Burst Re:Newal plays better than any SK game before it and has the most satisfying story yet. If it weren’t for the lackluster fields of battle, I’d have no trouble calling this the best game of the franchise. Regardless, it’s a perfect starting place for those new to the battles of these soulful, buxom shinobi, a fantastic plot resource for fans who didn’t play the DS game, and one of the most player-friendly brawlers around.

When I’m up against players at a similar skill level and we’re all using the default characters, Soulcalibur VI can be a beautiful dance between players who are one with their weapons. This is a rare occasion, though. More often, I’m stuck trying to fend off oversized custom characters spamming Reversal Edge. With so many people killing what could be a good time online, I think I’ll stick to Tekken to get my fighting game fix.

Save Me Mr Tako is a cheery delight with surprisingly thought-provoking dialogue, but I could only perform the same gameplay for so long. Ultimately, the experience wasn’t engaging enough to push me through to the conclusion, but I wish Mr. Tako the best in his efforts to end the tragic conflict between octopi and humans.

It’s punishing to go through what Vane offers without even the slightest understanding of what Friend & Foe’s grand vision was supposed to be. I went into it with no prior knowledge about the game, and I got as much out of Vane’s final cutscene as I would reading a paragraph of Mandarin. Maybe there’s a secret ending that I missed or a subtext that re-contextualizes the bizarre events that unfold over the course of this brief experience, but until I hear about it, the only thing clear to me about Vane is that I didn’t like it.

I have rarely seen a game go from being absolutely sublime to absolutely awful, but Subnautica manages to pull it off. The first 25-30 hours are a superb sci-fi survival experience that I would happily recommend to anyone, and I’ll cherish that time under the waves for years to come. But the endgame? It really does ruin a good thing. If the first chunk of the adventure were scored on its own, it would rate much higher. But as a complete experience? The issues are too large to ignore.

Sanctus Mortem isn’t perfect, but the flaws can be overlooked in favor of characters I cared about, engaging action, and a story that kept me hooked the entire time I was exploring Kisareth’s universe.

Nairi: Tower of Shirin is a beautiful-looking title, but finishes feeling rather rough and unfinished. There are plenty of puzzles to enjoy, but the script takes some strange turns and I can’t help but feel like there should have been more to the story.

This series simply hit its peak eight years ago, and has been struggling to stay relevant since. Just Cause still has the potential to stand alongside power fantasy franchises like Earth Defense Force and Dynasty Warriors, but this latest entry just feels old, sloppy, and phoned in. The formula can still work and I was kinda-sorta entertained by Just Cause 4, but nothing about it was impressive in the least.

Putting aside the fact that I find it incredibly weird that Dancing in Moonlight and Dancing in Starlight are being sold as two separate, full-priced games (they’re too similar in concept and execution for it to make sense) it’s neat fanservice for those who wish to spend more time with the Tartarus SEES and Phantom Thieves crew. Ultimately, though, I wish that the devs had tried just a little harder to carve out a new and exciting rhythm game, rather than something that fits squarely into established genre norms and coasts by on the charm of its characters.

Putting aside the fact that I find it incredibly weird that Dancing in Moonlight and Dancing in Starlight are being sold as two separate, full-priced games (they’re too similar in concept and execution for it to make sense) it’s neat fanservice for those who wish to spend more time with the Tartarus SEES and Phantom Thieves crew. Ultimately, though, I wish that the devs had tried just a little harder to carve out a new and exciting rhythm game, rather than something that fits squarely into established genre norms and coasts by on the charm of its characters.

Drawing from a pool of the classics – things like Rubik’s cubes, complementary rotation, circuit building – Iris.Fall has a puzzle for for everyone. Unfortunately, this has the corollary of ensuring that players with a weakness for a particular kind of puzzle will end up absolutely stuck at least once in the game. I personally found myself banging my head on a task involving building a bridge for the better part of a half hour, and it’s entirely possible that were I not reviewing the game, I might have quit there and then. I’m glad I didn’t, though, since the story deserves to be seen through to the end.

It may have the right attitude and style for a VR shooter, but nearly everything is implemented abysmally. From its awkward controls and awful presentation to the fact that the whole experience lasts less than an hour, there’s no reason to invest time or money. There’s almost certainly a much better game lying within, but for now Grave should probably stay buried

Although it’s got some serious shortcomings, I would strongly encourage the developers to keep going in the direction that they’re going and to deepen and enhance what they’ve already built — this piece of work is absolutely headed in the right direction, it just hasn’t reached its destination yet.

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.

Darksiders III is shameless. It copies Souls level design right down to some of that series’ most famous tropes, such as hiding enemies around corners in long hallways with an archer. Fury’s Havoc form is strikingly similar to Devil May Cry’s devil trigger. However, in limiting the number of influences this time around, Gunfire Games has been able to focus on making those influences work together rather than fitting in as many popular game influences as possible. Instead of the tasteless sludge of the past, Darksiders III is closer to being a pleasant smoothie.

Overall, Dead Age felt like an old-school educational computer game — something like Liberty’s Kids or Carmen Sandiego where the extent of gameplay is reading and being shown things happening, with little engagement from the player. There was no excitement or thrill to it — the presentation is dry, the gameplay is simple and repetitive, and the story goes nowhere. Send this one back to the boneyard.

In another year with less competition, I would have given Chasm a higher score because it’s a mechanically strong, if often frustrating addition to the metroidvania genre. The thing is, it’s 2018 and there are better examples out there right now that make it hard for me to ignore the chasm-sized flaws in its design.

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.

In many ways, Battlefield V feels like a big step backwards for the franchise. The campaign is boring and frustrating, multiplayer is unbalanced, and bugs keep popping up in every mode to ruin the experience. The fortification system is a good shakeup, but the good it brings is tempered by the cumbersome and murky Grand Operations. With some patches, balance changes and bug squashing, BFV could be a fantastic game, but at the moment, this soldier needs to go back to basic training.

Rival Megagun is a tight, accessible, and well-executed game that offers plenty of incentive to return, improve and master its play. This is a gem of a title, and one not be missed by fans of bullet-hell games, or shmups in general.

I’m genuinely sad that the little indie I found so enamoring many years ago turned out to be something that I can’t stand playing, but that’s the truth of it, and here we are. Masochists looking for something to test their mettle might think a trip Below worthwhile, but I suspect that most will find a harsh, unforgiving experience that’s outdone by other, less brutal titles.

Overall, I’ll fondly remember my time with Bendy and the Ink Machine. It’s a dark world with fantastic aesthetics and a compelling, if tritely-told narrative. While the horror tropes of revenge, abandoned places, and jump scares may be a bit cliché and the tension loses some punch at key moments, the exploration of a long-dark studio and the menace of creatures of black ink will stay with me.

While some might look at EDF5 and point out the recycled levels and long-established gameplay mechanics, I see developers devoted to delivering the best possible version of a concept, and an unwillingness to settle for merely improving the graphics each console generation. This is a series that truly gets better with each iteration, and as such, this is the best EDF game yet.

When it’s not crashing, Road Redemption offers perfect bite-sized pieces of vehicular mayhem. It’s loud and bloody and raw, and the dated graphics only increase the grit and messiness. With a few fixes, this could be an all-time classic of the genre, rather than the deeply flawed romp that it is.

Skyhill is a decently short game that can be played in bursts, and despite the inconsistencies and annoying interface, I enjoyed it and was curious enough to see it through to the end. (And there are multiple endings.) However, the ‘survival’ aspect feels nonexistent — my runs were either doomed from the beginning or flawless victories, and I can’t wholeheartedly recommend something so unbalanced from one run to the next.

While I’ll probably never know what a zarvot is, this project offers a solid arcade shooter and a decent campaign — it just needs a little more polish.

As it stands, MYZ is an excellent game that carved off too much meat when trimming the fat. It’s a delicious dish, but it might leave one hungry for more.

All in all, I like GRIP more as a concept than I do in practice. Rough and tumble racing is fine, but the combat is shaky and it’s far too easy to accidentally clip a piece of scenery and get launched into race-losing situations. It’s also downright strange that a game which promotes driving like mad also requires navigating each track like I’m walking on eggshells. GRIP should [be] bursting free of traditional racing constraints, but instead adheres to them more often than the ceilings.