With an enthralling mystery to solve while trying to survive a supernatural event, Oxenfree challenges you to solve a mystery, care about the characters, and make you want to play through the story again and again.

The sound track for the game is excellent and EA has done a great job of putting together a very listenable collection of music.

Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden is a deeply emotional collection of human stories, of both the protagonists, but also the settlers of New Eden. The combat is nothing great, but the stories within certainly are. You’ll be surprised at how easily you can empathize with late 17th century colonials, which is the magic of developer Don’t Nod.

Dead Rising 3 provides plenty of zombie killing fun and is a great game to pick up if you bought an Xbox One. Newcomers to the series will find an incredibly fun game with tons of replay value and co-op fun. Returning fans will find the same thing but may be turned off a bit due to the fact that the core game hasn't really changed all that much.

A game by people that really know a thing or two about making a memorable experience, and some of the extra features will have you coming back well into the new year (especially if you have friends).

Not only is this one of the best puzzle games on the Xbox Live Arcade, but it's also a fantastic looking game with a compelling gimmick.

Dead Space 3 capitalizes on everything that made its predecessors great, and expertly executes everything new. It has the psychological scares and claustrophobic environments of the first two games, but proves they aren’t the only ingredients for a tense experience, adding vast expanses that alter both the mood and gameplay.

I am a sucker for this very type roguelike deck building game, and in RogueBook I have found a worthy successor to my favorite in the space, Slay the Spire. While I might think Slay the Spire has that edge on the given mechanics and strategies of a single run, I believe RogueBook excels at world building, game progression, and re-playablity as new power-ups, characters, cards, map items, and challenges are unlocked not just on every run but especially after successfully completing the core game. Each is excellent, each game deserves to be enjoyed. To prefer one over the other is to prefer chocolate syrup over caramel, but in both you are treated to a delicious dessert of fun and strategic gaming.

EA UFC 4 takes a few steps forward with the changes in the fighting game but takes some back as well with the career mode which was bait and switched once again and barely has any significant upgrades.

While the game suffers in performance in docked mode, the pleasures gained in handheld mode more than make up for it. Even with the technical issues, this is a fine collection, and well worth the investment of both time and money.

Overall, a fun little puzzle game with a few nice quirks. Being able to build your own machines was a nice touch as well. However, its not really knockout stupefying or gorgeous, as the graphics are merely decent and the game's creative energy tends to drag a bit at times.

A good-looking, accessible, charming city-builder. Not much new here from Tropico 3, but lots of potential for Tropico 5.

PGA Tour 2K21 scratches the itch for the hardcore golf fans out there, but casual players are going to find a game that is lacking deeper options even though the game itself is beautiful. It's a good entry that hopefully is built upon in the future.

WWE 2K26 is a great move forward for the series and the developers have laid down a lot of exciting groundwork that can be expanded upon in future games. The grind is still as bad as ever, though, and the Ringside Pass needs to be changed so the DLC wrestlers can be earned much earlier than they are now. Those issues aside this is a WWE game that I will absolutely be playing through most of this year.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is a mess. There is fun to be had but there it really feels like Infinity Ward really had no idea what direction they wanted to take the series in. Space battles are fun, the campaign missions are fun and the new Zombies mode is a blast, but everything else is just so mediocre that it really brings down the experience.

Everspace took me a while to warm up to, but once I changed my control layout and started getting better at the dogfighting aspects, the game became a lot more fun. Between finding resources to survive and picking my fights with nearby outlaws or running away so I could live to fight another sector, Everspace never really feels like the same run twice, and that’s definitely a good thing.

Tales from the Borderlands is killing it in just about every capacity. The writers, the aesthetic, the voice actors, the gameplay, everything is living up to what I would want out of a non-FPS Borderlands game.

A solid and entertaining expansion to the series, Crossworlds offers up plenty of additional goodies to pull players back.

Offworld turns a spreadsheet simulator into a knock-down drag-out scrap for Martian resources and almighty dollars. The pacing is almost breakneck. But with so much transparency in delivering the numbers, it maintains a sense of fairness, even as black market tactics from less-scrupulous rivals threaten to tear down your 30-minute monehy-making empires.

Overall, FIFA 22 is the best new entry in recent years. But the nefarious gutting of play-to-win rewards in its most popular mode means that the shadow of pay-to-win microtransactions looms ever more over FIFA's latest entry.

This is yet another Capcom collection that pits two similar fighting games together for one cheap price. The good news is that both Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel Super Heroes are great games that hold up well. Unfortunately, the bad news is that you're going to get stomped online. With its creative use of filtering and goals to complete, Marvel vs. Capcom Origins is a must-buy for anybody with an interest in fighting games!

You’ll need to refresh your 8-bit platformer skills to survive the tower in Teslagrad, but doing so is well-worth the effort.

Inmost delivers a variety of gameplay styles, delivering three thoughtfully discordant narratives that tie together with a gut punch at the end. Beautifully constructed pixel-art graphics set a surprisingly somber tone, and the music is top notch at setting the horrific yet contemplative mood. Recommended.

Super Impossible Road has a solid core of gameplay, with a racing mechanic unlike any we've seen. The gameplay is fast and tight, and the visuals are astounding. Perhaps most fun in multiplayer, as the career can be a bit of a slog, this is still a unique racing game will worth a look.

Nine Noir Lives reminds me of childhood Point & Click titles with a grown-up edge. The cat detective and his misadventures with his voice recorder held my attention the whole time. If I were more into the genre, my detective skills might be better. Some puzzles that slowed me down probably won’t stump others, but I found them challenging. A story that required my attention throughout made Nine Noir Lives worth my time.

Bringing a new, adult spin to Zen Studios' winning pinball formula, Pinball M does enough new thing to differentiate itself from the Pinball FX mothership. Bringing a strong opening selection of tables and many ways to interact with them, Pinball M feels like the start of something new and mysterious. I can't wait to see where it goes next.

Despite having a strong legacy to build upon, this game somehow manages to somewhat disappoint. In fact, it may be time to let the entire WW II, FPS genre die with dignity.

Deathtrap's unique take on the tower defense genre by expanding player interaction with action and role-playing gameplay elements results in an entertaining and worthwhile experience. Both fans of tower defense and role-playing games are recommended to take a journey into the world of Deathtrap.