All-in-all, the Layton series has been and will always be a wonderful break from some of the more established gaming formulas.

If you can overlook the price and potential early learning curve depending on your familiarity with the series, Ardennes Assault offers a very competent and compelling RTS experience.

An indie gem that shouldn't be missed regardless of your platform of choice. It would have been ideal to see this re-release separate itself more from previous versions, but it's still a very good and memorable experience.

Maybe the final challenges will be a little sharp for those who haven’t honed their skills to the max, but Boomerang X is also set to be a speedrunner’s paradise, broken and contorted by those who will accomplish impossible feats. But for someone like me who went in blind to Boomerang X, I can’t help but be pleased at how beautiful, fun, and ridiculous this short journey was–and how easy it will be to pick it back up again when I want to fly around like a wizard ninja.

The creative energy fueling Sunset Overdrive is an agent of change for a genre in creative decline. Its jubilant deluge of light and color, meaningful revisions to control and combat, and the sweeping diversity of skill-based missions push the open-world paradigm harder and faster than any of its peers.

Life is Strange: True Colors is a rumination on loss, empathy, and finding your place in the word. A great cast is bolstered by improved visuals, animations, and a truly remarkable protagonist in Alex Chen, making this the true highlight of the series.

The game is unique, imaginative and entertaining but I can't just put past the flaws of the PC version.

It's literally Crysis on a console, which, as simple and silly as it sounds, is more than most expected.

The Jak and Daxter Collection is probably going to be one of the easiest releases for me to recommend to everyone this year; definitely a great addition to any PS3 library.

Overall, Samurai Shodown is a fun release that brings back memories of a simpler time in the fighting genre where focus laid squarely on technique and gamer ease-of-use. The inclusion of a variety of modes helps to beef up the fighting content and offer up good challenges for those seeking them. All of this makes the experience more engaging and entertaining.

Having friends over for a night of games remains a modern novelty, but Sportsfriends is so good you'll wish it was just the norm.

OXTO scratches a roguelite itch I’ve been wishing to scratch for quite some time. Its difficult top-down gameplay is made mildly less punishing by a slow-mo Focus mode, selection of guns, and wide variety of ability upgrades. Each attempt at playing Oxto feels unique, addicting, and fun, and I can confidently say that no two runs were predictable. Despite the lack of permanent upgrades, inconsistent storytelling, and some visual busyness when enemy density is at its greatest, OXTO is an absolute treat for those looking for precise gameplay in a roguelite experience. And it has a fantastic soundtrack, to boot. If you’re wanting a new roguelite for your Steam library, look no further than OXTO; you won’t regret it.

Smile for Me from developer LimboLane is an unsettling adventure that puts you to the test with its puzzles. The point-and-click backbone will keep the difficulty coming, but the reward for your patience and perseverance will be worth the cognitive trouble you endure.

Indika unquestionably defies definition. A swirl of impactful narrative and visual decisions are meant to resonate with the player longer than they linger on screen. It may be offbeat to a fault but this brief journey is uncompromising in vision.

Deadlink is a thrilling, kinetic blend of two genres that are rarely harmonized. Random runs are not drastically hindered by the usually roguelite trappings, instead identifying that player skill should be the de facto method of progression. The raw momentum of zipping through Deadlink‘s many areas is immensely satisfying but the reward of new upgrades to tackles increasingly brutal modes rockets the game past any potential doldrums, having players beg for that one more run.

American Arcadia, from developer Out of the Blue Games S.L. and publisher Raw Fury, was a suspenseful and thrilling adventure. While the gameplay didn’t challenge the narrative for the limelight, there were still enough interactive elements to call this a solid gaming experience.

Star Fox 64 3D is a solid remake of the original Nintendo 64 classic.

Spirit of Justice has an even balance of good writing, new gameplay design and fantastic presentation. Bringing back familiar faces to push the story and containing a healthy dose of difficulty, which is what most fans of the series adore, only helps its overall case. Definitely a worthy addition to the Phoenix Wright family.

The simplification of the GUI, the easier, faster and better career mode and the inclusion of a bigger deeper online component make GT6 one of the best in the series.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero from developer Spike Chunsoft and publisher Bandai Namco is a wonderful fighting experience. It has all the bells and whistles, including a massive number of characters from the series and different ways you can customize and shape them. The imbalanced fighting might be tough for some players to overcome to enjoy the experience.

I had my doubts until the very end, but no longer. Activision and Eurocom have pulled off the impossible: they've revived a classic by remaining constantly cognizant of the line separating tradition from obsolescence.

Loot boxes and a sexy Shelob aside Shadow of War is an impressive game in a franchise that whilst takes liberties with lore of the land produces a fascinating world full of captivating experiences.

Fate/Samurai Remnant is not as daunting of a game as its legacy may suggest. While based off a decades-long franchise, this is an ideal entry point because its main character is just as clean a slate as newcomers may be. Initial Musou misgivings may color impressions and dense gameplay systems might hinder pacing out of the gate. But Fate/Samurai Remnant‘s character-driven narrative offers the right amount of intrigue and complexity for everything else to settle into an enjoyable cadence of combat.

In sum, Cyber Shadow does a great job of doing what it set out to do. It’s a modern take on genre elders Ninja Gaiden and Shinobi, and it provides all the ninja lore, atmosphere, challenge, and aura that those games do. Furthermore, it gives players plenty of reason to keep playing thanks to evolving gameplay elements that keeps things fresh, interesting, and challenging. For anyone who enjoys the genre or ninja games in general, Cyber Shadow is a must-have.

Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is a profuse amalgamation of Persona’s psychology and Etrian Odyssey’s methodology. Just like—maybe a little too like—Shadow of the Labyrinth, it covers a lot ground without exploring a new direction. Emblematic of its eight-year-old hardware, New Cinema Labyrinth is battle-tested, secure, and incapable of surprise.

Catherine remains a talented caricature of a hysterical, impossible man’s moral frailty and romantic insecurity. Characters and complications introduced by Full Body, however, lack the connective tissue and social maturity to support its expanded ambition. A (now optional!) tower-climbing puzzle game fused with a supernatural infidelity meditation, even in its spiraling convolution, still survives as a provocative oddity.

Final Fantasy XV's decade-long maelstrom of doubt, chaos, and suspense has somehow wrought an effective tale from the bonds of brotherhood and an engaging game from coordinated monster obliteration. The embroiled project is not sacrosanct; an incongruous plot, mechanical quest lines, and a haphazard world constitute a jet impacting the ground at dangerous speed. Pieces are everywhere, but Final Fantasy XV ultimately survives its crash landing through an impressive force of will.

I'd recommend this game on any platform, but the PC version is overall the best in my experience. Well worth adding to your RPG library.