Invincible VS is clearly a game by the FGC for the FGC, which results in a double-edged sword. It serves as an incredibly fun and satisfying tool for competition, featuring just enough of that modern fighting game sanding of edges to welcome in new players, while also offering plenty of depth through playing chicken with the combo meter and a combo breaker-esque system of Heroic Strikes, Counter Tags, and Assist Breakers. Disappointingly, this focus on creating a game for tournament players seems to be what has caused the single-player offerings to suffer. The presentation is brilliantly flashy the whole way through, but after playing through a mediocre “episode” of the show and reaching disappointing arcade mode endings, the casual audience is left with little to do in the game other than rematching the CPU in standard matches over and over.

t may fall short if you’re looking for a deep city builder or life sim, but as a piece of absurdist Dada comedy I absolutely love Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. Every day I look forward to booting it up, making a Mii or two, seeing what unlikely friendships are forming, and watching ludicrous vignettes play out. I’ll boot up Stardew Valley or Pokopia if I’m looking for something mechanically deeper, but I know I can count on a good laugh whenever I check in on Kayfabe Island.

Mouse: P.I. For Hire shows a deep love for animation of the era, but the gameplay and script lack the same level of care. A Gouda attempt, but nothing bleu me away. Cheesy in all the wrong ways.

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!

Legacy of Kain: Ascendance is a frustrating title - a truly new game in the series has finally made its way to us after decades away, but the choice to retcon the story, coupled with the absolute whiffs in gameplay, leaves it feeling like little more than a flimsy footnote in the series overall. There’s a ton of love here for the story of Legacy of Kain, but its changes and contributions to the lore make it feel more like fan fiction than a true prequel. I wanted this to be the triumphant return of Kain, Raziel, and the strange, dark world of Nosgoth, but what arrived instead was something draped in the series’ skin - not an evolution, but an uninspired reinvention.

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.

Mario Tennis Fever has me worried for Nintendo’s sports games on Switch 2. It’s not worse than any of the sports games on Switch 1, but it’s also not any better. The trouble is that it commits almost all of the same sins: the mechanics are solid, but nothing outside of the core tennis gameplay is that much fun.

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.

As a huge fan of Terminator 2 and the 16-bit era of sidescrolling action games, I certainly found plenty of things to appreciate about this faithful throwback from Bitmap Bureau. If you see NO FATE on sale for $10 and have the same nostalgia that I have for its inspirations, I’d give it a hearty recommendation. It becomes much harder to recommend a $30 purchase for a 45-minute long experience. But then again, it did remind me of that scene where Arnold kneels on the hood of a semi truck and unloads a full assault rifle clip into the T-1000. So it can’t be THAT bad.

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.

It runs so, so smooth with no hiccups. Doesn't matter how much crazy bullshit is happening on the screen. Technically it's in the top 3 PS5 showcases. It's phenomenal.

While a lot of Starfield's familiar Bethesda cruft is outdated and often boring in the early game, the story, quest, characters, and interactions all get better the more you play. That doesn't mean you can ignore the awkward traversal and janky bugs, but it is questionable how damaging those elements are to the experience after 250 hours in Todd Howard's space epic. [Quick Look]

Redfall fails to compel on nearly every level, not just in its uninteresting story, but also its all-too-familiar gameplay. Not only does Redfall feel like a game stuck in yesteryear, even its performance finds a way to disappoint. [Quick Look]

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.

It's so nice to have a surprise like this come out of nowhere...and at the end of the year I expect I'm still going to be thinking about this when it comes to game of the year time. It would have made my Top 10 last year. - JG [Quick Look]

A spooky and ambitious little indie game that knows exactly how silly it is, Choo-Choo Charles has some expected flaws from the constraints that come from being a single-developer project, but makes up for it with its originality and moxie. (I mean, what other game out there is about fleeing from and fighting a demonic spider-train? You just can't get that in a AAA game!) It's one of those indie horrors that's brimming with the joy and the jank that makes me love the genre overall. [Quick Look]

Despite the way-too-chatty guns (for what it's worth, there's options for that), High on Life ends up being a pretty fun shooter in a colorful and ridiculously stupid sci-fi world. It's not reinventing the wheel with its combat, but it doesn't really have to in order to be an alright time. The boss fights are surprisingly enjoyable and the game's exploration is satisfying, with upgrades and unlocks that open the world gradually, in a way that reminds me a bit of Ratchet and Clank. High on Life's crass humor is an understandable balk point for many — and the first hour or two is unrelentingly... well, Roilandy — but if you can push past the bad first impression, it's a good ol' competent FPS. [Quick Look]

Mirror Forge is a little indie horror joint with a lot of heart and a lot of glitches... but that's not really a deal-breaker for me. It's one of those scrappy super-indie titles whose charm is actually kinda amplified by its rough edges. The developer's love for Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness, and Stranger Things is apparent as our trauma-laden protagonist wanders through bloody hallways with ancient secrets, told to us via somewhat goofy voice acting. Cliché stuff, yes, but I can't help but enjoy that this is a game that knows what it is - an ambitious, mishmashed, indulgent homage to some really great things. A solo developer stretching their legs and seeing what they can pull off. A janky, but entertaining time. [Quick Look]

The Callisto Protocol was touted as the next Dead Space and it unfortunately suffers for that comparison. With frustrating, awkward combat, an uninteresting plot, and jump scares that fall completely flat, The Callisto Protocol struggles in the shadow of its spiritual predecessor, which did all of those things better 14 years ago. (This is all not to mention the full-screen strobing light effects that cannot be turned off; an accessibility failure that one would not expect of a modern AAA game.) It's a pity that Callisto copied the aesthetic of Dead Space while failing to execute the aspects that made it frightening and fun. [Quick Look]

An intro into the Warhammer universe that'll make you want to dive all the way in. Gothic organs blast as you and three other friends blast through hordes and hordes of decaying enemies. [Unprofessional Friday]

Ship of Fools is a neat little roguelite Overcooked at sea mashup. Things get chaotic real quick as you and a friend have to navigate the seven seas and make sure to not throw precious material overboard. [Quick look]

Marvel's Midnight Suns has snappy tactical combat that's incredibly satisfying and manages to juggle numerous social links successfully with familiar heroes. [Quick Look]

"The Devil in Me" takes an intriguing historical true-crime premise, mixes it with a bit of SAW, and half-bakes it, amounting to a very by-the-numbers, unscary addition of the Dark Pictures Anthology. Unlikable characters with dull personal problems and a plot with glacial pacing bog down a game that had a lot of potential in its set-up. That's not to mention the graphical glitches and other oddities that make the game feel rushed out the door. These unfortunate factors culminate to make The Devil In Me the weakest of the Anthology series thus far. [Quick Look]

The age of the Switch's hardware and GameFreak's prowess as a studio is on full display in the newest Pokemon release as we see muddy textures and single frame animations. While we get a new crop of cute Pokemon, a more open world, and new battle mechanics we're unfortunately stuck trudging along at a snail's pace because of the game itself. [Quick Look]

The age of the Switch's hardware and GameFreak's prowess as a studio is on full display in the newest Pokemon release as we see muddy textures and single frame animations. While we get a new crop of cute Pokemon, a more open world, and new battle mechanics we're unfortunately stuck trudging along at a snail's pace because of the game itself. [Quick Look]

Somerville's strengths come from its mysterious narrative and storytelling intrigue, but it fails to match the overall polish and cohesive game design language as its spiritual predecessors. [Quick Look]

Pentiment sheds the dice rolls and combat to emphasize the branching conversations and compelling narrative that Obsidian is best at. And the result is an engaging page-turner that can only really work as a video game. [Quick Look]

The Chant is a psychedelic folk-horror action-adventure game that has more to it than one might expect from an indie title. While it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the table with its gameplay, it does provide a successfully fun experience and a compelling cult setting to sink into. [Quick Look]

Platinum makes Bayonetta wilder and more unpredictable than ever, mostly for the better. [Quick Look]

The Entropy Centre is a brutally brain-bending Portal-like, using time as its main mechanic. Casual puzzle-enjoyers might find its trial-and-error game loop more frustrating than fun, but the meticulous-minded will probably enjoy its challenges. [Quick Look]

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.

Quick Look

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.

Former GameMaster Jess geeks out way too hard at Jeff Grubb, teaching him the ropes of escape rooms! [Quick look]

The Jeffs and Jan convene and hold gnarled fingers together to chat about their harrowing adventures in the world of Elden Ring.

Undoubtedly a gorgeous spectacle in every way, Forbidden West struggles to develop a compelling storyline out of the gate. It mitigates that through a satisfying and customizable combat system, though in our playthrough so far, hasn't demonstrated a substantial evolution from the original. [Quick Look]

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.

Some say it takes a village to do a quick look, others say it only takes Brad and Vinny. Sit back and enjoy as the Giant Bomb team takes an unedited look at Resident Evil Village.

Jeff Gerstmann & Jeff Bakalar's early impressions.

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 good enough that its host of technical problems feels like an affront to what the game could have been, and to the hard work and talent--and there's a considerable amount of talent here--of the people who made it.

On paper, these elements add up to one of the most elaborate and original Star Wars games in a very long time, but poor performance, a multitude of minor bugs, and a pervasive sense that swaths of the game are just lacking in refinement all undermine what would otherwise be an easy game to recommend.

Jedi: Fallen Order is both one of the best Star Wars games to date and distressingly unrefined.

Kojima's first post-Konami project is a bizarre, self-indulgent mess that never quite manages to tie its myriad pieces together.

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.

Quick look...

Quick look (video).

Twice on PS4, the game crashed so hard that it literally powered down my console, forcing me to repair all my storage devices before I could boot it back up. A game making you worry about damaging your hardware is just inexcusable. I don't remember seeing this many big and small technical issues in a major release since, well, Mass Effect: Andromeda. How that reflects on BioWare's recent track record doesn't really need to be said.

Anthem needs more than just new content. A lot of work needs to be done on a wide variety of the game's fundamental elements before it can join the ranks of other redeemed loot games like Diablo III, Destiny, and The Division. Whether EA will give BioWare the latitude to overhaul the parts of the game that need it--and whether it's even technically feasible for them to do that in the first place--are questions with uncertain answers.

I don't think I'd call Crackdown 3 an awful game, but I would call it dated.

Crackdown 3 shows very little in the way of learning from the past or learning from the other open-world games that have graced consoles over the last nine years. Instead it feels slight, mindless, and dull. It feels like a gussied-up first-generation Xbox One game. Like the sort of game you might have expected to hear about back in 2014. In the here and now, though, there's... way less room for this sort of game on store shelves.

Jeff, Brad, and Ben jump into Respawn's new free-to-play battle royale game.

Quick look.

Quick look.

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.

If all you want is another huge, slightly lukewarm portion of a meal it feels like we just finished, then Odyssey certainly delivers that. Personally, I feel like I'm going to explode.

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.

Quick Look...

Quick look.

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.

The ambitious setting doesn't pay off in this story that seems to want to hedge every chance it gets. The end result is a story that goes nowhere, says nothing, and fails to live up to the previous settings and villains in the franchise. If you can get past that... the rest is pretty much fine if you're up for another Far Cry game.

Far Cry 5's story is a real let-down, but the action still makes for a solid co-op experience.

A decent video game undermined by bad pacing, weak characters, and a wishy-washy world view. Play it cooperatively with a friend, ignore the characters and their motivations, and you'll probably have a good time.

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.

It has all the trappings of a game that should probably be free-to-play, but Konami is asking $40 for it up front. That's a bad deal.

After Phantom Pain was released and the split between publisher Konami and series creator Hideo Kojima became public, some folks lamented that we'd never see another game on Konami's Fox Engine ever again. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Metal Gear Survive is both a bad survival game and a bad Metal Gear game.

The end result feels like a game that was created in a boardroom, its DNA formed by focus testing and market research. Time will tell what EA does in an attempt to remedy its grave errors with Battlefront II, but the game as it stands today is little more than a disappointing mess. Its technical prowess, beloved characters, and shiny spacecraft serve as little more than a distracting facade that covers an embarrassing attempt at a marquee Star Wars game.

This rollercoaster ride of a turn-based strategy game starts out almost impossibly strong, but by the end I mostly wished it'd been over three hours earlier.

This feels like the most wheel-spinning, by-the-numbers Call of Duty they've made thus far.

Call of Duty's return to World War II looks great, but feels flat and uninspired from start to finish.

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.

This core action and the complex systems that underpin it are fun enough to play around with that it's a real shame that so many issues exist around the edges of this package, because those issues eventually started to diminish my enjoyment of the game's good parts.

This core action and the complex systems that underpin it are fun enough to play around with that it's a real shame that so many issues exist around the edges of this package, because those issues eventually started to diminish my enjoyment of the game's good parts.

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.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's gameplay lives up to its predecessors, but in most other ways, it takes you for a ride.

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.

It may share a genre and universe with Saints Row, but Agents of Mayhem is a lifeless husk of Volition's prior work.