Beyond the somewhat short, very linear, and probably not replayable single player campaign, most people coming to Battlefront 2 are going to be interested in the multiplayer. This has proven to be very difficult to review, because there have been so many game updates to multiplayer since the release that I feel like I’m trying to review a moving target, though the core of multiplayer has not changed all that much through the updates. Long story short, the multiplayer gaming is staggeringly unbalanced because of the way the whole game is structured, and I doubt even another dozen updates is going to change that.

I can almost picture the early pitch sessions for Call of Duty: WWII in which they conceived of a game that has something for everyone. But if everyone gets something, no one gets everything. If I were in charge, I would have scrapped the no doubt very expensive but entirely lackluster single player campaign entirely and focused on the core multiplayer, making more maps and expanding on the War concept, which works quite well. The co-op works reasonably well, and pleasantly scratches that itch for people who prefer to work as a team against AI rather than people. So Call of Duty: WWII is a pleasantly rounded package which lands it solidly in the middle of the everything pack.

I’ve been lukewarm about most of Telltale’s games lately, but I really liked Guardians of the Galaxy. It handles the transition between jokes and drama well, your decisions are tougher and more meaningful than you usually see, the writing and voice acting are excellent, and the action sequences are simple and infrequent enough that they don’t derail the game. So if you haven’t played a Telltale game in a while, Guardians of the Galaxy is certainly one to check out.

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds is an outstanding expansion that not only tells its own story, but makes the main game better and more rewarding to play as well. Lapsed fans should make sure they’re at a solid level of at least 25 or so if they want a good challenge, and going back into the world of Horizon Zero Dawn is a blast. Aloy’s new abilities greatly expand her riding skills and the new cast of characters provides another set of people for Aloy to interact with and continue a bit of her journey. It controls wonderfully, looks gorgeous and has some top-notch acting as well. At $20, it provides a hefty amount of content and never feels like a cash grab – it’s a rare piece of DLC that makes the core game better.

I’m torn between calling Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus brave or merely unexpected. The core of The New Colossus remains as good as, and largely unchanged from, the earlier game. It’s great, explosive, and violent. The other half, so to speak, the heavy emphasis on story doesn’t drive the FPS experience so much as shift your focus into directions that FPS games don’t normally go. That’s not to say that FPS games don’t tell a story or even a complex story (Bioshock told an incredibly involved story and even explored the extrapolation of a Randian economics as a political movement), but they rarely (AFAIK never) attempt to tell a story so full of sadness and self-examination. The two parts sometimes fit well, sometimes less than well, and I think individual gamers will react very differently to the result.

Need For Speed Payback isn’t perfect – but it’s a nice step up from prior entries. Outside of Rivals, the series has really struggled over the past five or so years to really find its own way. The FMV-filled reboot wasn’t the right answer, and going for an action movie-styled variant is great for an ad campaign – but doesn’t make for a great campaign itself. Fortunately, the racing action and cop chases that litter the campaign make it worth playing. It looks great in motion, even if the action doesn’t hold up very well. The cop chases are exciting and the point-to-point races bring a level of arcade-style thrill that the series definitely benefits from.

From one of the minds that brought us the Resident Evil series, The Evil Within 2 serves as a survival horror delight. It’s a jolting, excellent tale of horror and mystery with a strong story and a driving narrative, plus a multitude of side quests and sub-plots to keep even the most seasoned players engaged and thrilled. It is not a perfectly executed game by any means, but, like the original game, the flaws tend to get buried under the bloody heap of viscera and terror players will experience should they decide to pick up a copy.

Super Mario Odyssey has a few flaws, but the end result is Mario’s grandest and best 3D adventure to date. There is so much to do and enjoy that this game should give players years of fun, even if they aren’t out to complete every single quest and grab every moon.

Overall, Dungeons 3 was a mixed bag for me, mostly because I found the campaign to be sort of a chore. It took me 30 hours to finish its 20 missions, and while the humor was great, the lack of challenge took away any sense of tension or excitement, and I knew at the start of every mission that I was going to win after about 90 minutes. I was also sort of surprised that the focus of the game is way more on the surface (where everything interesting happens) rather than the dungeons (which all look about the same), when it should have been the opposite. So while Dungeons 3 isn’t a terrible game or anything, it’s certainly a title where I’d recommend that you wait for a sale before purchasing it.

I’m enjoying Middle-earth: Shadow of War for the most part, even as it claims more than 5% of my available hard drive space. Monolith did for the most part choose the safe route by taking what Shadow of Mordor gave us and simply giving us more, some pieces blatantly lifted from other games, but the multiplayer component adds some fresh newness. I’d like to see the boss pursuit gameplay get a tune up, but we can’t have everything.

Forza Motorsport 7 provides the best mainline experience yet on the Xbox One. Forza 4 may still be the greatest overall entry thanks to its overly-generous nature of giving out cars and the in-game auction house, but Forza 7 comes very close to topping it. The car selection is outstanding and the core gameplay is better now than ever before – with immersion also topping out here thanks to the massive increases in graphical quality and overall sound design.

This is a decent expansion to Dishonored 2 and sets up a new, potentially interesting status quo for the series, but it takes out so much of what Dishonored 2 had under the hood that it feels a bit slight by comparison, and the few brand-new additions are heavily limited. I don’t regret playing it, but it’s hard to say more about it than that it’s a stripped-down pseudo-sequel.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite succeeds in some major ways. The gameplay is faster and more intense than ever before, even with a smaller roster. Aside from that, the story mode does what it needs to and manages to both tie events together while teaching players, in a fairly organic way, how to properly play the game. The graphics are definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but deliver more that works where it counts even if some animation and character model work would have helped the overall presentation a bit. The soundtrack is probably the best in the series – it may not be as outwardly catchy, but it’s far better for the actual game and makes each battle seem important.

Project Cars 2 is a worthy successor to the original game and fixes some of its issues. It still isn’t the most user-friendly game for newcomers, but in time you can get used to its quirks. The game definitely has a learning curve to it, so anyone looking to just jump in and dominate will be humbled quickly. You have to play with a nuanced style and can’t rely on assists to do the hard work of the race for you. It’s a challenging but rewarding experience and the dramatic increase in vehicle types and tracks, alongside new weather setups makes the experience one to remember. Project Cars 2 isn’t for everyone, but anyone who likes a good challenge and loves a finely-tuned racing game will enjoy it.

Destiny 2 is a near-perfect sequel and fixes the few things that were problematic with the original. It is one of Bungie’s finest games yet and a fantastic FPS that offers a nice learning curve that makes it more accessible than most shooters on the market. The story has a surprisingly high amount of depth to it and adds life to the in-game world in a way that the original simply couldn’t. Anyone who enjoyed the first game should pick this up, and those who missed out can safely jump in thanks to the story structure recapping the broad strokes of what happened before and letting you know things fairly quickly. It’s a gorgeous game that sounds epic and controls like a dream too.

If you are one of those people who played XCOM2 to absolute distraction, over and over and over again, by all means War of the Chosen is no doubt for you. For people like me, who enjoyed XCOM2, but wandered away from it once the plot was done, I’m not sure this is enough to bring you back to full throttle. There’s no question that I’m enjoying War of the Chosen, but the oh-my-God let me just play one more turn, complete one more mission, wait until this room or that research project is finished, is greatly diminished.

All in all, Kiwami is an easy game to recommend to fans of the series and those who have already played Yakuza 0 and loved it. The remakes of the older titles are Sega’s way of ushering in a new generation of fans and, now that the series has proven to do well in the west, bring all of the series’ experiences to a wider audience. Yakuza Kiwami is just as fun, weird, disturbing, hilarious and provocative as the rest of the series’ titles, and is well worth the twenty-five hours of gameplay and thirty dollar price of admission.

The newly added depth to not only your offensive attacks, but also your defensive options allows battles to feel fresh and rewarding.

A must-own for any Switch owner and is worth buying the console for on its own. It combines two franchises together wonderfully and gives Mario fans seeking another console-centric RPG-style game more thrills. Everything about the concept gels together surprisingly well, with the only weakness in the whole package being the story.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy offers up a lot of thrills even with its different cast. It’s a testament to the franchise’s character strength that two side characters can carry the tale. It doesn’t change the formula up much, but the revamped combat helps things from feeling too repetitive. The story takes players to new locales , but the cast of characters just doesn’t gel together as well as past games, on both the sides of good and evil. It’s a very good game, but one that casual fans of the series can wait on. Series die-hards will definitely enjoy another exploration and combat-filled romp through the world as we get a large glimpse into the post-Nate era of the franchise.

Overall, Sonic Mania is a remarkable game and the best Sonic game released in over a decade. When looking at the game as a whole, it’s hard to find fault with it. Some may wish all of the stages were all-new, but the existing stages have all been revamped – so it’s less a retread and more of a remix blended with a lot of new content. It’s clearly a passion project and one that should result in Sega revisiting the idea of more 2D Sonics, hopefully with a focus on taking what makes this game so good and expanding it into future 3D entries. Sonic Mania is a must-buy for anyone who has ever loved Sonic the Hedgehog games – it will remind you of why the character had such a huge peak, and is a great buy for either the Switch or PS4.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 may not be the best bang for the buck in the history of the franchise, but it does still offer up the definitive way to play Mega Man 7, 9, and 10 – with the PS1 version of 8 being replicated better here than in prior compilations. Extras like an art gallery and the OSTs being available for all of the games are nice perks, and offer up more out of game value than prior collections to be fair. The controls are spot-on as are the graphics, with audio emulation being perfect. It’s a great buy for anyone who loved the series before – or might have missed out on the latter-day classic entries.

Aven Colony isn’t a bad game. It was just sort of meh for me. Luckily, the developer is staying involved with the game. They’ve already released multiple patches even though the game has only been out for a week, and they’ve promised to add new content eventually — and for free — so maybe things will get better over time. But for now, Aven Colony isn’t really a game I’d recommend. It’s only for you if you really like city-builders and you’re not too choosy, or if you haven’t played many city-builders before.

The latest incarnation of the Namco Museum does a great job of replicating every game in it – it’s just a shame there aren’t more games included. What’s here is largely good, with games like Splatterhouse and the Rolling Thunder games getting a showcase that they haven’t had in quite some time. If you already have existing collections, then the regulars like Galaga, Pac-Man, and Dig Dug won’t sell you on it, but if you’re missing out on the lesser-seen games, this is a great way to get them at a solid price point.

Overall, God Wars: Future Past is a well-crafted strategy RPG that manages to be both fun for veterans of the genre and newcomers. Its robust job system allows you to experiment freely with different character types and makes what would otherwise be trial and error into a fun task. It’s a solid-looking game overall, but definitely has some visual shortcoming when it comes to the character models. The sound design as a whole is strong though, and the game itself is perfect for anyone looking to get into SRPGs, or for lapsed fans of the genre.

Overall, Valkyria Revolution does many things differently than Valkyria Chronicles and will be quite divisive. As a fan of Chronicles, I found that game to be better overall and yet the faster pace of Revolution makes this more fun to play – the story just doesn’t hold up as well and the graphics are less impressive here than Chronicles. The action RPG shift works at keeping things interesting on the battlefield at all times and keeps you on your toes too. It does suffer from some iffy textures, but the game is greater as a whole than the sum of its parts. It’s a fantastic gateway game for the franchise for newcomers and offers veterans a completely new gameplay experience in many ways while also keeping some elements similar enough to make for a smooth transition.

DiRT 4 isn’t the greatest entry in the series, but it is still quite good. It lacks the feeling of life that prior games had and trades that in for a more sterile feeling. It’s a shame too because the festival setting injected a lot of fun into things, while the casual atmosphere let you go at your own pace through your career. Now, things are more rigid and while the core game is still fun, it feels like you have to do well as opposed to simply having fun being its own reward and better play resulted in faster progress. The core mechanics are excellent, though, and anyone looking for a high-quality rally racer will find one here. Series veterans who have become lapsed fans may not be won over by it, but should at least give it a rental while newcomers should give it a whirl as a rental and then give it a buy if they fall in love with it.

The Wipeout Omega Collection is a must for anyone who has either loved the Wipeout franchise or heard about it, but never had a chance to see what the fuss was about. With three games included, there’s a lot of content here and all of it is fantastic. It’s a bit of a shame there isn’t content here beyond the games – like a museum or jukebox area, but it’s no big deal. Everything that needed to be put in here was, and small improvements in theory – like the driving assist – really do make it a more fun experience. It plays wonderfully, looks gorgeous, and sounds incredible. Anyone hoping for a return for the franchise should pick it up.