While the N. Sane Trilogy is by no means the perfect and/or flawless remaster fans and interested onlookers may have wanted, there's no denying that a lot of Vicarious' microscopic and macroscopic attention to detail alike is demonstrated sufficiently well in Crash's current-gen revisit.

The Golf Club 2 combines a good golf simulation game with the social interaction of an actual clubhouse through the online societies with an engrossing career mode.

Valkyria Revolution is an excellent action-RPG if you’re looking for something new after playing through Final Fantasy XV.

Master X Master is an outstanding MOBA for both veterans of the genre and newcomers alike. PC gamers who prefer controller-based play may have a bit of a learning curve when it comes to using a keyboard and mouse setup, but the game feels natural after a fairly short period of time and never throws you into a battle unfairly. It looks outstanding and plays well on both low-end and high-end hardware, allowing it to be accessible to many people who may generally avoid newer releases out of fear that they won’t run well. Its music and sound effects are exceptional, even if the repeated character voice clips do grate on the nerves after a while.

River City: Knights of Justice is an excellent beat ’em up on the whole. It has some graphical and audio shortcomings that drag it down, but long-time fans of he series will still find a lot of enjoyment here.

Nex Machina is an utterly fantastic arcade twin-stick shooter that doesn’t so much revolutionize the genre as get almost every aspect just right. The shooting feels great, the dash mechanic gives you plenty of flexibility in getting out of tight spots, all the secondary weapons are unique and useful in their own way, and the enemies never stop coming up with new ways to cause trouble.

Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour is a surprisingly large shooter that takes the long-running arcade FPS and translates it perfectly into a new genre. The gorgeous pixel art is well detailed and animated, and can pack a ton of critters on screen at once without any issues. Blasting through an area, painting the floor red with the remains of a vicious horde that couldn’t quite stand up to a rocket launcher, is basically what I pictured games would turn into back in the Genesis/SNES days. It’s got fast action, tons of weapons, a huge variety of creatures and a handful of bosses to use them against and firepower flies everywhere when the encounters heat up. Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour may look different from Sam’s usual outings, but 2D fans will have as much fun checking out the excellent pixel art as series fans will tearing through enemies both familiar and new.

Tokyo 42 has a lot of potential, and moments of greatness where it can deliver satisfying action, but unfortunately gets bogged down by an annoying camera and notable structure issues and technical snafus. There’s still fun to be had in the candy-coated world of a futuristic Japan, especially when it comes to exploration and the occasional parkour, but those looking for a more focused and more effective action game would be better off checking something else instead. So in the end, it’s sadly less Blade Runner and more Johnny Mnemonic.

Tormentor X Punisher is loud, mean, occasionally unfair, intentionally ugly and thoroughly awesome. Its attitude infuses every aspect of the game, from enemy designs, the chunky low-resolution art and especially the excellent voicework that, yes, is repetitive but a major part of setting the tone. Death is brutal and easy, survival guaranteed to be short, and the leaderboards populated with people who are basically wizards. Getting a score over 100,000 is a feat to be proud of and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve only done it once so far. Dying is inevitable, but not the point of Tormentor X Punisher. While the pink-haired demon hunter isn’t surviving this, she’s going to take as many minions and bosses as the game can churn out as she swears like a sailor to her last furious breath.

While To the Top may be a bit short on polish its sense of movement is fantastic. Once you’ve got the hang of managing your momentum you can practically fly through the levels, springing from point to point like a hypercaffeinated frog. Every level offers something different, whether that be new scenery, air-vortex jump pads, special surfaces that let you skate over them and even one memorable level that gives you jetpack hands. (That particular level made me glad to play at night when nobody was watching so they couldn’t see me with arms pointed back, leaning forward to get just the right angle to skim ahead at top speed.) The multiple routes and hidden challenges make each area highly replayable, and while some levels aren’t quite as good as others, at least they’re different enough so if you don’t like one there’s a complete change of pace coming right up. To the Top is a fantastically creative first-person VR platformer, filled with great challenges and giving the player the tools to handle them if only they can master the techniques.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind is an impressive new addition to an already solid MMO. The Elder Scrolls Online has been constantly evolving since its initial launch, and the new content introduced in this chapter builds upon these improvements. There’s plenty to do in Vvardenfell, a land with consonants to spare, but one of the greatest strengths of this title is the level of accessibility. Any type of character build can work in this game, and players of all levels can play together and things will balance themselves out so everyone can have a good time. Plus, for the times when you may want to play alone, this MMO does actually provide a good solo experience. Whether someone is a long time player, new to the game, or has played before and taken a lengthy break, anyone can jump in and experience new adventures in Vvardenfell.

Dark Rose Valkyrie is a bit of a mixed bag. The hybrid of the visual novel inspired interview system mixed with a traditional JRPG is an interesting idea, and that the traitor is never set does give reason to play through the story more than once. The downside to it is like most JRPGs this is not a short game, and there are enough issues with the gameplay where tackling it once would be enough for most people. The pacing makes it difficult to fully get immersed into the story and outside of the interview portion, the gameplay does not live up to its potential, especially in battle. The result is an overall good but unremarkable JRPG. Compile Heart’s signature charm and humor is present throughout, so fans of their other games will likely be able to forgive its shortcomings and enjoy this title for what it is.

Randall should be better than this. It’s got all the elements in place to be good but they just don’t work right. There are some clever jumping puzzles that require the player to have pinpoint accuracy and consider jump height and how it relates to distance and not bouncing off the ceiling. The combat moves are well thought out, Randall’s abilities are used constantly in every area and the level art looks great. If Randall had the controls to match then this would be a nice little sleeper, but the pieces never come together to make it fun to play and the bugs drag it down even further. There are a lot of ways Randall could have been good, but without a character who can keep up with the action, it never manages to rise above being just plain bad.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Star Trek: Bridge Crew is that it’s a VR experience that encourages repeat play. Having put a decent amount of time into the title already, it’s understandable that some may hope for additional content added, such as an adversarial crew vs crew mode. What’s in the package already, though, makes for some hectic times and an incredible use of the technology. The message behind the actual game mechanics, that of the need for understanding and cooperation among the players, is possibly the most clever expression of the themes of the franchise a game has ever mustered.

Under Pressure keeps the story flowing and the jams pumping as Telltale provides a rare look at one of the Guardians’ upbringings. The hit-or-miss humor and standard technical malfunctions are still on full display, but the strong storytelling helps keep the season moving forward as the dysfunctional space crew keep searching for answers.

Fighting titles have long been the most competitive and often hardest for new players to get into, but ARMS enters itself extremely well to the genre by feeling like nothing that has ever been played before.

Perception isn’t great, failing to clear every benchmark that it set out for itself by a healthy margin. It could fall back on the fact that it was trying something experimental as an excuse for what went wrong, but there are too many experimental games in today’s day and age for me to cut any slack for the mess that is this game. With the pedigree of the team that created it and the lofty expectations that it set out for itself, it fails to live up even to modest expectations. While it’s noble to attempt to tackle representation in interesting ways, Perception isn’t a poster child for what games of this persuasion should strive to be.

I found it enjoyable, but I also have an interest in old medical and mental illness treatment practices. Someone looking for action or a Resident Evil style horror experience should skip this, but those looking for a good story in a beautifully bleak environment to explore at a leisurely pace would likely find some enjoyment in The Town of Light.

Codemasters has provided enough meaningful upgrades for DiRT 4 while keeping the core simulation racing aspect intact. This should appease the hardcore fans while allowing people with interest in the series to take a drive.

While it may not indulge as much on its aesthetic to better hide the distinct lack of gameplay, Empathy: Path of Whispers can’t excuse itself for letting its eye go too far a stray from keeping its player both focused and interested in the tale being spun. Though it’s far from the actual narrative’s fault for the game’s all-round mediocre delivery, the insistency on following an established formula across a bulk of the game’s all-round length doesn’t excuse the choppy, blurred and fairly average quality of its visual design. The warranted need to fine-tune its brief puzzles aside, Empathy: Path of Whispers is intriguing in moderation, but little else.

f you enjoyed LoveKami -Divinity Stage- then you may also dig this game. It just depends why you were enamored with the previous title. Those who were really into the whole idol aspect will find little in this narrative to hook them (beyond a very brief segment). If you just love this take on Japan where goddesses are as klutzy, naughty and paradoxically naive then this visual novel should still be up your alley. There’s not a lot of deep storytelling or character development, but LoveKami -Useless Goddess- should satisfy folks looking to perk up a drab afternoon.

Tekken 7 is the fighting experience that its fan base wanted it to be. The game will make you want to drop all the fireballs and fatalities and jump back to a franchise that most put on the backburner. 3D fighters have taken a backseat as the likes of Virtua Fighter and Soul Caliber have gone missing. Tekken 7 could be just the title to garner interest in bringing those games back. With little flaws in concept and execution, Tekken 7 feels like a traditional fighting game with the right amount of flash that players will want to master.

While it has been around for quite awhile, Oceanhorn on PS Vita feels like the best way to play the game. It controls well and looks great on the system. The game itself isn’t creating a new genre, but what Oceanhorn does instead is build a fun adventure using familiar building blocks that we all know. Some people might dismiss this as unoriginal and quaint, but then some people really hate fun. This is a game that earns its spot in any gamer’s library simply by expertly executing precisely what it wants to be.

Despite the fact that it is incredibly short, Form is one of those games that must be played by any aficionado of virtual reality. Through smart design and a superlative look, this it is one of those titles that can really show off how the medium can surpass gaming on a monitor. It’s immersive, engaging and beautiful, setting a new standard for virtual reality and visual design.

Rezrog will no doubt stand as one of the lesser-talked releases of the year, yet one that poses a quite resonant and important question on the principle of planning/thinking before one acts. All this, after the most baffling and head-scratching of introductory openings — an opening that immediately places all its potential systems on the player’s shoulders, coming off initially as an uphill struggle with little leniency. It’s a testament then to how well Soaphog manage to marry the charm of its art-style to the sophisticated yet inevitably accessible delivery of its mechanics. Look past the out-of-character presence of difficulty at the start or perhaps the limitation of its procedural dungeon design and what you’ll find is a strategy RPG with as much charm, personality and character to carry through the same manner of grand adventure any fellow RPG might invoke. Reflecting more so the best and perhaps worst in a player’s ambition for all-round victory — that in itself, perhaps, Rezrog‘s true lasting appeal.

Even after nearly seven years, Vanquish still has some of the best combat of any action game. It’s fast, it’s intense and most importantly, it’s downright fun. Unfortunately, variety isn’t the game’s strong point. From an artistic perspective, not a whole lot changes from the beginning of the campaign to the end; everything has a sterile mechanical look to it that refuses to change. It’s also criminally short, coming in between five to six hours. Granted, it’s non-stop action, but you’ll have a burning desire for even more as the credits begin to roll. Regardless, Vanquish’s strengths are in its gameplay mechanics as skating around on your knees and taking down enemies with the unique arsenal is highly engaging. It helps that the PC port, outside some oddities, is done with care, with optimization being a positive component, and keyboard & mouse controls feeling natural. In the end, Vanquish isn’t a perfect game by any means, but its high-octane combat makes it a must play for any action fan.

Nekopara continues to grow with each release. Although somewhat predictable in regards to its sexual aspects, the storyline is becoming less of a throwaway component, even if it’s still short. Fans finally know a lot more about each of the characters and likely have their favorites. There’s still something to be desired of Kashou’s characterization, as well as the tale in general, but it seems to be going along the right path. Fans should feel confident they’ll enjoy Nekopara Vol. 3 and then find their appetites whetted for the upcoming Vol. 4.

From the Gallows wraps up the season on a high note, with a truly customized chapter that forces players to make intense selections regarding the characters they have grown to love, hate or otherwise care about. Telltale has continued to prove that whatever faults may have arisen in the past can be easily set aside when the final consequences end up amounting to more than just life or death.