Morrowind's a bit worse for wear in 2017. It's hard to capture that same magic, to get back into the headspace of 2002 and forget everything that's come since. It's not just that it's ugly, it's also clumsy in many ways. That clumsiness endeared it to me way back when, but nowadays it's an obstacle.

Endless Space 2 is the rare 4X game where the writing is better than the strategy—though the strategy is still pretty decent.

Sure, it doesn’t add much to the ol’ audiolog/email/locked room paradigm pioneered by its predecessors, nor does it reinvent the space station, but Prey and Talos I are so well-constructed I honestly don’t care. You’re given systems, you’re given spaces, you’re given a goal, and how you exploit the former to accomplish the latter is a source of so many surprises in Prey it makes up for the overfamiliar setting and story.

Everything is not for everyone. It’s one part art-house film, one part nature documentary, one part guided meditation. While easily approached and casually consumed, it’s a game that nevertheless wants more from you, a game that asks you to quietly reflect on yourself and your place in the Cosmos. Engage and you may discover one of your favorite games of 2017. If not? Well, it’s at least unique, and uniquely ambitious.

The horror genre is one of slim pickings, and few horror games are done on the level of Outlast 2. Fog-filled streets, moonlit nights, and the shreds of the apocalypse—there’s some amount of fun to be had here maybe, and genre die-hards may find themselves playing through it regardless. But Outlast 2 isn’t the solution to the genre’s issues.

It’s a weird experiment—and, again, one I think will utterly baffle anyone who comes to it because they see it’s by “the Prison Architect Developers.” This is considerably less mainstream, more likely to appeal to those interested in what’s being done on the fringes of the medium. Even for a so-called “walking simulator,” Scanner Sombre is austere.

With its unique 1940's monster movie aesthetic and excellent voice casting, Wilson's Heart feels like the first "can't-miss" VR game. Too bad it's a Rift exclusive.

The end result: It’s rough, playing it today. Does that mean you should skip it? Absolutely not. It still packs some solid laughs, excellent music, and a setting that deserves to be revisited. It’s three hours well-spent, and those who played it in the past will find the same game they loved all those years ago...Just realize this remaster isn’t as smooth or seamless as what Double Fine’s done before. Nothing from that era could be.

Bulletstorm's a very fun, very stupid game—I’m just not sure about paying $50 for it a second time. Especially because it’s not the most extensive remaster I’ve seen.

Playtonic promised a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, and that’s what we got. It might not suit everyone’s needs, but it suits mine and likely suits the needs of those who’d want a Banjo-Kazooie successor in the first place. That’s an important caveat—but then, that’s why reviews are a subjective process.

It’s mediocre, not awful. This review slants negative because I find the writing mostly bad, but my experience with Andromeda is almost worse in some ways: For much of my 55 hours with it, I felt nothing at all. It just exists, content to let you run from fetch quest to fetch quest, chasing the appearance of importance while saying nothing at all. It’d be easier to just condemn the whole endeavor and write it off, but that’s not entirely fair. I’m mostly ambivalent, or “I’m not mad, just disappointed,” as my parents might’ve said—and ouch, that always stung much worse.

Thimbleweed Park is excellent, both as tongue-in-cheek homage and in its own right. It’s a LucasArts adventure game the way you remember them being, with the same witty humor and, yes, the same sometimes-asinine puzzles. The good and the bad.

Rock Band VR’s not exactly a must-have, but it’s up there—at least for people who haven’t burned out on the plastic instrument genre. Me? As long as Harmonix keeps supporting it with DLC I’ll probably keep checking back in, snagging a few songs, and putting on a show.

Night in the Woods may be a pastiche of influences, but as far as video games go, there’s really nothing else like it, and there’s a lot to be learned from spending a dozen days in Mae’s life—about her and her friends, about yourself, about America and towns forgotten by time.

It’s just a shame so many of these worlds are about as meaningful as virtual bubble wrap. Wildlands is Far Cry, but with a weaker story and more repetition. It is Just Cause, without all the stupid explode-y bits and the potential for pure mayhem. It’s an unsatisfying, repetitive jumble, brilliant to behold and yet so numbingly empty.

But damn, when it’s all working it’s so good. This is a really frustrating review because there’s absolutely a diamond somewhere within this game. You catch a glimmer of it maybe once or twice an hour, when a match has that perfect moment and you’re down to a sliver of health, deflecting every blow, and then manage to throw your opponent off a bridge or something. That! That’s For Honor...It’s also microtransactions though, and “Recovering Network Connection,” and a hundred tiny annoyances that detract from the core conceit.The only honor here is on the battlefield itself.

Halo Wars 2 is just a perfectly average release in a genre suffused with perfectly average releases nowadays. I think every RTS fan is waiting for “That Game,” the one that’ll turn it all around and make us RTS believers again. I know I’m waiting for that moment. Halo Wars 2 isn’t it. It’s competent, it’s shiny, and it’s got the Halo universe to draw people in, but there’s nothing so “Oh wow it’s brilliant!” about this package to really get excited. The one aspect that should do that is Blitz Mode, and it’s hampered by the small PC multiplayer population and the nakedness of its Pay-To-Win-esque systems...On consoles, where the RTS genre is woefully underrepresented, I expect people will be a bit more impressed by Halo Wars 2. But on PC, it’s just another sign of a fading king.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is an excellent adaptation. Like Sorcery, it never really transcends the cheesy sword-and-board adventure-fantasy of the original adventure gamebook it sources from, but that’s not really the point is it? Hell, the archetypal characters and straightforward questing are part of the charm. Tin Man’s lovingly reshaped Steve Jackson’s work into a relaxing and lightweight RPG, perfect to run once or twice in a night and hope this time you avoid all Zagor’s traps and make it to the end.

Sniper Elite 4 doesn't wholly shed its grindhouse, B-game origins, but it's definitely an ambitious step forward for a stealth series that used to rely more on gimmickry.

Quern – Undying Thoughts is an excellent first-person puzzle game that’s likely to be doubly special to anyone who spent hours with Riven in years past. Reminiscent of both that style of storytelling and of puzzle design, it’s an excellent homage in an era suddenly packed full of Myst homages...A few subpar puzzles and some ill-paced backtracking sometimes get in the way of Quern’s ambitions, but my standard adventure game advice applies: Just check a walkthrough if you really feel the need to. It’s worth seeing through to the end.

Mostly I just lament that we’ve lost 2013-era Telltale. It hasn’t been that long, but the studio’s meteoric rise has seen them ditch The Wolf Among Us and properties of that caliber in favor of huge blockbusters like Batman and the newly-announced Guardians of the Galaxy. And I get it. There’s money to be made...Smaller titles played to Telltale’s strength though, I think. There was a freedom that came from their niche appeal. When you’re handling something as beloved as Batman or Game of Thrones, you just can’t take the same chances, and Telltale’s structure doesn’t work so well when it’s chained to an 800-pound anvil made up of fan expectations, as much as the writers try.

Dead Rising 4 is no classic, nor even a great Dead Rising game. The series sold out. But if you can get yourself past that hurdle, you might find (like me) that you’re pleasantly surprised, at least for a weekend. Sure, almost everything that made Dead Rising unique is gone, but if all you want is bubblegum pop and more time to experiment with the game’s over-the-top weapons? Frank West (or faux-Frank West if you can’t get past the voice actor change) is ready and waiting.

Watch Dogs 2 finally breaks with the "Ubisoft Formula" to create an open-world game that feels somewhat fresh and interesting. What a relief.

Dishonored 2 understands level design. That’s the takeaway here. Not much has been changed, especially if you’re playing Corvo. It’s just a bigger, bolder version of Dishonored, one mastercrafted stealth gauntlet after another paired with some excellent gimmicks. Oh, or it’s a shooter, if you want. But yeah, it’s mostly a fantastic stealth game that deserves better than its generic plot and terrible voice work...It’s a shame the game runs so poorly for so many people, as I just cannot justify giving the game an excellent score when seemingly half the audience (or more) is having issues.

Planet Coaster is an excellent theme park builder. Hell, it’s an excellent builder in general—probably the most player-centric one to date. It’s less about the developers giving you a bunch of stuff to build a theme park with, and more about you taking the stuff the developers give you and building a theme park with it.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare occasionally rubs elbows with the best moments of its predecessors, but too much tedium and half-baked multiplayer make this one hard to recommend.

Tyranny is flawed, but more in the vein of a future cult classic than a failure. It's got great ideas, just not the depth to let them shine.

Rusty Lake: Roots is an excellent follow-up to Rusty Lake Hotel—grander, grimmer, and more gruesome than ever. The Rusty Lake games are quickly carving out a niche as my favorite point-and-click series of the modern era, with a bold confidence underpinning their unconventional and inventive world. I highly recommend picking up the pair for a night or two of surreal horror.