Aside from sub-par sound design, Gear.Club Unlimited offers up an outstanding racing experience for Switch. It straddles the line nicely between offering up a sim-infused experience while keeping the on-track action fast and exciting. The amount of racing types available is impressive and the sense of progression makes it easy for a quick play session to turn into a marathon. GCU is a flawed experience but winds up being greater than the sum of its few flaws thanks to it providing a lot of fun on the track in all of its racing styles. Off the track, it’s fun to expand and customize. It’s a great-looking game and a fine showcase of what can be done with the Switch for racing games — even at an early stage in its lifespan.

Ace of Seafood is a ridiculous game in a good way. It provides players with a simple directive — dominate the ocean — and leaves it up to their skill to make that a reality. Alongside how goofy this all looks in action, it also provides a surprisingly compelling bit of gameplay to master. Of course, much of the fun is in simply finding the next creature to gain control of. It also never stops ceasing to be one of the most amusing PS4 titles to date. While it might not be the most delicious gaming dish, Ace of Seafood is yummy in its own right.

Though it pains to proclaim such a promising title as this — given how obviously ambitious its world-building stands, how undeniably strange-but-enticing its organic-mechanical aesthetic is or how inviting the otherwise isolating ambience of its sound design is — Hob may well be one of the more disappointing showings for the genre this year when all is said and done. What starts off in its first half as a platformer rife with engaging mystery and many an incentive to know more quickly devolves into a rehashed and seemingly never-ending loop of puzzles unlocking puzzles unlocking more similarly-deprived puzzles without fruitful meaning or purpose. Though it tries to maintain the facade and continually promise greater things to come, it soon becomes apparent that Hob is somewhat deprived of an end goal — interested solely in the long-distant allure than it is the up-close-and-personal meaning and value behind it all.

Fractured Mask offers some of the season’s best scenes in yet another strong episode in Telltale’s latest season. The consistency during the two hour tale leaves a little to be desired, but Batman: The Enemy Within continues to be among the best Telltale has to offer.

Skyrim offers the most complete VR experience on PlayStation 4, but it comes at a cost. While RE7 might have been done better, it wasn’t for everyone. The nausea issues with Skyrim VR are going to be an issue due to the amount of time needed for grinding and exploration. Every piece of content that’s been released is included, but it’ll be hard for fans to shell out more money for a game they already own. Nobody should have to buy the same game three or four times to get enhancements. After playing through a game of this scale, is it worth doing again especially with the threat of sickness?

By bringing Apollo Justice to 3DS, every main title in the Ace Attorney series is now readily available to fans looking to dive into court cases on the handheld. Upgraded audio and visuals make this more beautiful than ever, even trumping the work done on the original trilogy’s remake for 3DS. Fans of the series will be satisfied to know that the effort put into this remake is well worth picking it up again and players who haven’t been able to play this middle entry prior now have easy access to one of the early turning points in the series. Although it was a nine year wait, it’s more than satisfying to enjoy Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney once again looking as great as can be.

Empire Divided is a fun change of pace from the standard Rome II fare. It has decent replay value and a ton of flavor for history buffs or just people interested in history that encourages the player to do some research to understand this interesting historical period.

School Girl/Zombie Hunter had the potential to be a B-movie style good time that unfortunately is so bad that it’s bad. There are tiny bits of fun to be found among the numerous flaws, but the bad vastly outnumbers the good. Die hard fans of this type of thing could maybe give this a look if there’s a heavily discounted sale, but even then the bad gameplay will overshadow any camp value to be found. Onechanbara Z2 is actually a better alternative to this title, if that tells you anything, since it provides the same level of fan service but with better visuals, music and combat. School Girl/Zombie Hunter is basically Lollipop Chainsaw without the fun or any of latter’s redeeming qualities.

Basically, Rive is pure 16-bit action from back when console games were still balanced between the arcade and more modern-style adventures. While it’s much prettier than anything the Genesis could do, it would have been right at home with the best of that console’s library. Run, gun, blow stuff up real good and there’s even plenty of fun banter between Roughshot and the unnamed robot antagonist. The game moves at a solid 60FPS at all times, the backgrounds and settings all look fantastic, and anything that gets shot goes down hard. Rive: Ulimate Edition has a few extra bits for the Switch, such as co-op where two players can use a Joy-Con apiece to work together controlling the tank, one on shooting and the other on movement, and it loads faster and has a few tweaks to the levels, but other than that it’s the same great shooter that came out on the other consoles and PC last year. It was a lot of fun then and it’s a perfect match with the Switch, letting you get in a bite-sized round of shooting or going for a multi-hour play session depending on available time. That’s what classic action shooters do best, and despite the occasional misfired encounter, Rive pulls it off with style and an ending that leaves the player hoping that, just maybe, there might somehow end up being a Rive 2 after all.

Monsters of the Deep is a beautiful tragedy in terms of a VR experience. The visuals are stunning and it could have been a great fishing simulation, but ends up being lazy and broken. A fishing VR game is a good idea and the controls may be better with the motion controls, but trying to fish is a hassle even when a sense of consistency is established.

While it can make for an enjoyable title for younger players who can easily grab some friends and compete in short spans of time, Mario Party: The Top 100 doesn’t have quite enough to keep players coming back to it in the way any other main line entry has been able to over all these years.

Road Rage takes the Road Rash formula and fails to live up to any single entry in that series despite great advances in technology since its last entry — let alone its heyday. The racing action struggles due to poor controls, while the combat rings hollow with poor weapon selection and sub-par sound effects. Glitches and other technical problems muddy the experience further, while a lack of polish on everything makes the game feel like a cash-in on a minor “Road Rash revival” sub-genre.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 delivers on a fun time in a world made of LEGOs and remains over the top in all the right ways.

Put pure-and-simply, it’s a game that tries to win you over solely on its distorted aesthetic, but ends up losing you (and annoying you) moreso.

Star Wars Battlefront II is the epitome of taking a step forward, shooting yourself in the foot and then falling backwards in pain. It goes to great lengths to rectify the mistakes of the previous game but ends up opening a new can of worms. We finally got a single player campaign, but the story is lackluster and Iden never gets a chance to shine. There’s more content and depth, but the game is severely hampered by the lack of a progression system. What really stands out about Star Wars Battlefront II is just how terrible its Loot Crate system is, because it permeates so much of the game. DICE has stripped away an actual progression system and hidden away its contents behind overpriced microtransactions. With Credits and Crafting Parts doled out at such a low rate, Star Wars Battlefront II puts players in no-win situations in the hopes of making a quick buck. The sad thing is, there’s a lot of fun that could be had in Star Wars Battlefront II. Galactic and Starfighter Assault are fun, the game runs well, and servers are holding up, but there’s nothing rewarding to keep coming back for more. It really is a shame DICE took Star Wars Battlefront II to the Dark Side.

It’s a great game that holds up after six years, but it’s about time that The Elder Scrolls VI is announced instead of yet another release of Skyrim.

The Sims 4 on both PS4 and Xbox One is a welcome addition for the series, allowing players that might not have the PC capabilities to enjoy a beloved series. It maintains its level of quality from PC, but still needs some work in various technical areas, seeing as the mouse/camera isn’t the best and the game will consistently hitch, especially with longer play sessions. Everything that makes for a great Sims game is in The Sims 4, and with updated creation options and attention to detail unmatched by other games in the series, The Sims 4 is worth it, giving a freedom of play most games just don’t offer. It’s unfortunate that EA didn’t bring mods over from the PC community, especially with other big games doing this, but maybe later down the line they’ll follow suit. Not to worry, though, plenty of extra content will be available at launch, with four expansion and item packs coming out alongside The Sims 4 at launch, making sure to give much of the available content to console players right away.

The Sims 4 Cats & Dogs is an excellent — and much-needed — addition to an already fantastic game. The Sims has always been about living one’s best life and this grants more ways to accomplish that. This is the perfect game for any animal lover and the amount of customization in creating and interacting with pets makes for a joyous time. The new Brindleton Bay neighborhood makes for the perfect setting to get acquainted with these furry friends. Aside from some needed technical tweaking, Cats & Dogs is barking proudly as a must-have expansion for The Sims 4.

From Other Suns is an example of how VR tech should be implemented in games. The ship management portion and procedurally-generated levels make this feel like an RPG, but the rogue-lite design makes it play much more like an action arcade game. One could argue that VR is a gimmick used for From Other Suns to take a shooter that might seen mundane on a traditional monitor and make it more interesting, and while that statement may not be entirely wrong, the VR implementation works perfectly for this title. The ease of VR controls, whether grabbing items from the streamlined inventory or strapping in weapons, feel completely intuitive and natural. VR games have progressed a lot in the past year, and while they may have a way to go before becoming a mainstream form of gaming, titles like From Other Suns show that VR is a viable format for games and not just a passing gimmick.

Even with the issues that arise from massive gaps between checkpoints and a few niggles here and there, Tower 57 is still a blast, accomplishing its goal of reminding us why these types of games from the Amiga era ended up being classics. The humor that comes from the oddities of the twisted world provides endless charm, the lush environments are eye-pleasing and the combat is fast-paced, challenging and just plain fun. It’s a terrific action game worth checking out for retro game enthusiasts (and everyone else, for that matter) and one you’ll be coming back to…even if it’s just because you stormed away for a moment after a mistimed rocket launcher blast killed you right before the boss and sent you back to square one.

Telltale’s premiere season for their take on the Guardians of the Galaxy proves to be an enjoyable one, as the stellar soundtrack and combat sequences prove to be the high points of the occasionally humorous adventure. A little fine tuning from the dialogue and engine could have gone a long way, but as it is, Telltale’s adaptation of the dysfunctional space family is one worth checking out for fans of the movies or comics, or those looking for a lighthearted sci-fi adventure.

Simulacra might not be perfect, but it highlights that the found phone horror concept is one that has a significant amount of potential. For anyone looking to venture into uncharted territory with horror, Simulacra is a choice that brings a fresh, exciting new experience compared with many other titles on the market. It has a well-constructed story and demonstrates that branching narratives are built for horror titles. Kaigan Games has only scraped the surface of found phone horror, though. Should they choose to return with another installment and be able to improve on some of the notable flaws, it could end up making the real impact that it’s looking for with found phone horror on the mobile market. For now, however, Simulacra is a must-own title for any horror enthusiast. Even if it’s only for a single playthrough, it’s enough to make any player want to talk to their friend about this found phone horror title they’ve discovered.

While not the most robust of the PlayLink games, Knowledge is Power is still a fun, playable game show that family and friends will easily be able to pick up and play. Games are short, which means that it’s not something you have to dedicate a night to, but also sets you up for rematches galore. The questions are interesting and niche, which makes them harder while at the same time making you feel like you know the answer. The way they’ve implemented the Power Plays is a nice touch, allowing you to slow your opponents down in a game that’s all about speed. So if you’ve been liking the games that Sony has been offering with their new PlayLink initiative, Knowledge is Power is another one to pick up.

.hack//G.U. was a flawed but ultimately entertaining JRPG when it rolled out on PlayStation 2 and the same can be said about Last Recode. The story is adequate enough to keep you interested and it helps it’s populated with a fun and highly diverse cast of characters. Unfortunately, you have to weigh your interest for an intriguing story against the dated gameplay. Even in the later parts of the game, the combat remains stale and repetitive to a degree of anguish, with the idea of environmental variety being non-existent. There are quite a few side quests to partake in, some with their own unique quirks, but they are based on a system that will have a tough time holding your attention. It helps that the new volume concludes things in a more satisfying manner, but it should have been a more fleshed-out piece of content, especially considering it will last most players only a handful of hours. At the end of the day, if you can put up with all of the baggage, and there’s a lot of it, you’ll find a world worth venturing.

Playlink doesn’t get enough credit. At first it seemed like PlayStation simply trying to get on the Jackbox bandwagon, but they seem to be invested in the program and it’s working out well for them. Supermassive has done impressive things with the technology and thought of a new way to take advantage of it. Hidden Agenda tells a good story and is great for a fun night in with friends. It has problems in the graphics and writing areas, but it’s a fun and entertaining game in the end. $19.99 is a great value for the quality of the content throughout the five chapters and it signals exiting things to come for Playlink.

What ends up holding Sonic Forces back is that it — ironically — moves too fast to leave any sort of lasting impact, speeding through both its plot and levels in short bursts instead of leaving more time for anything to soak in. Outside of its length issues, however, the gameplay is solid, the character customization is incredibly fun and the aesthetics are impressive as always.

It’s clear, beyond the obvious limitation with resolution and frame-rate, that DOOM for Switch has had to make some restrictions. Even so, for those who haven’t yet experienced one of last year’s finest, most surprising releases, DOOM even now represents one of the genre’s finest moments for some time. Clearly those who already own the game on another platform will have to think long and hard over the novel value of having a game of this caliber on the go. And while the visual blemishes and rough edges do detract on occasion and are clear to spot, playing DOOM on the Nintendo Switch still conjures that same jubilant energy that id Software’s behemoth has long been praised for. Tainted in its visuals it might be, the heart, soul and demon-crushing ferocity of its gameplay, in the end, shines through regardless.

Don’t Stop Believin’ feels stretched out, but ultimately plays out as an enjoyable finale filled with humor and heart. If this does end up being the final appearance of Telltale’s take on the Guardians of the Galaxy, it’ll be reassuring to know that the season ended on a high note (in more ways than one), while still leaving an open door for the dysfunctional space family to return in the future.