A great entry into to Black Ops storyline. It gives an interesting view of the time, has a compelling storyline, and leaves you wanting more.

It is undeniable that the series is growing, and it’s admirable that the developers are willing to try new things. Overall, the experience works in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. It’s not a perfect fit, yet, but there’s promise in the series future if they continue to head in a direction that has more RPG elements, and options for a direct approach. It also feels like a proof of concept that they can continue to attempt virtually any setting with a decent chance of success.

It’s got a great story with a fun and inventive design. The “recruit anyone” mechanic is well designed and well implemented as are the ideas of what happens when characters are taken out of commission, regardless of whether you’re using the permadeath mode or not. The world is gorgeous, continually inviting you to dive back in and see what/who you can find.

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit feels like a technology and toy that can work in the right conditions. If you have a home with a large living room or an office with some empty space, I could see you having a good time making a constrained course in a single room and racing around. The less space you have and more types of flooring, obstacles, and creativity you employ, the odds increase that you’ll be hit by constant and performance-hampering connection issues. Still, it seems like a step forward for remote control cars and like this could lead to something bigger and better down the road. For now, it’s a novelty that can sometimes feel like the best times come from using it to explore your home.

It’s hard not to imagine what could have been with better follow-through. It’s Star Wars, though, and cool ships and enormous spectacle are part of the fun. It’s alright that the story isn’t going to win any awards because it still does its job and doesn’t actively detract from the important parts of the game. Star Wars: Squadrons is the most accessible and potentially best way to experience one of the coolest parts of Star Wars.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is a solid platformer and a continuation of a series whose vibe and design still hasn’t been recreated in other titles. It’s a relief to see Crash’s legacy continue over 20 years later in a way that feels true to form.

It would be hard to recommend Marvel’s Avengers to anybody who is looking for a rich multiplayer experience. Despite being a live-service game, this is no Destiny. But Destiny was also pretty sparse when it first came out. There could be a lot of quality content in the game’s future, and it does seem that the developers want players to stick around for a while. There is a slew of post-launch content planned, after all. Spider-Man, who will be exclusive to PlayStation consoles, isn’t even due out until 2021. It is difficult to imagine what is meant to keep players grinding from now until then. The game is amazing for a weekend, but for several months? For the moment, it seems unlikely. Hopefully that will change.

Basically, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is a perfect remaster. It feels the way you expect the game to and has everything I loved about these two games. Everything looks more gorgeous than ever before. You have extra tasks in the original levels. There are incentives to keep going back into all of the levels to complete tasks, unlock new customization options, get stat points, and work toward getting over 700 Challenges done. There’s a great multiplayer option. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 isn’t just as good as you remembered, it’s better.

For a car or racing enthusiast, Project Cars 3 has a lot to offer. The depth of customizing, upgrading, and tuning up cars is impressive. The track-time experience is a lot of fun and generally feels realistic. When you pause it to enter “Photo Mode,” there’s also a variety of customization options to capture the drama of a race. The only question I have is how/if they will reoptimize for the next gen consoles. If you’re big on racing games, while it doesn’t really offer much that’s new to the equation, Project Cars 3 is a buy. See you on the track.

Because it is practically the only game in the genre, EA Sports UFC 4 is the uncontested champion. The fact that it singlehandedly fills a nice isn’t the only reason to play it, though. Once you grasp the basics, EA Sports UFC 4 is a deep game that lets you engage with it on your own terms. You can get by on easy mode, or you can rely on skills and abilities to compensate. You can simulate training if you just want to fight. If you want to develop a mastery over the game, the training menus offer a wealth of information and practice mode is very accommodating. If you want to learn about optimal builds and “hit boxes,” there are already a variety of communities online who excitedly welcome the opportunity to geek out about the game’s technical side. That’s where I’ll be going to improve my ground game. A week ago, I couldn’t imagine saying such a thing.

Ghost of Tsushima is a gorgeous game that has Sucker Punch taking its shot at telling its own samurai story. The combat feels great; and you have a lot of freedom when it comes to building up Jin. It’s simply a stunning way to say goodbye to the PS4.

There is fun to be had with Paper Mario: The Origami King. That much is certain. It is a beautiful game with delightful music and clever moments. Its boss fights especially do a good job of making you feel smart. But, while it looks like a Paper Mario game, it doesn’t feel like its predecessors and abandons more of the RPG elements that originally made this series so special.

The Last of Us Part II is difficult to play, and not because it is a poorly constructed game. Rather, it is a challenge because Naughty Dog forces people to take such a long, hard look at the terrible things people are capable of doing to one another. We can see people who we should hate and despise in situations where we pity them and can be appalled by what a character we like goes through and does to others. It is a bookend to its predecessor. People will be talking about The Last of Us Part II for years to come. They’ll be analyzing the story, if it needed to go to the lengths that it does, and considering the effect its world-building, gameplay mechanics, and accessibility options will have for years to come.

I suppose the best way to describe Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath is as a finishing move of its own. Though, it’d be a Friendship, rather than a Fatality. It’s in many ways a means of NetherRealm showing appreciation for the series’ history. The free additions pay tribute to the past by bringing back old moves in a gorgeous way. The paid elements give two more classic fighters a chance to return, Robocop a chance to dole out justice, and an even better capper to a story that gives returning fighters who showed up as DLC a place in the story. It’s all handled incredibly well and, to be honest, even people who just come back to the game for the massive free update and its balance updates and additions will be more than satisfied.

Minecraft Dungeons is a rare sort of game that’s probably only possible due to the Minecraft brand’s phenomenal success. RPGs are a relative niche, and historically you’re just supposed to happen upon them and sink or swim. Sure, there’s stuff like Pokemon, but there isn’t really an equivalent for the likes of Diablo. Mojang Studios has used Minecraft as a sort of vessel, with which they can teach that demographic the basic ins and outs of a new genre. And oldheads like myself who live and breathe this stuff can appreciate that mission, especially if they have kids to share it with. Minecraft Dungeons won’t do much for you if you’re looking for a new, true blue dungeon crawler. But if you have a little one to tag along on your expeditions, this is an accessible, cheerful, and polished romp perfect for extra bonding time.

From Cloud’s journey of self re-discovery and vulnerability to Mark Hammil hamming it up as Don Corneo, expansion of as much minutia as possible feels like the primary goal here. And that goal is met in glorious fashion. Final Fantasy VII Remake reveres its source material, but isn’t afraid to get sillier, weirder, and even more earnest and emotional. It’s a classic, old school JRPG from the 90s, reimagined as a bloated, contemporary triple-a video game. It’s also, in a way, a significant meta text, but you’ll have to dive into that aspect on your own. Final Fantasy VII Remake is going to be weird in so many different ways for so many different people, and for that reason alone I have to give it an enthusiastic recommendation.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons could end up being the most important game of 2020. It certainly will be one of its best. It will be the coping mechanism that helps people both recover from and overcome the dark things around them.

Anyone looking for a challenge will be stoked to live in this world, although less seasoned folks might crash into walls within Yokai Realm sequences. Still, Nioh 2 is a great sequel, with tons of depth and secrets to explore alongside the masocore combat loop. Team Ninja has really changed its output style over the years, and it’s nailing this scene for sure.

It isn’t perfect, with some characters who might look a little too familiar from past appearances, an incomplete Pokedex, but it is still has the same satisfying gameplay loop, array of characters to collect, and a series of gyms you’ll feel compelled to challenge. Pokemon Sword and Shield are a lot of fun and will get people thinking about things to come.

It isn’t perfect, with some characters who might look a little too familiar from past appearances, an incomplete Pokedex, but it is still has the same satisfying gameplay loop, array of characters to collect, and a series of gyms you’ll feel compelled to challenge. Pokemon Sword and Shield are a lot of fun and will get people thinking about things to come.

It isn’t perfect, with some characters who might look a little too familiar from past appearances, an incomplete Pokedex, but it is still has the same satisfying gameplay loop, array of characters to collect, and a series of gyms you’ll feel compelled to challenge. Pokemon Sword and Shield are a lot of fun and will get people thinking about things to come.

It’s almost comparable to the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed games, only with a new set of contemporary trends and a much larger budget. It’s janky, some of the set pieces are clumsy, and the storytelling is more of a miss than a hit. Still, the intergalactic exploration is seasoned with Metroidvania-lite gatekeeping and combat systems that successfully blend Star Wars flash with Soulslike danger and make the magic happen. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has the spunk of a PS2 game, the game design of a PS3 game, and the scale of a PS4 game. That’s a win in my book.

Death Stranding will not be for everybody. It seems meticulously engineered for a pretty specific kind of nerd. My wife, for example, loves this game, and when she loves a game, she dumps hundreds of hours into it. Me? I merely like this game, and probably wouldn’t invest a bunch of time into it were it not for work. Of course, there will be people who won’t like the game at all; it will feel like a chore to them. Fortunately, it doesn’t take long to determine whether or not Death Stranding is a game for you. I recommend experiencing it in some way, though, be it through a stream or a borrowed copy, because I think it will be talked about for years to come.

At its core, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is lovely. The campaign is clearly crafted with care and is filled with personality. Each ally and enemy is detailed and expressive. Its challenges are never too demanding and the floors of the Last Resort are fun to explore alone or with a friend. ScareScraper can also be enjoyable, if you can get enough people to join you in tackling a tower. Really, ScreamPark is the only blemish in an otherwise delightful game.

Ultimately, I came away from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare confused about how to feel about it. I’m always down for some Call of Duty campaign nonsense and was super looking forward to it after Black Ops 4 skipped it entirely. When I started this story, I was stoked. It felt great to play, looked better than any previous entry, and seemed to have some real dramatic ambition. But then the story got going, and it was less thematically coherent than a Tom Clancy game. Both the campaign and (currently divisive) multiplayer add a lot of new angles and depth to the usual Call of Duty experience. Unfortunately, that all comes at the cost of a good story, and the last Modern Warfare had a great story.

FIFA 20 feels like it might be a more divisive entry than usual. In altering the physics and game flow so dramatically, the team risks alienating just as many players as it hopes to bring in. That said, everything that makes FIFA what it is remains intact, with the usual attempts at streamlining and bug-wrangling. VOLTA is the big draw, with its community-driven structures and inclusive character creation. While plenty of fans will no doubt immediately jump to their favorite corners of FIFA, this year’s attempt at trying something new feels almost like its own game. EA Sports has been trying more and more lately to put a little something for everyone in each title, and FIFA 20 does exactly that.

Perhaps the best way to describe Borderlands 3 is to say it is exactly the game you would expect it to be. There are plenty of familiar faces, and it has the same sort of ambiance and atmosphere. People will still keep going into quest after quest for the same reasons (loot). While it might be difficult to accept the new villains after a great one like Handsome Jack, the twins are fine. Most importantly, the new Vault Hunters work well and the game is as fun to play alone as it is with friends. It looks, works, and plays well, and fans of the series will be more than happy to join the Crimson Raiders.

Gears 5 is a sequel that delivers on everything I was hoping Gears of War 4 would be. It’s the same tried and true gameplay loop, but with more console power juicing it up and a few new gadgets, weapons and tools to play around with. The open world stuff is sort of boring, but it’s at least nice to look at, and the co-op experience being so well integrated makes up for it (minus the dreadful, illegible UI). There’s much more ambition and creativity in its storytelling and more competent writing from a mechanical standpoint. Combined with a clean, user-friendly multiplayer suite that even finds time to add brand new ways to play, Gears 5 is a standout even among its own series. It’s rough around the edges, but in a good way.