Fueled Up is a fun couch co-op game that delivers challenge and chaos in equal measure. Just bring some friends along for the ride.

In 2020, Mafia 2 is a game greater than the sum of its parts. It shows its age in several areas, and though flawed, it still has its merits.

Pop-quizzing Sphinx aside, the use of riddles and hints to figure out puzzles and object placement is a fun element, and overall Asha in Monster World is a fun old-school trip. There’s a bit too much doggedly vintage design at work here, but this is a remake of an old game. We hope Asha returns in something decidedly more expansive and modern though. With a bit more refinement, she could give Shantae a real challenge.

Is it actually fun to be a vampire? Let's find out together, in the latest attempt to export Vampire: The Masquerade to video games.

With extremely well-written characters, great quests that keep you busy for 40+ hours, and some smart adjustments for this platform specifically, The Outer Worlds remains a can't-miss experience. If you can play it elsewhere, you should, but if Switch is all you have or all you want, the pictures aren't as pretty, but everything else still shines.

Immortals Fenyx Rising: Myths of the Eastern Realm features a new story, protagonist, and world to explore. It works well, even if it feels a little hodgepodge.

If Stronghold: Warlords sees a little post-release love from the developers, it could turn into a great stepping stone for the franchise; there are some kinks that need to be ironed out, but it's got a strong base to build off of. If you're a long-term fan of the series or want something a little different with your next RTS, this might be what you're looking for.

Kirby Fighters 2 is a kid-friendly fighting game that holds rather limited appeal.

Madden NFL 25 truly brings the sports experience to life due to its impressive visuals, enhanced presentation, new commentary teams, and improved physics from the BOOM Tech system. However, this is about all the new standout features Madden 25 offers, as all game modes' core mechanics remain the same, leading to a disappointing experience that makes it hard to justify the hefty price tag.

Aquanox: Deep Descent continues a journey into the depths of the sea started in 1996 and proves blowing things up underwater is more fun than the Bends.

The Force Unleashed on Switch is a good port of a rather dreary game by today's standards.

Make no mistake, My Hero One's Justice 2 is a good, fun arena brawler on its own merits. Taken on its own, the game really does provide an amazing adaptation of the My Hero Academia franchise. The look is spot on, the expanded character roster is a treat, and the incremental changes the developers made really do make a difference, even if they're hard to see sometimes.

Hot Garbage was assumed to be aimed at players who have seen the whole game by now, but it ends up playing best for those still scanning the alien world.

Orwell's Animal Farm faithfully recreates and even reinvents the classic allegory at a time when it's never been more relevant for some players.

Overall, it’s a delightful game that makes you feel like a hero with clear goals. My biggest question is how Myths & Legends will be treated going forward and if all additions to this mode will be free, or if we’ll start to see price tags on them. But if you're a fan of Minecraft and strategy games, this is worth a peek.

This 15-hour trip through humanity's end of days will leave you envying the dead.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a charming if tedious RPG that probably shouldn't have been an RPG.

Aragami 2 has lots of potential but falls into repetition, some odd story choices, and frustrating online play.

If you're searching for a new gaming experience emphasizing teamwork and offering innovative game mechanics, highly responsive controls, and outstanding sound design, then Concord is the perfect choice for you. Despite encountering some negative feedback, Concord stands out as an excellent option for replacing other games, including hero shooters, extraction shooters, and battle royales. Additionally, Concord offers a refreshing change by steering clear of overly aggressive microtransactions.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground is a tough, roguelike strategy game not without its rough edges. But there's a fair amount of fun to be had for fans of Warhammer.

Major graphical overhauls and a massive change to the text create the best way to experience this classic post-apocalyptic title, although it's still mired in old-school mechanics.

While the game had its high points, there’s a lot of unexplored potential on the table. I found it hard to care about the people of the world, frequently becoming bored. I couldn’t buy into the story and immerse myself into the game as I’ve done with other games. Atlas Fallen isn’t a bad game — it’s just not an excellent one, either.

Windbound is a game that requires a lot of patience and by combining survival and adventure gameplay into one, it successfully creates a unique identity. There are a few shortcomings with sailing and crafting could use some additional depth, but 5 Lives Studios have brought us an entertaining adventure. if you can put these issues aside, this is an experience that comes recommended.

New Tales from the Borderlands is a vapid vision of its remarkable predecessor, bogged down by exasperating choices from beginning to end.

There’s no use avoiding this fact: An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs is ultimately a meme game, though Strange Scaffolding has done an excellent job on the writing. Packing a brilliant sense of humor, that fact is only made more prominent by the deliberately low-effort presentation and enjoyable dialogue. However, those merits get significantly bogged down by tedious gameplay design, one where progression relies on endless fetch quests with little variety. You won’t need long to complete Dog Airport Game, which offers a four- to five-hour campaign, but if you plan on sticking it out, do so in short bursts.

Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is a lighthearted, decently-written, short and sweet visual novel with strong core values.

Corruption 2029 is a competent tactical game that leaves you wishing it had spent just a little more time in development.

As of now, it's a fun addition to the Resident Evil 3 package but isn't available separately. It's got a good foundation to work with and feels unique enough to stand out if it gets the support it needs.

Despite all of those missteps, Forspoken skirts by on the merits of its traversal, combat, and upgrade systems. It won’t win any awards come the end of the year, but it's a decent podcast game, the type of title you can play while consuming other content in the background, all without feeling like you’re missing too much.

If Dark Souls were set in space, it would be Hellpoint, a strong souls-like marred only by its similarities to so many others in its genre.

King's Bounty II is an incredibly mixed bag for me so far, but I have hope that the story might get a bit more interesting. The open-world feels more like window dressing, however, and certainly pales in comparison to some of the other "living and breathing" worlds out there, even if it does look absolutely gorgeous. Still, it's the kind of experience that might pay off in the long run, so I can only wait and see.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is an entertaining platform fighter. It bleeds nostalgia, has a good roster of characters, and plays uniquely enough to stand on its own for casual and competitive players alike. The online portions are great when things are working. There isn’t much to do when they aren't, beyond playing local matches and the lackluster Arcade mode. Thankfully, All-Star Brawl was made with updates in mind.

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is a welcome return of an obscure, yet memorable PS2-era series. This revamp of the Wii U version still feels firmly rooted in the past, but it makes such superb use of atmospheric visual and audio effects that the overall experience is a unique take on horror games. It’s well worth giving this remake a second chance.

The beautiful and atmospheric rail-shooter of olden times returns stronger than ever.

Chocobo GP is built for fun but needs time and some more attention before it can really take the pole position.

Maid of Sker carries a proper tune in its story and setting, but faulty AI leaves much of this horror story feeling flat.

Fire Emblem’s original 8-bit adventure is back and for the most part, Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light still holds up well. While I question the rationale of releasing the NES edition over the superior DS remake, there’s still an enjoyable game here, and going back to where everything started is certainly enjoyable, boosted by some new quality-of-life improvements.

That’s not to say Saints Row doesn’t have redeeming qualities, but its memorable moments are so few and far between. It delivers what is expected from a typical action sandbox game, but only at the bare minimum. Most of what Saints Row has to offer has already been done better elsewhere. If you’re looking for an open-world game with silly fun and over-the-top action, then maybe it's worth taking a trip to Santo Ileso. Unfortunately for most, this reboot struggles to provide anything unique that makes it stand out from the crowd of similar games.

Alone in the Dark (2024) revisits the original 3D Survival Horror with respect for the 1992 game and the games inspired by it.

All in all, if you love games like Goat Simulator, you’ll certainly have fun with Squirrel With a Gun, although the game does not surpass the legendary series.

Empire of Sin has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it's buggy and full of odd design choices, never really reaching the heights it sets for itself. My only caveat would be to keep an eye on patches and feedback. If the developers stick with it, Empire of Sin could evolve into a comeback kid. Wait for a sale if you're desperate for mob action, as it's not in great shape currently.

If you're a big fan of Harry Potter and Quidditch, you'll definitely have some fun with Quidditch Champions. The game has huge potential, but I fear that it may be a multiplayer that doesn't last long. All in all, it's worth trying while it's free for PlayStation Plus members, but maybe not if you need to pay full price.

A game like Hood: Outlaws & Legends is a rarity: it takes some big swings to try and set itself apart from the pack. Unfortunately, it whiffs on a lot of them. There is a skeleton here that could turn into something really impressive, but it's hard to imagine a world where it attracts enough players to sustain itself long enough to evolve that far.

Destruction AllStars is a fun game to watch and play. However, the slow pace of progress and lack of tangible goals limit the motivation to continue playing. The funneling towards microtransactions for progress and paywalled single-player content is frustrating. That's not to mention balance between AllStars is sorely in need of work. The good news is all of these issues can be fixed. The bones of a really great online game are here.

Necromunda: Hired Gun is an enjoyable dive into the grime of Warhammer 40,000's most corrupt city. But all of the incredible atmosphere in the world can't hide its rough edges.

The campaign's variety in gameplay style, squad loadouts, and setting are all meant to serve as introductions to the online multiplayer suite. I'll be diving into more multiplayer over the next week as currently, there aren't enough reviewers playing to regularly populate lobbies.

Astor: Blade of the Monolith is an evocative and charming hack-and-slash adventure with plenty of bright ideas but sub-par mechanical execution.

Hellbound is a rip-roaring homage to classic Doom that hits almost all of the right notes.

Ashwalkers tells an open-ended story the right way, mixing equal parts agency and powerlessness, hope and despair. From its bleak, monochromatic world to one of our own that can be just as unkind to the downtrodden, Ashwalkers leaves a memorable message to take away from this ambitious game.

Based on what we've seen so far, Godfall's incredible visuals and stylish combat hold real promise, but its progression system is in question. There is an amazing foundation here with one of the most gorgeously detailed game worlds I have ever seen. [Review in Progress]

Override 2 certainly has issues, but the core of the game is solid, playable, and a ton of fun. The action can be frustrating to track, but the feel of combat is excellent and the diversity of characters rivals the best of classic versus fighting games.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered recreates the original's flaws, and like before, it's best enjoyed as a multiplayer-only game.

Edge of Eternity has heart and Midgar Studio should be proud of what they’ve achieved for a small indie team. I just wish I liked it more. Thanks to an uninspiring story, lack of overall polish, and some uneven visuals, the final product simply can’t match the developer’s ambitions, making this a hard game to recommend. If you’re curious to dive in, there’s still plenty to like. With a versatile combat system, colorful environmental design, entertaining side content, and old-school design, JRPG fans may find something to enjoy here. It’s on Game Pass at launch, so if you’re playing on PC or Xbox, you could always dip in that way, but otherwise, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.

It feels like the PC port of Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders could have benefited greatly from a bit more remastering. It seems like a game that had some fine ideas back in the day, but both genres it tackles have moved on to bigger and better things in the time it has been away.

There may never have been so promising a game so completely destroyed by launch bugs as Wolcen.

Liberated is a striking stealth-action comic book come to life, even if it is a little bit derivative.

Overall, Return to Moria is a solid entry in the survival genre. It has some unique gameplay mechanics that are fun to explore, while the Middle-Earth setting lets a dedicated fanbase venture into the world in a new way. Aside from bugs that will hopefully be resolved in soon-to-come updates, I can see it being a staple among players. I know it holds a solid spot in my survival rotation.

Ary and the Secret of Seasons proved highly enjoyable overall, bringing some solid Zelda-esque action to a beautiful yet chaotic world. But it’s hard to ignore the game's technical faults, even if the developers are working diligently to fix them.

Summer in Mara looks lovely right away, but the shine wears off quickly amid a long list of issues, both fixable and sadly, not fixable.

Foreclosed is, simply put, a sometimes broken, always flawed game. I want to see its presentation applied to another project, and perhaps even from this team. It's just, in this state and with these design decisions, I can't recommend Foreclosed for anything other than its comic book look. While we're in the midst of a cyberpunk revival that may eventually challenge zombies as a most common subgenre, I find there to be many better options for fans of this kind of setting and story.

Overall, I found South Park: Snow Day to be an entertaining story with a fun twist on the usual D&D meets dungeon crawler experience. Not to mention, it’s a great option to play with friends. The gameplay was smooth and challenging all the way through, allowing me to change my style by trying different weapons and powers. With all its great features, it becomes instantly replayable. If you’re a South Park fan, it’s a must to try!

Those Who Remain won't stay with you for long, but with some good scares and a story that twists more than I expected, it's a decent horror story for an evening.

Gord shows a lot of promise and is certainly enticing for those who like the genre. Unfortunately, it also needs a few improvements and tweaks, namely with unit behavior and pathing, to lessen any frustrations that you might experience.

Forgotten Fields is a flawed, sometimes frustrating experience, but its best moments are authentic and relatable enough to still make the journey worthwhile.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 is accessible to casual players, but it sneakily removes the depth Rot3K veterans might expect.

If you weren’t sold on Tennis World Tour 2 previously, Nacon’s next-gen upgrade won’t change your mind, but there’s an enjoyable simulator here and the Complete Edition is the best way to play. If you’re a serious tennis fan, this one comes recommended.

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind's gorgeous aesthetic and solid puzzling are no match for its lack of depth, emotion, and substance.

White Wolf's venerable Werewolf: the Apocalpyse RPG gets another try as an action game with unfortunate results. On some level, it’s almost worth playing for the same reason bad sci-fi and horror movies are worth watching, but that’s definitely not a recommendation.

Martha is Dead's failure to stick the landing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The narrative and mechanical ambitions don't coalesce into something greater despite some interesting mechanics throughout. It attempts to tell a careful story about mental health but eventually devolves into cliched story beats and emotionally manipulative moments that serve no other purpose than to shock you.

Despite a legitimately innovative and satisfying control and trick system, Skater XL just feels incomplete.

Despite flashy visuals and a relatively entertaining story mode, One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows's fighting mechanics are shallow and unsatisfying.

The faithful remake of this light-gun classic only serves to highlight how bare bones it is by today's standards.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the bulk of Gungrave was developed in the mid-noughties, because despite the passably-AA-of-late-PS3-era graphics, it’s practically identical to its predecessors, both in terms of gameplay and level design. And to be kind to the earlier entries in the franchise, they were verging on unwieldy 20 years ago. Basically, nothing has changed between them, save a graphical overhaul.

Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance is not, by any means, a good game in the traditional sense, but still proves that multiplayer and great visuals can go a long way to making something fun anyway. In the same way that a bad B-movie is still entertaining, Dark Alliance somehow feels a bit more charming because of some of its glaringly bad AI and design issues.

Wanted: Dead feels like a B-grade relic of a bygone era, released about 20 years too late. Combat can offer a satisfying rhythm once you understand it, but it’s also too basic to be truly exciting. The story is charming if nonsensical, but its stiltedness also leads to plenty of intentionally and unintentionally funny moments. Missions typically only task you with moving forward in uninspired environments, but the action -- and trying to stay alive -- means you may not notice.

Base One is a good survival RPG game set in space. There’s a level of strategy involved when it comes to crew selection, tech research, and building out your station. It feels like some areas could use a bit more attention, particularly the voice acting and audio, but otherwise, the controls and the core game loop feel good.

As it stands, Predator Hunting Grounds is nothing more than a hollow representation of the much-beloved franchise. It's a game desperately trying to keep up with today's trends of intricate leveling systems and loot-box rewards, but its gameplay and visuals hold it back years.

In short, if boring is one word to describe the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 campaign, “fine” would be another, and only if used generously. If you only buy CoD to play the single-player, don’t spend $70 on MW3. You’ll regret it. [Campaign Review]

While it's packed with old-school hack and slash action, Blackwind's lack of variety and lackluster mechanics leave a lot to be desired.

I’d call Redfall a decent to good co-op experience (high 7, low 8) that’s got a bad single-player game attached for free. Anyone who jumps on this for an immersive, weird Arkane Studios solo run – if you’re looking for Prey or Deathloop, now with vampires – is going to walk away not just disappointed, but bitter.

Much like the zombies that threaten the world, Daymare 1998 is a sluggish and ugly take on the Resident Evil formula that's best avoided.

I can really only recommend Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed to diehard fans of the series. It doesn’t have any gameplay or quality-of-life improvements that its 2014 sequel introduced, and as a result, it feels like a relic of the past. While there are some emotional moments in the game’s story and the cast of characters can be fun, the gameplay is a chore to get through. It's just disappointing that this is such a barebones remaster.

Crime Boss tries to stitch together a bunch of procedurally generated, samey content with a few Hollywood faces and call it a video game, but ends up not being much of anything at all.

Some signs of life persist, but this space game is largely a disappointing and tedious battle with a slothlike pace.

Taxi Chaos is a fun reminder why Crazy Taxi is so great, but also why we probably haven’t seen the series return. Had the game been more expansive, with greater variety and other modern amenities, this homage could have surpassed the original. As it is, it’s worth playing, but it definitely doesn’t shine as brightly as Sega’s original.

Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires can't make up for the shortcomings baked into the Dynasty Warriors 9 framework. Maybe Dynasty Warriors has just gone on too long; there are only so many ways to tell the same tale and upgrade the basic gameplay. Dynasty Warriors 8 understands the process, but that game came out eight years ago. Time marches on while it seems Dynasty Warriors marches backward.

PixelJunk Raiders is almost a good game and certainly isn't horrible, but its best bits, the roguelite systems and some tough melee battles, are still better done in other games in the genre, and those games aren't built around saving survivors who behave more like statues.

The Fridge is Red ultimately fails to conjure up the scares and often impedes its own momentum, even if there are flashes of compelling horror to be found.

Cooking Mama: Cookstar is a solid if predictable entry in the series that provides a decent amount of fun and content for the cost, but not much else.

Babylon's Fall is a baffling game that lacks any distinct vision, both in terms of gameplay and artistic design.

Balan Wonderworld tries to be an homage to nostalgic platformers from the PS2 era, but it forgets to be a good game in the process.

In the end, my experience playing The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was disappointing. A creative take on the character's journey interested me prior to its release, but the core concepts should also fall in line with what we've come to expect from the current generation of games. Outdated and plain bad mechanics simply mean that this title, much like the Balrog, should go back into the shadows.

This Is The Zodiac Speaking is two games in one, and while neither is stellar, one of them is certainly better than the other. In Serial Killer Mode, the Zodiac's pursuits feel broken and will leave you more frustrated than frightened, but switch the game over to its more investigations-heavy mode, and the true-crime nerds will get a kick out of the many details strewn about the game.

XIII makes a return as a remake of the 2003 original. It's a game that should have stayed in the past where it belonged. The bottom line is that this remake isn’t a very good experience.

For the seventh consecutive year, RBI Baseball has put forth a buggy, messy game for sale, and I genuinely feel bad for most everyone involved. I worry about the sports gaming fans that pick this up because they love baseball and don't know any better. I feel sorry for the developers who probably wish to be working on a different series. I feel some self-pity for taking the assignment, but I guess I was going to be stuck inside anyway.

Kingdom Hearts 3: Re:Mind rewards its most loyal players with an unrelenting new endgame, new modes, and a more filled-in story.

ITTA may not quite hit the levels its obvious ambition aspired to, but it still provides an enjoyable weekend distraction for bullet-hell fans.

Blood Rage: Digital Edition is a strong port of the popular tabletop game that's challenging for both newcomers and veterans alike.