It streamlines the sport of golf so that you don't have to deal with any of it except the good stuff: hitting the ball and sinking shots. SimGolf's building and design elements are easy to use and surprisingly open-ended.

It's totally first-rate from a technical standpoint, and it's an all-around fun game to play on top of that, with excellent pacing, great explosions, clever strategic twists, a variety of units, and a fair amount of humor.

Even with the additions and tweaks made to the single-player game, anyone familiar with other versions of the game will find Quake III Revolution to be rather limited.

The expansion's substantial single-player campaign should last most players 15-20 hours, and while it doesn't have many surprises, it does offer some worthwhile new features that Neverwinter Nights fans should enjoy.

Dense with explosive content that satisfies on a fundamental level. Of the games that have tried to borrow the Grand Theft Auto style of play, Mercenaries is one of the most successful.

A stunning shooter that's got a bit too much plot and is over too soon, though it's still incredibly intense and, by all means, worth experiencing.

The game did add a parry maneuver that, when mastered, really changed the face of the game.

There's so much to OlliOlli World that you can always leave a course to try something else for a while before coming back. That freedom to just leave a problem and tackle it again later, or to shut off the point-scoring part of your brain and get into the flow, is what makes OlliOlli World so endearing. Its controls feel great, its art style is gorgeous, and its characters are light and fun. It's a game that will push you to be the most ridiculously skilled skater you can be, or just let you spend some time in its world for a bit. Either way, it's easy for hours to evaporate as you rattle off tricks and snag sick grinds. That seems like a perfect conception of skateboarding to me.

GRAW2 offers up a solid, though short, single-player campaign. But the bulk of its gameplay can be found in its impressive multiplayer offering.

Easy comparisons aside, this is a great game in its own right, narratively disjointed but mechanically sound, made up of excellent parts pieced together in excellent ways.

Yes, Viva Piñata is primarily aimed at the same audience that might enjoy the animated TV show of the same name. However, like hitting things with sticks or eating candy, you're not too old for its appeal just because you can get into PG-13 movies, drive a car, or claim a pension.

In the end, Resident Evil is a rare gem that has not only been able to make the jump from a video game to a computer game nearly flawlessly but has done so almost two years after it was originally released. Console gamers may want to check out Resident Evil on the PC - it is the only true uncut version of the game, featuring scenes not even in the recently released Resident Evil Directors Cut. If you aren't too squeamish, you should definitely give Resident Evil on the PC a look.

OlliOlli World is the kind of game that gets into your head and causes you to push yourself for just one more run or to seek a slightly higher score, and Void Riders continue to scratch that same undeniable itch. Roll7's skating game is full of clever, expertly constructed courses and fun, goofy characters, and Void Riders doesn't skimp on either. It might not bring a huge amount of new things to the game, but just having more great tracks to skate and explore is a worthy addition in its own right.

Ball x Pit shines brightest when it's letting you loose on enemies ahead of you, and giving you the tools to concoct your own brand of unstoppable chaos to fill the screen. It's easy to move from one run to the next when you're filling just a handful of minutes with thousands of enemy kills, accentuated by bright explosions and dizzying particle effectsBut your momentum can also be frequently halted by the vital town management moments in between them. Progression through Ball x Pit's campaign can feel uneven as a result, but, that's easy to overlook when the majority of the runs you embark on carry the potential to both surprise and delight in equal measure, with enough variety to keep the action in your final hours with the game as grin-inducing as your first.

Though they aren't very different from their predecessors, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon make enough changes to stand apart as the definitive version of the seventh generation games. An overly complicated story is offset by charming details that bring even more life to the most vibrant Pokemon region to date, and small fixes iron out the shakier parts of the original journey. If you make it through Alola a second (or even first) time, you'll be rewarded with a fun-filled and uplifting Pokemon adventure with its own share of spoilery surprises in store.

An absolutely great update to what was already a wonderfully spooky game.

Shin Megami Tensei V is a game that demands a lot of the player--its slow pace and punishing difficulty will more than likely turn some folks off. But those who stick with it will find an incredibly rewarding experience that only gets better the further in you get. SMTV truly makes you feel like the weight of this crumbling, conflict-torn world of mythological nightmares rests firmly on your shoulders--but it's a burden you'll be glad you chose to bear.

Fractured But Whole succeeds as an interactive South Park mini-series, while effectively emulating the show's current style of adult-targeted entertainment and satirization of political correctness. In other words, it's consistently amusing and provocative without the edginess the series used to be known for.

While Starfighter could have used a little more polish in both departments, the game presents a compelling story, excellent presentation, and gameplay that will surely satisfy fans of LucasArts' N64 shooters.

The game is made whole through an effective, ethereal soundtrack of post-rock instrumentals and ambient tones.

That's one giant leap for a franchise; one small step for a genre.

TimeSplitters' charm and "something for everybody" mentality means that you're almost certain to find something to like in Future Perfect.

Horizon Zero Dawn remains a visually enticing game with rich natural environments and snow-capped mountains to trek through, all of which can look better than they did on PS4 and PS4 Pro if you have the right PC specs. Given the density of certain towns or villages, or chaos of some combat scenarios, frame rate can take a considerable dip, making it a fairly demanding game, but it may also noticeably stutter occasionally, making for some inconsistent performance. (I've used a Core i7-7700K, RTX 2080, and 16GB of RAM at ultrawide 2560x1080 resolution using maximum settings and TAA, and had dips to around 35-40 FPS in those intense moments.)

If you've got the patience to learn as you play, then Planetside 2 will reward you with the tools of destruction required to bring its unique brand of chaos under control.

This is a game focused on the positivity that amusement parks can bring, one that fosters even the smallest spark of imagination and creativity. Planet Coaster's scenario-based maps are a delightful challenge, the included assets are full of character, and its Steam Workshop community is a stupefying bounty of creative talent and inexhaustible content. It's a game that occupies your thoughts when you're not playing it, and it's thoroughly captivating when you are.

Specter of Torment is a finely-crafted 2D platformer that is satisfying in all respects. Simply controlling Specter Knight--flying through the air and slicing through enemies--is a joy in itself, and being able to push your ability to control these skills in overcoming the game's cleverly-designed and challenging levels is always an exhilarating feeling. Specter of Torment is a focussed, polished, and satisfyingly challenging game that's well worth experiencing whether or not you've had the pleasure of playing Shovel Knight.

It's an engrossing twist on a set of systems that, while familiar, are sharply honed to create an engaging combat system and rewarding puzzles, making Unsighted one of this year's best-kept secrets.

Street Fighter X Tekken is fun for a wide range of players while still offering the complexity serious fighting fans have come to expect.