It’s rare we get a new IP from a big publisher like Capcom these days, especially one with production values like this. It’s a risk when you could just keep pumping out Resident Evil remakes and sequels while making guaranteed money. Well, this risk pays off. Pragmata is exhilarating, emotional, and … some other word that starts with “e.” Engaging? Engaging!

I may have been left pining for more of what I saw from each approach, but there’s no denying that I had an excellent time with Requiem. It’s the most I’ve enjoyed a mainline Resident Evil game in 20 years. As good as 7 and Village were, I have to admit it was nice to go back to some series mainstays rather than continuing along with the narrative detour of the Moldman Chronicles. Grace’s chapters had me holding my breath and running for my life during late night sessions with the game, and the bombast and doofiness of Leon had me laughing out loud. Resident Evil Requiem is an excellent culmination of everything Capcom has learned during 30 years of making this franchise, and it serves as a tantalizing glimpse of what its future may hold.

BIG HOPS succeeds because of the developers’ understanding of momentum, accessibility, and expression through movement: its systems constantly invite wacky experimentation with generous restarts, rather than punishing the player for failing, all of which reinforces a core philosophy of playful improvisation.

Despite a few tweaks and new features – motion controls, psychic powers, a nonlinear hub world, and the occasional side character – this is Metroid Prime through and through. It’s without a doubt the closest the series has ever felt to the original Metroid Prime, in terms of tone, gameplay, and quality. Time will tell where I place Metroid Prime 4 in the ranking of the overall series, but fresh off my first playthrough I feel comfortable putting it among the likes of Super Metroid and the original Metroid Prime. It’s the best Switch 2 title yet, and I have to imagine that fans of the series will find themselves captivated by Metroid Prime 4.

I don’t know what more you could ask for in this stunning remake of Resident Evil 4. It’s obvious to say that a great remake should satisfy both returning fans and total newcomers, but this goes so far beyond that. The original game is one of my favorites of all time and now the only reason I’d recommend anyone play it is purely for historical value. And if you’re a complete newcomer to the series, this is bar none one of the most thrilling games ever. It shines as the ultimate Resident Evil experience and the greatest remake of all time.

Sparks of Hope wasn’t on my radar after my middling experience with Kingdom Battle, but I love it when a game surprises me like this. It takes just a handful of battles for the hooks to get in, and the tactical options only grow as you unlock new heroes and sparks. I’m not sure if any game could be good enough to make me love the Rabbids, but the fun I was having in my 30+ hours with Sparks of Hope did a great job of distracting me from their dumb, dumb faces.

It gets its hooks in deep and fast, but the true fun and challenge in Neon White becomes apparent the more you play it.

It gets its hooks in deep and fast, but the true fun and challenge in Neon White becomes apparent the more you play it.

Overall, Halo Infinite is great but something of a mixed bag. Fans of the genre will certainly enjoy the additional mobility granted by the grappling hook while the rest of the gameplay delivers that well-polished Halo experience that shooter-heads have come to know and love over the decades. It's a bit of a shame that the story doesn't quite stick the landing, but add in the fantastic (and free) multiplayer and you've got a really solid foundation for whatever comes next, be that a story expansion or an eventual full-on sequel.

One thing I can say without reservation about Doom Eternal is that it's ambitious as hell. The devs at id weren't content to just pop out a new set of levels with one new weapon and a couple of enemies (which, ironically, is how the original Doom II came about). Instead they included an enormous roster of new ideas both obvious and unexpected, and took these additions and enhancements to over-the-top extremes. Eternal may not have quite the same purity of focus as its predecessor, but it's so relentless about throwing everything in its toolbox at you at a thousand miles an hour that it's often hard to stop and notice.

One thing I can say without reservation about Doom Eternal is that it's ambitious as hell. The devs at id weren't content to just pop out a new set of levels with one new weapon and a couple of enemies (which, ironically, is how the original Doom II came about). Instead they included an enormous roster of new ideas both obvious and unexpected, and took these additions and enhancements to over-the-top extremes. Eternal may not have quite the same purity of focus as its predecessor, but it's so relentless about throwing everything in its toolbox at you at a thousand miles an hour that it's often hard to stop and notice.

It may not reach the sublime heights of its predecessor, but Doom Eternal is bursting at the seams with hellacious action.

It may not reach the sublime heights of its predecessor, but Doom Eternal is bursting at the seams with hellacious action.

It’s a great-looking game with really strong sound design. That stuff helped make the campaign worth seeing, and it’s part of why I keep coming back to the competitive multiplayer, too.

While Modern Warfare certainly has its issues, I’m having a really terrific time with it.

Modern Warfare makes meaningful tech upgrades to the Call of Duty franchise, making it look and sound better than ever while still maintaining its crisp, exciting gameplay.

The game looks really great and has a deliberately brighter and more varied color palette than most of the previous games. While I think the open-world stuff is flat and could have been way better, there are moments out there in the nothingness that just look straight-up incredible, including a late-game weather sequence that, despite not being great gameplay, was worth seeing a couple of times just for the visuals alone.

Gears 5 plays around with the formula a bit, but it's still at its best when it's just being a solid-ass Gears of War game.

Control feels like Remedy firing on all cylinders, resulting in a smart and sensational action-adventure.

This sequel offers plenty of reasons to revisit the world of assassination, whether you're an experienced hitman or just trying out the fiber wire for the first time.

Hitman 2's locations cover almost as much exotic ground as those in the first game, from a high-tech Miami speedway to a drug cartel's jungle compound, suburban Anytown USA and a secret island meeting of billionaires who not-so-secretly run the world.

Tetris Effect, from top to bottom, is my favorite iteration of Tetris yet. The music and visuals work together to create a truly unique Tetris experience, that is only enhanced by VR.

It is an incredible achievement in open world gaming, an intricate machine that disguises its machinery better than just about anything else that's come before. In addition to its lengthy and engrossing campaign, it delivers moments of emergent storytelling more compelling than anything I can ever remember playing. Graphically and aurally, it is top-to-bottom stunning.

This big year-two expansion irons out most of Destiny 2's wrinkles and offers some of the most mysterious, enjoyable content the series has seen so far.

Forza Horizon 4 isn't going to be a huge surprise to anyone who played a previous entry, but in a world where the other big open-world games have ranged from mildly to extremely disappointing, it's great to have another solid entry in the genre to tear through.

Forza Horizon 4's connected world and seasonal weather help make what's otherwise a very familiar-feeling experience feel fresh one more time.

Spider-Man combines elements from plenty of other games to deliver a game with expansive combat, exciting traversal, and a solid, authentic story.

Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t know how much more ground could be covered with Kratos as a character. The new Nordic mythology obviously gives Sony Santa Monica plenty of new material to play with, but it’s the new Kratos that’s responsible for the game’s most striking evolution...God of War grew up, and the result is the best entry in the series.

Every aspect of the base game feels designed to work well with every other aspect. The cars are fast and most of them drift at the tap of your brake, and there are sweeping curves ready to accept those drifts. The shortcuts lead you some wild places, jumping and smashing your way ahead of the pack. By comparison, most driving games feel like a compromise between trying to design a real city for you to race real cars in while also trying to make an exciting video game. Burnout Paradise evokes reality but never at the expense of gameplay. That's something that other racing games could still stand to steal from this one.

There are some elements around the edges that haven't aged all that well, but Burnout Paradise is still a fantastic racing game.

Each kingdom is absolutely packed with charm, clever objectives, gorgeous visuals, a stellar soundtrack, and a huge variety of ways to have fun. One moon would have me leaping across tiny platforms with pinpoint precision, and the next would have me cheering up a businessman by dressing like a clown. At no point did I feel like I was checking boxes just to up my completion percentage. Even now that I've collected every moon and purple coin in the game, I still want to play more of it. It’s one of the most joyous and entertaining gaming experiences I’ve had in a long time, and it stands tall among the all-time great Mario games.

As the story progressed and the combat grew deeper, however, I realized that this sequel is an improvement on The Stick of Truth in just about every way. That game gave us our first novel experience of playing through a world that’s virtually indistinguishable from the show, but this sequel is longer, deeper, and more surprising throughout. It may feel like a cavalcade of poop jokes and easy callbacks in the early hours, but the South Park humor and charm shines through more and more as the story progresses.

Come for the beautiful art, stay because you smashed all your controllers.

If you’re the type of person who derives joy from angrily banging your head into a boss over and over until you can perfectly defeat it in the most glorious 90 seconds you will ever experience, then Cuphead is the total package. The tight gameplay, accompanied by an incredibly well-realized aesthetic, makes for a truly unforgettable gameplay experience.

Kingsway goes beyond being just a throwback to the past, and proves itself an entertaining game in its own right.

It's now good enough that you no longer need to make excuses about why you play so much Destiny. Destiny 2 may misstep in a couple of ways its predecessor didn't, but it also shores up its fundamentals so thoroughly that the future for Destiny fans looks bright indeed.

It's now good enough that you no longer need to make excuses about why you play so much Destiny. Destiny 2 may misstep in a couple of ways its predecessor didn't, but it also shores up its fundamentals so thoroughly that the future for Destiny fans looks bright indeed.

I sincerely went into The Lost Legacy feeling like there wasn't much an Uncharted game could do at this point to surprise or impress me, but its tight pacing, likable characters and creative scenarios really won me over and added up to one of my favorite games in the series.

It's a game whose many elements speak with one voice to address a subject and tell a story that has the potential to deeply touch those who identify firsthand with its themes, and if this game doesn't leave you feeling more civilized and empathetic toward those themes by the end of it, it's hard to imagine the game that can.

This intense exploration of a young woman's personal anguish is a triumph of interactive storytelling.

The fights are fun and flashy, with nice depth for players willing to spend the time learning those nuances. But Injustice 2 also sets a very high bar for content variety in a way that opens up the game to people who might just be fans of DC's heroes and villains, too. If you're open to the idea of a fighting game, you're almost certain to find something worth liking.

The long list of options available in Injustice 2 means that players of all skill levels should be able to find something exciting to do.

This sense of wonder is something that I haven’t felt so strongly since I played A Link to the Past when I was seven years old. Ocarina of Time was able to capture some of that same magic in my teenage years. Now that I’m in my thirties, I don’t think that I expected it to be possible for a game to make me feel like that again.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is familiar but also really refreshing. It's not a short game (I spent around 30 hours with it), but the storytelling still feels concise and efficient. The combat has some nice options that make encounters fun, even when you're just stacking up stealth kills from the relative safety of a bush. And the presentation end of the game holds up its end of things with a solid soundtrack, great voice acting, and a cohesive design that makes all its disparate parts fit together. All in all, it's a great game, it's Guerrilla's strongest release to date.

Resident Evil 7 features just the right amount of modern twists mixed into the traditional formula. It may not reach the same heights as an industry-changer like Resident Evil 4, but it certainly ranks among the best entries in the series.

Titanfall 2 goes for feel above all else, and it feels fantastic.

Titanfall 2 might not fix every issue you had with the previous game (and depending on your tastes, it might introduce one or two new ones), but it's a bigger, bolder game that takes a few chances and comes out better and more distinctive for it. On top of all that, it simply feels great.

Titanfall 2 goes for feel above all else, and it feels fantastic.

Ultimately, technical gaffes and issues of design repetition weren't enough to stop me from appreciating Mafia III. The writers and voice actors turn in the strongest work, crafting and performing a story that manages to rise above the conventional open-world structure it's working within.

It might not stick the landing, but Gears of War 4 puts the franchise back on the map in a big way, and large parts of it are a great time.

My time with Gears of War 4 left me with a feeling that the game could have been a little more ambitious in spots. It feels a little too safe and too unwilling to ditch some of the traditions of the initial trilogy. But the ways it plays around with and reintroduces the characters from those Gears of War games is expertly handled, making for some great moments along the way.

It's a fantastic-looking game that takes some of the best simulation-style driving to be found on a console and plops it into a great open world.

Parts of it could be less repetitive and the PC version seems like it probably needs a patch or two to help smooth things out a bit, but those end up being minor complaints peppered into an otherwise delightful experience. Just do yourself a favor and try to cruise around from time to time instead of just banging through one event after another.

Adam Jensen's return is largely successful, even if the conspiracy surrounding him could've been a little more engaging.

I'm left with the feeling that a sequel to Human Revolution could've told a more engaging story, but at the same time I had a really great time crouch-walking through Prague. It might not be an especially surprising sequel, but it all comes together quite nicely, with solid side missions and a mix of action and stealth that lets you mess around and find your own way of doing things.

Adam Jensen's return is largely successful, even if the conspiracy surrounding him could've been a little more engaging.

Inside expands on the concepts and scope of its predecessor in wildly creative ways, and it's so immaculately designed and constructed from top to bottom that it almost feels suitable for display in an art museum. This is one hell of a followup.

It ticks off every item on a list of things a modern Doom should have, including several items you didn't even know were on the list in the first place. They may not make shooters like this anymore, but the runaway success of this game serves as long overdue proof that they really should.

It's hard to imagine a better Doom game in 2016 than this exhilarating, darkly witty new take on id's classic.

This is one of the most fully-realized action campaigns of all time, and it sets a new bar of quality for what’s possible in the genre.

This reimagining of Ratchet & Clank is successful on every front.

My recommendation for the PC build has to come with a firmer qualification. Yes, I still really enjoyed my time with Dark Souls 3 on PC. Yes, I’ll probably play through at least one run of NG+. But my enjoyment was seriously impacted by the unpredictable performance and crashing.

On Xbox One, Dark Souls III runs at a noticeably choppier frame rate and a slightly lower resolution than the PS4 build, but it's still very a playable and stable and solid port of the game.

On PS4, it runs at least as smooth as Bloodborne did and with much faster load times (with the trade-off of occasionally slow-loading textures.)

Far more than just a farming game, this one-man labor of love is filled with seemingly endless content and heart.

As a solo game, The Division gets quite boring, and trying to marathon your way through all the side stuff you'll need to do to unlock every upgrade feels more like a chore than a thrilling video game. But enough of the different components work well enough to make for a good start. At times I had my doubts, but I came out of this one wanting to see at least the first couple of planned updates and ready to play more, when it's available.

It's a shame that more attention wasn't paid to The Division's story. The side missions didn't need to be as repetitive as they are, and that's disappointing. But there's a real foundation here that makes this worth paying some attention to, provided you don't intend to just shoot your way through the missions by yourself.

The side content is too repetitive, but The Division's main content and exciting multiplayer component stand out and make this thing worth seeing, provided you've got some like-minded friends around.

With its less-than-full-price and short list of features, the first Garden Warfare felt like EA wasn't willing to risk much on the odd idea of turning a cutesy mobile free-to-play tower defense game into a console online shooter. It feels like a little piece of cosmic justice that while the Medal of Honor reboot failed to make any inroads with that audience, Garden Warfare somehow became a runaway success that warranted a full-priced, fully featured sequel.

This oddball shooter sequel piles on more of everything from the first game, which is exactly what that game needed.

Superhot is an intense and thrilling blend of action and puzzle with a solid bit of narrative to tie its murderous mysteries together into something worth seeing.

Campo Santo's debut adventure offers up a taut mystery built around two tremendously engaging characters.

AlphaDream hits the mark again in terms of combat and dialogue, even if some new additions fall flat.

The intricate puzzles and tantalizing secrets of this starkly gorgeous, mystical island are enough to lose yourself in for dozens of hours.

If you’re aware of the game’s limitations and you’re still eager to blow an open world straight to hell, few games do it better than Just Cause 3.

A one-note experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it delivers on that one thing exceptionally well. Just Cause 3 has occasional physics problems and a lack of variety, but it’s fantastic if you just want to drop into a world and immediately start blowing it up.

The glitchy technical issues appear across the board in every version of the game. In that, Fallout 4 is universal. As such, a big part of deciding if you want to play Fallout 4 becomes a personal inventory of your desire to either revel in these glitches or your patience at dealing with them, should they appear. As someone who has really appreciated this line of games in both its Fallout and Elder Scrolls flavors, Fallout 4 was still harder to swallow than I initially suspected it would be. It's another one of those games, for better and for worse.

Nothing about Rise of the Tomb Raider is wildly original, but everything about it is executed with a high degree of quality and craft. The game nicely merges multiple styles of gameplay, tells a better story than the 2013 reboot, and leaves off with Lara Croft at the center of an expanding narrative universe that feels like it could become home to many more exciting adventures. The last game was a decent start, but for my money, this is where the new Tomb Raider really begins.

Syndicate represents the most fun I've had with an Assassin's Creed game since Black Flag. It's proof that there's still life in this franchise, even when it goes badly astray. Now, what say we give it a short rest, so that maybe it won't have to be defibrillated back from the brink yet again?

There will certainly be some players who find that the specific omissions in Halo 5 are extremely disappointing, and you'll see a rough edge or two, but all in all there's a fantastic big-budget shooter in Halo 5 with lots to see and enough multiplayer options to keep you going for quite some time.

The Beginner’s Guide offers a personal and sometimes eerie perspective on amateur game development.

Destiny's biggest expansion to date makes the game a whole lot more enjoyable and easier to recommend.

It was a whispered reminder that great games can do more than impress with sheer complexity and breadth, they can also draw us in close to them as to engage with our humanity.

Uneven pacing and a handful of poor design decisions can't bring down Cradle's unique, sci-fi mystery.

Maybe the most impressive thing about this already very impressive game is just how damn weird it is. MGSV is bursting with the kinds of bizarre little touches this series is known for but which you never see in the biggest games that cost tens of millions and take years to create, especially the ones in this genre.

For the second year in a row, Madden makes smart, interesting changes that genuinely improve the experience.

It's an approachable game of football, still complex in myriad ways, but better at communicating those complexities than ever before.

Super Mario Maker lets you make your own Super Mario Bros. levels and if that isn't enough for you then you're probably beyond help anyway.

More than just a checklist of familiar references, more than just the old stuff with a new coat of paint. It is a game that captures the feeling I had on that vinyl couch, watching those old animated machines on the screen and wondering what it was like to be so fast, so powerful, so invincible.

Despite some aging mechanics, I still had a blast whipping my Blades of Exile around ancient Greece once again. There's something visceral and rewarding about God of War's combat that manages to strike a nerve even after a lapse of several years.

A fascinating and exciting experiment. It certainly tells a strong story, but it's the unique way in which it presents that story that makes the game so compelling. I can safely say I've never played anything quite like Her Story before, and while I don't necessarily think the "search engine murder mystery" genre needs to become the Next Big Thing, I cannot help but greatly admire the unusual ideas Her Story presents about how we tell and interact with stories in games.

Arkham Knight sees Rocksteady becoming more confident in its design within the larger scope of an entire city, and despite a few uneven spots, this is overall a satisfying way to wrap up what the developer has referred to as its trilogy of Arkham games.

Splatoon is simultaneously proof that Nintendo can still deliver tremendously entertaining experiences outside of its usual wheelhouse, and an example of how even the most leaden genres can be twisted to new and delightfully creative ends.

The finishers in Mortal Kombat X are more gruesome than ever.

Mortal Kombat X moves forward with a snappier version of the previous game's fighting and some cool new characters, but the story and other features around the edges feel a bit rough in spots.

The speedier pace of combat and the addition of Injustice's background interaction are just two of the things that make Mortal Kombat X a better-playing game than its predecessor. Also, MKX feels like an attempt to move forward into new things, whereas MK9 was one large, albeit rebooted nostalgia trip. And it looks fantastic all the while. All of this is enough to make up for the game's handful of rough edges around story mode and some of its other options.

It looks great, controls really well, and has a level of difficulty that makes things challenging without making them overtly frustrating. If you've ever been into this sort of action-adventure game, Axiom Verge is positively terrific.

I don't love every new thing about Dimensions--some of it feels like it's missing the point of what made the original so great--but there are a lot of interesting ideas in here, and holy cow is it nice just to play a new Geometry Wars game again.