There is a lot to love here in what ends up being a fantastic beat-'em-up that deserves to stand alongside modern classics like Castle Crashers, Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, and Double Dragon Neon.

I'd have never thought anyone would ever make a game which combined the tactile joy of knocking down block towers with the ingenious design of a puzzle game, but Boom Blox manages it: it's fun, accessible, intense, and mentally stimulating all at once.

The visual glitches and lack of enemy variety do little to take away from what is a lovingly crafted game unlike any other I've played before. This is a game that won't just eat up your time, but it will devour it.

Content wise, this game is bursting at the seams. With cross-game promotion add-ons, tons of heads to unlock (that you can trade with other players), new weapons, replayable online and offline game modes, bonus levels, encore story levels, collectibles to capture, A+ grades to earn for every level, and the level editor with community challenges, you'll be at BattleBlock for quite a while.

Maybe certain aspects could have been tweaked to be more faithful to the source material, but the worst thing that could happen is you end up wanting to play the original to see the changes firsthand. That isn't such a terrible outcome.

To put this DLC’s quality in concrete terms: I’ll be hard-pressed to hoof it back to Fyrestone after getting a taste of the superior T-bone Junction.

What Football Manager needs to do as a franchise is make it much more approachable to new players.

While certain aspects of System Shock don't hold up in today's world, a surprising amount of them do. New players, like myself, can jump right in and have a very enjoyable experience, full of atmosphere and action. The enhanced version is exactly what it claims to be, and makes the game way more playable than the original version.

This is a content-rich collection, one that is especially worth investing in for WipEout newcomers. Longtime players might feel fatigue from tracks that have seen repeated use over the years, but even then, I'd argue the audio and visual polish present in Omega Collection makes it worthwhile -- with or without a 4K-ready setup. The dream of the '90s is alive at PlayStation.

If you didn't pick up Gods & Kings for some reason, I really suggest skipping it unless you can grab it for cheap on Steam. Brave New World is the expansion you need to get instead, and I highly recommend it to fans of the series.

The number of unlocks is astounding, which in turn makes the pacing really good. Better yet, you can even earn XP by creating your own custom matches rather than resorting to playing against people you don't know.

Ratchet & Clank also manages to mix things up to an extent throughout, albeit with things you've seen before. There are some really cool cinematic moments like foot chases, dogfights in space, hoverboard races, and the like. In other words, don't expect Rachet & Clank to reinvent the wheel, but expect to have fun playing it.

If MLB The Show's new MO is just coasting on the good gameplay and providing minor tweaks to disparate modes, each with their own appeal (or lack thereof, depending), then there's no greater candidate for games-as-service that I can see. Because there's good money in it, however, I doubt we'll drop the yearly release format. It would at least be nice to cut the PS3 version, provided that the freed-up resources would make the yearly changes a little less incremental. Still, the baseball itself is as good as ever, and one of the better modes, Road to the Show, is far less clunky this time around.

Ultimately, despite being the fourth game in its series, Valkyria Chronicles 4 really is the sequel Valkyria Chronicles needed, and I have to say that I'm pleased that war has never looked more pleasant.

The perfect game for bringing old and new FF fans together.

I'm an easy sell when it comes to Kirby, but Forgotten Land is easily one of my favorite entries in the series, and possibly my top game outside of Kirby Super Star (an all-time classic).

This a perfect example of keeping the best graphical fidelity possible and including an already astronomical amount of content, while adding an even more extensive set of missions for players to explore that masterfully uses various features the PS Vita has to offer.

Yet another great entry in the long-running series. While it may not be the absolute pinnacle of what Creative Assembly can achieve, it has become my favorite entry simply because of the setting used. We've reached a point where your personal favorite Total War will be determined more by the property being adapted than any worry about quality or gameplay factors. Since everything is fine in Three Kingdoms, what else do I really need to say?

Far Cry 4 could have all of the multiplayer elements stripped away and it would still be a very strong game. If you enjoyed its predecessor and didn't grow tired of Ubisoft Montreal's open world formula, you'll have a blast living the experience again.

It's more Forza Horizon 4, but Fortune Island has a hook that's worth its weight in gold. Turning an island into a giant scavenger hunt is the kind of allure that works perfectly with Forza Horizon.

Everything that makes Castlevania what it is; huge bosses, monster-slaughtering, as well as weapon-gathering and castle-raiding, is all here, and it's done spectacularly.

With Prince of Persia, the team at Ubisoft not only reached the bar they set for themselves with previous titles, but in many ways delivered a game that transcends expectations while setting a new standard for the series. Ubisoft has taken Prince of Persia in a wild new and magical direction, an enormously fun and gratifying game from beginning to end.

This could easily be a flagship series for PlayStation VR.

While the single-player experience is truly the high point of the $10 purchase, the multiplayer and challenge rooms act like the "sprinkles on the cupcake," giving the player more game than they should ever expect for $10.

My advice? If you’ve got a partial PS4 save file ready to go, or even an endgame file that’s not at 100 percent completion, Death Stranding Director’s Cut is a wonderful way to tie up loose ends. Some of the additions are interesting distractions at best, while others are genuinely helpful tools that provide alternate plans of attack as a futuristic delivery man. The short but memorable line of new side-quests is essentially icing on top. Brand-new players, by all means. Tear into this poignant, artisanal, off-the-rails hiking video game, even if it’s slow at first. And don’t forget to smash that “like” button.

Outer Wilds proves there's still a sense of genuine adventure to be gained from games that commit to a set, fixed structure and design, rather than the kind of sprawling, endless expanses many contemporary titles set out to become. Playing it brought to mind my favorite bits of Dr. Seuss' Oh, The Places You'll Go...except with more of the sun exploding.

Despite some of these hiccups, it’s difficult not to enjoy being part of this strange world and participating blindly in its customs. Although I wasn’t quite as attached to the characters as I had hoped, I did appreciate the medley of personalities and felt the world and its customs were admirably orchestrated within everyone’s backstory. It might not be for everyone, but Pyre delivers on its fun gameplay in a way that beautifully illustrates the struggles of redemption and what it means to gain true freedom.

Manifold Garden has a lot going for it, but above all else, it's simply pleasant – to look at, to listen to, and to play. It's the kind of game you can revisit every couple of years and be confident it'll hold up.