Anthem is a competent looter-shooter. It is not an overwhelming, hallelujah-inducing entry into BioWare's storied history, but it's fine. I doubt I'll engage with the game past unlocking the final javelin, even though there is that tease at the end of further content.

I really want to like this game more. NiCO's a fun new character to add to the mix, and the DOA Quest mode is a lot of fun. But the middling story, and ridiculous costume grind kind of shows how little new content there is to this game. Maybe down the line it'll be a fully fleshed out experience, but at least it's off to a better start than Street Fighter 5.

The King’s Bird has the potential to be wonderful—and in its art and music, it is. Based on that alone I would play it all day. But the sense of freedom it is trying so hard to evoke is held back by its finicky controls, and since the game’s very foundation is meant to be freeing, it falls short. Altered controls and a slightly wider margin for error, especially on console, would really let The King’s Bird soar beyond the confines of its cage, and boost its mechanics up to the high tier of its design.

This is the best 4x game to grace the current generation of consoles, possible the best 4x game to grace any generation of consoles; but that's kind of like winning a race when you were the only genuine competitor. It still suffers greatly from a frustrating mid-game but if you've got the itch to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate on a console this will scratch it.

I had the most fun in New Dawn during two states: when I was at my most stealthy and, conversely, my most reckless. Those are Far Cry’s sweet spots. Either doing one-click takedowns on enemies you sneak up on, or just turning the entire place into a run-and-gun wonderland of destruction. If you play Far Cry in the middle, then it’s a middling experience. But if you embrace New Dawn’s ridiculousness, there’s a fun, casual level of violence to enjoy.

I've gotten some sense of closure after the credits rolled in Kingdom Hearts 3 and it wasn't quite what I wanted, but that doesn't make it unworthy of being experienced. It's hard to say this game was worth the long wait, as the story is still a mess, but Square-Enix showed some real love in crafting this experience. There's definitely some highs, and quite a few lows, but seeing this journey through is ultimately satisfying. And if you've been in it for the long haul, then you'll probably come away pleased.

DiRT Rally 2.0 is a worthy successor to DiRT Rally. The driving/car physics which feel as sophisticated as anything else out there, are only slightly hindered by mediocre force feedback. The tracks and surrounding countryside are gorgeous in their own right; the environmental lighting and shadows serve to make them stunning at times. The addition of Rallycross serves to make DiRT Rally 2.0 two great simulations in one package.

I went into Tangledeep expecting to enjoy it and it didn’t disappoint. The game looks and sounds great, the gameplay mechanics aren’t too difficult to learn, you can hang out in lower levels to grind a bit if need be, and the myriad of optional modifiers means you can tailor the difficulty to your liking. If you’re looking for a roguelike dungeon crawler to keep you entertained and possibly challenged depending on your settings, Tangledeep should have you covered.

Aside from some technical issues and a somewhat predicable story, Metro Exodus is a fun FPS with beautiful locations, lovable characters and a decent ending to Artyom's story.

Utopia 9 has a lot of good ideas but for me at least they just didn’t come together in the end, and the somewhat clumsy controls just exacerbated the situation.

Resident Evil 2 is a breath of fresh (or should I say foul and dead?) air into the bloated world of open-ended gameplay mechanics that, instead of leaving the player feeling empty and exhausted for the amount of options, leave them with a constant sense of tension but knowledge and will to push on. Truly an innovation that proves its necessity.

While Last Year: The Nightmare shows a lot of promise, the game simply feels shallow at the moment. The game can be really fun at times but no progression, bugs and glitches and horrific balance issues can ruin all the fun.

Vane exists in an enormously stressed and jagged world of puzzle-platforming. Simply moving around feels rough and unfinished, and that's not always on purpose. If only Friend & Foe had more time to incubate its creation.

It’s not particularly challenging, deep or narratively profound, but it is consistently funny in a wry, innocent way and outside of some physics quirks the platforming gameplay is engaging. Pikuniku is a game you keep playing because you want to see how it will make you smile next; what will the next odd little character exclaim? What will the next hat let you do? What minigame is around the corner? Pikuniku is arty and ludicrous without trying too hard or shoving a message down your throat, and in that regard it fits into Devolver’s stable of IP perfectly.

With an approachable learning curve and a forgiving flight model, Air Combat 7: Skies Unknown welcomes players new to the franchise as well as veterans of previous versions. Beautiful graphics and fast-paced action are the very hallmarks of an Air Combat and number 7 delivers plenty of both.

Ashen is a game created in the same vein as some of the predecessors of its genre, like Dark Souls or Bloodborne. It imitates a great deal of the mechanics from those games but also brings a unique and beautiful art style as well a sense of organic progression that enhances the feel of the game. For those lovers of games like Dark Souls, it's hard to guarantee that you'll find the same experience, but there's still a heck of a lot to like about what sets Ashen apart.

Double Cross is a pretty good platformer with an interesting story and stage mechanics, but the game itself feels a tad too easy and short. The ability customization is a nice concept, but the game itself is already easy enough to where the abilities just make the game easier. The investigation mechanic basically just moves the plot along and has no real bearing on the gameplay and is more like a linear puzzle than anything else where you’ll eventually stumble upon the solution instead of having to actually think and deduce anything to proceed. Still, Double Cross is an interesting game, but one you might want to wait for to go on sale.

Aside from a few technical issues, Subnautica is one of the best survival games out there. Not only is the world to explore beautiful but the narrative will keep pulling you along,

Vermintide 2 is probably the best co-op multiplayer fantasy action game I have ever played. The systems have depth, the visuals are good, and it feels like the writers and level designers actually care about their product. Now all it needs is some more players to partake in the adventure.

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics is an accessible turn-based strategy title on the PS4, but it lacks the polish, depth and variety needed to have real staying power.

It felt shorter than the past episodes, but also satisfying to see this story arc come to an end. The surprise cameo was much appreciated, but I think we all knew that character wasn't really dead.

As a singular purchase, Flashpoint appears rather modest on the surface. But taken as a whole, it would be impossible for me to go back to a pre-Flashpoint campaign.

Taking more of a narrative approach while not really offering all that much narrative but definitely adding a little more marvel in the form of cataclysmic weather events as the major antagonist, Just Cause 4 is a shade more than just another Just Cause game. The major gameplay loop of orchestrating chaos remains true to the series but it is meted out just a bit more slowly while unlocking the goodies to perform your opus just a bit more freely. The real shine of the game comes from just whipping about the game world transitioning between grappling, wing suiting, parachuting, carjacking, plane-jacking, and inviting the player to turn the entire island into their own X-games playground on steroids.

Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden packs interesting combat, open world exploration and lore, and numerous systems that have the player invested in what their characters, but it ends on too early a note to really have any impact.

Beautiful 2D platformers are practically a meme when it comes to indie game development, but Gris still rises above its contemporaries. Artful in both its watercolor design and broad-strokes storytelling, Gris is a gentle reminder that good puzzle platformers can make you feel smart without smarting, and that being succinct is not a bad thing, especially in the current culture of exhausted replayability.

It doesn’t quite underscore the horrors of the war, but Valiant Hearts does a pretty good job of telling a great story while supplementing it with facts about a very harsh reality that occurred a hundred years ago. The puzzle styled gameplay doesn’t seem typical for this type of setting, but the gameplay is balanced in such a way that it works. There are instant-death mechanics, which totally makes sense, but also a generous hint system so I never felt like I was trapped in a certain situation.

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.

Crashlands smooths the desperate edge off of open world survival crafting, and turns it into a laid-back experience that works best in short, pick-up-and-play sessions. That said I personally found the game’s persistent random humor to be pretty irritating.