What seems at first glance like a fairly standard genre game, Toukiden 2 ultimately offers an interesting setting, imaginative creature designs, story- and exploration-driven gameplay, and unique combat elements. While its flaws are obvious, it’s not hard to forgive them when you’re in the heat of battle, chopping off a hellish spider-demon’s legs one by one and watching its life force disappear with every slash, shot, and punch.

Surge is far from perfect, but none of its problems are deal breakers. They're minor bumps that come from an otherwise inventive, exciting new entry in a packed sub-genre. It bucks the trend towards creative bankruptcy, adopting some fresh ideas and layering those together with aesthetics, tone, and play to create an inspired adventure.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D plays a great game of football but feels bare when it comes to features and game modes.

It's promising that EA is listening to its community. FIFA 19 is much more responsive on the pitch than last year, and the company continues to evolve FUT to keep it fresh. However, the lack of progress in Career Mode and Pro Clubs is sorely inadequate. Thankfully, The Journey's continued entertainment, FUT's long-lasting nature, and some inventive new Kick Off modes mean I'll likely still be playing FIFA 19 by the time next year's game rolls around.

The unpredictable human element is both an asset and a liability, and the technical problems that have plagued it are far too significant to be ignored. But when it clicks, as it often does, there's nothing quite like GTA Online.

NHL 17 is a great game of hockey, but unlike last year, there isn't a standout mode or feature that makes this game substantially better than its predecessor.

It's promising that EA is listening to its community. FIFA 19 is much more responsive on the pitch than last year, and the company continues to evolve FUT to keep it fresh. However, the lack of progress in Career Mode and Pro Clubs is sorely inadequate. Thankfully, The Journey's continued entertainment, FUT's long-lasting nature, and some inventive new Kick Off modes mean I'll likely still be playing FIFA 19 by the time next year's game rolls around.

Crash Team Rumble demonstrates developer Toys For Bob's continued understanding of the Crash series by looking, sounding, and feeling like a Crash game even as the finer details are so new and unfamiliar for the team. The sports-like aspect of each match is delivered very well, offering more depth than initially meets the eye. A slew of strategies can result in victory, and cohesive teamplay is the fast track to success, making every victory feel earned and so much more rewarding. The game's matchmaking and metagame aspects leave a lot to be desired, but the hope is these can be fixed in time, so long as the buy-in doesn't scare away any potential for a thriving community.

Though the additions and adjustments to the standard Worms experience aren't game changing, the playful violence and light strategy still hold up.

It's difficult not to enjoy the rhythmic nature of Ghostrunner 2's finely-tuned blend of parkour and action, and it's also impossible to ignore some of the ways this sequel tries, but fails, to expand on its predecessor in terms of scope. It's disappointing that in most regards the increased ambition detracts from what makes Ghostrunner so captivating in the first place, taking time away from the expertly designed combat arenas and satisfying platforming gauntlets and using it instead to explore a barren, empty world with no novel ways to traverse it. Ghostrunner 2's narrative also fails to provide a compelling stopgap to ease the transition between these two distinct phases of the game, but when this sequel does course-correct back to what made it so popular to begin with, it provides an enthralling action experience. Ghostrunner 2 pulls back just in time before getting too close to the sun to remain an entertaining sophomore entry in the series that hopefully won't end here.

Despite a lot of bugs and some off-putting quirks, Magicka is still a good action role-playing game.

This role-playing sequel's big world and seemingly countless quests make it easy to overlook its wrinkles.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A is a fitting end to the Switch 1-era Pokemon games. Like Legends: Arceus and Scarlet and Violet, it takes some surprising risks, but it looks rough doing so. Game Freak's decision to overhaul the battle mechanics for the first time since Pokemon's inception is admirable, and it ultimately paid off. But after five 3D Pokemon games, it's frustrating how far behind Pokemon is when it comes to its presentation. It feels like the last piece missing to really bring Pokemon into the future.

It rides off a lot of what NHL 16 did, and the new additions don't add anything crucial to the experience. It's still a lot of fun to trade players in Franchise, build a formidable roster in Hockey Ultimate Team, and actually play matches, but if you were hoping NHL 17 would be a significant step forward for the series, you're out of luck.

Retro/Grade succeeds at bringing a fresh take to the rhythm genre and filling it with sensory pleasures, but a lack of music means it outstays its welcome sooner rather than later.

As a spin-off, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands doesn't reinvent the Borderlands wheel with its shift towards fantasy that bears a chaotic-neutral alignment. Instead, it explores familiar territory that repeats the best and worst of the Borderlands formula and it doesn't venture out of its comfort zone. That makes for a game that is packed with solid first-person shooter action and a competent multiclass system for creating an interesting Fatemaker. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands retreads the same mechanical and narrative ground as Borderlands 3, ultimately creating a chapter in the franchise that's fun but forgettable.

Perhaps the next true frontier is the search for a procedural generation system that can create something more ostentatious, something that can surprise…something not so visible derived from an underlying system of ones and zeroes. But then, maybe it's there in Elite: Dangerous, in its way, and the problem is that I need to learn to start being more impressed by LaGrange points.

This railroad-inspired board game offers subtle strategy and an easy learning curve for less than the price of a real train ticket.

Fallout: New Vegas - Honest Hearts is a conventional but enjoyable addition to the series.

Ultimately, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is a solid competitive platform fighter, but it's lacking in several key elements. If you've got a group of buddies that enjoy competitive Smash and have a lot of love for Nickelodeon's catalog of cartoon characters, you'll find All-Star Brawl quite satisfying. But if you're looking for substantial single-player experiences or a fun mess-around party fighter you can play casually with friends and family, you're going to run back to the warm embrace of Nintendo's juggernaut very quickly.

Fortunately, though, that main attraction is delightful. Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe feels like a very complete package thanks to a remastered platformer campaign, substantial new Magolor epilogue, and smart new additions like the Mecha ability and Helper Magolor mode. It might be a little simple for some tastes, but it's grand fun to get lost in such a sweet little adventure regardless.

On some level, Point Blank DS really is an interesting experiment on Namco's behalf, but frankly, Point Blank was more interesting when it was a light-gun game.

It's a pleasant start, packed with individual events but featuring little in the way of narrative propulsion. When I reached the end of this episode, I wanted more. I'm hoping that, like most outstanding Minecraft creations, Minecraft: Story Mode just needs a little more time to build.

The campaign is Back 4 Blood's main draw, but you really need a group of friends to enjoy it to its fullest. As a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, it ticks almost all of the right boxes. The modern additions add to the game's variety and ensure that each run is unique, while the moment-to-moment gunplay is intense and incredibly gratifying. The overwhelming frequency of the special infected, and their disappointing blandness, is a downer, and the lack of some quality-of-life features makes playing with strangers more frustrating than it should be, especially when you're penalized for playing alone. The landscape of cooperative shooters has changed a lot in the past 12 years and Back 4 Blood might not live up to the heights of Left 4 Dead at its peak. Nevertheless, Turtle Rock's return to the genre it created is still excellent fun, provided you have others to share in the zombie-bashing.

You need to understand and revel in a bonus level that involves nothing more than destroying a car in order to fully grasp why this DLC is special.

With solid presentation, combat, and customization, LBX: Little Battler’s eXperience is a satisfying game that is more involved than it seems. It’s not without its faults, including unwieldy, sometimes tedious design, but to write it off as just another kid’s RPG would do it a massive disservice. Level-5 has created an action-RPG that--even with its faults--is still an entertaining offering.

If you own Batman: Arkham City but prefer confronting thugs within the context of the game's story to doing so in the Riddler's Revenge challenges, the Nightwing Bundle Pack (which costs $7.00) probably won't make these isolated challenges more enticing. However, if you do enjoy these scenarios, Dick Grayson's unique abilities and the different medal challenges that go along with them make suiting up as Nightwing a fresh and enjoyable new way to take out bad guys and stake a claim to the leaderboards.

Continue's commentary on mortality, existence, and what is truly important in our lives will persist long after you put the game away. It is a pity the actual game supporting this evaluation isn't as rich as the subject matter it addresses.