After I moved away from being a professional musician to write about video games for a living a decade ago, the compositions I once spun in my head like breathing became background noise in my everyday life. I’ll find a new song or artist I resonate with, one of my faves will put out a new album, or I’ll go to a live show and remember all my musical inclinations like I’m putting on an old glove. Fretless gave me that same feeling, all to the tune of a well-crafted deck builder.

Even if the issues are never patched, THPS 3+4 is still a fantastic game. If you’ve enjoyed playing Tony Hawk games in the past, then you should check this thing out ASAP. While the changes to THPS 4’s levels might disappoint some, the new music and levels are rad, and the skating feels as perfect as ever. If that gaming room in heaven exists, it better have a copy of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4.

I have no idea who this game is for, and I don’t think it will find an audience. Perhaps after months of updates, MindsEye will run better and feature fewer bugs. But that won’t change how boring, bland, and utterly unremarkable this game is. MindsEye is a bad game that isn’t even so bad it’s good. It’s just bad, and it will probably be forgotten in a few months, only remembered briefly when the game’s servers are shut down with little warning.

I’m not sure I want to go through another chapter in Death Stranding’s convoluted, messy, and often contradictory universe. Especially if the next game’s ending is as unsatisfying as Death Stranding 2’s finale. Sure, the bizarre moments are amazing to watch on screen. So much money in Death Stranding 2’s development budget was put into some of the silliest and strangest ideas. And that’s all wonderful. I love it. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that so much of the game feels, ironically, disconnected from what you actually do in Death Stranding 2: On The Beach. Or that it all ends so poorly. But I guess I can always build more ziplines and roads and get the satisfaction of a job well done.

For a game that built momentum so perfectly throughout its entire run, it’s unfortunate that it ends with a whimper. Note for the future: When you reach the finale, end the story. Don’t do a second finale. Considering the fact that this game will get some DLC in the future, it will one day have the equivalent of three climaxes. I need more shotguns in Doom, not more finales...Regardless of that mistake, Doom: The Dark Ages is still a standout example of how to take an old franchise and do something with it that feels fresh while still being true to the lineage of the series. And while Dark Ages has one too many cutscenes and endings, none of that ruins the frenetic and ultra-smooth combat, not even some bits in which you ride a dragon and pilot a mech. Doom: The Dark Ages is a brilliant, bloody, and hyper-aggressive remix of the Doom formula that works in more ways than it doesn’t.

Sandfall Interactive is made up of a lot of veteran talent, but as a unit, it’s still finding its footing, so it makes sense that despite all Clair Obscur’s polish and vision that there would be a few oversights that frustrate. But if the team’s debut project is this impressive, I can’t wait to see what the future holds.

While Old Skies is a more “traditional” adventure game than Unavowed, it does the game a disservice to leave it at that. This is a hugely ambitious game, perhaps even seven different games combined into one, repeatedly reinventing its approach to its central conceit throughout. And it’s one that’s stuck with me, one I keep thinking about days after I finished playing. [Impressions]

The Life Is Strange team’s latest supernatural teen drama probably didn’t need to be two parts, but its conclusion was worth the wait.

Like the South itself, South of Midnight is a messy, complicated, but often beautiful and passionate thing worth experiencing.

I’d love to see a sequel to Spilled that adds more levels, more ways to clean stuff up, and maybe even co-op. But for now, Spilled is a solid and gentle indie game that lets me clean up the world for an hour, and that’s nice. I really like that.

I might run out of gas in the second half, especially if the difficulty keeps ramping up, but so far Khazan has been one of 2025's nicer surprises. [Impressions]

I took so many screenshots playing Shadows because I kept being stunned by how much color and variety its world contains. A valley during the winter might feel cold, miserable, and icy, but later during the fall it becomes a breathtaking collage of orange, brown, and yellow as the wind whips thousands of leaves around. It’s almost like Ubisoft has built four different, massive open-world maps and each one is a visual treat.

The studio was straight up just showing off at this point, and I’m kinda mad I’ll never experience it for the first time again. That’s the kind of feeling you can’t scrap from a creative person’s brain and sell as slop. Split Fiction is a culmination of the design ideas the studio has been working with since A Way Out, and it kinda feels like Hazelight threw everything it had at a wall, and it all stuck. It’s a tribute to several video games and to genre fiction, but also to the creative process itself. Fares may think people and AI should co-exist in creative fields, but when you’re already making games this inventive, do they have to? I don’t think so.

Like Rama’s music, Afterlove EP balances the thorny and heartwarming parts of love and loss.

Monster Hunter Wilds is at its most beautiful and chaotic when all the elements and residents of its dynamic world accidentally collide; multiple monsters locked in a turf war as smaller creatures scurry around, some trying to escape, others following their pack leader into the action, all while hunters set exploding traps and raging storms pass through before eventually breaking into daylight. I wish all of this were integrated into the harder, better, stronger, faster logic at the heart of the game’s RPG progression in more sophisticated ways, but that liveliness does inject more life and zeal into a very familiar pattern, one that still works and now feels more robust than ever.

I just hope the second half lives up to the first when it launches on April 15.

Avowed is a special game that I’ll likely replay multiple times over the next decade not just because I want to see every option, but because I want to return to this world and its people again and again.

There was no game quite like Citizen Sleeper when it first came out. It’s nice to finally have another one.

Right now, Marvel Rivals has the potential to learn from its inspiration’s mistakes, rather than repeat them. For now, it’s an extremely fun One of Those. Let’s keep it that way, yeah?

I recommend that everyone who loves immersive sims and mechanically rich stealth-action games play Great Circle. It’s one of the best games Bethesda has ever published, and I’m happy this thing will be on PS5 next year so more people can experience it.

At the very least, Lego Horizon Adventures feels like a game made with a lot of love for the property it’s based on rather than a cynical cash grab. Whatever comes next, I can at least say that.

And that’s really what it comes down to for me, what makes Double Exposure a strong and worthy sequel to the original. It’s genuinely interested in Max as a person, in exploring her, in developing her further. It respects her enough to let her grow and change in ways that feel consistent with her experience and who she’s always been. Fans who just wanted more of what they got in the original Life Is Strange may be frustrated by the fact that Max’s life has entered a new chapter of ambiguity and growth, but, then, things rarely go precisely the way we want them to. Much of getting older and growing as a person is about carrying the pain of the past with some measure of grace and still maintaining the capacity for hope, joy, and love. If you ask me, Max is doing just fine.

The Veilguard pulls off old tricks with a level of polish unlike anything the studio’s done before. There will inevitably be division and scrutiny around every choice BioWare made, but Dragon Age: The Veilguard represents the first time in many years I’ve played a game from this studio that didn’t leave me worried about the future. Instead, I’m ready to look forward to it once more.

While this new Quiet Place game isn’t the most innovative or scariest game I’ve played, it’s a very well-made and tense adventure that had me more terrified of metal cans and broken glass than any random zombie I’ve encountered in Resident Evil. Who knew trash could be so scary?

Fear the Spotlight offers me solace over escapism. It tells me that love is everywhere, especially in the dark.

If the stages themselves weren’t enough to make me appreciate how good Shadow Generations felt to play, the White Space’s open world solidified for me that Sega cooked with traversal this time around.

Neva prioritizes a meditation on life and loss that too often feels half-baked and pales in comparison to Gris’ execution of the same themes. Much of Neva feels propped up by its predecessor to cover its weaknesses, with familiar themes and the same platforming (flaws and all) from Gris encouraging fans of that game to not look too closely at this game’s faults. Ultimately, when Neva attempts a final narrative twist that fully leans away from the initially compelling and original themes of its story, it’s too much of a shift too late in the game, and only serves to undermine the few unique choices this experience attempts. At least it’s short.

Metaphor does a succinct job of illustrating that progress is slow but still demands we take action, but the struggle for a better world still feels insurmountable to me some days in the face of what feels like never-ending systemic failure. Reading fiction that believes in the possibility of a better world is not the same as fighting for one. Posting isn’t activism. Imagining a world where everything is different, with no consideration for how to actually get there, is meaningless. Metaphor knows that fiction can change the world, but it also knows that inspiring people isn’t enough if they don’t follow through. And if despite my deteriorating hope I’m thinking this way, maybe that’s a sign that even if Metaphor isn’t exactly revolutionary in its politics or worldview, it still must have done something right.