Even though the plot devolves into a trope-filled sludge pool by the end, I don’t feel like Scarlet Nexus was a waste of time. Yes, the excitement of combat begins to taper off towards the end of Scarlet Nexus’s twenty-odd-hour runtime--and the areas in the final stretch of the game feel overly long--but I had a good deal of fun mixing up my SAS abilities, crushing enemies in my Brain Field, and watching my team have a video game tournament at our base to settle an argument over living space boundaries. It might not be a new pinnacle of action-game storytelling, but Scarlet Nexus is still plenty of fun in the right places.

Even though the plot devolves into a trope-filled sludge pool by the end, I don’t feel like Scarlet Nexus was a waste of time. Yes, the excitement of combat begins to taper off towards the end of Scarlet Nexus’s twenty-odd-hour runtime--and the areas in the final stretch of the game feel overly long--but I had a good deal of fun mixing up my SAS abilities, crushing enemies in my Brain Field, and watching my team have a video game tournament at our base to settle an argument over living space boundaries. It might not be a new pinnacle of action-game storytelling, but Scarlet Nexus is still plenty of fun in the right places.

With three radically different styles of play and some seriously inventive courses, Mario Golf: Super Rush is a compellingly original sports game. Speed Golf and Battle Golf actively make you adapt to wildly different conditions while balancing technique and speediness. The three-click swing system still feels great, though if you desire an accurate motion-controlled golf game, this isn’t it. Golf Adventure curiously lacks a conventional tournament structure or record keeping, which actively dissuaded me from ever wanting to revisit it. Super Rush isn’t the best entry in the series, but it’s a worthy addition.

Sharing issues aside, Game Builder Garage is an endearing and fun-to-use game creation tool. While the software may not allow you to make the game of your dreams, it's a smartly designed and flexible package that gives you an impressive amount of freedom to create nearly anything you can think of. Even more importantly, it offers an illuminating (if highly simplified) look into the work that goes into creating a game, and that is its most invaluable lesson.

In the end, Intermission is a pit stop, a quick jaunt into the gas station minimart of Final Fantasy VII to refuel, grab a snack, and get ready to wait some more. With its fun combat and quirky character moments, it'll likely remind you of what you like about FF7 Remake--but it won't be enough to hold you over.

The fighting in Guilty Gear Strive, though, is impeccable. And that's what matters most. Like all Guilty Gears, it is a game of extremes. If you've tried the series and fallen off because of its complexities, I wouldn't expect a different outcome. If you're up for a challenge, or just want a cool, sharp-looking fighting game to mess around with, Strive knows all the right moves.

The fighting in Guilty Gear Strive, though, is impeccable. And that's what matters most. Like all Guilty Gears, it is a game of extremes. If you've tried the series and fallen off because of its complexities, I wouldn't expect a different outcome. If you're up for a challenge, or just want a cool, sharp-looking fighting game to mess around with, Strive knows all the right moves.

Stonefly takes flight in a fantastical world where you glide amongst giant trees, branches twisting improbable pirouettes in the sky. But the initial wonder soon sputters under frustrating combat design and runs aground against the mundane grind of its progression structure.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is flashy and technically impressive without feeling self-important. It's just as silly, sweet, and earnest as the Ratchet & Clank series tends to be, while the new generation of hardware makes this entry look and play better than ever. Like the heroes and villains and their dimensional counterparts, this one may appear different or carry itself with a new accent, but there's an underlying truth to the person underneath. At its core, it's still your trusty old pals on another grand space adventure. That's what's important.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition isn't this huge transformation for the original trilogy. The remastered Mass Effect 1 is a more enjoyable experience than playing the original game today, and makes for a far more palatable entry point to the series. And Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 look far better than they did before, with minor but welcome changes to specific pieces of content. But otherwise this remaster delivers the same experience the original trilogy did. In some respects, that's not a wholly good thing--time has reinforced and made clearer certain underlying issues of the trilogy. But there's a reason the Mass Effect trilogy is beloved by so many: Its strength resides in the wonderful journey that it sends you on, one that's preserved in this remaster.

Considering the overall quality of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown's combat it's easy to recommend giving it a shot if you're curious. If you can handle some iffy random connections and a dearth of single-player content, you will find an immensely satisfying fighting game experience that only gets better the more time you invest in it. However, I can't help but feel like a little more time to cook would have benefitted this release. Sega wants this game to be an ongoing thing, so updates are likely to add features, customization items, game adjustments, and gameplay modes. For right now, though, Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown remains a good--if flawed--return to the spotlight for one of gaming's greatest fighters.

World of Demons proves that Platinum Games' trademark action can flourish on small phone screens. The yokai mechanics are smartly implemented, while boss battles are intense and rife with adrenaline. The camera issues can be annoying, but they're not enough to ruin the thrilling experience onscreen. A Platinum Games title working well on iOS sounds like a long shot, but World of Demons is not only a fun mobile action game, but a solid title regardless of what platform it's on.

Knockout City's greatest strengths lie in its simplicity, but also in the ways it remixes traditional multiplayer elements to create something distinct. Its easy-going nature and straightforward mechanics reduce the time it takes to feel invested in each match, but it's really the subtle complexity underneath that keeps the action engaging and compelling over long play sessions. There's certainly room for improvement with the game's rotating match modes and some of its special ball types, but Knockout City nails the fundamentals to create multiplayer fun that will likely hook you for a long time to come.

Miitopia winds up being little more than a great character creator attached to an overly simple game that, while charming in its visuals and dialogue, is a mostly passive experience. Watching you recreate your favorite fictional character ships in-game or fighting Evil Guy Fieri has some brief appeal, but once those initial chuckles fade, Miitopia is disappointingly shallow. I’m sure there’s a great RPG yet to be made where you can team up with Mr. T, Goku, and Troy McClure to battle evil, but Miitopia is not that game.

The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, while mechanically similar, offer pretty different takes on the detective game. Do you want to slowly unravel the conspiracy behind a powerful woman's death in a quiet village? Or, would you rather chase down a murderer in a high-octane, spooky thrill ride? The former is better executed, but both are worthwhile opportunities to dust off your magnifying glass.

The Missing Heir and The Girl Who Stands Behind, while mechanically similar, offer pretty different takes on the detective game. Do you want to slowly unravel the conspiracy behind a powerful woman's death in a quiet village? Or, would you rather chase down a murderer in a high-octane, spooky thrill ride? The former is better executed, but both are worthwhile opportunities to dust off your magnifying glass.

While combat is fun in moderation and the crafting system is bizarre in all the right ways, the flip side of this is dull and monotonous quest design, a forgettable story, and hollow morality. There's still an enjoyable game here, but a lot of unfortunate caveats come attached to that statement. Yet while it might not always hit the mark, Biomutant is an ambitiously flawed game from a small studio, and the games industry could always use more risky endeavors like this one.

NBA 2K21 Arcade Edition tries to bring the NBA 2K experience to mobile, but it throws the ball out of bounds more than it sinks the open jumper. While the players on the court look good on the phone, the occasional errant movement or visual glitch breaks immersion fast. The repeated audio cues are annoying, the limited mode selection limits the game's longevity, and the touch controls are a detriment. There's a solid NBA game here if you use a controller, but there are so many frustrating elements around it that it's better for everyone to not enter this NBA Draft.

All in all, I'm enjoying playing Mass Effect 1 again, something I never thought I'd say (I find the original game's combat too frustrating). I'm eager to get back to it, and see how the Legendary Edition may have changed Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 as well. [Review in Progress]

But without interesting characters or a story the focus falls solely on the gameplay, and Hood's gameplay feels sloppy. It's a heist game that usually devolves into a wild, frustrating melee combat arena. In its best moments, it's a tense, highly cooperative experience, but those moments never last long. I want to believe in the competitive heist Hood tries to pull off and, in theory, a living multiplayer game could evolve into something better over time. (There are already plans to introduce a new game mode, map, and character for all players within the next 12 months). Still, there are too many points of frustration built into the experience to expect that Hood's evolution will be transformative.

If Valhalla is a love letter to the Assassin's Creed series, connecting each of the previous 11 mainline games and unifying their frayed plotlines into one cohesive thread, Wrath of the Druids is an unneeded and, frankly, unwanted postscript. It adds nothing worthwhile to Eivor's story and her overarching character arc of learning that there's more to life than subverting fate. And in terms of mechanics and features, it doesn't satisfyingly iterate on any of Valhalla's existing gameplay loops, providing another dozen hours of the same activities you'll already get from the existing 60+ hour main campaign. Those still playing Valhalla may find some benefit in going through Wrath of the Druids for some extra XP to boost Eivor's character level and find some awesome loot and combat abilities, but the DLC is a mediocre Assassin's Creed experience, even without comparing it to Valhalla's main campaign.

Taiko no Tatsujin Pop Tap Beat is a solid offering for Apple Arcade, though you won't be playing it for a terribly long time. Tapping to the beat of the 30+ songs on the playlist is fun, the colorful whimsy of dancing animals that plays out on-screen during a song is delightful, but there's only so much a playlist that small can do, and so you may find yourself lacking a reason to stick around. It's fun while it lasts, but Taiko no Tatsujin Pop Tap Beat only marches to the beat of its own drum for so long.

Resident Evil: Code Veronica is the best game in the series, thanks to features like dynamic real-time camera angles, a wonderful linear story, and some of the best graphics seen on the Dreamcast. To call it a must-own game is a definite understatement.

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.

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Resident Evil 7 was an excellent return to the horror underpinnings of the franchise, but cunningly altered with new ideas and a new perspective. Similarly, Village is an intelligent reintroduction of the best action elements of Resident Evil. Though it captures some of the same things that made RE7 such a breath of fresh air (or maybe rancid, stale, mold-filled air, but in a good way), Village evolves to become its own unique creature. It makes you wonder what beautifully twisted fiend Resident Evil might mutate into in the future.

Resident Evil 7 was an excellent return to the horror underpinnings of the franchise, but cunningly altered with new ideas and a new perspective. Similarly, Village is an intelligent reintroduction of the best action elements of Resident Evil. Though it captures some of the same things that made RE7 such a breath of fresh air (or maybe rancid, stale, mold-filled air, but in a good way), Village evolves to become its own unique creature. It makes you wonder what beautifully twisted fiend Resident Evil might mutate into in the future.

Resident Evil 7 was an excellent return to the horror underpinnings of the franchise, but cunningly altered with new ideas and a new perspective. Similarly, Village is an intelligent reintroduction of the best action elements of Resident Evil. Though it captures some of the same things that made RE7 such a breath of fresh air (or maybe rancid, stale, mold-filled air, but in a good way), Village evolves to become its own unique creature. It makes you wonder what beautifully twisted fiend Resident Evil might mutate into in the future.