With an engaging world to explore and consistently satisfying combat to keep things entertaining, it's easy to fall in love with Death's Door. Its premise hooks you immediately, and it has the style and the substance to maintain the captivating allure of its opening. Perhaps most importantly, it's just consistently fun to play, with sharp enemy designs that keep you on your feet to challenging boss fights that test your skills in satisfying ways. There's a lot of death to deal and souls to reap, but Death's Door makes it a delight every step of the way.

Superliminal is a great puzzle experience, full of smart ideas that are richly realized. The game's playful use of the first-person camera and clever perspective manipulation puzzles take video game tropes and mechanics most players will be familiar with and wring something truly fresh out of them. Superliminal achieves its clear central aim--it offers up some genuinely fresh perspectives on what first-person puzzle games can do.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World takes an already-great game and gives you more of it. The upgrade doesn't feel as essential as the Zelda Switch 2 Edition games, because those helped ambitious games run more smoothly and fully realize their original potential. But it is more substantial than either of those, by nature of adding new story content and stages to explore. Kirby and the Forgotten Land was already a platforming buffet, and this add-on is a great reason to go back for seconds.

Realm of Shadows establishes a compelling Bruce Wayne narrative and is an exciting start to the series.

Coming back to Horizon for The Frozen Wilds alone is still worthwhile for the fights and sights, but it ultimately feels like a missing chapter, rather than an eye-opening extension of what came before. It's easy to imagine how newcomers to Horizon will benefit from its new gear and skills the most, for example. Likewise, its story feels better suited as an interlude than the revelatory companion to the conclusion it tries to be. Yet these are feelings that come up after more than a dozen hours of riveting battles and serene hikes flew by, so it's hard to get too upset at such a captivating experience when it's all said and done.

History is turned on its head with a great story and compelling gameplay that keeps the tempo moving.

Spider-Man 3 is a slick beat-'em-up that uses the touch screen in ways that actually enhance the experience of playing the game.

From its terrific weapon crafting system to its deep well of side content, Dead Space 3 is a massive game rich with options and personalization.

Much like From Software's earlier entries, Dark Souls III obscures its plot beneath its gameplay elements--the story is more concerned with tone than exposition. But what plot there is asks important questions: why do we place our idols in such high regard? How did they become our legends? The Lords of Cinder are imposing figures in Dark Souls III, and their power is attractive to pawns like us. But the end of their road is a lonely one--was that destination worth the sacrifice it took to get there?

With an engaging world to explore and consistently satisfying combat to keep things entertaining, it's easy to fall in love with Death's Door. Its premise hooks you immediately, and it has the style and the substance to maintain the captivating allure of its opening. Perhaps most importantly, it's just consistently fun to play, with sharp enemy designs that keep you on your feet to challenging boss fights that test your skills in satisfying ways. There's a lot of death to deal and souls to reap, but Death's Door makes it a delight every step of the way.

The third add-on pack for Fallout 3 is packed with action and gives you plenty of bang for the buck.

Band Hero makes fake plastic rock easy to pick up, family friendly, and a whole lot of fun.

There's definitely room for improvement down the road, but Rocksmith's debut has one thing going for it above all else: it's the real deal. This ambitious guitar game delivers on its promise of intense rhythm gaming action tied to the act of actual guitar playing. It has something to offer players of all skill levels, whether you're picking up and learning the guitar for the first time or have been playing for ages.

This is a game rife with options and flexibility, building on the strengths of the franchise with clever new ideas that let you tailor the experience to your liking. It hits a few sour notes in its story and struggles at times when it steps away from the core combat, but Dead Space 3 is a thrilling and worthwhile sequel.

Dear Esther spins an intriguing narrative, leaving you to decipher not only the outcome, but if this is even a game.

There are several possible endings to Dark Souls III, and although most are anticlimactic, they drive home the loneliness of the paths we took. The old lords have abandoned their posts, and in the hunt to usurp them, we descend into those dark valleys, and climb those imposing peaks. This is the essence of Dark Souls III: periods of doubt, followed by great reward. The journey may be rocky, but there's a throne waiting at the end.

It's surprising how much Doom: The Dark Ages manages to reign in some of the changes Doom Eternal made while also taking the series in a wholly new direction that redefines its rules of engagement. The emphasis is on melee combat that harmonizes beautifully with the tried-and-tested pace of Doom's action, making each new attack parried and counter-attack landed feel as satisfying as the first. It's a finely tuned adventure that delivers the power fantasy of ripping and tearing through thousands of demons without losing an underlying complexity that makes each encounter engaging to blast through. Although it can falter at times when straying too far from the fundamentals, Doom: The Dark Ages shows that there's still so much fertile ground that this series can explore, and that sometimes smart, measured changes can take the series in surprising new directions and yield some of its finest moments.

The newest Def Jam fighter may be an update of a nearly two-year-old game, but this PSP brawler still packs a punch.

Evergate is remarkably clever. It's a short and sweet treat of a game that constantly invents new ways to interact with the world and to blend game elements together, making for a satisfying test of brainpower and reflexes.

There's definitely room for improvement down the road, but Rocksmith's debut has one thing going for it above all else: it's the real deal. This ambitious guitar game delivers on its promise of intense rhythm gaming action tied to the act of actual guitar playing. It has something to offer players of all skill levels, whether you're picking up and learning the guitar for the first time or have been playing for ages.

This beautiful, gravity-defying multiplayer action game is a robot-killing blast.

An uproariously fun and enjoyable post-Apocalyptic adventure that is a little too familiar at times.

This sequel goes light on the role-playing, but still presents a compelling puzzle experience that's as enjoyable and addictive as the original.

For all the risks Sunset Overdrive takes with its vibrant art direction and intuitive level design, the Mystery of the Mooil Rig is a fundamentally safe spin-off. It’s impressively consistent with the main game, and enough that relearning the controls takes no time, even if you haven’t touched Sunset Overdrive since launch week.

Evergate is remarkably clever. It's a short and sweet treat of a game that constantly invents new ways to interact with the world and to blend game elements together, making for a satisfying test of brainpower and reflexes.

A great game overall. Its voice acting, with the exception of the Borg, is superb--the game even features Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard, who provides voice-over for the game's tutorials.

Arc System Works continues to set a high standard for fighting games with DNF Duel, creating an experience that's both simple enough for new players and robust enough for fighting veterans. 16 unique characters offer plenty of variety, the core fighting system rewards players who dig into it, and the online offerings feel like the arcade scenes of old. I would have preferred a more in-depth story mode, but the rest of what the game brings more than makes up for the misstep. DNF Duel not only excels as a fighting game, but it also reinforces the versatility of the entire genre through its adaptation of an established IP into a whole new experience.

I consistently enjoyed Technobabylon. The puzzles are always meaningful, and the story proves that you can teach the aging dog of cyberpunk some new tricks.