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.

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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.

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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.