Replica was likely fine as a 2016 mobile title, but it’s hard to recommend something that’s little more than a one-hour collection of simple puzzles and a basic story. Its heart is surely in the right place, but that’s about all I can say for it.

I commend the developers for keeping true to Orwell’s work, depressing endings and all, but unfortunately what we have here is a worst-of-both-worlds situation — as a visual novel, it’s a slog to get through the repetitive mundane, choices, and the gameplay isn’t refined or engaging enough to be a solid management sim. Simply reading the book might be a better option.

Wet Dreams Dry Twice is an okay sequel to the reboot of a genre-classic series and its faithfulness to old-school sensibilities is both a strength and a weakness. While the humor is a bit too juvenile for my taste, it does manage to elicit some laughs every now and then. On the other hand, players wanting a fresher take on design and writing might want to look elsewhere.

Reservations aside, my love for indie RPGs pulled me through and I did have an appreciation for Orangeblood‘s pixel art and catchy soundtrack. It definitely has some personality and it’s worth a look as an oddity, but it’s just a shame that the combat doesn’t support the experience.

Is Accident an impressive game? Not particularly. There are just nine accidents, and each one is a puzzle that needs to be solved the same way each time. However, the educational value is off the charts. Accident may not catch on as something to enjoy casually, but it’s the kind of thing that every new driver should spend some time with. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it an ‘important’ game, but I can confidently state that by having played it, I’m more prepared to help at the scene of an accident than I was before, and that’s worth something.

In the end, Aquanox: Deep Descent does everything it has to, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. The combat is thrilling, but the story and quests fail to intrigue, the environments don’t have much variety, and there just generally isn’t much to it — it’s a solid 3D shooter set underwater, and not much else.

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.

In a year full of massive, story-driven and crunch-produced experiences, it’s refreshing to spend time with something so straightforward. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 does something simple but does it right, and when I’m dropping blocks or matching puyos, I just can’t seem to put my Switch down.

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.

Watch Dogs: Legion is far from perfect. It tries to tell a story about resisting oppression via the power of the people, but the concept of making any character in the world a viable choice means that the experience ends up being too broad and vague. I was able to spice things up by bringing my own roleplay to characters and used items that weren’t necessary, but this was my way of compensating for the ways in which Watch Dogs: Legion falls short of what I want from a triple-A adventure.

Even if the last decade and a half came and went without bringing any substantial change to the original Katamari Damacy formula, that doesn’t hurt this remastered version – the rotating mix of jazzy tunes and catchy J-Pop choruses provide encouragement for the prince’s reckless consumption, and it remains now, as it was then, a purely good time.

Those looking for an intriguing sci-fi tech thriller could do worse than The Signifier – it’s competent and intriguing until the second half. That said, with a more fleshed–out plot, more interesting puzzles and a stronger finish, Playmestudio could have had something special on their hands.

Embracelet is a brief experience, but the journey is a satisfying one and this charming idyll is absolutely worth visiting.

Grading yearly releases is tricky. Axis Footbal 2020 has made some great strides compared to last year’s title, and it’s much easier to recommend this year’s installment. The franchise mode is just about perfect and should only require minor tinkering in order to keep fans happy, but the on-field play and presentation definitely need to be addressed if this series is going to ever be considered a contender to the Madden throne.

Scourgebringer will be manna from heaven for players craving a fluid, smooth roguelite with hair-raising action. While I wasn’t crazy about graphics and the relative lack of freedom in building my character, I kept coming back because of how it all came together when I found a good groove. With a more distinct art style and some tweaks to the controls, this could have been a real classic.

Users won’t see a true next-gen NHL title until late 2021 at the earliest, so it’s refreshing to see the developers making a concerted effort to deliver a strong experience for current gen fans — EA did an admirable job here.

The hours spent uncovering a science experiment gone wrong kept me invested, not to mention the sidestories that were also available — if I needed a break from dangerous drug labs I could track down documents from a reporter, assist a search party, break up an argument in a bar and more. Players who enjoyed The Outer Worlds and are itching for a reason to jump back in will find Peril on Gorgon a perfectly good reason to do so — just try to refresh your memory as best you can first.

Eastern Exorcist is brisk and engaging. Despite a few rough points, the combat is solid, the world is beautifully rendered, and the extremely depressing story is was interesting enough to carry me through to the end. After the credits (which are entirely in Chinese, just FYI) there’s footage promising DLC or a sequel that’s is already in production, and I’m absolutely interested to see how this franchise moves forward.

I won’t say that Umurangi Generation is the best game of 2020, but it’s almost certainly the most relevant, and not just for its most apropos parallels (like an abundance of face masks). This game is a sobering plea of the disaffected youth, and real-world events have given us countless reasons to lose faith in the idiots our parents put in charge. It’s only fitting that the teens at the core of this story never actually speak, because they were deprived a voice by the people who built this terrible future for them.

While Cold War is a part of a series I would have said that I loved, I can’t fully embrace it now knowing that this work is trucking in harmful stereotypes via patriotic-tinged gameplay. A decent CoD multiplayer experience will likely emerge from the currently-underwhelming Cold War, but I’m going to seriously consider whether that gameplay is worth enduring (and supporting) the rest.

It’s been a long time since I could say that I genuinely and deeply enjoyed something in the Adventure genre, but Nine Witches: Family Disruption was a great ride from start to finish. This gem has lots of laughs, plenty of clever situations to solve, and a good dose of rotten Nazis to foil. Plus, zombies! If Krakovitz and Akiro get assigned to another mission, I’m up for that tour of duty.

In the end, Art Sqool feels more like an art project itself, rather than a full-blown game. It’s a rather short experience and it might not be for everyone, but there is genuinely nothing else like it. I may never be an artist, but for the hours that I attended Art Sqool, I truly felt like I was creating something special.

Bugsnax leans heavily on the unique nature of its titular creatures, and it succeeds by doing so. They’re cute, they’re creepy, and their existence makes no logical sense whatsoever. Armed with a bit of design this indelible, the developers could have phoned in the rest and raked in the merchandising money. Instead, they fully committed to delivering a narrative worthy of the creatures starring in it. It was a risky choice, but it was also a daring and clever one, and that’s exactly what it wants to be.

For all intents and purposes, Torchlight 3 seems like it’s an action RPG struggling to find its identity. It feels generic, repetitive and boring, and comparing it to earlier, superior Torchlight titles does it no favors. Pretty colors aren’t enough to save this one from oblivion, especially with so much quality competition out there.

While I wish the combat was more responsive, Chronos: Before the Ashes more than makes up for it with an interesting setting, a marvelous age mechanic and puzzle content that lends it distinct flavor while keeping the entire experience firmly within the soulslike genre. I’m a huge fan of From’s work, but there’s a lot of room to grow the genre they created, and Gunfire Games has done exactly that here.

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

As a basic introduction to tactical RPGs, there are worse games to choose than Tears of Avia… but there are also so many better. However, with the amount of brokenness present in the content, I just can’t recommend it.

After years of letting gamers simply play other people’s songs, Harmonix has now decided to let players create new music using those songs. It truly feels like a fully-realized vision of melding music and games in ways that haven’t been done before and feels like the next step in music games. Harmonix is back in fine form, and that’s a tune we can all dance to.