Rage 2 has moments of Good Stupid, but they’re outweighed by moments of Bad Stupid: uninspired and rote enemy encounters, not enouch reasons to use my powers, and a general disdain for its own fiction. For a game about being an overpowered Ranger who can punch people until they explode, I rarely felt powerful. Rage 2 promised me chaos in its lawless world that I alone could save with big guns, super powers, and a bitchin’ car, but by the end, I was still looking for it.

A very good kart racer. A good kart racer is one where you can engage in more than 100 races in a short period of time and not get bored. It’s a game where, no matter how good you are, a random blue shell or its eagle Wisp equivalent can ruin everything at the last minute. It’s a game that feels good to play and looks good in action. Team Sonic Racing is all of those things, with an intriguing team-based addition.

Dwarf Fortress is a brilliant game, but it will make you work to find that out.

Newcomers should have fun from the start of Box Boy + Box Girl. Old-timers will have to dig a little more. Everyone who plays will likely finish feeling at least a shade more clever. That’s always a nice feeling to get from a game.

It strikes a great balance between retaining much of what makes a Paradox grand strategy game so time-consuming while streamlining its approach and interface. If you’ve always been curious about Paradox games but too scared to try one, Imperator—with its sample platter of systems drawn from many of its other big series—is a good place to start.

Look no further than the game developers calling the zombies “freakers,” and expecting us to take that as something new.

In the hundreds of battles I’ve had in SteamWorld Quest, no turn in any of them was ever the same. Even now there are strategies and builds I still want to go back and try, despite having already exhausted most of the dungeons. I only wish there were hundreds of new battles I had yet to fight.

If nothing else, I’m absolutely stoked to translate more words. I think I’ve almost figured out how the ancient society did math!

The Division 2 is the new standard for how to launch an evolving game and an experience I’m looking forward to playing and following for a long time.

There are so many people, so many places, so many things, that Fortnite risks veering off into meaninglessness, into the same cacophony that fills my headphones as I play or the same confusion I felt when Paul sent me the picture of that sweatshirt. But Fortnite wouldn’t be Fortnite without it.

It’s an imaginative game that’s effortlessly pleasing, perfectly suited to family play or as a train-journey stress-reliever. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: nobody does cute like Nintendo.

Sekiro gets a whole lot right. Its themes permeate its feudal Japan in a compelling way, and for the most part, the gameplay is deeply satisfying. There are things it could do better, particularly avoiding repetition, but the notes Sekiro does hit are memorable enough that the slog doesn’t totally ruin the flow of gameplay, and the inertia into the end of the game carries strong. The challenge Sekiro presents is daunting and time-consuming.

Japanese developer Ganbarion has put together one hell of a game, certainly the most ambitious ever created for the One Piece franchise. I’ve played Monkey D. Luffy in fighting games countless times, and I’ve never connected with the character nearly as much as I have just running through the green grassy hills of One Piece: World Seeker. [Impressions]

Left Alive is a clunky disaster whose good ideas are undercut by horrible gameplay.

Devil May Cry 5 is a firework. If you’re the one with the lighter, then setting the explosion off is a simple as flicking your finger. If you’re watching someone else, it’s more than enough to enjoy the bright colors and noise. Players looking to get dazzled will find themselves spellbound, while those who dig deeper will find a rewarding and expressive combat system. It’s a little superficial, but that comes with the territory. And while Devil May Cry 5 doesn’t completely redefine the series, it hones the gameplay to a sharp edge that will please diehards and newbies alike.

All I know is, the game asks for my best. And as it becomes itself, I want to live up to wherever it’s going.

It strips away the tawdry trappings of past installments, leaving a fabulous fighting game with compelling characters worth caring about.

Every once in a while, a game comes along that that does something surprising, different, memorable. Anthem is not one of those games. Much of this PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC game feels incomplete, while other portions are borrowed from games that did it better.

I’ll be playing a lot more of Trials Rising in the coming months. There’s nothing like the agony and ecstasy of conquering one of its more difficult tracks, the heart-in-mouth tension of landing your bike on a near-vertical surface and revving just enough for the rear wheel to bite without flipping your rider backwards. Every tiny movement of bike and rider is significant and fully within your control. It’s a game about self-mastery, and believing you can do better. It helps that it’s also tremendous fun.

I usually find Tetris to be this calming experience that lets me hyper-focus on something and Tetris 99 makes me feel like I’m always scrambling in a way that, sure, is exciting but not something I want to chill with long term. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to enjoy Tetris right now.

It cares. It cares so much. It cares about its detailed environments and mechanics, even when they misfire. It cares about its characters, even though there are too many of them. It cares about its central message of understanding, rather than vilifying, each faction you come into conflict with, even though this message is attached to a ho-hum plot.

It definitely feels like the odd Yakuza game out.

As much as Anthem can be fun to play at times, there comes a point in every game like it where some snag leads you to look at the clock and, for an instant, see your whole future with the game flash before your eyes. The weight of the hours you’ve already spent playing it get projected out into the coming weeks and months, and the fatigue of a futile climb up the ladder from rare loot to rarer loot begins to set in...In Anthem, it doesn’t take long for that exhaustion to turn into dread, as you stare into the soul of the game and all that stares back is the ghost of someone continually rolling the dice in the hopes of getting a better gun.

We’ve ended up with 12 to 15 hours of uncomplicated fun that recaptures the good stuff about the first two Crackdown games, without offering much of an evolution. It’s like the last 10 years just didn’t happen.

The end result is a game that I enjoyed but which also frustrated me greatly.

Even taking its whiffs and missed opportunities into account, I’ve still loved every hour I’ve spent with Gathering Storm. It’s an expansion that may not stick its landing, but which should still be applauded and admired for the way it sets out to change the very world we play on, and succeeds.

It takes a great foundation and turns it into a game that, after ten hours with a near-final version, I think I might love even more than the first.

Wargroove takes some of the best elements of all those games and creates something of its own. It’s not a hollow imitation, but a spirited homage, characterful and generous. Even when I didn’t love it, I still couldn’t help but like it.