Eufloria is as unique, languidly haunting, and eminently playable as any of Introversion's brilliant Darwinia games. And now it's also a perfect fit for the iPad.

At last, the single-player Netrunner videogame I've been waiting for someone to make!

At last a racing game carefully and entirely built around drive well instead of just driving fast.

A triumph of open world design, exploration, and writing. And one of the most endearing characters you'll meet in a videogame.

Snowrunner is what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force. As long as the irresistible force has a winch, the immovable object will lose.

I’ve played a handful of card games I think about when I’m not playing. They’re good enough to roll around in my head even when I’m not at the table. Apocrypha, Netrunner, and Arkham Horror come to mind. But they’re all physical tabletop games, and none of them is the usual head-to-head card battle. Yet Mythgard, an online free-to-play game squarely in the tradition of the 1958 Richard Garfield classic that started it all, has found a place alongside them.

It might not have all the detail a gearhead expects, but that doesn’t mean it’s superficial. The cars might look like toys, but the driving model is no joke. It might not have a first-person view, or upgradable cars, or a career mode RPG, or demanding graphics, or product placement, or a shouting co-driver, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less of a rally racing game. Instead, it’s an adoring and adorable idyll about taking a relaxing drive through a lovely countryside, and doing it as fast as you can.

What if there were a Dark Souls for people who want something to do instead of play the same boss fight over and over until I get lucky and don't die? Well, this is! And this is it!

It’s got what it needs: a keen appreciation for how to smooth the tedium out of stealth games, adroitly presented by its rakish cast on a picante Western stage.

Hades success is very much indebted to its pacing. Game pacing is difficult in the best of circumstances; it’s impossible without extensive testing, consideration, and willingness to change things for the sake of player experience. This is all easy for people like me to say, with our monocles and berets and copies of the Chicago Manual of Style, plus maybe some Foucault if really pressed. “It’s all about the player experience.” “Design is law.” You can talk all day. But when the player starts getting frustrated at the lack of progress, or insufficient game cues, you might find yourself in a tough spot as a designer. How you get out of it, or if you even do, says a lot about your skill with design and production.

Infused with the jovial DNA of Strange Brigade, Rebellion's canny combination of horror and absurdity is their best game yet and a grand example of how to add progression and scoring to a modern shooter.

Failbetter finally balances smart gameplay and ingenious prose in this poignant saga of mortality, writ large.

There’s never been a fighting game like this (One Finger Death Punch 1 excepted) and you’ll never be as Jackie Chan or John Wick as you are here.

The thrill of the unpredictable was the driving force behind this charming and spirited rogue-like heister.

Of course, this mix-and-match approach will only be as good as the imagination that goes into its parts. Paradox tried something similar with Stellaris, using a set of opposing attributes. But that game’s spreadsheet-dry sci-fi doesn’t have room for the kind of glee, personality, and interactivity that drives Planetfall. Stellaris is the rasp of pages turning in a ledger. Run your index finger across the paper, along the row and then down the column, find a number that supposedly suggests the high-concept sci-fi in one of those dull classics you felt obligated to read and even more obligated to pretend to like. But Planetfall is a shelf of old sci-fi dime store novels in the back of a tiny bookstore inexplicably still in business. Pick the lurid title that calls out to you best. Pull it out and delight at the splash of imaginative cover art. This is your story for today.

Did I mention the unique gameplay touches designed into some of the nations? The excellent interface that makes it easy to jump to whatever information I need, whether it’s the size of the Carthaginian navy, the closest source of amber, if there’s a river crossing on the way to the next province, or how good that unit is at besieging fortifications? The scattered tidbits of historical flavor text, especially on each of the buildings? The post-release support, which includes a new diplomacy system currently available in a beta build? And did I mention that I haven’t played a strategy game this unique and absorbing since Victoria and Imperialism before it?

Among the many insights offered in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, it knows that if there’s one thing better than cruising around in a sweet ride blowing stuff up and flying through their explosions, it’s cruising around in a sweet ride blowing stuff up and flying through their explosions while listening to sweet tunes.

Like Anno 1800, it gives you plenty of tools to watch and admire, but unlike Anno 1800, it’s got all the time in the world for watching and admiring. The scenery goes by, the tracks rattle, the whistle blows, the truck’s engine purrs, the boat drifts lazily downriver, the plane banks and dips toward the runway. No one is pushing me to get out and build new plantain farms. There is no opponent AI whose company might get in the way of whatever railroad route I build later. There is no multiplayer. It’s just me and a map of stuff that wants to get somewhere else, waiting patiently for me to build it a way.

I don’t want to use the word masterpiece lightly, but what else do you call the combination of gleefully chaotic gameplay with earnest storytelling in a setting as refreshingly unique as Bioshock? What else do you call a combat system that goes so far beyond the simple act of shooting a gun without drilling down into a set of intricate menus and complicated controls? What else do you call darkly malevolent horror that doesn’t feel like it was cribbed from someplace else? What else do you call the crowning achievement of a studio with a unique voice, an uneven track record, and 25 years of experience? If there’s a better word to describe what Remedy has achieved with Control, I can’t think of it.

But what the elevator pitch and basic description don’t convey is Children of Morta’s unique charm.

These are the colorful bursts of superhero nonsense I’ve missed since 2017, splashy and unserious, as intricate as I want it to be, stretching out for as long a grind as I care to ride, brimming with the loot and customization I want in an action RPG, and enough content to make me forget I’ll never again play my leveled up Squirrel Girl. Oh, Marvel/Disney/Nintendo.

What hasn’t been done before is something this accessible, smartly paced, and most importantly, playful.

It’s insane. It’s absolutely insane. Utter havoc. It’s what makes Diablo 3 the preeminent action RPG, even if there are newer and arguably better designs out there. I still grin, shake my head, and marvel at Blizzard’s ability to fuse charm, character, and technical prowess. They are the masters of swirling cartoonish videogame power fantasies, they belong on the Switch, and they’re here at last.

Imagine an arthouse movie with summer blockbuster production values, as if Terrence Malick had been given a Star Wars movie. Imagine if Ubisoft had made Gone Home. Like Arthur Morgan himself, Red Dead Redemption 2 is meditative, laconic, a slow burn, drawn out and unhurried, sometimes even morose, more concerned with characters than spectacle. Let us go then, it suggests.

Bring the Van Morrison with your shotgun and you should be fine.

Too many strategy games mistake detail for design, activity for gameplay. Gladius knows better.

It is the anti-Forza. It luxuriates in the dents on a day-to-day sedan instead of the aerodynamic swoop of something Italian and impossibly expensive. It’s too serious for Electronic Arts, but too wild for Papyrus. It’s not interested in car culture or faux social media or sexy street racing. It hasn’t seen any of the Fast and Furious movies. It loves tough cars, not sleek cars. It knows dents add character. You don’t need to drive these beasts around in the desert to make them look like they’ve been scavenging the wasteland. They come that way.

The end result is a glittering construct of stunningly good prose.