This is a labor of love by Gearbox and if you’re at all into historical stuff, this game is for you.

Abiotic Factor is a gorgeous survival game about pushing the boundaries of reality as we know it. You won’t be stranded on an island; this time, you have to survive a facility teeming with creatures, objects, and other humans who want you dead. How far are you willing to go to escape?

Owlboy was an incredible experience in every sense. Visually and audibly, it was a masterpiece. The characters were lovable, especially the protagonist, Otus. The story was compelling, and each new chapter gave something new and challenging to the players. D-Pad Studio clearly put a lot of love into this game and it paid off immensely.

With production value equal to any first party AAA game, Shadow of the Colossus is a technical masterpiece. This is the new benchmark for what a remaster should look like, standing as the best remaster ever released on any platform. Put simply -- this is how it’s done.

While I'm certain that battlefield commanders from that era didn't have such instant information and control over the units under their command, the game does a wonderful job of limiting you to a WWII level of information. Combine that with the well thought out interface, and you have a winner!

PowerWash Simulator is a perfect fit for VR, and incredibly relaxing. It has more than a few flaws, like difficult to read text and some minor movement issues, once you get in the zone you’ll be there until you take the headset off. [Meta Quest]

Pikmin 4 is a triumphant return for one of Nintendo’s most delightful series. The focus on dandori feels like a revelation that lets everything click together so well you’ll want to sneak in just one more day. It may be a tad too easy, but the real challenge is completing the game quickly and efficiently. This is a gorgeous and engaging title that’s surprisingly lengthy, and another feather in the Switch’s cap.

There’s an absolute wealth of fantastic new features in Crusade, every one of which turns the 4X genre on its head. Few companies would rip apart a shipped product and inject so many improvements, but the risk paid off big time. There are still a few balance issues to clean up, but Crusade manages to take something conservative and turn it into something revolutionary.

Tekken 8 blew us away with its excellent, engaging features that are fine-tuned to fit every fighting game fan's preference. It also offers a battle system that new and veteran players can enjoy...as long as you can take the Heat.

With several new biomes, a fresh tileset system, more than two dozen mechs, and 14 story missions to set the stage for the 4th Succession War, Mechwarrior 5: Legend of the Kestrel Lancers lets us finally take our massive machines to war. The Mechwarrior universe is all about political intrigue and war on a galactic scale, and the Legend of the Kestrel Lancers pack absolutely nails it.

The gripping levels, native difficulty, realistic (and sometimes disturbing) situations, and all around fun gameplay combine into a fantastic game.

While the idea of a poker roguelike might sound like a niche game, the flair and fun found within Balatro makes it an absolute must-play for fans of the genre. Breaking the rules of poker to score millions of chips in a single hand was a rush, and I was always chasing ways to push it even further beyond. While there are a few times you can feel snubbed by the luck of the draw, these are wildly overshadowed by the moments where you hit it big.

The Nioh Collection does come at a premium asking price, but for your $69.99 you’ll pick up a pair of games with easily over 150 hours of gameplay, with brand new visual modes to make it look its very best. Granted, this is a Team Ninja game so you can expect that it will punish you for each and every inch of ground you gain, but when you do succeed it makes it all the more sweet.

Death of the Reprobate is a delightfully devilish narrative experience that has you gasping with laughter at every interaction. The game forgoes challenge in order to provide the player with a seamless experience which is to its merit, but could do with a little less hand holding. Despite this, you really do want to stop and smell the roses when you play this game as its artstyle is a wonder to behold, and a bit yucky in other places. Its quirky characters and its use of the renaissance is unique and accessible to any player that doesn't have a degree in art as it prizes itself in how fun of a time you’ll have with it.

In a saturated market with games clambering to echo the soul of Animal Crossing, Hello Kitty Island Adventure has finally grabbed that baton and ran with it. It ticks every box in what I want from this genre, chucking every possible game mechanic at the player to play around with so there’s never a dull moment, and probably won't be for quite a while. My only gripe is that I had to stop playing it in order to write this review.

Super Mario RPG is a classic for a reason, and its remake stands just as tall as the original. The visuals and sound are both top notch, and while some new features make the already easy battles even easier, this is still an excellent game that will have you grinning from ear to ear the whole way through.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a short and sweet jaunt through a young boy’s imagination. With simple gameplay but a wide array of puzzles and pieces to discover, you can easily get lost in this game.

I have been a big fan of the JWE game franchise from the start, and the Dominion Malta expansion adds some great new decorations and species for you to play with in your parks. The Oviraptor and Lystrosaurus are precious, and honestly make the pack worthwhile just on that alone. A fun new Campaign that aligns perfectly with the Jurassic Park Dominion movie will keep you busy, and Update 5 brings in new Challenge Levels if the Campaign isn’t your thing. If you’re a fan of the movies and like park builders, you can’t go wrong with the JWE games, and Dominion Malta fits in perfectly.

It’s definitely better with friends, but Pavlov VR is an absolute showcase for what an FPS should be in VR. It runs tremendously, it has an awesome amount of content to play, and it’s just fun to play. This one should be in your PSVR2 library right now.

Starpoint Gemini 2 is a beast of a game. It gracefully balances exploration, action, narrative, and RPG elements to create a complete package that thrills and excites… most of the time. Be aware that the nature of the missions are repetititive and ultimately a means to an end: to become the most powerful captain in the galaxy.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is addicting, charming, and packed with more content than you can shake a husk of corn at. If you didn’t play the first Garden Warfare, now is the time to give it a go.

While Battlefield 3 was aiming to be the biggest name this holiday season, and while it has made strides towards knocking off Modern Warfare 3, it misses the mark. That's not to say it is a bad game, it's a very good one, but the polish and excitement that is found on the Call of Duty series feels missing here. Still, there are much worse games you could end up with this holiday season, and the competition between the two series should heat up significantly in the next few years.

Free from graphics cards, drivers, and other PC trappings, Microsoft Flight Simulator is the most accessible flight simulator ever made. With the most minor of concessions, it also manages to be the best looking game the Xbox Series X has on offer to date. With the right control surface, you too can slip the surly bonds of Earth, and when it looks this good and plays this well, I highly recommend it.

Detroit: Become Human is a cinematic masterpiece, and easily the best work to date from developer Quantic Dream. It’s gorgeous, sounds beautiful, and the choices made here are impactful and introspective. Better still, the exposed underpinnings encourage repeat playthroughs just to see where all of the rabbit holes go. Come for the storyline, stay for the thought provoking look at a potential near future for mankind, and where AI might fit within it.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a really cool take on a classic story from the darker side of the Marvel comics universe. Gameplay is a pretty simple mashup between strategy card games and XCOM’s turn-based combat system, making for a refreshing way to experience being a superhero. However the game does have some performance issues, particularly loading times, and some of the side content lacks meaningful contributions to the mission.

Polyarc has created a fantastic world filled with compelling characters, creative puzzles, and a story that’ll stick with you long after the five-hour runtime. Moss is precisely the reason you buy a PSVR, and it’s sure to make any player fall in love with a brave little mouse named Quill.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a true indie gem, a love letter to the JRPGs many of us grew up with, brimming with beautiful graphics, stellar music, quirky characters, and a whole lot of mysteries to uncover. While the Switch release suffers from some slower load times, the probability combined with rebalanced gameplay makes this a must play for those who love dungeons and the heroes who crawl through them.

Interkosmos is a short virtual reality experience which places you in the hot seat of a space capsule returning to Earth during the Cold War. Combining an incredibly high pressure situation with a great deal of humor, Ovid Works has crafted a truly unique, narrative-driven experience. While the game is only around 30 minutes long, it has branching storylines, two successful endings, and makes death incredibly fun with a whole host of ways for you to perish. It’s highly interactive, it makes incredibly satisfying clicky noises when pressing buttons and flipping switches, and it’s over the top, colorful, retro graphics make it a unique and fun experience. Climb into the Interkosmos cockpit, make history, and show the world that Major Tom has nothing on you.