Once clear of its port of origin, this clever, humorous tale unfurls its sails and becomes a thoroughly entertaining swashbuckling adventure.

EA's latest NHL title creates one of the most legitimately exciting interpretations of the sport you've ever played.

A great roster with a wide range of diverse fighting styles and variations gives you plenty to play around with, and the new fighting mechanics add the right amount of depth to nudge Mortal Kombat X ever higher on the list of respectable fighting games.

It's still not the most welcoming game for newcomers, stacking systems upon systems upon systems, but for veterans and those willing to put in the effort to learn, there's never been a better time to hop in and entrench yourself in the virtual dugout. Football Manager 2019's tweaks will have you happily settling in for another mammoth play session of juggling egos, pipping your rivals to the signing of a wonderkid, and smashing in a 90th-minute winner to capture a league title in triumphant fashion.

Persona 4 Arena is a fast-paced fighter that can be easily enjoyed even if you're not a Persona fan. With the auto-combo system, combat is initially accessible, but it quickly reveals its complexity as you explore the intricacies of each character's persona and individual traits.

Delivers more, more, more of what made the first game superb--but it's so similar to its predecessor, it's inherently less inventive.

Humanity is a charming, engaging, and inviting puzzle adventure of a breed that seems all too rare nowadays. Its constantly-evolving gameplay, unique premise, and striking audiovisual landscape make for a game that's easy to get sucked into for long periods of time. Even better, when you finish the main game, you can dive into the various user-created levels folks all over the globe are already crafting--or try your own hand at creation. Creation is something humanity excels at, after all.

Shivering Isles adds more than enough new and interesting content to give you a great reason to dive back into the world of Oblivion.

Your mileage may vary, but in our experience, the bugs are obtrusive and substantial across the board, often forcing us to reload saves or exit the game entirely. It's hard to get really into a world you constantly have to leave. But then it's hard to get into Cyberpunk 2077's world in general. So much of it is superficial set dressing, and there's so much happening all around you--ads going off at all times, gunfights breaking out in the streets, texts coming in about cars you'll never buy--that a lot of the game feels superfluous. The side quests and the characters they showcase are the shining beacon through the neon-soaked bleakness of Night City, and they give you room to explore the best the core RPG mechanics have to offer. These are what carried me through an otherwise disappointing experience.

Ultimately, Madden NFL 06 is a highly playable game of football, but in comparison with the leaps forward the franchise has made in previous years, 06 feels like a false start.

While it's an inferior proposition to its initial release in 2011, Xenoblade Chronicles 3D remains superior to the majority of RPGs.

Cairn may have fewer mechanics than some games, but it drills down on what's there so successfully, and regularly tests the players' resolve and accomplishment of these skills, that I was often itching for the next challenge it'd send my way.

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright is an absolute delight to play, from the battlefield to the bedroom. If you loved its predecessor Awakening, you'll enjoy the heightened tension and intimacy imbued in every moment of Birthright.

This is as authentic a portrayal of rally as you’re likely to find, and proves to be not just a return to form for Codemasters, but its best game to date. Just don’t expect it to treat you with any courtesy.

Sonic Mania methodically uses its sentimental appeal to great effect, but in the process, it heals the wounds inflicted by its most disappointing predecessors and surpasses the series' best with its smart and interpretive design.

Crafted during anxious times for Nintendo, developed for two consoles simultaneously, this was the GameCube's last hurrah, a Wii launch title, and a defining test for motion controls (which have been stripped out). Perhaps now, ten years later, it can finally be remembered how it ought to be; the dark and violent showpiece of a treasured series.

Its real-time strategy elements and its focus on cooperative piloting tactics are so central to its gameplay that Allegiance can be very challenging to learn, but it's well worth the effort.

If you're a fan of college basketball, the attractive presentation, smooth online play, and deep legacy mode are all good reasons to check out ESPN College Hoops 2K5.

Cadence of Hyrule is a fantastic Zelda game in its own right, even though it adopts the gameplay mechanics of another series. Beyond the aesthetics, it nails the satisfying sense of exploration and increasing power, and it revels in the joy of discovery, as all the best Zelda games do. It's an extremely successful melding of two great game series and an experience that makes you feel eager for Nintendo to do more interesting things with their major licenses.

Monster Hunter Generations still feels like a niche, punishing game that bears more in common with Dark Souls than an adventure game you'd typically find on 3DS. But that punishment never feels arbitrary.

Unique time-travel mechanics and a creative combat system make this RPG a refreshing change.

Portrait of Ruin is a great game not because of what it does differently, but because it stays true to the familiar Castlevania design and delivers a fun, lengthy adventure.

Risk of Rain 2 is lo-fi beats to relax to with the bass boosted until the subwoofers catch fire. And explode. And bleed? What begins as a chill loot-shooty time quickly escalates to a frantic fight for your life where everything is burning and there's a big red target on your back. The lack of any strategic layer between the action did leave me feeling burned out. But the additive nature of the game's builds give Risk of Rain 2 the feeling of a pebble skittering along a rocky cliff. When the avalanche begins, enemies would be well advised to get out of your way.

The first act is just brilliant. Not only is the core card game at its best, but it's also where those mechanics are best served by the richly atmospheric trappings surrounding them. The following two acts admirably offer new twists on the mechanics and a different perspective on the narrative, but neither prove as satisfying as the original. Alone, Act 1 is one of the best games of the year, but everything that comes after drags it back into the pack.

It's hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment if you're a fan of the series. Sam's newest adventure doesn't offer the challenge you may be expecting, and recent stealth-action hybrids like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Batman: Arkham Asylum provide much more satisfying single-player experiences. Yet stellar storytelling, fantastic co-op play, and rewarding executions make Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction a legitimately great game that delivers frequent surges of excitement.

Put simply, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is an absolute delight. This is a combination that shouldn't work and yet it more than works--it excels. When Ubisoft announced Kingdom Battle, the concept seemed so goofy that its success came as a surprise. Sparks of Hope is an improvement in every meaningful way, from the characterization and world-building to combat variety and flexibility to environmental diversity. Ubisoft loves and respects these characters, and has now shown definitively that even something as familiar and comfortable as Mario is still capable of surprising us over and over again.

Its innovations with regard to timed-run and in-level goal designs are sure to become trends used in the next generation of alternative sports games.

The Talos Principle is an absolute joy to play, packed to the gills with expertly designed puzzles and enough ancillary content to make any history of philosophy buff salivate. But all of that is almost beside the point in the face of the game's thematic ambitions.