Despite my occasionally-bloodshot orbs, Before Your Eyes is an experience I won’t soon forget. Its combination of masterful storytelling, engaging character progression and stunning conclusion put it in contention for best narrative game I’ve ever played, and it also reminded me to savor life at its best and worst moments. No small feat for an indie title hanging everything on an all-new form of interaction.

It’s telling that the biggest complaint I can generate about 11-11 is that it suffers from occasionally-lazy plotting. The storytelling is good enough that the developers get away with some fairly large coincidences, and we’re asked to believe that Harry is almost unbelievably bad at languages. However, the story reaches a point where it beggars belief that he’s still baffled by what the Germans are saying. There’s not much apart from that to criticize, though — this is a great tale being told by people with the skills necessary to tell it.

The Dungeons & Dragons titles were some of the most evolved side-scrolling fighters of their day, with design and gameplay concepts that made them stand out from their contemporaries. However, a $15 price-tag makes it tough to recommend the package to anyone who wasn't already a big fan back in the day.

Though it’s not a revolution as much as an evolution, NBA 2K25 easily justifies its price tag. There’s still grinding, leveling, and more side quests than Skyrim. but it all seems more accessible and approachable than in years past, while also being more realistic and beautiful than ever before.

Genesis Noir stands out as an unique experience in the current landscape. There’s no argument there. However, for all of its gorgeous art, daring concepts and oblique storytelling, the gameplay and interaction required to succeed in this medium ends up failing to connect and doesn’t engage with the player in ways that feel significant.

Unravel Two is a fairly compact jaunt with only seven levels and some optional challenges for those who want them, but I found it to be the perfect length for what it is. The runtime offers a satisfying array of puzzles that function equally as well with one player as they do for two, it’s stunning to look at, a pleasure to listen to, and although they might not be ranked alongside other videogame luminaries, I adore yarnies. I’m not sure if a third game is in the cards considering how quickly Unravel Two was forgotten, but if so, I’d be more than happy to go on an adventure with them again.

Final Fantasy III was fun while I played it, but now that the world's been re-harmonized and the credits have rolled, I feel no need to dig it out of my closet again.

Is HOMMV a good game? Absolutely. Is it essentially the exact same game as HOMMIV was? Oh yes.

A refined, immersive, superbly scripted, and generally well-executed adventure. It's possibly the best example of sustained convergence yet experienced in a videogame.

Despite the fact that (potentially) dying and restarting feels like a design misstep, Lifeline was still a worthwhile experience, and one that I would recommend to people looking for something new and fresh for their mobile device. If nothing else, I appreciated the unusual approach, and well-written text is always a welcome thing in my world.

Whimsical and cute despite the sinister subject matter, Lovingly Evil is a short but endearing experience. A full playthrough of the story will take around an hour and a half (depending on the player’s reading speed) but with five romance options and 12 endings, there are plenty of reasons to return for repeat players. As for me? I finished it twice, and I’m considering going back and finding out what’s up with Satan.

For newcomers to the Oddworld series, New ’n’ Tasty is a good place to start and the anti–capitalism and anti–consumerism messages in Oddysee still feel (sadly) as fresh and important as they did back then. However, there’s no real reason to grab the Switch version if one already owns any of the others. It’s still tasty enough, but a little short on the new.

By discarding all of their attempts at being the ‘serious, mature’ version of EDF while maintaining their passion for storytelling, Yuke’s has created something truly special in World Brothers 2. It’s a game that embraces the absurdly over-the-top nature of the franchise while offering a story that increases the player’s emotional investment — something that the main series, with its apocalyptic stakes and angry space gods, has never managed to accomplish. Does that necessarily make it the best in the series? I don’t know if I’d go that far – but I can say that it’s the most player-friendly by far, and a perfect jumping-on point for anyone curious about gaming’s most epic action.

I haven’t even scratched the surface of what the slot machine has to offer in terms of winning strategies or clever tricks, as there are countless items to unlock, game modifiers to equip, and just more to play. In a decade where certain titles toe the line between gambling and games, CloverPit performs that dance beautifully and produces an unforgettable roguelite experience as a result — it’s a delight, and one of the most delightfully frustrating things I’ve played this year.

The Spirit Lift won’t be a game for everyone, but there’s joy to be found for players who might like a smaller bite.

So, while this offering is missing options relating to customization and the netcode is just acceptable rather than industry leading, this is still a fighting game that has absolutely stood the test of time. It feels as fresh now as it ever has, and while it may not be Virtua Fighter 6, having an active Virtua Fighter online scene in the modern era is absolutely priceless.

Even if the narrative comes off like an awful TV show, Riders Republic remains a phenomenal, open-world extreme sports title that sets itself apart thanks to accessible controls and a large number of sports to choose from. It’s done serious damage to my productivity over the last few weeks, and for the first time in a long time, I’ve found a massive triple-A game that genuinely prioritizes player enjoyment over anything else.

A peerless piece of fanservice wrapped around a pretty enjoyable brawler, and the developers' love of the subject matter shines through as brightly as the sun.

It's no easy feat to invigorate a genre that has remained fairly set in its ways for the last few generations, let alone do it with the imagination and energy present here.

All in all, Lego City Undercover still ranks as one of the all-around best LEGO games I’ve spent time with, and while I’d recommend it to any fan of the series, that goes double for kids who crave some open-world GTA-style screw-around action without any of the questionable stuff that makes parents raise an eyebrow. I’m glad LCU finally made its way to a console besides the WiiU, and I’m guessing a lot of other people will be, too.

For players accustomed to modern affordances and styles of play, Moon may be a challenge to get into. Its graphics, a mix of Claymation-esque renders and spritework, have not been updated, and neither have the more tedious aspects of its gameplay. Even so, there’s something moving about inhabiting this world, loving the weird denizens, and bringing them what happiness we can. And isn’t that the way it should be? If goodness and love win, shouldn’t they win with goodness and love?

While the fourth chapter disappoints with superfluous wrapup and temporal confusion, the three other chapters of The Lion’s Song offer engaging tales of creative struggle and triumph. In their best moments, they convey the sense of being in a city enjoying the full bloom of artistic and intellectual development, where new sciences and new approaches to art might connect and transform each other, and that’s a kind of excitement games rarely capture.

Ultimately, Pure Pool is exactly what its name suggests, for better and for worse. Players that buy into its fascinating shot presentation may find it enough to overlook the otherwise-flat experience. For everybody else, it will likely be an all-too-quick scratch off the eight ball.

Aside from the misstep of the stunted co-op mode, every other aspect of Etrian Odyssey III has been vetted and manicured to ensure that the game provides the highest quality dungeon-crawling conceivable.

Even with this one shortcoming, Skyrim VR is a triumph. While I’m nowhere near completing the campaign, I haven’t found a single quest, threat, or objective that’s more difficult to deal with in VR than it was in the old Skyrim. It was already a wonderfully deep world to inhabit before players could freely explore it from within, and the developers have proven that a fully-featured action RPG can work just as well (or frequently better) in VR than it ever did on a flat screen.

I hate Monster Rancher. No other series turns me into such a complete vegetable, helpless to do anything but sit in front of my PlayStation 2 devoting hours upon hours the way this one does.

It's a tossed salad of good ideas and cliché concepts that veers wildly between extremely polished and inexcusably sloppy.

Solo is quiet and playful, with bright colors and a soft art style designed to charm the player into a sense of security so that they’re more willing to divulge their true feelings. It doesn’t offer the deepest or most revelatory personality analysis, but as a tool to make players stop and consider the value they place on romantic relationships in their lives, Solo is a stunning success.