Vampyr drives the desire of the player against the will of its protagonist. It creates sharp edge, and the ensuing conflict has the power to bore, excite, and infuriate an audience. Depending on your admiration (and patience) for its rampant ambition, Vampyr is either an unassuming action game or a garrulous gothic network of austere vampire folklore.

Narita Boy is an explosion of 80s-inspired excess, splattering the player with a viscera of technobabble and cathode rays. Yet after peeling away the fragmented flesh, some may find the splendor of nostalgic reverence does not supplant equally memorable gameplay.

Spinning back to Republique's greater problem; the whole project feels disconnected. Terminus is an OK episode with a generous amount of content, but that's all it feels like; content. It's absent. It's empty. There's nothing here. Releasing five episodes over two years creates problems that are impossible to solve, and trying to work a passable narrative inside a challenging game was a task too herculean for Republique's development team.

My time as the god of Solís was highly dependent on the anecdotes I created, enjoyed, and suffered in my thirty hour conquest. I was joyously bemused by the world around me. I was incredulous at the state and scale of circumstances I was in and the solutions I was allowed to produce. The joy doesn’t boil over, it erupts with fanfare at the ridiculous set of circumstances enabled by a simulation that is concurrently shattering apart and performing as designed.

ChainStaff is a game of excess. And that excess is packed into a tight package of constantly surprising and bizarre creatures that often defy explanation. Enough creativity is stretched over the surface of the game to forge its own direction. Using a parasitic alien’s veined weapon as a tool to Tarzan past grotesque worlds and entities is nothing you can say about almost any other game. It may get chaotic and illegible at times but when it’s so gnarly, who cares?

Planets vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is a skeleton made of borrowed ideas, but its bones are wrapped in a body of earnest tomfoolery and relentless positivity. It functions best as a sanctuary for disenfranchised shooter players, the equivalent of a safe place where it's OK to be weird and goofy amidst the tension of a competitive game. The most interesting thing about Garden Warfare is there may be enough of an affected crowd to actually make it all work.

Add this to the growing list of compelling, niche titles in the Vita library. If you have never played an otome game and are curious, this is a great way to see what the genre can offer when it's at its best.

MotorStorm RC doesn't appear to be related to MotorStorm, not at first anyway. Dig a bit deeper and you'll eventually discover Evolution's signature talent at pushing the player closer and closer to perfection.

David O’Reilly’s Everything is quite the experience and journey to undertake. It’s simple, yet deep. It asks you to think about ‘just being’, but encourages you to explore the thoughts and emotions of other beings in the game. It’s a lightly addictive game that will have you staring at your television for hours and leave you wanting to keep the experience alive for no particular reason other than to keep going, which could be a metaphor for any living creature struggling to know the how and why they exist.

Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower from developer Leonard Menchiari is a wonderful and beautifully brutal VR experience. It delivers accuracy, a good brawling environment, and makes use of Meta Quest’s tech well. The only hiccups are repetitive enemies and sometimes visuals. Both can be forgiven with its brawling gameplay that comes straight from the best 90s fighting games.

The Legend of Tianding is more than just a side-scrolling action game. It lives within a larger world and does its best to separate itself from the rest of the side-scrolling action genre. It mostly does a good job with its gameplay design but stumbles in some areas to keep it from being perfect. In the end, it’s one worthwhile action game when you need a little bit more than just punching and kicking.

Gang Beasts' madcap brawling creates a dynamic alliance between conflict and chaos. It also enables human responses like surprise, merriment, revenge, and screaming. Driving a wobbly creature to comically murder another flailing mess, as it turns out, is a pleasant and repeatable practice. If only three of your friends could always come along for the ride.

Yakuza 6 applies themes of fatherhood and masculinity as coping mechanisms for intense interpersonal drama. While it surrenders the sweeping ambition that defined Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 5, it feels sharper, more focused, and more honest about its intentions.

Overall, Cars 3: Driven to Win is a surprising treat. It has beautiful visuals mixed in with impressive gameplay design underneath the hood. It’s not going to replace your Mario Karts of the world, but it certainly will keep you entertained, especially if you have young gamers in the household.

Having the ability to play arguably three of the best games in the Assassin’s Creed universe on a current generation console is brilliant, although don’t expect much of a significant impact in terms of upgrades for gameplay or visuals. Improved upon? Yes. Reinvented and completely remastered? Not really. Still worth the money, though.

Schrödinger's Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark is a fun platformer that has an interesting quark system in place to make puzzle solving unique and engaging. The game isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s good and unique enough in certain areas to warrant at least a look.

Fans might have preferred compilation of Sonic's 16-bit greatest hits, but a career-spanning retrospective is what ended up on the track list. And you know what? Against all odds, Sonic Generations feels adequate.

Those that fall into the thin sliver of hardcore Xbox and hardcore RTS fan on the video gaming Venn diagram, this should probably be your next purchase.

Lunar is the videogame equivalent of a summer vacation. It's free of complication, full of careless fun, over before you know it, and easily lends itself to nostalgia.

Rivals serves as a refinement of ideas and principles established over the last three iterations of Need for Speed. This can lead to a feeling of sameness bleeding over Rival’s rough edges while also serving as a condensed interpretation of the series' better ideas.

Kiwami 2 is best thought of as a remake masquerading as an encore. More separation may have allowed it to better stand out and ease Yakuza’s encroaching sense of repetition. It’s impossible to deny the charm of its weird idiosyncrasies and the power of its serpentine drama. Kiwami 2 hits the modern Yakuza standard and, with any reasonable hope, breaks it for good. It also, for better or for worse, will finally allow people to cherish Yakuza 2 outside of its legendary tiger battle.

Overall, I like what Nintendo did with Game & Wario. It's a bit of a departure from the usual WarioWare design, but I think it certainly caters to a wider audience. Also, the diversity of gameplay actually expands the flavor of the series a bit. In addition to those things, this game also shows off some creative ways to use the Wii U gamepad, which might be a wonderful blueprint for future Nintendo titles and/or third party games from major publishers.

Overall, Darksiders 3 is a good game, and at times it’s very good. It’s just regrettable that it’s not better given the quality of the first two games and the long wait since DS2. Some of the issues can be patched, and may very well be in time; but at least for now, Darksiders 3 falls short of expectations.

I can’t say that my time with Apollo Justice has been a fantastic intro to the series, but I’m glad I did finally jump in. I’ll likely seek out the Phoenix Wright Trilogy sooner than later though, mainly to see if it’s better than Apollo’s outing. This isn’t a bad game to be sure, and while the 3DS re-release doesn’t offer a huge jump from the original, it’s notable for previous owners and those who are eager to check it out — especially at $20.

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs still maintains its hard-nosed action reputation that it has always been known for. While it isn't a huge leap from its predecessors, it's still a fun leap in the right direction.

WWE 2K18 not only offers very good gameplay, but has an insane amount of depth. Depth that I just don’t reasonably see being improved upon this time next year. The Yuke’s/Visual Concepts team has done a valiant job in coalescing the current state of professional wrestling with an illustrious past. That could very well sustain as the lasting contribution for this particular WWE 2K entry.

Maneater perfectly embodies the fantasy of being a super-powerful shark to great effect, even if there are some small technical issues and rough-around-the-edges gameplay decisions. It never overstays its welcome and is fun to devour a few hours here and there.

Overall, Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Namco Museum for the Nintendo Switch is a well thought through collection that touches the older gamers’ heartstrings and those 90s/2000s gamers who believe they grew up in the best video game times. In other words, it’s got a bit of everything, nearly all good, for every type of gamer out there. It’s a welcomed addition to the Nintendo Switch.