The Surge is a surprisingly fun hard core hack-and-slash experience. It offers a grim story and great level design, but does not quite manage to reach the heights and overall quality and offering of its main competitors - the Soulsborne games.

LocoRoco is a fun, positive and incredibly charming game – the premise, graphics and music are all excellent, even eleven year after the game's original launch. However, there is too little variation, too much simplicity, and the gameplay clearly works best in short bursts.

Utopia brings a whole new depth to Stellaris with its mega constructions, traditions and the new political system.

Expeditions: Viking is a great and engaging role-playing game with a stunning soundtrack and an exciting story. Sadly, its interesting combat is offset by some weird quirks, and too many crashes and bugs make for an experience which could have been so much better had the game been more polished at launch.

While having a great premise, awesome music and quite good puzzles, there's simply way too much downtime in The Sexy Brutale. Moments when you can put your controller aside and do other stuff, while waiting for the hours to pass. A shame, since it's actually a really, really cool game.

With a completely rehauled Battle Mode and the inclusion of all previously released DLC, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe stands as the strongest game in the series since Double Dash, and is a must for any Switch owner who wants a seemingly never-ending source of pure gameplay fun.

Prey offers a good story, utilizing great environmental storytelling and design. Combat, especially melee combat, suffers somewhat, but the game deserves credit for delivering on story and ambience above all else.

World to the West is a good game with some lesser moments. It is great when it manages to produce the feeling of an epic adventure, but unfortunately it doesn’t always hit that mark.

What Remains of Edith Finch stands proud among its contemporaries, but still manages to stand out by constantly twisting and changing its looks and mechanics.

Dawn of War III is exciting and brings a thrilling multiplayer experience to the table, but a lack of variety and a focus on grinding takes away from its attempt to be a deep, but fast-paced experience at the same time.

Little Nightmares does not try to appeal to everybody, and that makes it a better game. This is a game with apparent strength and weaknesses, but you can always tell that it is a game made of a group of people with a strong and clear vision for a defined audience.

Puyo Puyo Tetris is a captivation puzzle game that only sometimes is a bit to busy in its presentation.

Snake Pass tries something new, and to slither around with Noodle is fun to begin with. Sadly, the steep and weird difficulty and strange mechanics related to the controllers make for an experience that quickly gets bogged down in a sea of annoyance and tediousness.

Mandate of Heaven is a great new addition to the Europa Universalis IV family of expansions, giving new life to Asian states while the new Age and diplomacy mechanics bring new challenges and revamps for everyone.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends is a clever and engaging card collecting game. Developer Dire Wolf Digital is blatantly inspired by other giants in the genre, such as Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, and has used this inspiration to create something that is familiar, but still new and exciting.

Persona 5 is a game that contains all of the brilliant elements from the series. It also has made the series' most irritating concept into something that you don’t have to play, and you’ll be totally fine without it.

Yooka-Laylee simply doesn't live up to todays standards. Especially when compared to the well designed games we've been served lately.

Despite its lovable characters, fun songs and absurd humor, PaRappa really hasn't aged all that well. The gameplay is severely imprecise, there's not really any replay value and the lack of cutscene polish is quite jarring.

Monks and Mystics brings exciting new ways of worship to Crusader Kings II. Through holy and unholy orders can we take part in the more intricate parts of medieval religion, but although the secret societies might bring excitement to old-timers and newcomers alike, there's just not enough here, making the expansion less worthwhile compared to its predecessors.

Quotation forthcoming.

In many ways, Thimbleweed Park is exactly as advertised: A retro adventure game, playing heavily on nostalgia, but made with modern game design principles and technology.

Kona is by no means a perfect game, but it shines in the fact that it dares to let us roam freely through the mysteries of its snow-ridden quebecois forest village. By refraining from leading us by the hand and showing us where to go at every step, the sense of exploration and discovery is heightened. To me, Kona feels like a breath of fresh air amid the current blizzard of AAA juggernauts.

The Ringed City offers a daunting challenge for even the most veteran of Souls-players, and is by far the hardest area in the entire series. It's excellent level design and big, open areas trumps most of the standard game in a heartbeat.

LEGO Worlds is actually quite a fun, charming adventure, with creativity out the wazoo. There is however way too much repetition, with a cumbersome building system and a sometimes immediate lack of clear objectives.

This reboot offers a lot in the way of pure content, but as the hours drag on, there is a sense of repetition and obtuse busywork rather than a sense of purpose. Everything feels slightly more generic, and slightly less interesting compared to its namesake trilogy, although some strong level design helps the overall impression to a certain degree.

In many ways Fast RMX is exactly what it is supposed to be: A lightning-paced racer with a phenomenal sense of speed and pleasingly technofuturistic aesthetics that scratches that F-Zero itch in a way very few games have managed over the last fifteen years.

Ghost Recon Wildlands offers a stunningly beautiful open world – and little else. The awful storytelling leaves much to be desired, and the mediocre shooting and driving.

The combination of the weird and beautiful storytelling and world-building from Yoko Taro, and the combat and flow from Platinum Games, is nothing short of great. Stellar, fast-paced combat, interesting universe and story, and compelling characters makes NieR: Automata something truly special.

Snipperclips is a couch co-op game you can play anywhere you want. The style, charm and puzzle solving elements, combined with the ease of handing one of your Joy-Con to a friend for a quick game, makes this a very appealing experience and the best showcase for the Nintendo Switch as a local multiplayer console.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild surprises with its gorgeous visual effects, spectacular horizons and the vast freedom given to players. Sadly, the open world is often empty and soulless, lacking a proper soundtrack, characters or stories that make for a truly unique experience.

Quotation forthcoming.

1-2-Switch is fun with the right group of people, there’s no doubt about it, but the steep price and current technical issues with the Joy-Con makes this a game you should hold off on until the wrinkles are out.

Quotation forthcoming.

Digimon World: Next Order is dated, empty and lacking, but with its addictive training mechanics and large variety of nostalgia-indusing digimon manages to - in some ways at least - charm old time fans of the universe.

Halo Wars 2 embodies some of the best aspects of real time strategy while redefining it through its new Blitz mode. That being said, it would have been nice if the campaign would have offered more variety, as opposed to sticking to a safe and well-tested format a little too closely.

For Honor is brutal fun. The fighting game mechanics take some time to truly get used to, but once you do, there's a unique, clever and deeply engaging multiplayer experience to be had here.

Horizon Zero Dawn takes the best traits of the open-world genre and melts them together into Guerrilla's own, polished and refreshing vision. The voice acting, nuanced character roster and many fun ways to approach combat makes this a game I’d gladly see become Sony's next big flagship franchise.

Quotation forthcoming.

This game combines trademark Team Ninja stealth mechanics with an even tighter and more dynamic take on From Software's combat engine. The result is an intriguing experience that sports spectacular fights against tortured Shinto demons as its highlights.

Yakuza 0 offers a great story and loads of side activities, but dated mechanics keeps it from being considered a true stroke of genius.

The series has stagnated. The gameplay elements have grown stale, and I hope that the developers try to do something new in the next one.

None of the experiences are without fault, but together they make for a perfect warm up for the next chapter in the Kingdom Hearts saga.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a smart smart and extremely well executed revival of a classic game series.

Realm of the Wood Elves brings a fairly exciting campaign to Total War: Warhammer. The amber resource and the new focuses on alliances versus war forces us to think again on how to approach potential enemies, but as you grow more powerful, the game becomes a little bit easier, and a little more boring.

Space Hulk: Deathwing could have been a thriller of a first person shooter, but instead sticks to mediocrity in terms of somewhat archaic mechanics and its boring focus on horde-killing.

Together for Victory does a great job in fleshing out the factions of the Commonwealth and the Allied faction. States like Canada or the British Raj now offer unique playthroughs, and the addition of features like voice acting for certain factions, continuous focuses and a puppet system makes a great game even better.

Dead Rising 4 has obvious flaws. It is not a great technical game, has a lot of bugs, and it does not run as well as a lot of other games on console. It still manages to entertain with it’s humor, but it is a flawed game.

Steep looks good, and offers a lot to do, but does not provide good reasons to keep on playing.

If you’ve yet to try a game in the Farming Simulator series, this is a good entry point, but it does not offer a lot for veterans.

Final Fantasy XV is both a massive triumph and a let down. The world is great, the gameplay is spectacular, but the story falls through.

While Tyranny doesn't revolutionize the isometric role playing genre, its story, characters and progression system certainly demands attention, and makes for a fun, dark and interesting game.

Making courses in a streamlined editor on the 3DS is a joy, but the unexplained absence of sharing courses online takes away any interest in continued building and playing.

Batman - The Telltale Series is a good game with one of the best Batman stories in a good while. Telltale takes huge risks with the Batman universe, and thus makes the game an engaging and exciting experience.

Eagle Flight leaves me with mixed feelings. The first time you play it will knock your socks off, but you soon find a game with a lack of depth.

Storywise Gravity Rush 2 tries to do too much. It tells three completely separate stories, one of which is totally unnecessary and another that stretches on for far too long. That said, the iterations in gameplay mechanics are a welcome addition, and the colorful new environments are a sheer joy to explore, especially with the new photo mode that lets you share discoveries with other players.

A charming retro styled point-and-click adventure set on a remote farm in the fjords of Norway. The beautiful environments and the nostalgic graphics outweigh the few cliches and strange puzzles. The simple one-button interface in «Milkmaid of the Milky Way» makes it accessible for a modern audience.

Planet Coaster is more or less everything we could hope for in a roller coaster simulator. Sure, it would be great if we received a few tutorials here and there, but the fun factor is extreme, made that way by the excellent soundtrack, the city-building like strategy aspects and the gorgeous, merry (go-round) visuals.

The most beautiful and touching friendship this year, in spite of somewhat unstable game mechanics.

Rights of Man expands on Europa Universalis 4's already massive world. Great powers, institutions and new royal mechanics make for a more intriguing experience, and together create one of the best expansions in the game's history.

Watch Dogs 2 is an engaging, exciting and challenging game with a clear identity. Everything that did not work in its predecessor is gone.

Dishonored 2 is exactly what a sequel should be: a marked improvement on its predecessor in every relevant way. The level design is an explosion of creativity where every measure is taken to ensure that we can do things exactly the way we want.

Ashes of Ariandel attempts to tackle too many things at once, and loses focus. There are few negatives about the expansion in itself, it just doesn't have enough content. FROM had the potential to make a great expansion to the series, but put its efforts into developing the wrong aspect of the game.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare brings a fun single player campaign to the table, despite the lackluster characters and the shallow storyline. The multiplayer is what keeps me coming back, but with the latest maps being awkwardly designed, I'm spending most - if not all - of my time on Terminal, a map from Modern Warfare 2, which basically sums up the problem of the series. Call of Duty is in dire need of a gameplay revolution, and it shows from the most basic of movement patterns to how I'm shooting my gun.

Civilization VI builds on the great foundations of the series while taking important steps to innovate - among them the new districts in cities. But despite being the greatest game in the series, several smaller issues, such as annoyances related to the AI, keeps it from being a true marvel.

Job Simulator is great, colorful and charming fun, turning even the most ordinary task into a creative and interesting VR experience. It does however grow to be slightly monotonous after a while with each job, and there are some problems here that weren't as apparent on the HTC Vive.

Color Splash improves significantly on Paper Mario: Sticker Star's formula. An engaging, deep and genuinely funny adventure platformer, only hampered by a few, mildly annoying shortcomings.

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood is a good rail shooter, with interesting environments and plenty of scares. Just like its predecessor however, the horror relies too heavy on jump scares, making the experience feel predictable and somewhat cheap over all.

This lovely looking, great sounding platformer has a surprisingly deep and engaging narrative. It is well crafted to the point of surely being one of this year's finest.

With a solid campaign, and the brilliant multiplayer which will keep you going for days on end, the Gears of War franchise is in safe hands.

Batman: Arkham VR is a short and sweet VR experience, with great sense of scale, atmosphere and story telling. Being able to meet and interact with characters from the Batman universe is great fun, and thanks to a plethera of riddles and secrets to find there's also a great reason to go back for more.

Mafia 3 starts off with a bang, but does not manage to maintain its momentum. Despite great gameplay, a fantastic cast and a riveting story, the lack of depth and varied mechanics and opportunities halt an otherwise great game in its tracks.

XCOM 2 brings all of its strategy-goodness to the consoles. Despite a few performance issues and long loading sequences, the deep strategy mechanics and customization options create a tactical classic that console gamers might finally enjoy.

NHL 17 might just be the best hockey game there ever was, but returning annoyances and few real changes make for a game that isn't much better than its predecessor.

Klang is both fun and interesting in its first half hour but from there on out, the game tries to do too much at once, asking the player to cope with incredible amounts of tasks and frustrations at the same time. The game has a unique visual style, some really cool ideas and a swell soundtrack but that's simply not enough to make this a really good experience.

A refreshingly simple JRPG that emphasizes adventuring and exploration over flamboyance. An excessively slow start hurts the overall impression to some degree.

Destiny: Rise of Iron follows in the footsteps of its expansion predecessor. It maintains the already polished gameplay and desire for better loot, but the continued lack of depth, both in characters, story and general mission structure, stops Rise of Iron from becoming the game-changer The Taken King became one year ago.

Redout offers the speed and fluidity of a great futuristic racer, but lacks the polish and content required to be a truly great Wipeout successor.

Forza Horizon 3 is big, bold and beautiful. There's always something new to see, do or drive, and the game's mix of colorful, vivid graphics and an amazing soundtrack leaves the player with a constant, happy feeling. However, when compared to Horizon 2 there isn't all that much new stuff here, and the game's progression system is less than stellar, actively making huge parts of Australia feel empty and meaningless for hours upon hours.

World of Warcraft: Legion reinvigorates the world of Azeroth with superb storytelling across five beautiful and well-made new zones on the Broken Isles. Along with clever tweaks and changes to mechanics and a fun new class, this makes Legion one of the best expansions yet.

Seasons After Fall is a great platformer. By focusing on story and movement instead of violence, it creates a universe where you never think of how to beat the next enemy, but rather what it all actually means. Set to a great soundtrack and driven by charming voice acting, it is a game that makes you want to go forward - even when you have to revisit places you've been to oh so many times before.

While Verdun is a relatively intriguing experience on a computer, the same cannot be said of the newly released console version of the game. It is a downgrade in every was possible, be it visuals, audio, gameplay, or even the amount of players present. Verdun is an example of the worst console ports have to offer.

Nuka-World doesn't have much depth or intrigue to its story, but the world is varied and exceptionally fun to explore. There is enough content here to satisfy anyone who wishes to just walk around and get to know the park, especially if you're eager to expand your arsenal and Nuka Cola collection.

Metrico+ is like a difficult but fun maths test. The puzzles require you to think hard, but they never get too difficult. The visual style filled with graphs and diagrams is amazing.

Master of Orion is a visually appealing game, but for a strategy title that tries to impress, it's not enough to sport a pretty face. The wonder of a space exploration strategy is severely lacking, partly due to the arcade-like game design, and partly due to the lack of any real depth.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided builds and improves on its predecessor in every way. More freedom of choice, better versatility in the environments and a more balanced experience. And breach adds a fun, arcade-like and action-packed experience to the game.

The sequel to one of 2015s most charming games is just as much fun to explore, with a much bigger area at your feet. In spite of some hard-to-control movements – which are fixed with new abilities early on – this is just as much of a fun experiment as Grow Home, and one I recommend just as heartily.

There can be no doubt that Hello Games set out on a journey of extreme ambition with No Man's Sky. Unfortunately, too much of a good thing can turn into something bad, which sadly reflects the reality of this never-ending game. While it is a beautiful, inspiring and gigantic title, No Man's Sky lacks the depth, the polish and the substance of a truly great adventure.

While the Beastmen faction itself is a great one, offering new horde mechanics and fast gameplay, the campaign is lackluster and does nothing previous expansions have not already explored - and done much better.

Abzû wears its inspirations like a badge of honor, but there's so much more to this than just "underwater Journey". There's emotional weight behind every single aspect of the game, from the incredible music and visuals, to the ever-changing feel of its surprisingly meaty story and life under the sea. As a result, Abzû is simply an amazing game, one that you need to experience for yourself.

I am Setsuna is a charming and fun adventure that brings you back to the good old days of the JRPG.

The latest Star Ocean shines in its combat, but the small world filled with padding ensures repetition sets in quickly. With a bigger budget this could have been something special.

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens delivers mostly the same fun experience as before, but when only the fundamentals are the things that impress 10 whole years after the series' first release, the right kind of innovation is severely lacking with this one.

You have to run a lot in Dreamfall Chapters, but it is still an enjoyable story and an ending to a long journey. The story elements are in focus as the puzzles are usually rather simple and straightforward.

Considering its parentage, it was hard to imagine Trials of the Blood Dragon being anything but great. And sometimes it is just that, with stellar level design, good vehicular control and a real sense of style. Other times its far from great, with clunky walking and shooting, abysmal voice acting, and a ton of frustration throughout.

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is a step above its predecessor in almost every way. No, it's not perfect, but when everything seamlessly blends together – the parkour, the speed, the city, the gameplay and the graphics – this is an experience like no other.

Another charming and well-crafted Kirby platformer that successfully introduces playable robot mechs, a few new ideas in its level design, and a slightly edgier presentation.

This highly anticipated platformer falls flat on its back, having inferior controls, level design and overall presentation compared to the game series it attempts to recreate.

Hearts of Iron IV delivers everything grand strategy is about, and balances armies, navies and air forces with the need for resources and industry. It is a true strategy game that can be played in countless ways, and offers potentially hundreds and thousands of hours of pure enjoyment.