Concrete Genie could have simply been a game about painting and creating virtual pets that you can interact with and it still would have been a fantastic little game. But thanks to some fun action, nice puzzles and a beautiful world, it becomes something even more. The fun is in the creation, crafting a vivid world out of the pages you find and then letting your charming Genies play in it. It’s just one of those games that can be perfectly described as “feel-good.” You’ll walk away from it with a warm heart and a big smile on your face after the credits roll, yet end up diving back in so that you can find every secret. Concrete Genie is one of the PS4’s most notable highlights this year and PlayStation fans should be sure not to miss it.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is a good game overall. The biggest complaint is that it generally feels like a mashup of other recent Ubisoft shooters and even with some attempts at forging its own identity, it seems like a game we’ve already played recently. In spite of this, there’s quite a bit of fun to had and people who can’t enough of Wildlands or The Division 2 would likely find the same excitement here. If expectations are tempered for a familiar game that is derivative of previous contemporary titles, there’s a lot of fun to be had on Aurora in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, but players expecting something drastically different and new will be looking a long time on the island.

The Trine series is one of those that always offers an enchanting, beautiful 2.5D world to explore and challenges to overcome, and the fact the Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince continues this trend is no surprise. It always plays fair, making the player feel like a genius one minute and then utterly helpless the next. It packs plenty of highs, with satisfying moments galore, while offering a charming and family-friendly environment. One does wish that the story and the combat had more real meat, but this isn’t why the series exists. It does what it sets out to do and serves as a fantastic steward to Trine’s good name.

What could you really expect from a fast food advertisement in the form of a visual novel? For what it is, you’ll get about an hour of humorous — but not hilarious — story to experience. You may learn a little bit about KFC’s founder as well. But more than anything else, the game’s detailed artwork of KFC menu items may make you want to go to the fast food establishment. By that metric, the game is a success. But as a visual novel, you’d easily be able to play something much better than I Love You, Colonel Sanders for free or just a few dollars.

Customization to modes like Volta, career mode and Pro Clubs is a step in the right direction, but FIFA 20 does little to flesh out features like press conferences and make them have more of a real impact. Players will quickly realize how similar the interface is to FIFA 19 in several modes and will be yearning for the franchise to receive a complete overhaul. With Sony and Microsoft preparing for next-generation consoles, players can only hope that the FIFA franchise also decides to evolve and significantly revamps the single-player experience next year.

Let it be known that one needs to really play Sayonora Wild Hearts in order to truly experience it. Everything here describing the game honestly can’t do it justice. The graphics are a pure blast of neon joy and the soundtrack is absolutely stellar, but when combined with simple yet addictive gameplay that takes so many wonderful twists and turns, it creates this sort of trippy experience that you only see once in a blue moon. This is easily some of Simogo’s best work and should not be missed out on. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to play this album over and over again just for the tunes alone. “Wild hearts never die, wild hearts never die…”

Every single character has a sense of mystery around them that makes it easy to want to learn more and Somnium Files is happy to dish it out to those willing to dive deeper into all it has to offer. It’s also worth noting that this is a dark title, with lots of visually upsetting imagery and extremely serious situations, so those that are sensitive to these situations should be aware of before they dive in. It’s rare that such an amazing gem of a story and mechanics like this comes around but AI: The Somnium Files is a must-have for those who love murder mysteries with deep, rich stories.

What the Golf is the ultimate parody of the titular sport by boiling it down to its fundamentals and constantly upending the player’s expectations to create a humorous and memorable game. With smart and infrequent references to other games, an appealing aesthetic and reliable mechanics, the relatively brief campaign works well as either a pick-up-and-play title or a fun undertaking to blaze through in an afternoon. Thanks to a core concept that should appeal to sports, puzzle or comedy fans, What the Golf is a promising debut from the small team at Triband that is sure to please gamers of all ages.

Overall, Cat Quest II is a fantastic adventure that’s easy to recommend for players of any age. It’s a big improvement over the first and greatly expands upon what worked before while fixing some of the issues that didn’t. Having two characters to play as simultaneously keeps things fresh, as does the addition of long-range attacks. The graphics aren’t a giant improvement over the first, but they’re still good overall and pleasing to the eye. The weakest point is its sound — which isn’t bad, but unspectacular. Anyone seeking an action-centric dungeon-crawler will love Cat Quest II — and if you didn’t like the first, the second may just fix that.

Deck13’s second go of the sci-fi themed action RPG set-up, carves out just enough of a worthwhile combat and upgrade system alike, for The Surge 2 to leave players both optimistic and curious — if not eager — for what a hopeful third entry may have in store.

The average story is well represented through a plethora of cutscenes and even has alternate scenario outcomes based on your exploration efforts, even though it brings with it numerous anime tropes and long drawn out scenes. There’s a broad number of locations to visit with their own creative designs, but their size and complexity are inconsistent. There’s so much holding Code Vein back, yet I felt entranced and excited to continue playing all the way through. While it will continue to live in the shadow of Souls games, it doesn’t mean that it’s some cheap knockoff, as the number of distinctions allows for it to differentiate itself from the herd.

Every little thing is recreated in such a beautiful setting that it’s no surprise people would want to experience Koholint again, or perhaps for the first time. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is an unforgettable adventure, and this remake does it justice by capturing exactly what made it one of the most popular in the series.

Contra: Rogue Corps tries to maintain the essence of Contra while changing the gameplay mechanics into something that doesn’t remotely resemble classic Contra. It plays more like Smash TV cosplaying as Contra with several nods to classic Contra titles. In the end, anyone wanting a return to the glory of 2D Contra won’t find it here, but removing expectations of what Contra should be will find a great deal of entertainment. The intro mission establishes that this is a title that doesn’t take itself seriously; it’s simple, over the top dumb fun with nonstop carnage and some dark humor. The characters, enemies and scenarios are all ridiculous but that is what makes the game so enjoyable.

A modern mech title that can easily be a gateway drug to hours of fast-paced action, there’s nothing else quite like Daemon X Machina on Switch. While its story falls a bit short, it’s still enjoyable and intriguing enough of a ride to keep up with even when confusing. It shines strongest in its amount of replayability and sheer mountain of additional content that can be unlocked. Daemon X Machina is a title that’s hard to put down and is easy to get sucked in and just want to keep going further and see what other crazy things it has waiting around the corner. It’s obvious that a ton of time and dedication was put into Daemon X Machina, and it’s one that fans of the genre or those with the tiniest bit of interest should check out.

Survios has another winner on its hands with Battlewake. Instituting an anti-sea sickness technology should allow people who are more prone to this to actually enjoy the game. While the single player allows for getting the premise and feel of the game down, it truly shines in multiplayer. Multiplayer is seamless and works extremely well and people can hop on with friends. Single player will get redundant, but what is done here will go towards the multiplayer experience. Motion tracking is wonderful along with the controls but will take a little bit to master as there is a lot going on at times. The visuals are vibrant and vary based on environments. Battlewake is the only game of its kind and even better, it retails for only $30 on PS4. Battlewake is a must-have game for VR owners.

There’s no doubt that Konami still focuses on the hardcore fan as it still needs to work on providing a more fun and enticing experience as it has the technological and simulation side down. There’s no doubt that eFootball PES 2020 is the best version of the game this generation, but it’s still geared towards its own community.

Praise be to Blasphemous, for it’s an impressive game that has truly joined together the peanut-butter-and-chocolate-style union that is souls-likes and metroidvania games. While certain levels and enemies could benefit from a bit more polish, the end result is still a sinful delight filled with heavily-enjoyable combat, tons of areas to explore and secrets to uncover, and some jaw-dropping (if brutal) sights. It may be a game filled with countless unholy terrors, but it also oddly has a lot of love put into it as well, so don’t miss out on it (if you don’t mind the occasional nightmare).

The Sojourn is a gorgeous first-person puzzler bursting with clever design and a rich atmosphere.

The phrase, “doesn’t do anything particularly new,” is apt to describe Borderlands 3. It’s more Borderlands and that’s just fine for fans of the franchise. Gearbox has done an excellent job crafting an experience fans will feel familiar with.

Easily Spiders’ best work and one that is confident in its own material, GreedFall, though flawed, is one more fine addition to the AA sphere and a great example of passion and dedication, succeeding where it matters.

NASCAR Heat 4 gets it right with properly replicating NASCAR and the racing is the best the series has seen. The AI does a wonderful job of not ruining the experience and is a better opponent than people online. The Career Mode continues to be deep. About the only knock the game has is that there is no major new mode but the advancements are enough. You won’t be worrying about that when you’re racing. I feel the dedication to eSports brought upon this upgrade of on-track action and the visuals get the necessary jump to be considered a major player in racing games. NASCAR fans should absolutely pick up NASCAR Heat 4.

NHL 20 made some noteworthy changes that were much needed, but the game feels mostly dated. The gameplay is faster, but the AI still can suck the life out of the fun. The focus is on the arcade multiplayer aspects as it seems that EA Vancouver is leaving the NHL experience behind. There are plenty of modes here, but it’s the same story. The presentation creates a new feel to each game and it was much needed. The NHL series is still a great hockey series, but it set expectations high early in this generation. NHL 20 packs a lot for players that don’t pick it up yearly, but others may want to wait on the bench.

The series’ unrelenting, doubling-down on the simulation approach — and barely giving its players room for error — is still as prominent and bound to put off those looking for an easy ride. If you’re the kind of person who appreciates the finer detail and are looking for a racing experience that rewards smart, split-second decision-making, however, this is the kind of package that can offer so many great and engaging moments. Even if the road there may be paved with a few harsh lessons. In the end, with an expanded and much-improved career mode, some thoughtful, small-and-subtle tweaks and even more unpredictable elements to keep wary of — on top of all the care put into the physics, feedback and very sound — Kylotonn’s latest in WRC 8 stands as the studio’s best interpretation yet.

There’s no doubt that the game is fun as the grind and work throughout it gives such a feeling of satisfaction at the end because you battled for that win. Having that broadcast presentation helps with that since after the game there are so many options to do off-the-court management that it keeps the player engaged for some time. The quirks and issues become aggravating over time as you try to get better, but the core feel of the game has felt this way for a while.

Monster Hunter World is a fantastic entry into the series and stands as a pinnacle of accomplishments for Capcom. Iceborne does everything within its power to improve upon that and does it fantastically. From the wide and varied amount of new monsters and sub-species, to the quality of life changes in the new village, Iceborne nails it extremely well.

Aside from the lackluster co-op and slow start, Astral Chain is one of those rare games where it’s difficult to say anything bad about it. The story and world building may fall short of the masterpiece that was NieR: Automata, which also involved Astral Chain director Takahisa Taura, but I dare say this is the best combat action in a Platinum Games title to date. The dual control of one of the Howard twins and the Legion in an innovative twist in battle and makes combat as fun to watch as it is to play. The exploration and detective work make The Ark a world that I wanted to protect from the Chimeras. Astral Chain is one of the best games of 2019 so far and may even be remembered as one of the greatest Switch exclusives.

Combat remains exquisitely satisfying, the sound and visual departments have upped their game, the multiplayer is once more highly addicting and the lore of the world has never been so compelling. Gears 5 doesn’t quite reinvent the genre, but instead acts as a stepping stone for a better future.

One could easily make the argument that Control could very well be Remedy’s magnum opus. Not only have they managed to craft a fun and insane world full of surreal delights and impressive visuals, but they loaded it with a massive amount of secrets to hunt for and paired it alongside some of the year’s best combat. The end result is a superb third-person action game that you shouldn’t miss out on. The game may end with a not-so-subtle hint at upcoming DLC set to come in the future, but the terrific gameplay leaves one wanting more. Plus, there’s still a lot of The Oldest House to explore, even after the main game ends, so we’ll easily be occupied with more of Control, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.