Rocket Fist for Switch is a great party experience when you want, well, rocket fists! While this version of the game omits some content from other platforms, the simple and accessible controls mixed with some lightning-fast gameplay is a great recommendation for your next four-player game night.

Jackbox Party Pack 1 & 2 each contain their own unique set of games for hours of hilarity with your friends, and having this available on the go with the Switch makes it all the sweeter. Each pack contains a wide variety of games such as the first containing You Don’t Know Jack and Drawful and the second containing Fibbage 2 and Quiplash XL. Solo players beware, this game is primarily for parties.

The Metronomicon: Slay the Dance Floor is one of the most infectious rhythm games this year. Its perfect blend of music gameplay and RPG mechanics is an ambitious one that sticks the landing, and the addictive soundtrack will have your toe tapping long after you turned it off. Just stay away from the dancing bears if you’re not shaking it like a Polaroid.

Jackbox Party Pack 1 & 2 each contain their own unique set of games for hours of hilarity with your friends, and having this available on the go with the Switch makes it all the sweeter. Each pack contains a wide variety of games such as the first containing You Don’t Know Jack and Drawful and the second containing Fibbage 2 and Quiplash XL. Solo players beware, this game is primarily for parties.

Resident Evil Revelations is another great addition to the franchise. It maintains the survivor-horror feel that the series is known for. The campaign isn’t the longest, but it is engaging and well worth the time. Raid mode is fun to go through afterwards and try out different weapons. Altogether a satisfying challenge and a very enjoyable experience that I had a hard time putting down.

Agents of Mayhem is a very interesting game with some wild concepts, many of which didn’t seem like they would work out. While the combat is enthralling, the mission design surrounding it is consistently disappointing. The city of Seoul is wonderful and begging to be explored, but that’s not something Agents of Mayhem encourages through its design. Agents of Mayhem is hit or miss, but has more misses than hits.

Hellblade could have been carried alone by its insanely beautiful graphics and standout voice performances — some of the best of 2017 — but while these scenarios were always refreshing interruptions from long, meditative walks through Helheim, they distracted from the game’s greater focus on demystifying a taboo mental disorder.

Slime-san is a surprisingly refreshing twitch-based platformer that will put a smile on anyone’s face. Its sharp controls mixed with brutal but balanced difficulty, as well as some well-done pixelated graphics, makes Slime-san a must buy for anyone looking for some platforming goodness.

Madden 18 is a very solid product, featuring the best passing mechanics I’ve ever seen in a football game. The game has come a long way improving the physics and collisions, and overall presents a great product on the field, despite a few glitches. Some of those glitches can cause fatal errors, and there is no more hilarious fatal error than the hacky Longshot interactive movie/football experience that I can imagine ever being in a football game. Overall, this is a really great Madden release with a few errors that need fixing.

LawBreakers feels like combat occurring inside a snowglobe while a five-year-old shakes it really, really quickly. It’s a shooter, like so many others out there, but it doesn’t camouflage an axis-locked multiplayer formula with a new historical setting or gimmicky abilities — its low-gravity environments and lightning-fast traversal make it like no shooter you’ve ever played.

>observer_ takes the beats from Bloober Team’s own Layers of Fear, adds a layer of cyberpunk, and somehow comes out the other end both unnerving, and more than the sum of its parts. There are a few small technical hiccups present, and some infrequent uneven voice work, but beyond that there’s an amazing story about the human toll of investigation and observation.

While I will continue to miss Sully, Nathan, Elena, and young would-be adventurer Cassie, The Lost Legacy is another amazing adventure in the living Uncharted world. Whether it spells the start of a new direction for the series, or just a fun encore, it’s an excellent experience for any Uncharted fan.

Flip Wars is a very simple, shallow party game. It’s not actively terrible, but it barely offers anything to do. It only costs $9.99, so if you think it looks really fun, it might not hurt to buy it. Someone else might like it more than I do. But personally, for that amount, I’d much rather have Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, since that offers far greater enjoyment over a longer period than the few minutes I had with this game.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel has made its way to PC, but has made no changes to differentiate itself. This game overall is one that has definitely aged well and has grown on me as time goes by, and is a quality JRPG that any fan of the genre will enjoy. However, this re-release provides no incentive whatsoever for someone wants to double dip.

An excellent and challenging update to a familiar formula, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is one of those games that makes you cheer at your well-planned success when everything goes off without a hitch, and groan at your own poor planning when it doesn’t. It gets so much right, that the relentless difficulty, and slightly less gorgeous console port can’t mar its beauty. This one snuck up on me, and I couldn’t be more glad that it did.

Sudden Strike 4 is a great example of a challenging real time strategy game without all of the ‘dirt farming’ aspects of other titles. It requires real thought instead of simply pouring all units into the path of the enemy. There are a few hiccups in terms of pathing and AI, as well as a baffling choice for voicework, but the game has more high points than low. It would also be nice if there was just a little more handholding to bring in new players, but overall Sudden Strike 4 is a welcome addition to the genre.

Motiga have created a fast paced and intense game that MOBA and shooter fans will both be able to sink their teeth into. An Incredible art style mixed with fantastic hero designs makes Gigantic stand out from the crowd and offers limitless possibilities. The few problems the Gigantic has are eclipsed by the sheer fun that that it is to play and I don’t see myself dropping this game anytime soon.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is the ultimate follow-up to the first collection, and brings us to a full 10 Mega Man games now available on the PS4. This collection boasts some truly high quality Mega Man experiences, as well as a large number of challenges for experienced players. The Mega Man games speak for themselves largely on quality, but they have been packaged here in a very attractive and improved fashion.

In the end, Ironcast is easily a fun game that you can get caught up in while playing. It keeps you engaged and planning, but not to the point where it becomes a chore. The soundtrack stays faithful to the older steampunk style of the game as well. It’s not a long campaign, maybe a few hours at most, but the permadeath roguelike mechanics offer more replayability. The final boss was definitely the most frustrating thing to me because of how much tougher it is with no real lead-up. Other than that and bad luck with the board a few times, Ironcast has been largely enjoyable experience. A nice addition to the color matching puzzle genre of games.

The core premise and style of Overcooked is a perfect fit for Nintendo’s portable console, but its technical performance ruins the experience. There aren’t many issues that couldn’t be fixed with a patch, but as it stands, Overcooked offers an exciting cooperative experience which is quickly hampered by performance issues.

If you’ve played games like Gone Home, Dear Esther or Firewatch, Tacoma is instantly recognizable, but it remains distinct by introducing a wildly exotic space setting and a mechanic that keeps the “look and listen gameplay” from ever becoming a bore. It can, at times, devolve into too much of a linear experience, giving way to predictable pacing, but this is forgivable, because when your time is done on the Tacoma lunar station, your heart will be a little fuller for the people you met while you were there.

Namco Museum for the Switch is a great attempt at a collection of classic arcade games. Fighting to become the top score on the leaderboard is fun, even if the other challenges often come off as shallow. With the detailed manuals and the great display options, adding a few more games, or even more challenges could have made this the definitive Namco Museum.

Layton’s Mystery Journey: Katrielle and Millionaires’ Conspiracy is a great mobile foray into the mainline Layton series. While the overall story is a tad uninteresting, the excellent puzzle gameplay and tons of replay value more than make up for it. This is a title worthy of its franchise’s reputation.

Pyre is a wonderfully made game, with simplistically beautiful graphics, and an engaging soundtrack. The gameplay can get a bit repetitive, but that doesn’t stop it from being an enjoyable journey. The characters and challenges were more than enough to make up for it.

Overall, I’ve had a great time with Fate/EXTELLA thus far. The presentation is a bit rough around the edges, the story is incredibly confusing (I’m only really understanding bits since I’m familiar with the universe — I can’t imagine what it must be like playing this game with no context at all), and of course, Warriors-type gameplay can get repetitive and rarely is anything new done to shake up the general formula. However, the game provides plenty of ways to break up the monotony of the basic combat, and even if I need to take a break between sessions, I still have a blast just feeling like an overpowered one-man-army and defeating scores of enemies at a time. At the very least, it will tide me over until the more polished Fire Emblem Warriors arrives later this year.

Sundered is beautiful, tense, and frustrating enough to make you want to throw your controller. If you can make your way through it’s overwhelming combat encounters, you’ll find a platformer that’s well worth the madness.

You might forget the STROL virus, or that you are tackling insurgents and mutants, but you won’t forget just how much fun you have, solo or with a local co-op friend, with the non-stop action of Solstice Chronicles: MIA. While there are still some areas to be polished, and online multiplayer is unfortunately missing, Solstice manages to translate the souls of games like Alien Breed and Helldivers into a challenging two-player or solo adventure.

Miitopia is an irreverent, hilarious casual RPG which is nearly impossible to put down. With the ability to create your own characters, import from Tomodachi Life, or pull premade characters from Mii Central, your game is certain to be full of a diverse group of characters from all across popular culture. This full length game has a charming aesthetic, an expanding story and a huge map to explore. Endlessly silly, strangely addictive, and easy to play thanks to the auto-battle feature, Miitopia is a delightfully ridiculous game which is perfect for the casual gamer in search of a reason to smile.