The methodical appreciation for the source material makes it evident that Indiana Jones games have found their home with MachineGames.

If you have been longing for another Batman game in the wake of Batman: Arkham Knight releasing almost ten years ago, I really cannot recommend Arkham Shadow enough. While it requires a bit of a heavier investment as it’s only available on Meta Quest 3, I struggle to believe that any Batman fan will be disappointed by what Camouflaj has done with Arkham Shadow. It’s not only one of the best VR games that I’ve ever played, but it’s a Batman experience that very much earns its place amongst the Arkham games that have come before. If VR ends up being the predominant medium in which Batman: Arkham titles are released in the future, you won’t find me complaining.

Bloober Team faithfully captured the spirit of games from this early PS2 era to the point that it made me reminisce and long to go back and play more games from that time. To that end, I very much have the desire to go back to the original Silent Hill 2 and see how it matches up with this remake. While I can’t speak to how longtime SH2 fans might receive this revamped version of the game, for anyone else who hasn’t played any Silent Hill games before, this is a perfect jumping-on point.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is the Budokai Tenkaichi 4 fans have been waiting to get for a long, long time, but it's also the perfect first entry to jump into if you've never played a game in this series. It's a great first impression, and even better reunion. You've been waiting for a Dragon Ball game like this.

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster hasn't only been fun to revisit as a longtime fan, it has further proven to me just how much juice this series has left in it. Capcom made all of the right choices in Deluxe Remaster from a gameplay standpoint, and even if there are other alterations that I don't care for, it's hard to say that this is anything but the definitive version of Dead Rising. Despite pushing 20 years old, Dead Rising is still a blast to play and Deluxe Remaster should hopefully be the starting point for more to come from the franchise moving forward.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom doesn't quite manage to deliver the level of freedom seen in 3D entries like Tears of the Kingdom, but it's hard to complain about some rigid puzzle elements when the game has opened things up so much. Clearly, Nintendo's developers are looking for ways to blend the new and old, and this is another part of that journey. The Echo system is a pleasure to use, the world is more attractive than the last Zelda game, and there's a lot of content in this package. The result is a 2D Zelda game perfectly tailored for fans that first discovered the series with Breath of the Wild. That said, whether you're a longtime Zelda fan, or someone newer to the series, Echoes of Wisdom is a bold step forward for the 2D entries in the franchise. It took decades for Zelda to have a great game to call her own, but the result is worth celebrating.

Over the past year, I’ve been looking for more games like The Plucky Squire. In a market that feels oversaturated by live-service, free-to-play fodder, The Plucky Squire is a breath of fresh air that reminded me of just how inventive and unique video games can be.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics largely makes good on its simple premise. All of the games included here are of a great quality, and Capcom fortunately hasn't messed anything up in the porting process. This combined with some of the ancillary bonus features makes Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection just as interesting as a historical piece as it is a game that can be played with friends. Whether you're a newcomer or a veteran to Marvel vs. Capcom, this is a collection that is well worth the price of admission and should hopefully pave the way for a wholly new installment.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland serves as both a love letter to the original animated series, as well as the NES era. It's shocking that the combination took this long to happen, and it all fits together more often than it doesn't. It never really pushes the envelope in terms of innovation, preferring instead to borrow liberally from games like Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers and Super Mario Bros. 2. However, as someone that loved the Nicktoon as it aired, and spent my early childhood playing both those NES games, I enjoyed my time with this Rugrats romp. This isn't exactly Shovel Knight, but Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is an enjoyable throwback for the short while that it lasts.

Despite having high expectations for Astro Bot, Team Asobi still found a way to surpass all of my hopes. This isn’t just one of the best games of 2024, it’s one of the best platformers that I have played in the last decade. Those who have a long attachment to PlayStation or just a simple love for games of this genre cannot let Astro Bot pass them by.

While I finished the main storyline and got a fair amount of exploration in, I'm already fairly excited to load up Star Wars Outlaws some more today to get back into the aspect of the game where it's at its best – exploration – though I'm not particularly enthralled to have to sit through more of its gameplay.

EA Sports makes some fun changes on the surface, but the more you play, the more you see all the same problems bubbling to the surface. I think this year's version is marginally better than Madden NFL 24, but not in any way that's going to matter to most fans. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to College Football 25.

Overall, I'm clearly incredibly happy with Into the Pit – I feel like it's a great game for veteran Five Nights at Freddy's fans as much as I feel like people who have never played a FNaF game before could enjoy it. Not only am I excited to see what other games Mega Cat crafts in the future in general, I'm hopeful we'll see them continue to release Five Nights at Freddy's games. Honestly, let them turn every Fazbear Frights short story into a game – and if not every, at least The Man in Room 1280, please.

On the one hand, I am having a blast playing Dynasty mode and am loving the customization and pageantry of collegiate sports. On the other, I can't help but notice the Madden bugs in the system that we've been dealing with for at least five years, and I'm a little bummed that every other mode feels like the team ran out of time. At the end of the day, College Football is back, and the foundation EA has built is solid enough that I am very excited to see what the future holds. That's about all I can ask for.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition has a lot to love, and it would be great to see a similar treatment for SNES and N64 in the future.

Like the mansions of Evershade Valley, Luigi's Mansion 2 HD is haunted by the ghosts of the past. With Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, Nintendo had a perfect opportunity to revise the worst aspect of the original, and offer the definitive version of an already well-liked game. Instead, it feels like a much harder recommendation, especially for anyone that already played this on 3DS.

There's no doubt in my mind that there's more to do still in Shadow of the Erdtree if not in this playthrough than definitely the next. If anything, all those missed connections and areas unexplored only make the prospect of returning to the Realm of Shadow on New Game+ with a bunch of new toys to play with that much more enticing.

All in all, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is an easy recommendation. For those that never got a chance to play the original game, there's no better time than the present, and the Nintendo Switch version is easily the best way to play it.

With the developers' goal of "cinematic immersion" in mind, I truly feel as though Ninja Theory has delivered on what they set out to do. While not perfect, there are two undeniable truths to Hellblade 2: you can feel the passion that the team who built the game feel toward it, and this is one of the most immersive experiences in gaming to date.

Sand Land is a gorgeous game that is far larger than you might expect, and it's ultimately worthy of a journey, but there are several factors that are holding it back from being one of the biggest anime games of all time.

Beneath the fanservice and comparisons to NieR Automata and the Bayonetta games, Stellar Blade boasts some surprisingly involved combat systems and fantastic creature designs all in a relatively compact experience.

South Park: Snow Day's biggest sin is the complete lack of what made Fractured, But Whole and Stick of Truth work so well: their humor. Gone are many of the edgy jokes that made the previous two entries stick out, instead being replaced by characters that feel neutered and lacking the punch that helped make the animated series such a hit for oh so many years. Everything feels safe and stale, meaning that Snow Day is an easy pass for those looking to re-enter the world of South Park on their consoles or computers.

It's too soon to tell if Princess Peach: Showtime! will do for the character what Luigi's Mansion did for Mario's brother, but I find myself hoping we'll see Nintendo revisit this concept in the future. Hopefully by then they'll have ditched some of the weaker transformations, and give the graphics an overhaul worthy of royalty.

Rise of the Ronin isn't necessarily an awful game, it's just one that's quite unremarkable. When this project was first unveiled back in 2022, I was ecstatic to see Team Ninja tackle the open-world genre and was curious to see how the studio would bring its own unique ideas to this format. Instead, virtually nothing that Team Ninja has done with Rise of the Ronin is enough to set itself apart from a growing deluge of games in the genre. With so many other titles to choose from in this space, there are far better options that warrant your time and attention.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth improves on nearly every aspect of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, pushing the PlayStation 5 to the limit and creating a jaw-dropping experience in the process. Improving on both the Remake and the original version of the game seemed like a nigh impossible task, but somehow, Square Enix was able to do just that.

Despite some of the game's issues, Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a very strong addition to the Nintendo Switch library. The puzzle game has seen a lot of strong improvements over the Game Boy Advance version, both in terms of content as well as presentation. Even if some people aren't happy with paying $50 for an upscaled GBA game, the improvements and high-profile nature of this release should get a lot more players to give it a chance than might have otherwise. Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a very strong puzzle game well worth checking out for fans of the genre, as well as those that grew up with the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Just don't go in expecting a typical Mario platformer.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is not a death rattle for Rocksteady Studios. If anything, it shows the studio was able to salvage a piece of its identity in a game that is clearly at war with itself. Whether that's a result of Rocksteady having an ever-evolving vision that was misguided at some point or requests from Warner Bros to make it more commercially viable, we'll likely never know. The point is, the things that Rocksteady is known for are found here. Rocksteadystill excels at satisfying superhero combat and larger-than-life comic book stories. However, it would be a mistake for this studio to double down on these live-service elements in future games. This isn't a great game, but it's also not a terrible one. It's simply two different games of varying qualities blended together to create a violent cocktail with mixed results.

It is tough for me to imagine liking a game more this year. Infinite Wealth got me out of my seat during several momentous story moments and sucked me into its grips with all of the outstanding side content. I'm not ready to say this is the best game RGG has ever released, but it's very close. This is a master fine-tuning its craft to the point of near perfection and one of the first must-play games of 2024.