When it comes down to it, Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner is an outdated game that deserved the praise it received on first release, but it falls quite a bit short of the standards we’ve set for games in the modern day. For those of you who have already fallen in love with the game at some point during the past fifteen years, you will not be disappointed by the port. It updates the graphics without sacrificing style and maintains most of the rest of the game in its original form. For those of you who haven’t played it but have heard good things, I wouldn’t recommend against playing it. What I would recommend is playing a few older games before playing this one.

In short, The Inner Friend is enjoyable, if not much too short title that is open to interpretation in its story. This game is worth a play if you can scrounge up the cash. The experience alone is worth picking it up. And yet, PLAYMIND could have explored so much with this idea. Once again the game is much too short, leaving that potential untapped. Adding some more clues to the protagonist’s real identity and what they did prior would help a lot when players start to examine the game. Regardless, pick it up if you feel like spending a little bit of cash on a nice, spooky, surreal game. Your inner friend will thank you.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition is a fantastic advancement on the original game, which was already a groundbreaking and epic experience to begin with. Enhancing the graphics and creating a more console-friendly interface are great, although the method in which the menus work feels sluggish and controls awkwardly to me. The core experience is the same and for those who love dungeon crawling or are fans of DnD, this is the closest you can possibly get to an authentic DnD tabletop experience in digital form. The actions and consequences are entirely up to the player, creating endless replayability options with your custom or in-game heroes.

3on3 FreeStyle isn’t a bad game. The game is simple, accessible, and has great visuals. It can be fun playing multiplayer, assuming you get paired up with some decent players and not players that want to hog all the glory. The free-to-play, pay-to-win structure really holds this game back from becoming a really great game. Gamers with boatloads of cash can substantially improve their characters for an unfair advantage, while the rest of us need to grind the hard way. This game has a lot of potential, but the current pay model makes it hard to recommend.

With an overall smooth gameplay and a fresh The One mode, NBA Live 19 does enough to distinguish itself from competitors, but it does not rise above as the best simulation basketball game of the year. For those who much prefer a casual playing experience, NBA Live 19 has got you covered.

Donut County is a wholly enjoyable romp that can be powered through in an afternoon, but it’s worth going back to try and find some of it’s hidden or not so hidden secrets, even if there are only a few of them to begin with.

There is truly something here for every hockey fan. Traditionalists who love their basic online and franchise modes, NHL 19 has you covered. For those looking for something fresh, World of CHEL and Ones should be right up your alley. NHL 19 doesn’t exactly reinvent the franchise but it does advance the series forward in this generations of consoles.

Wasteland 2 is a slam-dunk in almost every way for lovers of immersive RPGs with a nostalgic, old-school feel. In the hours and hours I logged before writing this review, I felt that I barely skimmed the surface of what this massive game has to offer. Aside from the bugs and the inability to reconfigure controls, it plays well on the Switch and doesn’t lose much in its adaptation to the small screen.

Overall, there’s not a lot here for me to even criticize. The motion controls are a bit sloppy, the dialogue needs work and the amount of actual content is pretty laughable. On top of that, you’d be hard-pressed to get through this game without feeling gross or guilty. Yet, I still have to salute Xseed’s commitment to their physics engines and character models. Whatever else the game lacks, Asuka still moves and reacts at the level you expect from any Senran Kagura title.

When actually playing basketball NBA 2K19 shines, the action on and around the court feeling as authentic as a video game can achieve. The ebb and flow of the game comes through masterfully whether in exhibition or in a deep playoff run. The ancillary parts of the game have their moments of greatness too, but those can be overshadowed by the constant shaking of the virtual tip jar. I enjoyed the heck out of NBA 2K19, don’t get me wrong, but man do I wish the letters VC weren’t as heavily involved.

It’s entirely addicting and filled with more content than you could ever hope to play, so much so that I didn’t even really touch on the improved matchmaking and multiplayer options, the course creator, societies, etc. That mountain of content is wrapped up in a game that is overall pretty good. Much like golf, things that go wrong will frustrate you beyond belief, but they’ll make you feel like a million bucks when they go right. At least if you throw your controller in frustration at a bad shot it’ll be cheaper to replace than dumping your bag of clubs into a lake.

At the end of the day though, I want two things from a new Valkyria game. I want fun, challenging missions and I want to plunge into an overstuffed cast of JRPG soldiers. The game delivers on both counts in spades: the missions are better than ever before in the franchise and the characters are just what you’d hope for. The story is doled out at a bouncy pace and the localization is full of personality. Maybe one day we’ll get a fully realized next-gen Valkyria Chronicles, but until that day Valkyria Chronicles 4 represents the best the series has ever offered.

Payload hit pay dirt when they dropped TerraTech, a fun, time suck that lets you build crazy vehicles and blow stuff up. It’s been a big hit for them and well earned! However, the port over to console seems to have a hit a bit of a snag as the controls are almost unusable in a game that demands tight controls. For as much time as I’d like to continue to sink into this game, trying to master the controls that seem to be designed to fight you was a lesson in futility which I don’t hope to repeat any time soon.

Though it’s not shiny and new, the gameplay isn’t innovative, and the graphics aren’t cutting edge, the writing and storytelling of Telltale’s The Walking Dead have hoisted the game onto their shoulders, keeping it high above the point of obsolescence. If you’re looking for emotional narratives with gameplay suited for any skill level, The Walking Dead should be at the top of your list. Even if you’re not, play it anyway. It’s good.

Destiny 2: Forsaken set out to change the game for the better and what we got was nothing short of a phenomenal upgrade. The new systems, bounties, supers, and gear all add so much to gameplay and give it the fresh coat of paint it should have been at launch. With a strikingly personal narrative arch and some truly intense combat, Forsaken’s only downfall is the high cost of upgrading your gear. If you were a fan of the game before, this is going to be exactly what you wanted Destiny 2 to be from the start. If you haven’t played it yet, now is the perfect time to jump in. There is something here for everyone, and the new bounties and triumphs add plenty to do for the hardened completionist.

Ultimately, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is an entertaining, competitive, and addicting game that truly captures the visual style and overall feel of the source material. Its thorough character customization allows you to create your ideal ninja, both in looks and fighting style, and its competent multiplayer action lets you unleash your powers in flashy elegance. I’m still perplexed at the choice to restrict the already minimal content, but the fundamentals of the game are solid through and through. With some additional modes and quality of life changes, Shinobi Striker has the potential to assert itself as one of the strongest, and most unique Naruto games to date.

I don’t feel like I earned the ending I got, and I believe fans who traversed all three games are going to feel a bit shortchanged by the final cutscene. Despite captivating set pieces and a sentimental journey with Lara, my engagement took a dive at several intervals, and my pendulum of investment too often fell on the fringe of excitement. A few missing puzzle pieces leave a good experience in the place of greatness.

The Low Road tells a wonderful story in a really clumsy way. Its point-and-click controls are very much lost in translation between the PC and the Switch. Touch controls would have solved the problem in a big way and tell that story more easily. Alas no such controls exist, and the game suffers as a result. It’s not all bad though, as there are some interesting puzzles and story twists that kept me engaged. Only the most patient players should take the long haul down The Low Road. If nothing else this game might start the argument for keyboard/mouse support on Switch…nah, maybe not.

Two Point Hospital is a darkly humorous, fun and addictive game worthy to be called a true successor to Theme Hospital and the greatest of the classic tycoon titles of the past. Developers Two Point Studios know what they’re doing and it shows in the balance of near-perfect game design and biting satire. This game will suck many hours of your life from you before you know it, but along the way, it will also deliver a healthy dose of fun and laughter.

Overall, the game was impressive – the graphics, the visuals, the music, the sound effects, and the gameplay were out of this world. Planet Alpha is great for those who want a fun challenge, not because it is hard to land on platforms but because it requires your mind to think beyond that. I highly recommend all gamers to give Planet Alpha a try, and I highly doubt anyone will regret the experience.

All talk, conjecture, and analysis aside Not Tonight is great. As I stated before, if you liked Papers Please you’ll love this game. You don’t even need to be into the graphics or politics to get a kick out of this game. Not Tonight delivers pure-bred fun and challenge in a way that rarely, if ever, feels cheap. The game is well worth your time picking up if you can manage to push through the massive pool of levels.

Across the board, F1 2018 is just a little bit flashier, a little bit deeper and a little bit better optimized than its 2017 sibling.

Brawlout seems supremely content with the middle ground, to be fun but unremarkable. There’s no Mario, Scorpion, or Comic Book front man on the cover; instead, the obscure roster fails to carry the brawler beyond the appeal of any fighting game with an ongoing legacy. The diamond in the rough comes in the form of free character updates, the next one being the Dead Cells hero. However, I can’t base the final on how much better the experience will be a year from now.

Through its minimalist silhouettes, you get a cliched tale of oppression and freedom. The simple haunting music sets a tone. Platformers are one of the oldest genres of video games, and while this one controls differently, it is still a classical platformer at heart. But you want to hear the protagonist sing. You want to fly. She wants to fly. And in video games, there’s nothing more powerful than the moment that the player and the character’s desires become one.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 seems to favour fixing most of what was there instead of changing the make-up of the game. While these smaller additions are all well and good, there is a feeling in the football sim community that both Pro Evo and FIFA are due for a generational leap in years to come. However, that starts with getting what’s already there right – and in that regard, PES 2019 passes with flying colors.

Not only does this Shadow War DLC offer a complicated, dark, and genuinely fun conclusion to Nazi Zombies, it also rounds out the multiplayer game modes quite well. Despite a few weird choices in the latest War map and a multiplayer addition in Chancellery that makes it hard to run around in, this final DLC is a nice little nightcap on a fairly solid Call of Duty experience in WWII overall. In fact, it’s the strongest one of the entire game.

I can’t stop thinking about this game. If I’m not playing it, I want to be. The web-slinging is brilliant, the combat is deceptively deep and diverse, and there are a million things to do. The story is emotional, resonant, and teases fans of the series in countless ways. It’s one of the best looking games of the year, and honestly, one of the best games I’ve ever played, full stop.

To be a successful fantasy RPG, even one that goes for the nostalgia crowd, one doesn’t have to emulate the old right down to the endless grinding and watered-down story (and some pretty cringeworthy gender stereotypes included in a quest that feels like it’s goading me to enjoy killing a bratty teenage girl). It’s okay to combine the old with the new. Shadows: Awakening’s Devourer and his small army of devoured souls are the new part of the equation, but it doesn’t tip the balance. Instead, by the time I finished playing, I was just grateful I’d never have to fight another wolf.