The ideas and situations in Bloodlines are so rich they deserve more than just being abstracted into an unwieldy numerical system that can only roughly approximate the nuance of a world so vivid.

Capcom Arcade Stadium is a wonderful tribute to a mostly-bygone era that was important and influential in the history of videogames. Hopefully, Capcom will releases more titles and expand the collection, but even if they don’t, this trio is a worthy purchase for any player looking for some authentic arcade action.

Overall, World War Z: Aftermath is a great team-based shooter, and if players have been waiting for the game to be significantly updated before checking it out, the time is now. Likewise, anyone who played at launch will find that this revamp is well worth a second tour of duty against the undead.

The underwhelming mouse-based elements are frustrating because they’re so unnecessary when compared to the interesting stuff going on with the characters and concepts. When it acts more like a visual novel, The Red Strings Club work crackles with lively ideas and compelling characters. Had it focused on that and pared away the irrelevancies, The Red Strings Club would be the amazing experience that it almost was.

The maze-like level designs may seem a little chaotic at first, but their appearance is misleading. In fact, they're very logically designed and player-friendly. With just a little experimentation, solutions become readily apparent.

Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel lacks vibrancy, the animations lack imagination, and the characters are a bunch of bores. Not having played any other games in the series, I can’t say whether this series is suffering from sequelitis exhaustion, but this installment just lacks so much. It’s an excruciating play that I cannot recommend.

Rather than a gimmick or a quick add-on like some other Wii titles, Second Opinion's gameplay feels tailor-made for the Wiimote and clearly displays its potential.

Suffers from a developmental imbalance between the excellent mechanics and the actual gameplay. The best example of this is illustrated by the difference between the superb two-player and the grating single player experiences.

While Lair of the Leviathan is still my favorite chapter so far, The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood still has plenty of everything about the Tales of Monkey Island series that I like: quality writing, loveable characters, and challenging puzzles.

While I can’t discuss story details, Danganronpa V3 shines by highlighting the memorable cast while twisting the story around in surprising ways. The structure doesn’t change much from the prior two entries and it doesn’t need the minigame padding, but that doesn’t stop this from being a fantastic experience. Fans of the series owe it to themselves to play V3, as it was clearly created with them in mind and holds up perfectly alongside Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair.

In the end, I love what Octopath Traveler is trying to do with its shieldbreaking and its eight-way narrative, but it’s probably better suited to the Switch than the PC. It feels like a title that needs to be played in short bursts, as is fitting for Nintendo’s portable platform. Perhaps I wouldn’t be as frustrated with its quirks if I walked away from time to time and did something else — I will go back and complete the quest, but for now, I just need a break.

Not a bad game by any means-it's simply one that tries to be many things to many different people and it doesn't quite succeed at any of them.

As I put in more time, the game kept opening up and more of my own light bulbs lit with the realization of potential.

Cryptark is a wholly satisfying action-roguelike. The developers have offered an embarrassment of riches when it comes to weapons and equipment, and pilots can figure out their playstyle in settings that reward exploration and experimentation. There’s a huge amount to see and do, and tight combat mechanics support it all. Cryptark is a perfect example of how well-implemented randomness can elevate a great action game into an endlessly replayable work of art.

While it’s nearly impossible to hate a Pokémon game, Let’s Go Eevee doesn’t rank with the greats. Rather than forging a new path in the current generation, this quasi-remake relies too heavily on the weak gameplay of the mobile hit and lacks both the strategy and motivation to succeed. Eevee is cute and innocent, but this particular entry has not reached its fully-evolved form.

The Last Story feels like a JRPG that took incomplete notes as it tried to learn from Western design. The simplistic implementation of massively multiplayer online (MMO) combat motifs makes battles boring or frustrating. The character customizability, though wonderful, is purely cosmetic, never really extending into the play or storytelling. Worst of all, the gameplay and story might as well be two ships passing in the night. While Zael confronts the game's real antagonists in cutscenes, the player simply sits on the sidelines. In games, that's the last way you should try to tell a story. Ra

Diablo II: Resurrected is far from perfect. The changes in character design are likely to rile up returning players, and the archaic gameplay probably won’t agree with younger generations weaned on more streamlined, sophisticated experiences. While I appreciate that this legendary title is now available in an improved format, it’s not a caveat-free recommend.

It doesn’t quite reach the level of quality found in Kingdom Hearts II (which I don’t particularly think is fair because I don’t like to compare a sequel to its predecessor when said predecessor was one of the best games ever made), but I find it hard to believe that any fan of this series would walk away from Kingdom Hearts III unsatisfied.

I love what it’s going for, how it looks and also enjoy how it plays — for the most part. On the other hand, I burn out on it incredibly quickly during each session. Even so, I’m genuinely glad it exists and wish there were more developers out there like Vanillaware who indulge themselves in creating passion projects like this one.

Luftrausers is a great pick-up-and-play game in the short term, with most sessions providing a few minutes of entertainment before culminating in a bloody ship-shattering climax.

While it's great to see a developer take a new (and very welcome) approach to spicing up combat in an RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is purely mechanical where the soul and inspiration should be. Players who can content themselves with massive amounts of loot and an endless series of simpleminded errands may be in heaven, but RPG players craving depth and the ability to make real choices or play a role will be out of luck. It might be a great game if the goal is to kill hundreds of hours of free time, but Amalur doesn't have much to offer otherwise.

The core of the Walking Dead experience depends on the writers making a connection with the player, and for me right now, that's just not there. Without that, I'm just going through the motions without much worry over the consequences.

The time-scrubbing mechanic in Arise is interesting and the many of the levels have a compelling concept. It also offers several visually striking moments and in certain places, it delivers on its emotional content. Unfortunately, it also has too many muddy, unclear visuals for a work of its brevity, and the core platforming disappoints. I wish I could give it a full-throated endorsement, but in the end this is a well-worn theme and Arise: A Simple Story falters in too many places to be truly notable.

A singular RPG experience with much to offer those who are open to something very different from just about every other RPG out there.

For the most part the simplified controls work like a charm, allowing the player to zip around the map, easily locating their prey. It's the maps themselves that are the problem-they're far too small for the number of players that regularly compete on them.

Its recipe is a simple one — take rock-solid FPS and survival fundamentals, and flesh them with high-level, imaginatively distinct, and powerful horror. It’s not a subtle experience, but met on its own terms, warts, Wranglers and all, it hits like a sledgehammer in the best possible way. Brace yourself.

While it's not as glitzy and gadgety as the titles on the consoles, it's one hell of a portable title that will bring back fond memories for anyone who grew up with the 8 and 16-bit era baseball titles.

A little more challenge, depth, and length with the trimming of the lame on-rails levels would have made this one a near classic. As it is, though, it's an above-average shooter with just enough variety and charm to make the familiar trip worth your time.

However, anyone who loves games like Zelda and Alundra would be well advised to give Oath in Felghana a shot. Falcom isn't trying to reinvent the wheel with these games-they're more interested in refining it to the point where it rolls even more smoothly than before.

After playing through both The Signal and The Writer, the biggest impression I'm left with is that these two chunks of game (hateful combat aside) are better than anything that came on Alan Wake's retail disc. They illustrate Alan as a character, they immerse him in a world of his own internal madness, and they play to the strength of the premise in a way that actually makes sense. I can honestly say that if these levels had been included in the main campaign, my overall evaluation would've been significantly higher.

Sadly, it’s also incredibly dishonest and manipulative in ways that I wouldn’t feel comfortable spoiling here in this review. That doesn’t matter, though, because the goal isn’t to offer the player an airtight story or any justification for a second playthrough. No, the goal is to wrap the player so completely up in this dog’s journey to the place of its youth that by the end of the tale they’ll be feeling exactly what the characters are. As far as I’m concerned, that aim was a complete success.

While there's no question that The Division has plenty of room to grow, it also gets a surprising amount right. It's a great fit for consoles, solo players are welcome, and it delivers a fantastic multiplayer experience that's easily accessible in co-op and PVP.

The difficulty of Downwell will turn away just as many players as it attracts. While persistent effort will ultimately unlock alternative starting stats that benefit less-skilled players, the game starts players from zero after each death—it’s a formula that will either exhaust or inspire the player depending on how they feel about this kind of experience. As for me, Downwell joins the ranks of Spelunky as a go-to, action-oriented roguelike, but I expect many who try it will quickly shelve it for less difficult adventures.

I think that Tainted Grail could have benefited from more time in development even though it had already been a couple of years since the demo dropped. Though it often stumbles over the technical weight of its own creative ambition, Tainted Grail has the makings of a phenomenal RPG — but readers just might want to hold off until that weight has been lifted.

The amount of content in Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is simply staggering, and will surely offer hours of fun for Vocaloid fans.

The graphics have a grainy low-resolution edge (similar to all 2D fighting games), but there's no denying the gorgeous colors, beautifully meticulous hand-drawn art and vibrant animation.

Rejects spectacle in favour of the sort of satisfaction that results from a slow culmination of small triumphs—a video unlocked here, a trickbook completed there. In the end, though, it's because of this very process that Amped 2 fails to evoke the butterflies-in-the-stomach level of excitement that I get from playing the very best video games.

Maybe the typical, indirect solutions to problems were designed deliberately to poke fun at the genre’s flaws, but they were so frequent that they were just as much of an irritant as this kind of puzzle was back then. Topped off with a wildly lackluster twist to explain Yelltown fever, and Unforeseen Incidents leaves a lot to be desired on nearly every front.

I avoided Far for much of the year, thinking it was another bog-standard indie exercise in gloom and ambiguousness. I was delighted to instead discover something beautiful, unpretentious and even hopeful. Don’t make the mistake that I almost did.

Ultimately, UFC 5 is in an interesting space – it’s a sports sim that also holds appeal for casual fighting fans. While not perfect, this is the best rendition of the sport to date, and a great launching point to take the series in exciting, new, more narrative-driven directions.

All That Remains is a bit rougher than I would've liked and not much got established, but I have confidence that the team at Telltale can turn out a good experience. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes.

As far as my advice goes, it’s simple — for those who dig Rick & Morty, this is a must-buy, even if one doesn’t own a VR headset. Those who think the show is over-hyped, unfunny nonsense should stay as far away from it as possible. The gameplay or VR implementation isn’t anything earth-shattering, but as a delivery mechanism for Justin Roiland’s humor, Trover Saves The Universe is a fantastic success.

I took a run at Darkwood when it was in Early Access on PC, and found myself so beaten down by the experience that I was forced to step away. Now, in its completed form, the balancing has been fine-tuned to the point where a determined player with the patience to slowly explore a hostile world will be able to make it to the end. It’s still one of the most challenging and bleakest survival experiences I’ve ever had, but I’m happy to see that the developers have found a sweet spot between alienating difficulty and player empowerment. It’s a challenge, but a fair one — and one that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Overall, Beyond Time and Space raises the bar in the way a sequel should, and the quality of the remastering is solid. Players who enjoyed Sam & Max Save the World should absolutely pick this one up — And who knows, maybe there’s another one in our future?

This fresh version of a beloved adventure from the 2000’s is as good as it ever was, and those (like me) who have yet to make the journey will find it well worth the time, even all these years later.

That lack of basic info aside, Smite is bright, largely accessible, and after just a few matches I fully understood the appeal of team-based god-on-god combat.

The story kept me interested to the end of the game, and the battles were fast and furious for the sixty-five hours I happily put into it.

Digging deep into these levels proves to be a pretty profound experience. Each level is adorned with washed out colors and textures, as lush and lively as the cherry blossom trees the game so prominently displays.

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War is a massive game that feels a lot like its predecessor, but now it’s filled with even more things to collect and more missions to finish. But when does a game contain too much? As I reached the end of the campaign, the good times I had turned into a series of chores. Luckily, players can avoid most of the busywork by not worrying about the online conquests or the endgame, but for those that do? Be prepared to grind for it.

Judgment may not be a truly new IP from the Ryu Ga Gotoku studio, but it offers the predictable excellence synonymous with most of their efforts. Anyone who’s played and loved Yakuza will find Judgment right up their alley, and anyone yet to sample the series now has a wonderful jumping-on point to see what the fuss is all about.

With new console hardware expected to arrive by late 2020, there’s a good chance much of 2K Sports’ design and programming teams are hard at work making the most of new technology. However, that doesn’t excuse the visual and gameplay gaps that shouldn’t be here. That said, NBA 2K20 is still a fantastic basketball sim with enough modes and features to keep fans busy until those revolutionary next steps start to come in over the next few years.

Scarlet Nexus is one of the most surprising releases of the year for me thanks to a bombastic combat style and storytelling. I enjoyed my time in the OSF and look forward to flinging more big rigs into unsuspecting enemies soon.

It pains me to say it, but I came away from Okinawa Rush with the sense that it’s a huge missed opportunity. The frustration of dealing with the timer quickly builds up and overshadows everything that the developers get right.

Wandering Sword offers an adventure through a Chinese-inspired land of mystical martial arts that is elevated by its aesthetics and setting while being backed up by an engaging tactical combat system. While it doesn’t do anything revolutionary, it will be worth the time invested for players attracted to the material.

While it doesn't approach the level of awesomeness that the concept of ninja janitors killing dust monsters might suggest, Dustforce is nevertheless an enjoyable, challenging romp. It's just a shame that the glaring omission of online multiplayer keeps it from reaching its full potential, while the steep difficulty of earning S-ranks might put off those looking for something that requires a little less effort.

While there are a few sequences that thrill the way a proper Hitman should, like stalking a dark cornfield or combing Chinatown without being dressed as a chef, these brief glimpses of 47's predatory roots are outnumbered three-to-one by kludgey segments more about duckwalking towards exits than they are about killing professionally. I would imagine that the goal of Hitman: Absolution was to take Agent 47's detailed, methodical gameplay and make it appeal to players more familiar with modern action/stealth hybrids, but all the devs have done is eviscerate their unique franchise with poorly-implemented mechanics and left him to die an awkward, humiliating death.

Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf successfully expands on its underrated first entry in nearly every way possible. It’s the perfect Empire Strikes Back to Planet of Lana’s New Hope: approachable, beautiful, and a great adventure worth taking.

Thanks to the quality in both concept and function, this is one of the finest first-person-shooters I've ever played, and the best iteration of one of gaming's most storied franchises.

Don't get me wrong; Yakuza 3 is still a good game that offers a uniquely Japanese experience and dramatic content an order of magnitude more mature than most of what's coming down the pike, but it just doesn't match up to the first two entries. I hate to say it, but the Dragon of Dojima's gotten soft in the middle-it's time for Kazuma to cut back on the yakiniku and get his ass back to the gym.

All in all, it's just a game that works some of the time but doesn't have enough drive and ambition behind it to vault it to the upper echelon of must play experiences.

Telling Lies is a fantastic game…On PC. On consoles it’s playable, and for those who don’t have any other alternative it’ll do in a pinch, but playing with a mouse and keyboard is the way to go. The experience is so thematically intertwined with the pretense of using a personal computer that a lot is lost in the translation to home consoles. Considering the low system requirements, anyone with a relatively recent laptop should be able to run the PC version, making the console versions obsolete on arrival. The devs did the best they could with the port, but it’s still a distant second best to the original.

Wide Ocean, Big Jacket is a brief experience, perhaps 90 minutes including extra scenes recently added via patch, but it’s just the right length for delivering a richly-colored snapshot into the lives of its subjects, and as a memento of this brief camping trip where four people connect, it’s just perfect.

While it’s easy to nitpick, it’s even easier to rave about how great the rest of the The Ancient Gods is. I’m not sure this is the best place to jump into Doom Eternal given its initial difficulty, but picking up the whole package is absolutely recommended. The Ancient Gods consistently delivers some of the best combat ever seen, and delivers it in spades.

For fans of pinball or the walking dead, the game is a must-have.

The innovations are few, and the unskippable story is outright destructive of the series' heritage.

Sure, the slowdown is an unfortunate negative, but the rest of the game is overwhelmingly solid. R-Type Final might not bring any new tricks to the table, but it certainly takes what it does best and enhances it ever-so-slightly for a new generation of gamers.

Anyone with an aversion to cute will likely vomit themselves inside out before they've cleared the intro movie, puking their way into a catatonic state with inhuman haste, but for everyone there's a lot to love in Atelier Totori. It's huge, it's charming and it's just a shame that its strict, poorly defined timeline rubs some of its sheen off. That aside, it's almost ludicrously absorbing, beautiful to bask in, and a joy to play.

There's a great experience to be had here... Just make sure to take the proper steps needed to avoid the mid-game difficulty spike.

Even with all of the bells, whistles, and new gameplay mechanics, Space Invaders Extreme manages to nail the challenge and thrill associated with its ancestor. Blazing speed, an empowered player, and enemies with varied abilities can’t obscure the fact that it’s the classic foundation underneath that makes this game work so well, and SIE proves that it’s still viable today.

I have absolutely no idea how long the campaign is or how long it might take to get through given how methodically I’m playing, but I’ve sunk a good number of hours into the adventure and enjoyed every minute. I haven’t rolled credits yet, but even so, I have no reservations recommending Tangledeep to people who might appreciate a masterfully-done roguelike.

While SOMA never hits the highs of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it's still largely decent in its own right. Some confused environment design and lackluster monster scenarios work against it, but as an atmospheric jaunt under the sea with a reasonable storyline behind it... well, it works pretty well. Faint praise perhaps, but praise nonetheless.

With so much to like about Knights and Bikes, finding things to complain about wasn’t easy. One thing that came to mind is that the fifth chapter takes considerably more time to complete than the others, and at times seems to drag. However, the rest of the adventure has excellent pacing. I also had a small issue with the ending. There’s a twist that’s hinted at shortly before it unfurls, but this foreshadowing would have had greater impact if was built up earlier instead of appearing so close to the finale. Otherwise, I have no issues with this incredibly well-written story. Knights and Bikes is an adorable little treasure worth finding.

Those issues aside, there's no question that The Walking Dead: Episode One-A New Day absolutely nails the spirit of the story that inspired it, and it seems poised to become another winning, must-experience branch of Kirkman's über-franchise.

It's to Lost Planet's credit that the skillful handling of the difficulty and level design puts the player in a state of desperation for almost the entire length of the game.

Despite the glitches, the addition of true, two-player co-op makes it a fantastic adventure to share. I found Brothers to be a hidden gem when it was first released, and that still holds true today.

For anybody looking to scratch an old-school side-scrolling itch, Astlibra: Revision might be the perfect thing. Otherwise, it’s a tough one to recommend to those who may be in the market for something a bit more modern in its sensibilities.

The engaging battle system eventually turned into a tedious exercise, and the lighthearted and sentimental story grew increasingly sluggish and labored.

At the end of the day, Mega Man Legacy Collection 1 & 2 are fine collections, even if the first one shows significantly more care and love than the second. I feel Capcom missed out on the chance to add some developer commentary or a few interviews here, but ultimately the titles are what matter, and both contain excellent ports. For those planning on revisiting Mega Man or just wanting to glimpse a bit of gaming history, it’s hard to go wrong.

While The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors is a cool, modernized reminder of a bygone era, its main downside is that arcade-style titles were usually designed to extract the maximum number of quarters from their audience in as short a time as possible, so longevity and variety weren’t high on the list of design requirements back then. As a result, it isn’t likely to hold someone’s attention for long if they aren’t interested in attempting to top the leaderboards. The campaign will take most gamers a couple of hours to complete at most, and the unlockable hard mode and new characters aren’t enough to give it legs. With that in mind, this spruced-up blast from the past is enjoyable while it lasts — it’s just a shame that there’s not a little more mechanical meat on these robotic ninja bones.

Although these new assignments for 47 are just bonus surprises, I prefer them to the normal Contracts and Escalation missions IO regularly publishes. The maps aren’t brand new, but it’s clear that care and creativity went into crafting the missions, and that the developers didn’t just push quickie content out the door to hold players over until the next official episode.

I enjoyed myself in almost every one of Gravity Ghost’s levels, and had a great time weaving my way around and through its many planets. Iona’s starbound story is a tragedy, but her afterlife is a triumph.

Overall, Five Dates was a joy to experience. It’s a solid rom-com with strong writing and characters that accurately captures the trials and tribulations of living and dating during the COVID-19 era.

Overall, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game – Complete Edition is a difficult, grindy play that ends up being ultimately enjoyable thanks to its combat and style. Fans of the source material have no doubt already bought it and are enjoying the hell out of it, and anyone else who enjoys a good old-fashioned brawler with plenty of style should check it out as well.

Easily the best of the X-Men games to ever appear on a console and a shining example that not all games based on licensed properties like comics and movies have to suck.

While South Park: The Fractured But Whole builds upon the mechanical groundwork laid by The Stick of Truth, it doesn’t have the same impact its predecessor had. Nothing is as shocking as Stick‘s sights, too much of the same ground is covered again, and while the combat is improved, it’s nothing to write home about. South Park: The Fractured But Whole is still entertaining and I enjoyed my time with it, but I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a rerun.

Monday Night Combat may not come with as many of the bells and whistles of a bigger game, but the sweet, bacon-filled core is tasty enough on its own-even if it is a bit lean.

Like the first Coffee Talk, Hibiscus & Buterfly delivers a delicious cup in the form of new stories, characters, and a lil’ shot of revised gameplay mechanics, and these elements all blend into a delicious mix that I love to cuddle up on the couch with.

I love Rollerdrome. That “hell yeah” factor hit me early, especially once I saw how it utilized the foundation built by one of my favorite franchises, yet still managed to create its own experience. Its satisfying gunplay and sense of momentum make it one of the finest sports games available, while its art style makes it stand out from the crowd. Roll7’s winning streak of incredible skating games continues.

Enjoying La Pucelle Tactics requires a compulsive temperament and a perverse sense of humor.

Despite this, much of the game is a joy to play, providing more than its share of simple, disposable fun. Moreover, Cabela's Survival: Shadows of Katmai nails the spirit of its protagonist and the atmosphere of the adventure. Although its scenario is silly and many of its incidents are ridiculous, the game succeeds because it never takes itself very seriously.

And Guybrush is so likeable-in that pestering, caddish sort of way-that I want to know what happens to him. That, really, is what a serial game should accomplish; to leave players hungry for more.

Flipping Death’s slight mechanical complaints don’t detract from the strength of a great voice cast and an understanding that the audience should care about what happens next, not just that they should be laughing.

Bithell’s first experimental foray into doing a game short is a successful one. My time spent riding the rails with this robot detective was pleasant enough, and I have much respect for any game that respects my time. I’m up for another, sir.

As the first entry in a planned trilogy, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky has technically done its job. The game has built my anticipation for the next installment, in spite of itself. Granting that, I'm not interested in a rerun. A clever battle system can distract for only so long, and the value of semi-persistent society is limited by the appeal of the world in which it exists. I'm sure that it's hard for creators to not fall in love with the product of their labor, but navel-gazing is only entertaining for the owner of said navel.

Overall Crystal Crisis is a well-made game, but it’s not the most welcoming to newcomers and has significant issues with online play. Fans of Super Puzzle Fighter will probably enjoy it, but I’m not sure many other people will.

In the end, Pirates Outlaws is a hidden gem of a game. It’s easy to pick up, has a wide variety of characters and strategies, and also offers enough depth for deckbuilding players players who really like to dig in. Strongly recommended!

Gamers looking for a fresh take on puzzle solving adventures will absolutely find it with the map manipulation in Carto.

While it might be going a bit far to say that this is the biggest action game ever made, some math might make the point more clearly. There are around 150 missions on offer, each coming with a remixed super-hard version. Each of the four soldier classes play so differently that they’re effectively a completely different experience. Consequently, it’s not a huge exaggeration to say that Earth Defense Force 6 has 1200 missions to enjoy – and that’s all before the DLC comes out. This might be the most gameplay ever, and such a huge amount of it is so flat-out great that it can be called one of the best games I’ve ever played.