Funko Fusion could have been something fun! A wacky adventure mixing together different franchises and worlds. Instead, its a boring, annoying, barely functional third-person action game starring ugly Funko Pops solving bad puzzles and fighting the same 10 enemies over and over again with guns and laser pistols. Don’t play Funko Fusion. Save your money, buy some pizza, and watch one of the movies included in this collection instead. It will be much more enjoyable and you won’t have to restart the movie five times to reach the end.

The Plucky Squire is all about that lineage of art, inspiration, and creation. The most important role Jot fills as the hero of his book isn’t that of Humgrump’s vanquisher, rather it is his ability to inspire the kid whose desk his book sits on to create something of their own. Every person has a story about what game made them fall in love with the medium, and there is a chance that The Plucky Squire becomes that for some kid that plays it—the thing that will push them to create. How can you not be romantic about video games?

It’s tempting to call Wild Bastards an evolution, but that’s unfair to Void, which has its excellent crafting elements and the permadeath of characters (albeit with persistent progress). What’s crucially similar about both, beyond the excellent art and fantastic sense of humor, is that unlike so many roguelite games, they both want you to win. They’re about progressing forward, being able to reach an ending, and then starting all over to try it completely differently. It’s just that in Wild Bastards, there’s so much more that can be different each time.

I can confidently say WoW is back. Well, it was back in Dragonflight, but it’s extra back now. Not only does The War Within make the player experience better with great additions like Warbands and Follower Dungeons, but it also demonstrates that Blizzard isn’t afraid to keep refining good ideas like Hero Talents or reworking those that may have failed previously and molded them into nuggets of fun and flavor like Delves. If this is just the start of what to expect with Warcraft in the era of The Worldsoul Saga, then I’m eager to stick around and see where these new adventures on Azeroth take us next.

Structurally, The Answer is an often frustrating epilogue that shaves off some of the best parts of Persona games. Thankfully, Reload’s quality-of-life updates make the grind more tolerable and the remake adds enough small social elements like reading books and watching movies with your friends that it doesn’t feel like it’s all business. But as a meditation on grief, it feels like a kindness afforded to characters who once had to rile in the ambiguity of the original ending. It would have been easy for Persona 3 to end on a nihilistic note, showing the entire group fall apart without their leader and denying all the lessons they learned. But grief never really goes away. We just learn to help each other live with it a little more each day.

Astro Bot is a mighty game and so is its eponymous hero, but I don’t think either is likely to save the world or this industry. For what it is, though, Astro Bot is incredible, and that is worth celebrating here and now. I just can’t help walking away from the experience with a bittersweet taste in my mouth and a hope that someday soon, we don’t have to look to gaming’s past for the best bits of it all.

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 is a surprisingly big game. It features a robust and well-made blockbuster campaign that is only held back by some difficulty balancing issues, a really awesome and in-depth co-op PvE mode that offers a lot of replayability, and a PvP mode that is fine and might be fun for some. The complete package is very enticing and I think that, even with some of its flaws and some minor performance issues on console, Space Marine 2 is probably the best Warhammer 40K game ever made.

I feel like I’ve spent the majority of this review dogpiling on a game I mostly enjoyed. Maybe that’s because I’m frustrated by the squandered potential smothered under a pile of excess, like someone unwilling to say “when” to the person holding the Olive Garden cheese grater.

I helped heal Visions of Mana itself from its illness. Things were wrong, the world was not functioning properly. And the poor people doing their best to keep life worth living couldn’t see it. Even in the moments when they could feel it, even when Val at one point begged to be “the villain” under the weight of grief, the world was sticking to its guns and refusing to acknowledge the problem. But in those final moments, when my confusion almost turned to tears as the world was right again, I realized I had helped put Mana back on track. Just like so many folks out there hope Visions of Mana itself is doing. How do you put a score on that? I’m grateful I don’t have to this time.

Yes, the story of putting together a crew to pull off a heist is great. And yeah, working with and against criminal gangs led by people like Jabba is fun. And I love ND-5 and Nix, too! But what I appreciate the most about Star Wars Outlaws is that finally, after all these years of watching the movies, I can step into the Star Wars universe and just exist in it.

The aging gunslinger known as the Madden franchise is showing some wear and tear, with Madden NFL 25 being the latest example. While I don’t ever expect it to be put out to pasture, it might be time for the old coach to take a year off to revamp its approach.

Black Myth: Wukong is a game trying to please two very specific crowds. Both will end up doing extra homework to get to the goods in Black Myth: Wukong at every turn, and the game is doing itself no favors by leaving pages out of the textbook. It’s left being big and ostentatious for bigness and ostentatiousness’ sake, when the most exquisite things in it are small, quiet, thoughtful and dream-like. It’s a game whose art is at war with itself, which is awful ironic since Sun Wukong’s whole arc in Journey to the West involves letting go of delusions of grandeur beyond his reach, and living a life of service, meaning, and ego-less contemplation. But, again, there’s not much we can say about how the game handles that. It’s a damn shame. There’s not nearly as much worth saying otherwise. But, so be it. Black Myth: Wukong can just be another forgettable also-ran in a crowded genre. There is nothing else gamers need to hear.

What surprised me most in my time with Nobody Wants to Die was its deep lore. The premise of a future without death isn’t just a shallow idea that starts the mystery, it’s a moral and ethical quandary that Critical Hit Games investigates at every turn. In 2329 New York, we hear talk of bodies as literal government property. That’s as horrific an idea as you would imagine, and the game digs into this with further details like drinking and smoking being illegal so as to not ruin a body for its next owner, a subscription fee you must pay to use your body, and the emergence of a new death kink for rich people who can afford to buy poor bodies and take them over just to get killed in for a quick high before returning to their old body. It’s a biting allegory of wealth inequality and how rich people see poor people as a literal commodity to control. Learning more about this world is one of the best parts of Nobody Wants to Die and the flavor text you can find is full of interesting tidbits that only add to your understanding of the crimes at its center. This game came out of nowhere for me, but its tightly paced film noir mystery is built on such a fascinating world that it’s quickly become one of my favorite sleeper hits of 2024.

Arranger is a brisk adventure, but it’s filled with so many clever, perfectly executed ideas that by the time it was over, I was just left wanting more. Jemma’s story might be over by the end, but I’d love to see Furniture & Mattress add new puzzles in future updates because the team has such an immaculate, clever eye for what makes puzzle games so satisfying. Now I’m just waiting for my memory of the game to fade so I can go back and try to solve those puzzles with fresh eyes once more.

It’s that spirit of authenticity and unwavering commitment to a distinctive vision that makes Path of the Goddess so refreshing right now, especially at this level of budget, production, and quality. When so many games feel like they could have been made by anybody for nobody, Path of the Goddess feels like something unique made for people who never knew how much they’d love it. Creative swings like that don’t always work out. Path of the Goddess is one that definitely does.

Despite Hinterberg telling me that I should confront my problems rather than run away from them, I’d happily run back to this game time and time again. The beauty of its rendition of the Alps is hard to overstate, and I was enamored by the mere act of jogging up and down its sumptuous trails. Its top-notch dungeon design only further complements what an absolute joy it was to sink into its world filled with magic. Like the best vacation spots, I can’t wait to be drawn in by Hinterberg’s magnetism again and revel in its luxuries for a long time to come.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn has its issues, but I think A44 Games has hit upon something special here, creating both an approachable form of soulslike gameplay and a unique, non-conventional fantasy setting that isn’t just another pseudo-European medieval landscape dominated by white men. The game could’ve really reached something greater with an extra five or so hours of gameplay. But what’s on offer here is a low barrier to entry for a genre that is often too eager to delight in your misery.

Even with Lake House on the horizon, I think I’m already itching to go back to Night Springs.

MultiVersus is great. But I wouldn’t feel good about letting my own kid play it. That sucks.

Banana Rumble is fun. I love playing it. I thought I was mostly done playing it until, about 300 words into this review, something unexpected happened: I got The Itch. I’d beaten all the levels, but I wanted to beat them again. I wanted to take a crack at the missions, which I’d largely dismissed as frivolous on my first run. I wanted to go for some records in time attack, especially pre-release, when the sparse competition would all but guarantee me a spot in the top 5. (As of right now, 6:03 a.m. on June 23rd, 2024, I have Giant Bomb’s Dan Ryckert beaten by two seconds on the world 1 leaderboards. Dan, if you’re reading this: your move.) The game works, in all the ways I expect it to. Maybe not in all the ways I want it to, but so what? Banana Rumble doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be good. And for Super Monkey Ball, “perfect” and “good” are very nearly the same thing.

Blud may not play perfectly, but this seven-hour vampire-killing adventure is such a visual treat that I rarely cared when a boss crushed me or the menu bugged out and I had to reload it. If you can put up with a bit of jank, Blud is worth playing on a big TV screen with some friends, preferably folks who grew up loving late ‘90s animated cartoons. Just be prepared for people going “Oh wow!” a lot as you run around town and save the world with a pink field hockey stick.

If this year’s satiric but more aggressive New York Times Simulator is a less subtle game about the risks, responsibilities, and struggles of modern-day journalism, then Times & Galaxy takes the spoonful of sugar approach with sharp and funny writing that makes it endlessly entertaining—even if it stings a bit.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is nothing short of magnificent. It is both an expansion to and a distillation of what makes the original game so special, offering you a chance to try out new weapons and builds while learning far more about the Lands Between than you might have expected. It will delight you in one breath and devastate you the next, forcing you to question your approach, to fortify your spirit.

Still Wakes the Deep isn’t the most riveting interactive journey. The monsters are easy to hide from (though plenty scary), and the puzzles and platforming quickly come to feel tired. But Still Wakes does deal with compelling emotional material that rewards you for your time spent with it. It’s the kind of game I’d like to play again and see what new things I get out of it. But it’s also a testament to why I like this genre, the poorly-named “walking simulator,” so much. When I’m not focused on the reactive challenges of a more fast-paced game that demands constant input response, I’m instead offered the challenge of navigating the puzzles of my own thoughts. You know, where the real horror and dread lies.

Tiny Terry’s Turbo Trip will likely take you less than four hours to complete, though if you try to do and collect everything it might take closer to six. Either way, you’re in for an awesome and funny open-world comedy game that actually made me laugh a lot and which is a dream to play. It might not be Hit And Run 2, but it’s a damn fine game on its own.

Senua’s enduring compassion and dedication through a rage-inducing journey of pain left a significant impression on me. Despite dealing with a fantastical world, Hellblade II is often, hauntingly, all too real.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is an amalgamation of influences living alongside one another in the same way the hotel in which it is set seems to hold so many times at once. It’s a reflection of the game’s biggest questions. What is the point of creating and consuming art? Is it a curse, or a gift? That’s the big mystery at the heart of Lorelia and the Laser Eyes. The answer is up to interpretation, but as it exists within such a carefully crafted maze of twisting puzzles and story beats, I can only assume this kind of gift for creating art is just that, a gift. And we, the players, are its lucky recipients. At least that’s my perception of it, and that’s about as close to the truth as I’ll get.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Animal Well is one of the best games of the year. It’s also one I’ll never forget.