There’s no question that Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, bugs and all, remains one of the best puzzle/tactical fantasy RPGs around.

As heartbreaking as it is in places, A Normal Lost Phone is, ultimately, a story of optimism. And stories with positive messages are absolutely vital to the community this game addresses. It deserves to be played.

That said, Simply Mad’s latest earns a pretty easy recommendation for anyone looking for a racing game unambiguously and unapologetically locked in the simulation category. Its vision is clear, and there can be little doubt that much love and passion was poured into its crafting.

The slog is real, but worth it for hard core JRPG fans.

The older I get, the more I want to play games like this. I doubt I’ll remember even the names of half the shooters and action games I play this year, but there are several arresting moments in Little Nightmares that I’m pretty sure are going to stick with me for years to come.

If my daughter’s reactions while playing are any indication it seems safe to say most kids will love this Skylanders adventure at least as much as its predecessors. The new magnetically joined toys are unquestionably cool and there’s more to do within the game and keep them coming back than ever before.

Push these qualms aside and Bardbarian is just about everything I want in an iOS game: quirky, quick, cheap, fun, and habit-forming.

Intimidatingly epic.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a finely tuned and well crafted trial of reflexes that rewards tenacity and endurance with the satisfaction of having achieved something far from easy...Just don’t expect the kids to stick around and enjoy it with you.

It might contain a racial stereotype or two, and it is certainly lacking a strong female presence, but Gears of War: Ultimate Edition reaffirms Epic’s classic third-person shooter as a titan of the big-men-with-big-guns genus.

Getting the most out of Watch Dogs 2 requires a good deal of patience and the resolve to play the way you’re supposed to play – especially when you first start out.

Perhaps most importantly, you’ll earn all of your victories through skill and strategy without being prompted to pay to win. It’s strange that such a simple thing ought to earn praise, but such is the current state of mobile gaming.

Gorgeous hand drawn presentation makes its fantastical world and characters feel like paintings come to life, and will likely leave fans of dynamic game art drooling. Ditto for music lovers, who will go ga-ga for the game’s gentle, moving theme and rousing orchestral battle melodies.

On the subject of breathtaking scenery, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a showcase for what an Xbox One can do.

The Wii U version of the game isn’t perfect, however. The bigger screen and 1080p HD graphics do add to the flair of the game — the textures are redone for the more powerful Wii U, while most of the game models are the same — but no one would mistake them for something that wasn’t also designed to be played on a handheld. The framerate is much better and, most importantly, you can play online with other players.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 has stuck its landing. Like other games of its ilk, it could do with learning a lesson or two from its competitors, but it has arrived playable, polished, and with so much stuff to do that most players probably won’t even reach its sizeable endgame — which, at this point, I’ve only read about — for weeks, if not longer. I’m not ready to give it a numbered score, but I do feel comfortable saying this is one loot shooter you can dive into with confidence on day one. [Review in Progress]

This game isn’t for the uninitiated. It’s clearly created for fans who think the idea of a pot bellied pig named Fluffy is funny, who can’t look at Barbara Streisand and not think about Mecha-Streisand, and who randomly yell “BEEEEFCAKE!” to their friends every now and then for no reason.

All is not perfect — there are still some visual glitches and long load times to contend with — but for a title routinely derided for not improving enough between titles, Madden has really raised its game this time around.

Success feels amazing. Exhilarating, even. Primarily, I have to believe, because of the co-op aspect of the experience. I’ve probably performed more victory high fives in the last few days than I have in the last year.

N++ is something close to the perfect indie platformer: A pleasure to the senses, challenging without being frustrating, cooperative, competitive, creative, and empowering.

In its own way, Antichamber serves as an antithesis to modern day video game design. Just to experience solving a puzzle by thinking outside of the box makes Antichamber a must play for anyone looking to be challenged.

There just isn’t much else EA can do to make this a better game. So it made great, incremental improvements everywhere.

Gehenna is an extremely interesting environment that’s brought to life by what amounts to being a message board filled with ornery, divisive, and Internet-fluent personalities.

Still, Tales from the Borderlands is off to a great start in its plot and personalities. If Telltale can focus more on our heroes’ banter and comical interactions in coming episodes, it will only get better.

In creating a scoundrel of our choosing, we might actually end up learning a little bit about ourselves.

In the end, it might not be what we do in Death Stranding so much as the ideas that underlie the experience that make it so engaging, and make us so willing to overlook the elements that don’t quite work. Its grand — and timely — vision of how to unify a broken country; its take on killing only as a last resort; even its commentary on our culture’s growing reliance on having the world delivered to our doors. Kojima has given us lots to chew on.

But if you’re looking for an insight or two into the sociopolitical troubles currently haunting the country in which Far Cry 5 is set, best not to get your hopes up.

The Enemy Within 2 oughtn’t to disappoint genre fans. It’s a challenge to survive, and there are some good moments of both physical and mental horror. I’m not sure Tango Gameworks’ largely backward-looking franchise will ever be a mainstream giant within its category, but sometimes the best horror experiences are those geared for a subset of fans – especially if you happen to be a member of said subset.