For people who are not afraid to sing (or rhyme in this case), and are tired of Duffy and Britney Spears, give Rapstar a go.

It's got its problems, but Arcania: Gothic 4 is a surprise hit for me this holiday season. As long as you're not expecting a game of the year class RPG, you're in for a very good time here.

A good value for a well designed and developed digital tabletop game set in one of gaming's most intriguing universes.

If you never got around to playing the original on the Wii, or are just looking for an interesting, although flawed, game from the strange mind of Suda51, you can't go wrong with Heroes' Paradise.

Mario Party Star Rush’s gameplay design is definitely played on the safe side.

Overall, Bakugan: Champions of Vestroia is well put together and does what it sets out to do which is provide low-stress, family-friendly entertainment for as long as you want it to. The added depth in the world and its characters as well as the thoroughness of the brawling system and the checks and balances between abilities and Bakugan allow players to dive in and optimize their team and curb their competitive appetite. As long as you look at it for what it is, Champions of Vestroia is worth the look for anyone that’s a fan of the game, the toys, or is looking for a game to enjoy while killing time.

Overall, Netmarble’s Stone Age World is a simplified MMO that actually encourages gamers to be just a bit lazy through automatic questing, which is perfect for this platform. It also requires gamers to go into some battles with strategies in mind, which makes it more than just a casual experience. This may not be for every gamer out there, especially since it’s on a mobile device, but it is a pleasant MMO that I might return to once this summer calms down.

Switch owners should definitely consider Nightmare Reaper if you’re wishing for a retro shooter that successfully marries roguelite gameplay, fountains of 2D gore, and elements of the original DOOM games. The difficulty curve may be steep at times, but it’s worth sticking with given its high replayability and fresh takes on chaotic first-person combat. I highly recommend Nightmare Reaper for those wanting a bloodbath or an adrenaline rush, as you’ll definitely get it alongside some fun bonus content.

Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss feels like a breath of fresh air to Lovecraft’s body of work. It revels in forcing the player to parse through the madness, unraveling the unfathomable questions of places and being we are not meant to understand. Wrapped in cosmic horror like an offering to the Old Gods, this is a claustrophobic journey that respects the player’s intelligence in putting the pieces together to solve eerie mysteries and hopefully not succumbing to the influence of insanity.

Backyard Monsters Unleashed is surprisingly addictive and fun, which bodes well for its free-to-play gameplay model. It's definitely something you should give a go to on your iOS device.

Overall, I did really enjoy Shop Titans more than I thought I would. It’s more complex than just a casual gaming experience and while it does have a traditional path of Free-to-Play gameplay structure, where real-world pay is involved, there are enough options for you to avoid that if that isn’t your thing. It just requires patience. I’m not crazy about the controls when compared to the iOS version, which is probably my biggest knock on the game.

Soulstice from Reply Game Studios brings a strong story, a good amount of action, and paints a perfectly drab world to tie it all together. The backend gameplay design helps to add more value to the experience while motivating the player to keep exploring and pushing forward. The only caveat to the experience is the locked camera that will frustrate and hinder the gameplay at times. Overall, it’s a fun game, but it could use a fully controllable camera to make it even better.

Pokken Tournament DX is a wonderful game and maintains that goodness with the Nintendo Switch upgrade. It adds some more to the package, with characters and modes, but essentially delivers the same experience that you would find on the Wii U. New players will like it, but there may not be enough new content to warrant a Switch version in the household for some Wii U owners.

Crossfire: Sierra Squad from Smilegate Entertainment is an arcade shooter that works in VR with its intense firefights and short stints of gameplay. While the gameplay is finite, especially with its linear backbone and restrictive areas of play, it still contains some charm that may remind VR owners that fun experiences are still out there.

The simplicity of Super Rocket Shootout cannot be understated. It’s a good ‘ol jump in and have fun sort of situation with the gameplay. It tosses in some goodies here and there for variety, but ultimately it just wants you to have quick bouts of fun. That’s a concept I grew up with in the arcade days of gaming and this is a concept that works for me with Super Rocket Shootout. That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe it can’t be more, and it should, but as it stands it’s fun.

Killing spiders is incredibly easy – Kill It With Fire VR makes it fun. Scratch that – it makes it dumb fun. Despite the jump scares and spiders, I kept myself fully entertained because of the sheer number of ridiculous things I could use to kill spiders. If a book from the shelf wasn’t enough, maybe a shotgun would do the trick. No dice? Shurikens. No? Fine. Flamethrower. That’ll work. Some of its controls lack explanation and its features could be better explained. Once you figure it out, Kill It With Fire VR lends itself for a fun afternoon VR experience or party game if you want to mess around with some friends.

Kiwami 2 is best thought of as 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.

Frozenheim meets the status quo for what you would expect from an RTS game. Where it excels is in its gameplay balance and how much control it gives you to create your gameplay path. It falls short in story cohesiveness and the occasional buggy controls.

Strikers captures the affable singularity of Persona 5 while shifting its perspective from a turn-based slow burn to an action-focused escapade. At the same time, Strikers’ devotion to its source material succeeds in keeping the player active and invested amid the turbulence of its strained support structure. It’s a summer vacation masquerading as a sequel, and that seems to suit the Phantom Thieves just fine.

Dust & Neon from developer Rogue Games is an interesting, and oddly relaxing twin-stick shooter. Its RPG backbone and simplistic mechanics will keep you coming back for more, even when the unremarkable enemy variety, sans the bosses, might dull down the experience. There is still a lot to do and explore in the game, which makes it at the very least a good action title.

The American Dream presents a slice of Americana in which guns are fetishized to their idiotic maximum; guns for cooking, guns for dancing, guns for marrying, and guns for childbirth. While The American Dream’s action is adjacent to conventional VR shooting galleries, its vicious political commentary satirizes gun culture and leaves no survivors. The obliteration of reality appears to be a natural side effect of defending the indefensible.

Aragami: Stealth Edition sneaks its way on the the Switch, and if you’re like me and you missed it three years ago, it’s worth a look if you’re into the stealth action genre. It was never a ground-breaking game per se, but it is well put together and worth checking out.

Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash! presents an opportunity to inhabit 1999’s idyllic vision of 1960’s culture through 2020’s virtual reality. Delivering this extremely specific hallucinatory novelty required an alarming price tag and the notice of a brisk runtime. Space Channel 5 remains a lustrous expression of the Dreamcast’s ethos, and a chance to actively embrace it merits attention and applause. Space Channel 5 VR is a brief, beautiful celebration of a bygone era.

iLLOGIKA Studios’ Atari Mania tugs at the heartstrings of old gamers in a good attempt to reignite interest in Atari 2600 games. The way that the game uses older titles to create mini-games is genius, if not straight from the pages of Wario World. The only caveat is that you get some of that 1980s unforgiving difficulty with it, which at times can make the game a bit unfun. It’s still a solid attempt at creating something new with the Atari brand, and certainly one you should check out.

If you enjoy Devil May Cry, or third person action games, DMC2 is worth playing through. While being the worst in the series, it’s still canon and still fun. It’s also not very hard nor will it take more than probably about ten hours to play through both campaigns.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope isn’t a long game by any measure, but what it delivers in its time is used effectively enough to purvey a sense of dread. While not necessarily a traditional horror game full of jump scares or horrific machinations, Little Hope attempts to deliver nuance in the style of an arthouse horror film. It mostly gets there depending on a player’s choice, but overall it doesn’t completely stick the landing. Little Hope’s themes put in a 2020-context make it stand out as a horror title but otherwise, it offers very little in terms of true horror.

One Piece Odyssey is a great RPG when the story isn’t getting in the way of its pacing. There is so much to enjoy about the gameplay with its action and creativity, as well as the turn-based structure that is typical of this genre. On its own, the story isn’t too bad either. It is fun and light-hearted with a small sense of good drama to keep it engaging. But the unbalanced space sharing between both gameplay and story causes such a stop-and-go pacing problem that in the end the gameplay experience is so heavily disrupted that it is tough to enjoy the game.

Godbreakers makes the most of its fluid, flashy combat. Killing gods and stealing their powers and doing that with friends is an undeniable thrill. While solo players may also find appropriate challenge, there is a distinct feeling that had Godbreakers given us a few more worlds to explore and a few more unique paths of progression, it would have broken past deluge of roguelikes gnawing for attention.