While bad load times and mediocre visuals make its Switch port far from perfect, Life is Strange 2 still provides an impactful experience.

Copycat is only about three hours in length and jumps between set pieces at a good pace, constantly switching up your tasks to prevent the game from becoming stale. You’ll wreak havoc in a house, roam neighborhoods and parks, sneak past guard dogs, hunt for food, fight off alley cats, and even chase animals as a panther in Dawn’s dreams, with no one set piece lingering too long. Despite its story which is purposefully uncomfortable to experience, it is an adventure well worth embarking on and will hopefully force other animal owners to take a long look at their own actions and make adjustments as necessary to ensure we provide our animals with the respect and love they deserve.

While the narrative is a bit disconnected, Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments uses the short story framework to its benefit, keeping each of its cases focused on pure, thrilling detective work.

One Piece Odyssey took on the tough task of being accessible to those who don’t know the source material, while also catering to the fans of the franchise. At its heart, One Piece Odyssey is a love letter to the fans, but that doesn’t stop from being a fantastic gateway into the world.

If you have quick reflexes and a fast stylus hand, you will probably have an absolute blast with this one.

Super Mario Maker 3DS is a subpar port of a great game. While a lot of the fun is still there, the lack of sharing and search features make for an overall inferior experience.

Mafia: The Old Country harkens back to the old days in more ways than one. While the gameplay is more of a standard third-person action affair, it’s refreshing to play a game that doesn’t require you to wade through padding to find the good stuff. With a stirring narrative that commands your attention and visuals that fully capture your gaze, The Old Country is exactly the place to holiday as the summer comes to a close.

After the first vacation I really did not want to play this game anymore. I had already gotten the top swimsuit (the Venus) and after that I felt that my time with this game was done unless I wanted to pick it up to play the volleyball again.

Lack of replay value aside, this is a game that you absolutely should not miss.

Frustrating and generic gameplay rounds out an otherwise technically impressive package. Killzone: Shadow Fall should have been another solid entry in an above-average franchise, but instead it succumbs to all of the usual launch game pitfalls, and a decent though unimpressive multiplayer suite can’t save it from mediocrity.

There’s no way a gamer can’t beat this inside 10 hours as there are no puzzles, it’s all run and gun, and there’s not a heck of a lot of challenge other than fighting the controls and the camera. Give it a rent if you’re into Westerns.

This is high adventure in the grandest sense, and running around in the shoes of Indiana Jones is truly a great thing. Not to mention the manual has got to be seen to be believed. It’s so bloody cool, it’s amazing.

Quite simply the best platform game ever seen on the Xbox. The game fires on all cylinders and delivers a solid platform adventure with hilarious characters and dialogue.

Whether you’re playing solo or co-op, Killsquad’s skill-based, challenging, and fast paced combat is a triumph. While the lacklustre mission design and unexciting loot end up letting it down a little, this one can still be a blast to jump into if you and your friends are up for a grind.

In a world filled with bricks and boundless imagination, Lego 2K Drive in Bricklandia shines as an extraordinary racing adventure. With its thrilling races, delightful characters, and captivating visuals, this game takes players on a joyous ride that is sure to put a smile on their faces. Despite its ludicrous microtransactions, the sheer fun and excitement of the kart racing experience, combined with the charming Lego aesthetic, make it a game worth playing.

A game that delivers on some promises while completely losing sight of others. The overall gameplay is fun, but a few bugs tend to frustrate the experience.

While it won't quite help you to "learn a new language", it will give you a good foundation in Spanish and set you up for an easier time learning what you need to become fluent.

The sequel to FAR: Lone Sails scours off the rust and polishes the rest to an acceptable shine. It’s a well-oiled machine that runs for twice as long, with a lot more adventure hiding under its hood to compensate for the series’ shortcomings.

A gorgeous world that feels truly alive, Black Desert Online is a solid entry into the sandbox subgenre of MMOs. Benefiting from having been launched in a major market for a year before coming to the West, it offers an open world to explore, and an especially deep tradeskill and trading system mixed with an action-oriented combat scheme.

Unfortunately, once you land on the ground after your airdrop, Airborne feels just like any other WWII game that you have played before.

An absolute blast from start to finish, Arizona Sunshine 2 outdoes its predecessor in every way, and that’s high praise indeed.

If Crash had loosened up the open-world gameplay a bit and fixed the horrible camera system, this could have been another excellent PS2 platformer.

Freak Tower is a polished and fun tower game that has some unique and bizarre extras. The game plays how it should and feels very well put together. It can be rewarding if you are willing to play it over a long period of time in short spurts, but the slow pacing and pay to win feel hold it back from being something great.

Thanks to the usage of guitar tablature, BandFuse: Rock Legends is a great way for experienced players to rock out to songs that they’ve always wanted to learn, and the multiplayer options make it a great party game. Unfortunately, the learning tools pale in comparison to the competition.

A beautiful, but sometimes shallow, crash course in Norse mythology that shines in its boss fights’ designs and overall presentation. And while Valhalla Mode isn’t much of an incentive to jump back in for returning players, it adds tremendous challenge to the already difficult core experience.

Ikenfell has a unique battle system and story that can make for some of the best moments in an RPG this year, but unfortunately it doesn’t always use these to its advantage and has multiple boring boss fights with the plot meandering in the first half. Still, its highs are so high that it is well worth seeing through to the end.

Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril is a traditional 2D platformer that stays true to its NES roots. Its simple controls and charming 8-bit qualities make it a no brainer for any retro gaming fan. The over-the-top difficulty, while a little too much at times, creates a satisfying experience overall, making this a great game for anyone seeking a challenge.

The audio design is impressive, with ambient sounds and a haunting score that perfectly capture the eerie essence of the Zone. Gunfire sounds appropriately weighty, and the growls of mutants are genuinely unsettling. Voice acting is also very well done, with brilliant performances from all the main characters...Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is an undoubtedly remarkable achievement in atmospheric game design. This post-apocalyptic experience offers an unmatched dynamic open world that is bound to satisfy long-time fans of the series. However, the extremely poor technical hiccups and hardcore yet niche nature of the game prevents it from getting a full recommendation. This is not a game for casuals. [Review in Progress]