Astro’s Playroom is one of the best PlayStation 5 titles to come out of the console this year. With gorgeous graphics and performance and an awesome way to get used to the DualSense controller, this free pack-in can go toe-to-toe with the platformer legends.

Superb port of an already amazing game, perfectly at home on Nintendo Switch looking great and as chilling as ever.

Guacamelee 2 recaptures everything that made the original great and adds a few new tricks for good measure. It’s a joy to look at and it feels great to play, especially when it focuses on challenging platforming. The game feels a little padded out with lots of backtracking and locked-room combat sequences, but it’s still an absolute blast to play.

Innovations with the combo meter and multiple versions of fighters only add intrigue and depth to a solid effort.

Little pieces like a sprawling sidequest system, additional RPG-lite conversation trees, getting a "This is the story so far…" recap any time you click 'continue' from the main screen, the beautiful and incredibly-scaled heavily-varied environments, and the depth of the nuanced and familiar loot system all come together to support a fantastic storyline.

The PC version brings accessibility and graphical upgrades, as well as the promises of unofficial mod-based improvements. If this is your first time with Final Fantasy X, I envy you — it’s a powerful journey that you won’t soon forget.

Intrigue allows players to choose from 20 governments each with their own perks, special events that can reward unique ships or even destroy one of your planets, and is primarily a positive game changer for Galactic Civilizations III. Commonwealth are a neat idea, but sadly end up becoming more of a nuisance than an ally.

Whether this is your first experience with the satirical duology or a revisit to the tale, Cthulhu Saves Christmas is a short and sweet RPG that will have you laughing until Santa decides to leave the North Pole for Christmas this year. (spoiler: that’s a long time!) Its new and improved turn-based system will entertain even the most curmudgeonly jaded RPG fan.

While the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters aren’t perfect, they’re certainly the best and most convenient ways to play these classic games. The soundtracks are lovingly orchestrated and the pixel art is gorgeous, though the latter does lose some detail in the translation. Each game feels great to play, but I do wish extra content from previous releases or remakes had been included.

Rockstar’s port of Red Dead Redemption on the Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch provides an opportunity for both newcomers and fans alike to experience one of gaming’s most memorable adventures once again. While there are some improvements to the visuals and performance, remnants of the game’s age still bleed through. If you can look past the outrageous price tag and some cut content, then your journey back to the Wild West is definitely one worth taking.

If you like "Gauntlet style" hack-n-slash style games, then Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is definitely for you.

I Expect You To Die 2’s half dozen hours is easily one of the best ways to introduce somebody to VR. It’s funny, well written, nausea free, and incredibly engaging at every turn. Regardless of which VR headset you have, this one needs to be in your library -- it’s a must have.

Ultimately Triangle Strategy gets an excellent port, albeit one with fewer frills than we’d like. Still, that’s nothing the modding community can’t fix in very short order. Performance is fantastic on PC, and equally as good on Steam Deck. While the long-winded story might need work, there’s no denying the tactical combat.

I'm surprised to say that this is a title that you could play through once, then turn around and play through it another 5 times or so to unlock all of the goodies.

The PlayStation 4 version of the game is mechanically the same as the PlayStation 3 version, but the new engine is eye-poppingly awesome.

The story continues to get better and better with each step. Since it was written by the same people who did the Ace Attorney games, I'm not surprised at the quality of these games. Unfortunately, when it ends, the game is pretty much over since it is linear and doesn't have any alternative endings.

Telltale struck gold with The Walking Dead, but it seems they merely struck bronze with a promising future in The Wolf Among Us. It has some wonderful characters and a lot of potential, but it fell apart as the season continued.

While Persona Q’s story may be meaningless on its own, the dungeon crawling and strategic battle system are great challenges with an excellent cast to keep you company.

Spike Chunsoft has done it again with AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES nirvanA Initiative. They tell an incredible murder mystery that’s a ton of fun to figure out, all while solving brain-bending puzzles and talking to a colorful cast of endearing characters. There are a lot of performance issues and bugs, but those are nitpicks compared to just the sheer joy of diving into people’s minds to solve the case.

Kingdom Hearts III is a product of a development hell. It has too many ideas, too many characters, and too many mistakes holding it back. It is a fun experience that I recommend just for how addictive and smooth the combat is. Kingdom Hearts III is a fun game, it just easily could have been a great one.

Another place that the game really worked was the social system that was put in place. It's not terribly deep, but each town had its own life and people in it. The world changed depending on the quests that you did. The game had a level of detail in it that made me feel like I was doing something.

Steins;Gate is a complex visual novel with a costly time commitment, but it offers one of the best stories on the Vita.

Resident Evil 5 doesn’t revolutionize Resident Evil 4’s gameplay, but it does provide a solid and entertaining entry in the series.

Total War: Pharaoh Dynasties is a solid game with extremely well-thought-out combat mechanics. I could play this game for hours and only spend my time battling. The dynasty system is a lot of fun. Overall, this game is solid.

The accessibility to beginners both games, excellent graphics and sound, and the amount of gameplay modes make this a worthy addition to a fan of the fighting genre.

All in all, putting the online infrastructure disaster aside, Splatoon 3 is a lot of fun, but I can’t help but feel like it could have been an update to Splatoon 2 rather than a new game. I enjoyed the new story mode, the new weapons are great, and the lobby changes are fantastic, but everything else just feels like too little to warrant $60. I generally don’t like to evaluate games on price point, but it needs to be said this is more like Splatoon 2.25 than a full jump in number or even just half. Once you take into account the awful connection it definitely doesn’t feel worth it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good game and a great entry for new fans, but I’d get basically the same experience and probably slightly more stable in Splatoon 2 and that’s still right there on my home screen. Nintendo really needs to step their game up in terms of updates, and for God’s sake invest in some servers or better netcode.

The new augments combined with better level design makes exploration more satisfying, and the little upgrades to hacking make that whole system more tense. While it’s over a little too soon, if you enjoyed Human Revolution, there is a lot to like here.

With a single-player campaign that finally lives up to the hype of movie level quality and a solid multiplayer experience that clearly shows the benefits of a yearly iterative cycle, Call of Duty: Black Ops II comes close to being one of the best titles in the series.