Midnight Fight Express has a lot of personality and can be fun for a bit, but when a game is built almost entirely around combat, you need that combat to feel great, and here it just feels okay. Attempts to provide some variety are noble, but meet with mixed success despite some really cool set pieces. A great soundtrack kept me going until the end, but those wanting an irreverent brawler aren’t lacking choices in recent years, and Midnight Fight Express never fully manages to stand out from the crowd.

Despite its excessive backtracking and hard-to-follow story, Afterimage is hands-down the most enjoyable Metroidvania I’ve played since Hollow Knight. With an engrossing world to explore, superb combat, and a plethora of fun abilities to master, it’s a game that’s almost impossible to put down once it gets its hooks in you. Even if you feel like you’ve had your fill of Soulslike Metroidvanias in recent years, you owe it to yourself to make time for Afterimage.

If you’re a fan of Left 4 Dead and VR shooters, then After The Fall comes easily recommended. Its cross-platform co-op is an absolute blast regardless of which platform you’re playing on. And when it comes to replay value, the game’s loot and upgrade systems will keep you coming back for more as you work to craft the ultimate arsenal of zombie-killing hardware. Still, I can’t help but wish the game had just a little bit more to offer players out of the gate. Depending on which difficulty you choose, you can barrel through its five stages in just a few hours. And with just a handful of zombie types to encounter, things can start to feel a little repetitive after a while. Still, if you’re looking for Left 4 Dead-style thrills on your favorite headset, After The Fall is as close as you’re going to get, and a solid addition to any VR gamer’s library.

Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is a triumph, a title of such confidence and quality that it feels like the work of a veteran studio, rather than a studio trying its hand at the genre for the first time. With a truly flexible combat system, an engaging and deep narrative, and a gorgeous visual style that makes the most of its Greek and Roman inspirations, Asterigos: Curse of the Stars easily overcomes any minor criticisms that can be raised against the slightly lacking level design and quality of life issues.

Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft takes a franchise that was flawed even in the 90s and does nothing interesting to update it. The new graphics are nice when they aren’t ruining the atmosphere of certain areas, but the modern controls somehow make these games a worse experience. There are plenty of great adventures out there starring Lara Croft. Her last trilogy was excellent, and even the 360-era titles, starting with Tomb Raider Legend, largely hold up. These original releases, though, have simply been eclipsed by far too many games at this point and are only really worth returning to if your nostalgia demands one more trip into these tombs.

Rematch may not be the most complex game ever, but it offers a unique take on multiplayer football, which, with the right team, can be an enormously fun time, at least when things work. Currently, however, there are too many issues, and the community has too little interest in playing the game correctly for me to recommend it to most. If you have a crew of friends who all want to play together and love the sport, then it becomes an easier game to recommend, but most players may want to wait and see what updates Sloclap has planned for Rematch’s future before jumping in.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is a vibrant celebration of the series' history that will test both your skills and your patience. But if you're up for the challenge, don't hesitate to add this to your PS5 library.

Smelter is a meticulously crafted genre hybrid that almost does everything right. The margin for error with its design is so slim that it might be some kind of gaming miracle. A challenging and captivating experience from start to finish, Smelter is an absolute must play. Here’s hoping this isn’t the last time we see this dichotomous duo.

I wish I could sing the praises of Trigger Witch. It’s not a bad game, and I did enjoy my time with it. I just felt it was held back by the scope of the adventure and the aforementioned problems I encountered. As a fan of Reverie, I was hoping this could be another stellar indie from Rainbite. Here’s hoping their next title manages to deliver on the promise of this small indie team.

Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is a title that comes excruciatingly close to achieving greatness. When you are in the midst of one of the many mysteries that Cordona Island holds, cracking cases and soaking in Frogwares’ fantastic writing, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is up there with the best the series has to offer. Unfortunately, performance issues hold back the open-world exploration to an extent that drags the overall experience down. Nevertheless, even with the technical drawbacks, the main gameplay loop of cracking cases and solving puzzles is stronger than ever and well worth the price of admission.

Dungeons of Dreadrock is a bite-sized game that I’m sure would work perfectly as a bit of entertainment while waiting for a bus or train on its native mobile platform. However, it’s also great on the PC version as something to gently work out your brain while enjoying the fun narrative and very vibrant pixel-art graphics. This innovative puzzler combines clever yet accessible puzzles with a dash of humour to create a very enjoyable experience. Instead of just putting square pegs into round holes, you genuinely have to think outside the box, and finding the solution is always surprising and entertaining. Dreadrock is a dungeon well worth delving into.

Cursed to Golf is a brilliant little golf game. Its smart design encourages creativity, and its roguelike elements, while harsh, aren’t brutal enough to derail the experience. It’s astonishing how well the individual parts from different genres mix into a cohesive whole—or should I say “hole”? More than anything, though, it’s just fun. That’s all there is to it: it’s just a fun game that deserves your attention.

Recommending Vigil: The Longest Night is incredibly simple: if you’re a fan of Metroidvanias and you loved Salt and Sanctuary, you can’t afford to pass this one up. With a stunning art style and design that delivers all the right spooky notes and diverse boss battle tactics, Vigil: The Longest Night has my vote for one of the greatest hidden gems of 2020.

The developers of We Are OFK don’t even pretend to care about making a traditional video game. It’s clear that instead, the entire goal here was to tell a story, and that’s incredibly well done. Not perfectly so. I don’t love where We Are OFK leaves one of their characters in particular, and the ending feels rushed. After spending hours with these four characters, setting up conflict, it feels like a lot of things get pushed aside to get to where the game needs them to end up, almost like the development team ran out of time. With deep character writing, fantastic voice acting, and killer visuals, though, I’d recommend We Are OFK to anyone who is okay with this being a story first, a vehicle for releasing music second, and barely a game at all.

As a fan of Power Rangers, I especially enjoyed Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind. It’s a faithful and nostalgia-filled adventure full of colorful visual design, amazing voice acting, and challenging arcade action. While I do feel it’s not as well-tuned for single-player experiences, this is a wonderful game to play with friends. If you’re a longtime fan of the iconic characters, you’ll find something to adore in this love letter from Digital Eclipse.

I really hope this game gets its rough spots patched out because if you can look past its fussy controls and noticeable input lag, you’ll find Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn to be an otherwise razor-sharp remake from the team at Tengo Project. With its pixel-perfect presentation, meaty challenge, and excellent couch co-op that lets you and a friend take on the forces of evil simultaneously, it deserves your attention, even if there’s currently room for improvement.

New World: Aeternum is a promising action RPG/MMORPG hybrid that offers accessible and flexible combat and progression systems that are a blast to dig into and make those initial hours spent leveling and exploring the island of Aeternum a pure joy.

Visions of Mana on PlayStation 5 is a remarkable and heartfelt revival of the Seiken Densetsuseries. It might not have the appeal of some of Square Enix’s mainline franchises, but it’s filled with tons of heart and love from an old school JRPG perspective. Ouka Studios has created a magical and memorable adventure that breathes new life into a beloved franchise that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Chances are, if you’re checking out a review for a sequel to the best Hot Wheels game to be released in the past ten years, you know why you’re here. You see tracks in the most normal locations and think about how fun an orange and blue retreading would look, and Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged is right here, ready and willing to fulfill that fantasy, with a massive collection of cars to do it with. Simple mechanics compliment such a smooth racing experience, making for an easy to recommend, pick-up-and-play arcade racer just as tried-and-true as it gets. Seeing your favorite rides come to life in such a carefree and exciting way will probably release all the endorphins you think it will, even with the tunes and engine sounding a bit out of shape. If your diecast childhood dreams ever catch up with you, you can’t do any wrong picking up Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged, along with a few Hot Wheels cars while you’re at it (you know you want to).

If you think about what Frogwares had to go through this past year in Ukraine, it’s an amazing feat that Sherlock Holmes The Awakened came to fruition. Sure, the game doesn’t break any new ground, but the team did it, and it just works! This crossover between Lovecraft and Sherlock is a dream come true for a detective and horror fan like myself. Even though The Awakened re-uses many of the same assets and engine and suffers from some of the same frustrations as Chapter One, it still remains a compelling detective experience from start to finish. There’s plenty of madness to lose your sanity to and lots of cases waiting to be solved.

Those hoping to fully LARP as a lavish lady of 18th century France won’t be disappointed with Ambition: A Minuet In Power. This invigorating visual novel has all the twists, trysts, romance, and intrigue you’d want from a game about high society on the cusp of the French Revolution. Will you help your fiancé free France from the ignoble nobles? Or will you lose your head in the process?

While only one of the games in Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles is a classic, Rhapsody II alone is reason enough to check this collection out. For those who enjoy the first two games in the series,Rhapsody III serves as a nice enough conclusion to the saga, but it’s really only for the truly hardcore fans of the series. Anyone who enjoys RPGs of its era, though, will find something to like in Rhapsody II which is a true classic that’s now available to a wider audience.

It’s clear that Coromon was worth the wait, even if it didn’t quite live up to my hype as the game that dethroned Pokémon. That said, this is a beautiful and creative adventure full of heart, with hours of gameplay to keep you going and plenty of reasons for hardcore players to pay attention. Sure, I might have wanted more optional content, but what’s here is hard to dismiss. If you’re a fan of monster-hunting games and want a new portable adventure on Switch, look no further.

Ghost on the Shore is a short, beautiful experience. Accompanied by nothing more than the voice of Josh in your head, you’ll travel across three islands, piecing together what happened along the way. Every answer you give to Josh’s questions will affect your relationship with him, ultimately affecting the outcome of the whole game. I found myself surprisingly emotional more than once during my experience. Ghost on the Shore is more than just a ghost story; it’s a look into what remains of us after death, both real and metaphysical.

I didn’t realize how much I needed a game like Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom until I started playing it. The gorgeous watercolor visuals, soothing soundtrack, relaxing gameplay, and loveable cast of characters makes it an easy game to keep coming back to. If you need a break from brutal dungeon crawlers and difficult deck builders like I did, or if you just need something peaceful to float away with, I couldn’t recommend Doraemon Story of Seasons: Friends of the Great Kingdom more.

Labyrinth City: Pierre the Maze Detective is a wholesome, whimsical stroll through a lively and beautiful world of mazes. Its relaxed gameplay might not appeal to everyone, but it’s so charming that it’s difficult not to recommend it. As a final observation, this game made me smile so much that I had to briefly ponder my legendarily sardonic nature. There’s something to be said for an experience that creates such happiness.

Star Wars Outlaws may not be the most original game, but virtually everything about it is well-executed and a joy to experience. With an excellent story, interesting characters, great voice acting, and seemingly never-ending amounts of missions, this is my favorite Star Wars game in years. Fans will find plenty of reasons to once again get lost in this faraway galaxy.

LEGO Bricktales cleverly combines familiar LEGO construction play patterns with an all-new exploratory experience. Although the exploration segments feel a bit too aged-down for this tired millennial’s tastes, the construction is delightfully challenging and exactly what I would have hoped to see in a LEGO game. If you want great LEGO prompts and don’t mind extremely linear (yet still charming) storytelling or are a literal child, LEGO Bricktales is here to unlock your wildest imaginations.