When scoring Starfield, I considered that many of my issues with the game were totally subjective. However, the game does have technical and design issues that can’t be ignored. Ironically, it has many of the same problems people relentlessly criticized Cyberpunk 2077 for, like lifeless crowds, a hollow wanted system, and glitchy animations, but it’s largely getting a pass. Bethesda deserves kudos for pioneering the modern Western RPG format, and I don’t think every game needs to be some innovative revolution. Despite this, Starfield is backed by Microsoft and produced by one of the biggest game companies in the world. There’s no reason it should feel and play like Fallout 4 in space.

Minecraft Legends is fun but lacks heart. As the franchise expands into other genres, I hoped this spin-off would reflect the creative spark that made the original the best-selling game of all time, but I’m disappointed. For example, why can’t players design walls, towers, and buildings within some basic restrictions? Even if limited to the campaign, allowing players to put their touch on the world help Minecraft Legends feel worthy of the name. If you’re looking for an accessible RTS that offers exciting and tactical gameplay, Minecraft Legends will satisfy you. But don’t expect the Minecraft name to mean much beyond branding purposes.

Hogwarts Legacy is full of Harry Potter fanservice, but as a game, it’s only serviceable. A fun but forgettable journey that isn’t worth the amount of controversy surrounding it.

Unfortunately, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet didn’t get the development time they deserved. It’s hard to see a franchise that means so much to me finally start heading in the right direction only to come up short. I sincerely hope that Game Freak and Nintendo will start listening to fans and critics and turn things around.

Unfortunately, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet didn’t get the development time they deserved. It’s hard to see a franchise that means so much to me finally start heading in the right direction only to come up short. I sincerely hope that Game Freak and Nintendo will start listening to fans and critics and turn things around.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) is a fine sequel that checks all of the boxes when it comes to a serviceable CoD campaign, good co-op options, and a super shiny competitive multiplayer that plays well enough for most. However, Infinity Ward has played it safe with this CoD installment, leaning into the strengths of Modern Warfare (2019) while making minor improvements, but ultimately failing to push the envelope in any meaningful way.

At $19.99, the Resident Evil: Village Winters’ Expansion DLC is worth it for the new Mercenaries content alone. Shadows of Rose is a decent story and worth playing through for fans, and the third-person camera in the base game gives an extra little bump of replayability. But, overall, Resident Evil 7 had better direction with its DLC, and there were more pressing stories to be told than Rose’s romp through familiar territory.

Scorn is arguably worth playing for the visuals alone. We’re rarely transported to somewhere truly alien in games, and it’s something I’m glad I experienced. However, it’s more of a theme park ride than a genuinely immersive experience. That’s fine, but with a little more complexity and refinement outside of the artwork, it could have been something extraordinary.

Overwatch 2’s fast-paced action is an excellent change of pace from its predecessor’s shield-heavy gameplay, but a lack of new content and rushed release means this sequel doesn’t live up to Blizzard’s historically high standards.

The Saints Row (2022) reboot takes things back to basics but with very little push for innovation. It still gets a lot right, but that success is in areas where it was already strong, and little effort has been invested in strengthening the weaker aspects. A reboot should offer a chance at a clean slate, at cutting ties with what held you back in the past, but Saints Row (2022) fails to do this in any meaningful way.

Unfortunately, the package ends up feeling a bit bare. The story is window dressing, and the gameplay is lacking in variety. The lack of multiplayer also feels like a missed opportunity. Without it, there’s not much replayability other than an online leaderboard.

Mario Strikers: Battle League’s core gameplay is fun, but it’s just not enough to justify the incredibly slim package offered. There’s little to do for online players and even less for those looking for a fun offline single-player game, with it for Mario sports games in general. Nintendo fans were hoping for a hat trick here for the third entry in the Mario Strikers series, but were instead left with an own goal.

Nintendo Switch Sports has a weird emphasis on online play, a frustrating unlock system, and is sadly underwhelming compared to its predecessors, which launched over a decade ago.

Trek to Yomi is a fun enough five hours for the money. I wasn’t expecting Ghost of Tsushima for $19.99, so I wasn’t disappointed with what I got. However, I’m a big weeb, love Kurosawa, and think katanas are cool. I’m not sure if those unfamiliar with the design principle behind the game will understand where it’s coming from. It might serve as a gateway drug to Japanese cinema for some, but I think many people will just be wondering why it’s in black and white instead of color. Overall, it’s like a samurai with a dull sword: flashy, but lacking the razor edge needed to cut its way through the shadow of its contemporaries.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga providing such a huge toybox of characters, worlds, vehicles, and more to unlock and play will make it essential for many Star Wars fans. In terms of sheer scale, size, and scope, this is far beyond anything Traveller’s Tales have put out before with the LEGO brand. Unfortunately, some of that ambition is undermined by the lackluster implementation of certain ideas that are supposed to be its big selling points, such as its improved combat and new camera angle. This is arguably not quite the Star Wars game you’re looking for, but it does more than enough right.

Wonderlands is the safest, most paint-by-numbers, product-of-the-time game I’ve played in a while, and a serving of the same thing Gearbox has been dishing up for 10 years minus the humor. It’s the absolute opposite of avant-garde and simply reuses the Borderlands formula without improving on it in any tangible manner. While it’s more tolerable as a multiplayer game given that you’ll more readily be able to overlook its story and writing, it’s still a disappointing spin-off that takes away more from the source material than it gives back.

While the shooting and free-running gameplay are enjoyable when everything works, Shadow Warrior 3 remains both fun and frustrating in equal measure — while it lasts.

While Dying Light 2 does a lot right with its gameplay and new-gen presentation, it’s still a far cry from zombie gaming greatness. The weak story, uninspired mission design, limitations on initial player skills, and bugs let it down in a big way. Sure, a lot of this will be easy to ignore when fighting the undead as a four-man squad, but “it’s fun with friends” is an excuse that can only get you so far.

I think ILCA did an excellent job on recreating the originals, but Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl aren’t great remakes. My gold standard for a game remake is Resident Evil 2. It brought almost every aspect of the original into a modern framework, improved upon it, and added new content. In contrast, these games got a (very) slight graphical upgrade and some quality of life changes. With how closely they follow the originals, these games are more recreations than remakes.

I think ILCA did an excellent job on recreating the originals, but Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl aren’t great remakes. My gold standard for a game remake is Resident Evil 2. It brought almost every aspect of the original into a modern framework, improved upon it, and added new content. In contrast, these games got a (very) slight graphical upgrade and some quality of life changes. With how closely they follow the originals, these games are more recreations than remakes.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition can be tolerable on the right system. Both PS5 and Xbox Series X offer users the best chance of brute-forcing past the performance barriers but, even then, occasional bugs and glitches can occur. Fun can be had on those current-gen systems, especially by those with some sentimental attachment to the original trilogy, but there’s still likely to be moments of frustration.

Vanguard is more of the same when it comes to the campaign, with very few sparks of innovation. It’s inoffensive, yet bland. Zombies tries something new but goes all-in with a single map that just doesn’t work well at launch. Multiplayer moves the focus away from the brilliant gunplay, pushing chaos above all else and making fundamental errors that shouldn’t be present in the 18th iteration of Call of Duty multiplayer.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a solid original story from Eidos Montreal that deviates from both the MCU and the comics, providing something for Marvel fans across mediums to enjoy. However, while it’s certainly a step up from publisher Square Enix’s Avengers, it suffers with its own notable bugs and glitches that detract from the on-screen action. The day one patch will hopefully tackle these problems, and if so this is a highly recommendable superhero game that doesn’t quite step it up like Insomniac’s Spider-Man series, though still does right by its unlikely group of misfit anti-heroes.

Unfortunately, Far Cry 6 has missed the mark again, with too few significant improvements and a lot of bloat. For those who love Far Cry, it’s yet another game to blast through and add to the pile, but compared to the competition, this series is starting to fall seriously behind.

Kena: Bridge of Spirit’s exceptional visuals clash with its unexceptional gameplay to create a gorgeous experience that would be forgettable if not for its technical prowess. Its combat, puzzles, and platforming are enjoyable but fail to set the world alight, though the adventure is elevated by the beauty of its open world and its highly animated characters.

Arcade racers should be better represented on console and PC, with Cruis’n Blast ticking a lot of boxes for those who love this genre and wish that it wasn’t almost solely confined to arcade cabinets. There are few games that will pitch a unicorn in a race against a UFO, and such possibilities in Cruis’n Blast should be celebrated appropriately. However, performance problems, the absence of online multiplayer, and the lack of things to do for the solo player make for an altogether disappointing port, that nonetheless just about offers enough to warrant the attention of arcade racing fans.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite sits squarely in the middle of other Alien games. There’s certainly worse out there, but there is also much better. It’s an uninspired struggle through a tired gameplay loop that just happens to be slathered in Alien slime and plays like one of the older Gear of Wars.

Wrath of the Druids has a lot of the same shortcomings as the main game. The story is too concerned with political intrigue that isn’t that intriguing, the landscape is mostly barren greenery that’s unexciting to traverse, and the overall game hardly hovers above the average baseline it rests upon, just to name a few of the overlapping problems. But Wrath of the Druids does leapfrog the base experience because of its relative focus that organically slices off the astounding amount of bloat inherent to a game that large. It doesn’t magically make Assassin’s Creed Valhalla a better game, but it does show that sometimes, a smaller serving can make a huge difference.