The Pathless switches effortlessly between relaxing exploration and exhilarating story moments, and it's altogether incredible.

Constance is a beautiful and enjoyable Metroidvania that doesn't outstay its welcome. Filler free, the game instead throws plenty of well-designed and enjoyable boss fights at you, interspersed with tight, challenging platforming action. It follows the formula too closely to make it remarkable, but what it does it does with charm and flair. And the ending is a 'chef's kiss' moment.

The progression of nearly every story element is handled with almost mathematical precision. The results are gaming-by-numbers, but the whole is a hell of a lot of fun.

It has flashes of brilliance, but overall presents a shallow experience with gameplay unworthy of the 360's potential.

It's a damned impressive game by PSP standards, and if you're looking for a deep, brutal, high-quality PSP brawler with lots of variety and short load times, then you're not going to find one that's better than this.

Tag matches still feel like handicap matches, mainly owing to the fact that your AI-controlled partner doesn't actually do all that much, even when you call for help.

So those of us who aren't down with the difficulty level are going to want to play a game that utilizes the Xbox 360's potential with a balanced difficulty level that compliments the solid gameplay - and thereby restore self esteem - leaving Itagaki's insatiable bloodlust to the hardcore crowd that loves it so.

Great God Grove's system that has you sucking up speech bubbles remains novel throughout, with plenty of quirky characters and stories to uncover. With some fantastic highpoints, some more straightforward areas will have you yearning for a bit more depth.

The long-awaited remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin delivers an exciting and frequently gorgeous new setting to explore, a more rewarding combat system, and some of the best side quests and minigames in the series to date. Don't let the katanas fool you, this is the Yakuza you know and love at its very best.

Stellar Blade is more ambitious and varied than expected, but also about as clunky as expected, resulting in a stilted action RPG with a level of jank that you just have to accept. Meet it on its terms, and either tune out or embrace the odd sexual veneer, and it's a solid 20 to 30 hours of fun.

This massive, wonderfully diverse Call of Duty theme park is best enjoyed with a friend (or three). Going alone dampens the fun, but either way it's still worth the price of admission.

Nothing else has ever paired high tension with complete silliness like this, and Fall Guys reveals we should've been doing it a long time ago.

Until you've cleared route A in under four minutes you can never truly say that you've lived.

We can whine about how it might not be the best shmup we've ever played, but the best shmup we've ever played probably didn't cost $2, and Commander P. Jefferson's space odyssey is easily worth that to anyone who wants to shoot stuff throughout the universe.

That parade of cathartic moments still makes God of War 3 worth playing, especially given the vividness and eye-popping destruction woven into every major battle. It peaks and drags and peaks and drags, sure, but God of War at its high point was never going to be sustainable.

With strong combat and a fascinating world that mostly rewards exploration, Black Myth: Wukong is a fun action RPG that feels like the modern God of War games viewed through the lens of Chinese mythology.

It's hard to believe that any two-year-old game could be livened up this much with an expansion pack, but Big Huge Games has pulled off this trick just about perfectly with The Asian Dynasties. While the core gameplay is still recognizable, this is a great facelift that makes an old friend look young again.

Beast-hunting will test your reflexes while cooking them up will tease your brain, and Battle Chef Brigade's upbeat attitude and stylish looks will have you smiling the whole way through.

Once you understand enemy attack patterns and the game’s slightly slower than you’d expect timing, the level of challenge decreases dramatically. This, combined with the fact that Elika literally won’t let you die, could make things feel too easy and auto-piloted for some die-hard hardcore players.

Haunting, confrontational, and deeply cathartic all at once, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is a stunning feat of video game art. Ninja Theory doesn't tiptoe around its heavy themes but welcomes them with well-honed empathy, tempered by an even keener creative edge this time around to deliver an unforgettable narrative adventure experience that's hard to watch, yet harder to turn away from.

An agreeable adventure that's transformed into something special by its enchanting aesthetic.

It might not have the bells and whistles of the console versions or its PC predecessors, but this smaller colony is quite at home on the DS.

There's a lot to love in Gears Tactics. The ebb and flow of the action is strong enough that it can be easy enough to overlook its flaws, but they are still there – present and accounted for. It's a game desperately in need of a little variety; perhaps the same can be said of the core franchise games too, but it's particularly noticeable when there's a degree of separation between a command and the resulting action.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes rides a great hybrid battle system while barely slowing down for its beloved characters.

Madden’s detractors often, and incorrectly, refer to its annual release as a “roster update.” Madden NFL 25 is anything but; it’s better than last season’s solid effort, and when compared to releases from two and three years ago is light years ahead in terms of on-field quality and off-field activities.

The rippling effects of the Espionage system, Religion's modifications to the early and mid-game, and the abundance of changes and other bits of new content more than justify the price of the expansion. While it might feel a little lackluster in the short term, the amount of variation it will add to the hundreds of more hours we plan on putting into Civilization V will undoubtedly prove worthwhile.

If you like your RPGs old school, yet approachable in their difficulty, you can’t do much better than this.

Fire Emblem Engage resurrects the weapon triangle to great effect, making the turn-based combat feel like a game of death and dares, while an unmemorable cast of characters and an unexplored world sadly drag behind it.