If you’re like me and have been itching for another SimGolf game since 2002, then Under Par Golf Architect will scratch that itch. It’s not as polished, but it also runs on modern systems and isn’t at an 800×600 resolution, so you take the good with the bad. Just know it’s probably best played on PC rather than PS5, which has received a serviceable port but one that never feels quite right.

Neopets – Mega Mini Games Collection – The Neopian Arcade Odyssey is exactly as advertised, but there’s nothing beyond some quick hits of nostalgia. The new minigame falls flat, and there’s nothing here that will compel you to keep chasing high scores. At least the Platinum trophy is easy, so you can eventually delete the game after a few hours that are enjoyable, if not overly fun.

While there’s plenty of content on offer, Black Ops 7’s well-executed (if not overly familiar) multiplayer and Zombies modes are eclipsed by a truly baffling, nonsensical campaign. Here’s hoping that 2026’s Call of Duty manages to find its footing again and, hopefully, stick the landing.

Biped 2 can be fun to play with friends, but you really have to be committed to get through the more difficult levels. Featuring solo and four-player modes, there are more ways to enjoy the action than ever before, with each feeling like a unique experience. If you’ve already gotten through Split Fiction and other great co-op games, then this is a great way to continue the challenge, but it wouldn’t be my first recommendation.

If I’m being honest, reviewing Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots comes with its own pain points, but very little of that has to do with the game itself. Yes, there are certainly some shortcomings, some of which I hope can be addressed post-launch, but my misgivings come from whether or not I should recommend it to others. On the one hand, I’ve genuinely enjoyed my time with Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots, and it’s likely that other fans of the franchise will as well. That being said, it’s difficult to recommend it to those who haven’t gravitated towards the genre in the past. And even for those who grew up playing these types of games, you should temper your expectations a bit. For every birdie or eagle that Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots lands, its head gets stuck in a sand trap just as often.

Even with its limited modes and maps (or rather, map, singular), Midnight Murder Club makes for a wildly good time if you can sign up a few friends. It might lack the flash and panache seen in modern live-service titles, but if you’ve been yearning for an online shooter that emphasizes gameplay and good times over all else, look no further.

With a unique look and a story hook that keeps you wanting to continue, Particle Hearts is a successful puzzle game. That being said, it doesn’t reach the highs of the genre’s best, and its exploration can lead you to getting lost at points. However, it’s still a worthwhile experience if you want to scratch that puzzle itch on PS5.

In a vacuum, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers would stand as a resounding success, especially when you consider that it was helmed by a relatively unknown developer. But, when compared to its genre contemporaries, it fails to reach the same impressive highs of the games it clearly holds reverence for.

Captain Blood is such an interesting release, a true time capsule from a different era of gaming. From the static camera angles to the way it treats quick-time events, it is clear that the team was inspired by Resident Evil 4 and the PS2 God of War games during development. This simultaneously winds up being the game’s greatest selling point and its limiting factor. Beyond a novelty, it’s also just a fun swashbuckling time with plenty of action by taking full advantage of its pirate motif.

There’s certainly room for improvement when it comes to its presentation and performance, but it’s hard to deny that Assassin’s Creed Shadows does so much so well. From its wonderfully realized world to its wealth of engaging quests and distractions, there’s plenty to enjoy here, regardless of whether you’ve fallen off the franchise in recent years.

While I'm sure that some of my disappointment can be chalked up to its younger target audience, the truth of the matter is a tougher pill to swallow: Lego Horizon Adventures is a half-decent game, but at the end of the day, it's not a good Horizon game, and it's certainly not a good Lego game. Somehow, it manages to be less than the sum of its parts.

Space Marine 2 is a great hack ‘n’ slasher regardless of whether or not you’re a Warhammer fan. Its true-to-life recreations of the tabletop game’s painted miniatures will please fans, but its satisfying combat will please anyone. However, it’s definitely best enjoyed in multiplayer given some AI frustrations, and its Operations Mode is a few pieces of content short of being an excellent addition to the package.

It’s hard to say much new about an EDF game at this point, especially when the sequels are so iterative. Are you into shooting giant bugs? Do you want to laugh at how ridiculous everything is and find yourself getting embarrassingly into its dialogue-driven story? Then Earth Defense Force 6 is for you, and you should check it out. Otherwise, you won’t have your mind changed as this is repetitive schlock that is fun but nothing groundbreaking.

Those 13 years should have led to something better, and it’s surprising that they haven’t. Alan Wake’s gunplay has gone from dull to frustrating in the sequel, while its venture into true survival horror has been plagued by predictability and amateurish jump scares. Its narrative has a few memorable moments and is able to periodically use its outlandish antics to its advantage, yet it is still dragged down by its refusal to provide enough rewarding resolutions to its litany of riddles. Alan Wake 2 doesn’t improve on what made the original such a cult hit and is instead an uncharacteristically rough draft that needed more edits. It’s not a lake or an ocean. It’s a disappointment.

Ghostrunner 2 goes against its programming by repeatedly slowing down, but it’s still made up of enough of its classic parts. Sprinting and dashing around the neon-lit city while cutting down its many cybernetic forces can be an empowering trip that’s only bolstered by its thumping electronic soundtrack. A strong core like this deserves to be expanded upon more robustly through its new and existing mechanics, which just isn’t the case here. Ghostrunner 2 has taken a few steps forward and a few steps back, but even though it is running in place, it’s still faster than most of its competition.

Team Ninja still can’t tell stories, though, as Conqueror of Jiangdong’s cutscenes are nonsensical and haphazardly stitched together to justify going to each level. And while the plot doesn’t matter here, it is yet another example of how the studio is treading water with Conqueror of Jiangdong. This sophomore expansion includes some amazing boss fights, but ones that are still sullied by unhelpful allies and relegated to side missions. These hiccups sit on top of the game’s small pile of problems that is slowly growing as the DLC rolls out. Wo Long is still a quality action game and Conqueror of Jiangdong is a reminder of that, but it also points out — and magnifies — its weaknesses.

While its brevity impedes the story, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is thankfully a lot shorter than the last few entries. However, its relatively slender figure only points out how the series has used quantity to overcompensate for its stagnation. This is laid bare in Mirage, as its stealth and open-world design all pull from eras that have long since fallen out of style — an unforced error that is mostly because of Ubisoft’s decade-long overreliance on that structure. Baghdad’s potential as a classic setting in the franchise has also suffered because of this and has been undermined by the artificiality of its blueprint. Mirage was designed to go back to basics, but it just ended up being too basic.

High on Knife generally stands out in the context of High on Life because it has some of the game’s best overall moments. It hasn’t completely shaken all of the eye-rolling humor that powered the original, but its conciseness and ability to spotlight more deserving characters makes it significantly less grating. Its unique gunplay similarly benefits from a shorter runtime and has also only gotten better with its new pinball-operated weapon. While High on Life showed how Squanch Games has grown over the years, High on Knife demonstrates that there’s still value in brevity.

NASCAR Arcade Rush lives up to its name and delivers a fun, non-simulation racing game that features reimaginings of some of the most iconic racing tracks in the USA. However, it isn’t outlandish and exciting enough to completely win over an average arcade racing game fan, nor is it a love letter enough to NASCAR to make it a must-own game for stock car racing enthusiasts. Instead, it’s in the middle ground, where if you dig both, then you’ll have a good time, but you’ll still find yourself moving on to other games sooner rather than later.

We Were Here Expeditions: The FriendShip is a fun diversion for up to two hours, but there really isn’t enough meat here for it to be more than that. More of a relationship test than a full-fledged game, its third trial is absolutely the highlight of the experience. While it’s worth going through once, don’t expect it to reach the highs of the previous entries or offer too much new to the winning formula.

Dimension Shellshock has most of the same strengths as the base game, but a few more shortcomings, as well. The new mode’s roguelite elements lack variety, and its loops aren’t deep or rewarding enough to warrant multiple runs. The gorgeous pixel art and expressive animation don’t get old, but its survival mode is almost as two-dimensional as its sprites.

While it marvelously blows up during the final moments of its descent, Fort Solis is a mostly successful voyage. Puzzling together what happened at the station is an engaging exercise that incentivizes players to inspect every computer and voice recorder in order to shine light on its dark mysteries. Its narrative doesn’t seem to branch much or push forward in any new directions, yet it achieves its modest goals rather well. Fort Solis was misused as a facility by its staff, but Fallen Leaf and Black Drakkar have utilized it well to tell one effective sci-fi thriller.

Humble Games’ latest offering is a really interesting artistic experiment. While it didn’t leave me thinking that roleplaying musicals will be the wave of the future, I’m glad Summerfall Studios went for such a wild idea. The end result is uneven yet still quite enjoyable. A compelling mystery is bolstered thanks to some great music and strong performances by its cast. It’s a shame that the animation and songwriting can’t match the quality of the other elements, but Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical is still well worth checking out.

Blasphemous 2 is more ambitious than its predecessor with its fleshed-out swordplay and cleaner dedication to the search action genre. And while these additions give Blasphemous 2 more of an identity, they also give it more room to stumble. Said deeper combat is sticky and held back by its dedication to being adjacent to the soulslike genre. Its narrative tries to broaden the game’s world but suffers because of its lack of a solid recap and overreliance on cryptic storytelling. It’s an artistically sublime world but seemingly pays penitence with its uneven gameplay.

Being adequate defines Zombie Soup. It’s a serviceable top-down twin-stick shooter that has players downing thousands of zombies much like many of its genre peers. However, just being solid isn’t that attractive anymore — especially in such a cramped genre. Without a defined selling point, a dozen or so engaging boss fights don’t propel Zombie Soup much past the hoards of twin-stick shooters that continue to shamble onto every digital storefront at a steady pace.

Frank and Drake has a few interesting story beats, but they never culminate in a truly compelling mystery. It doesn’t help that the puzzles often feel out of place rather than part of the world. Despite the gorgeous art, it just doesn’t fully come together as a complete experience. Hopefully, the development team will be able to deliver on its promise in another game in the future.

All of the delicacies in Venba look filling, so it’s a bit of a shame that the experience as a whole isn’t quite as hearty. But while its puzzles can lack stakes and its story often hastily skips over subtlety, Venba is still a transportive experience that shows players a perspective they are likely unfamiliar with. Using cooking as a central mechanic also makes that experience more poignant since, while the ingredients change, food is a ubiquitous part of life that makes other cultures that much more relatable. It’s less of a meal and more of a snack, but it’s still one made with heart.

There’s a lot to like about Rise of the Dragons, even if it doesn’t fully click and deliver a new all-time great brawler. The core action is fluid and enjoyable, some of the unlockable characters are a blast to play, and the roguelite elements work well enough (even if it’d probably be better to just play as fully powered characters from the get-go). However, the stages and the boss fights aren’t unique enough to make this a truly memorable experience. It’s doesn’t add a ton to the franchise’s legacy, but it’s easy enough to settle into and be a worthwhile new diversion, especially in co-op.