early performance is as bad for you as it was for us.

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]

A must-buy for existing Cuphead owners. It's short, but Last Course is definitely a fair value at $8. Anyone on the fence should give this a shot if you're starved for quality 2D gaming. [Ars Technica Approved]

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."

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]

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.

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]

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.

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]

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.

This surprisingly deep Zelda-like adventure is charming, evocative, fun, bursting with secrets, and comes complete with some of the best visuals and music of any "works-on-any-computer" adventure game over the past few years. [Ars Technica Approved]

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Halo Infinite's campaign sets the stage for an incredible sequel someday. Today is not that day. Consider this a fine rental or excuse to burn through a single month of Xbox Game Pass, either now or whenever the co-op mode finally goes live in 2022.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.