At the end of the day Soul Sacrifice has great content to play with some friends, but if you’re on the look out for a story driven RPG you may, and I stress may, want to look elsewhere.

Throughout my time with it I found a game with uneven design and strange pacing. In trying to be a jack-of-all-trades, it truly left me feeling like it was a master of none.

Although Tacoma is short, it does a fantastic job telling the stories of the different characters throughout the game, using the non-sequential AR memory recordings to build emotional ties to each. Tacoma is a simple, yet fun narrative driven game that brings time and space together.

Throw some supplies into a duffle bag, find a map to Canada, and hop in the van folks, because the zombie masses of Death Road to Canada are coming for you, and getting eaten alive was never so much fun.

Scéal is a game that knows its simplicity, and offers players a light but moving playthrough. While there are some minor issues, it combines an unassuming, yet emotional story with delicate graphics and a breathtaking soundtrack to create a refreshing experience anyone can enjoy.

Dead Rising 3 is funny, and more importantly a riot to play.

With incredible art design, challenging action, and a very innovative, dual-world mechanic, Lords of the Fallen is probably a must-play for fans of Soulslikes. But it’s hard to ignore the game’s issues, too, from sometimes unrefined movement and clunky combat to its many technical hiccups. While these can be frustrating or worse, ultimately the game’s ambition and dark fantasy vision are at least as compelling as its flaws.

For 20 bucks you get some intense and challenging playtime, and that is not a bad deal at all.

Probably my biggest gripe with the game was the number of bugs we encountered. These ranged from being stuck behind a door, to the end-screen not generating the stats and gold bars. They were usually just minor annoyances, but happened just a bit too frequently.

My five or so hours with Chapter 5 was an enjoyable experience. There were only a couple sequences throughout the game that gave me some real challenges, including the previously mentioned chase sequence that was incredibly frustrating. The game crashed on me once. My oldest son played through the entire chapter too, and it crashed on him once as well (in a different area). However, in my time with Chapter 5, the game was updated four or so times, so clearly the developers are actively ironing out any reported issues and bugs. Chapter 5 is an excellent continuation of the Poppy Playtime saga. Even though it’s likely a year away, I’m eager to see how things play out in the next chapter.

All in all Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is an engaging and immersive experience that transports the fans back to the very beginning and for me, that came with a heavy serving of nostalgia.

So is Company of Crime worth playing? I’d say definitely. The worst of it is pretty uninspired, but inoffensive. But the best of it is superlatively good. I hope this game gets a lot of circulation just so developers can learn from its greatest strengths. But that’s about design, and not about players. If this were just one part great game and one part mediocre game, I’d say that averages to good. But what nudges it a little farther towards greatness is the presentation. The music, the clothes, the art style all create a sense of atmosphere. There are more polished games out there, but few do as good a job at transporting you to their setting. There’s a universe out there where Company of Crime totally changed the genre forever. We live in the universe where it’s just a really cool game that fans of the genre shouldn’t miss!

All in all, Wander Stars is a good time for RPG fans and anyone nostalgic for older battle anime. I had fun with it and you probably will, too.

With a wide range of exercises, leaderboard challenges, and something for every fitness goal, I highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a challenging and rewarding workout in the comfort of their own home.

Cotton Reboot is one of my favorite horizontal shoot ‘em ups of all time, alongside Keio Flying Squadron, Harmful Park, Cho Aniki, and Zombie Nation. What those all have in common is that they’re weird and unique in their presentation. They all have solid gameplay but don’t re-invent the wheel with anything other than style. Casual shooter fans can’t go wrong with Cotton Reboot!. It has an interesting presentation, tight controls, and scale-able difficulty. It won’t challenge hardcore bullet hell enthusiasts, but they probably want their shmups to be vertical anyways.

While UnExplored leaves a lot to be desired in the way of graphics, it has its own charm in its aesthetic which is backed up by the bitchin music that follows you on your dives. Even in its shortcomings, I found UnExplored to be redeemable and the amount of angry, annoying, pleasurable fun was worth far more than any downsides. Can I really be bothered by a lack of an overall storyline when each dungeon run has its own substory? Can I really complain about some graphic inequality with AAA games when each time I play is unique and a lot of fun? Well, I can’t see how I could do that, maybe just don’t bring it up to the people that picked up No Man’s Sky on its first day…

So in the end, Road Not Taken is a very charming and entertaining puzzler, with a deeper mystery behind it yet to be solved. I will definitely be traveling this road more than once, and you should too!

WRC 9 checks nearly all the boxes for a racing game and most importantly excels in the areas of rally racing and fun. For WRC 8 owners, having to pay the full game price for small improvements will probably seem steep. The differences between the two games adds up to the amount of content often found in a DLC. Especially as is often done by other racing sim games. For new players, however, WRC 9 is an easy purchase.

Moonlighter: Between Dimensions is a hearty post-game DLC that lets its devoted fan base keep playing more and more of the solid adventurer/merchant amalgamation mechanics. It offers new challenges in the dimensional dungeon, new gear to craft, and countless hours to sink into getting that perfect gear. While on paper it doesn’t seem like much is being added, it’s going to take a lot of work for even the hardiest of player to get through this new threat. While the gameplay and narrative is as solid as you would expect from 11 Bit Studios, the cost to upgrade is really it’s only downside.

As it stands in its current form, I will say that if Blasphemous’ aesthetic interests you even a little, or if you’re a fan of metroidvania-style games, then it’s absolutely worth checking out in its current form. I will also say though that despite how good the performance is on the Switch version, there are bugs and animations/interactions that could use more tuning. Blasphemous in its current state is a strong entry in the genre, and definitely stands close to the top, but with further refinement, it could turn from an interesting title to a true must-play experience.

The Turrican franchise features some of the toughest and most punishing run and gun platforming gameplay you will ever come across. Especially the first game. As the series moved out to the consoles, gameplay became more balanced as Factor 5 matured and refined their creative skills. If you are up for a run and gun gameplay challenge, Turrican Flashback fits the bill.

Graphical caveats aside, Sniper Elite: Resistance is fun to play not only because of the various game modes but how you can approach missions. The developers also devoted significant effort to ballistics and weapons handling. Veteran players will feel right at home. New players will be delighted with the variety of missions. Both will be delighted with the options of how they can play them.

Folks who like tower defense and twin-stick shooters should enjoy X-Morph: Defense on the Nintendo Switch. The experience offers up a ton of variety and the replayability factor is high. Not to mention the level of planning and strategy required only adds to the enjoyment. And well playing as the bad guy’s rock.

All in all, Homura: The Crimson Warriors is an interesting historical fantasy with a dash of romance. I recommend it to fans of Japanese history and bittersweet plotty romance.

Aragami is a well designed, fun and challenging stealth game that, minus a few bugs here and there, is a solid entry into the stealth genre.

If you’re a 30 year fan of Super Robot Wars, the latest entry into the saga is something pretty special. No expense was spared bringing crunchy strategy rules and every mecha IP under the sun into one full throttle extravaganza. And even if you are a complete noob like me, this feels like a great entry to the wider world of giant robot anime. I suppose if you are only looking for the most finely honed strategy game and style is meaningless to you, you’re not going to find what you are looking for in Super Robot Wars 30. But give it a chance, it might grab you with a 10 foot long mechanized fist and not let go.

Pylon: Rogue excels because it knows what it is; a rogue-like RPG about skill, precision, and stacking a crazy number of skills. Its presentation is nice if a bit simple and some enemies sadly tend to blend into the environment due to lighting which can lead to unfortunate hits, but it’s still a solid experience.

Some weird technical mishaps aside, Afterparty is a helluva ride. Night School Studio’s depiction of Hell is wonderfully inventive, quirky, and surprisingly enticing. While it’s certainly up for debate whether it dethrones Oxenfree, Afterparty is a quality followup that will bring a smile to your face. The story is solid with great relatable characters but the constantly hilarious script and dialogue make Afterparty worth sticking with until the very end, even after everybody’s gone home.