Civ VI, which is already building upon what made Civ V so great anyway, forces you to adapt and play differently each time depending on your map and policies, so...yeah, we could be in for a long, fun ride with this one.

The fall’s most exciting Final Fantasy game.

A remarkable overachiever. Battlefield 1's creators could have taken the easy road. They could have omitted a campaign. They could have hastily assembled its multiplayer like the atrociously conceived Star Wars Battlefront. They didn’t. In this day and age, that makes all the difference in the world and it made all the difference here. Battlefield 1 could have been a disrespectful mess. Instead, it rises above to deliver an outstanding historical shooter.

The first episode of Hitman is a very strong start, and it’s a return to form for a series that some were worried had begun to wander.

Pokken Tournament might not quite be the Pokemon fighting game I’ve been dreaming of for years, but to be fair my dreams are ridiculously lofty. Despite its limited-by-reality scope, it’s the closest we’ve come to capturing the excitement of animated Pokemon battles in video game form.

As with all adventure games, solving puzzles in Day of the Tentacle sometimes feels like trying to get inside the designers’ heads and understand exactly what they want you to do. It’s there that the 23-year-old wrinkles sometimes show.

Given how effortlessly our imaginations float beyond the stern ramparts of Mr. Clancy’s literary world, it’s hard not to wish this finely honed contraption could be granted the lightness of spirit it needs to truly thrive. Given how expertly much of The Division has been assembled, it’s hard not to hope that such a wonder might still come to pass.

In the end, we’re left with a game that’s much like its setting: beautiful, but short on oxygen.

Despite how pedestrian some aspects of the game may be, I concluded Quantum Break feeling like something new had happened. Something special had happened that more than compensated for some of the flatness of the story and the mostly rote gunplay. A game simply never worked like this before, nor has a TV show. Because of that, what might have otherwise been ordinary feels extraordinary.

This is a game that can broaden an individual person’s horizons and that of the entire medium, as well. It’s definitely worth your time.

The sense of triumph after defeating a Dark Souls boss is unlike anything else I’ve felt in video games.

Stories feels like it’s trying something rewardingly different, to do more than just ape the linear style of a summer blockbuster movie. It’s embracing tried-and-true hallmarks of action game design and weaving them around interactive fiction elements. The result is both familiar and fresh.

About the only thing that bummed me out was that, despite the end of TBS1 falling flat, the last battle of TBS2 is somehow even worse, a weird little puzzle of a thing that’s too dependent on luck and scripting.

Realistically, after playing Danganronpa 2, it feels less like two games and more like two parts of the same game. Like when Kill Bill Vol 1 came out, then Vol 2 came out a little while later. But we’ll get to that a bit more later. For now... well, want to describe just what Danganronpa is?

It’s one of Nintendo’s most distinct games in years, one that makes great use of the Wii U for a fun, distinct solo or co-op experience.

Even if you can get used to the awkward controls, Star Fox Zero is merely mediocre. It’s as disappointing a major Nintendo console release as there’s been in some time.

OTC throws a lot of what you expect of a strategy game out the window. Instead of having time to make plans, you need to move fast. Instead of worrying about units you need to worry about market forces. Indeed, there’s little room for strategy at all; the circumstances of a game can change so often and so rapidly depending on the market that this is more a game about testing your reactions than any grand central plan.

Uncharted 4 may have problems at its edges, but its middle is phenomenal. It is a sufficiently wonderful finale for a studio that has made its own case that its next great step should be somewhere new.

For now, Stellaris is a game that reaches for the stars, only to fall just short.

Still having a good time, but it’s more about the company than the activities...At least now I know which one Battleborn is. It’s the one that needs to do better by Shayne & Aurox.

There is no other game I can turn to that will let me leap about a roomful of demons, firing a satisfyingly chunky assault rifle into the throng as beasts disintegrate into a bloody pulp. It sets my heart racing in a way that not even the original Doom managed.

I didn’t enjoy most of my time with it, but I wasn’t miserable either. There’s nothing wrong with being Ethan Brady, but you could have been Benjamin Walker.

Make a Lord of the Rings version next if you have to. Then Conan. Then Game of Thrones. Then, I don’t know, Krull. Whatever it takes to keep injecting that old strategy vs tactics formula with cool story quirks and fantastic magical powers, I hope Creative Assembly keep doing it, because Total War: Warhammer has been a blast.

Blood and Wine is equal parts triumphant and somber.

Yes, it is good and satisfying and even spectacular to play a traditional third-person action adventure in virtual reality. [Tested with Oculus Rift.]

If you’ve got experience with Hearts of Iron III, I guess all I can say is that as much as I bitched about the interface up top, you’ll find this a lot easier to get around, especially when it comes to production.

I’m surprised to find myself thinking of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst as a disappointingly safe game, given that I would never have used that word to describe its 2008 predecessor.

You won’t struggle playing Planet Robobot. You’ll smile. The people who made it knew just what they were doing, and they’ve made one of the 3DS’ most delightful games.