Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice stands tall among some of From Software’s most renowned titles. The challenge is clear and present, the story and mystery are equally intriguing, and the beautiful vistas and soundtrack work in perfect harmony. It might be entirely different to what came before it, but Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a near-perfect experience and a natural progression of the Soulsborne series.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season is a testament to what great writing talent can accomplish. Even with the game's increasingly archaic engine and an art style that isn't quite as unique as it used to be, The Final Season offers a story that ranks up there with the original first season. It is a marvelous piece of work and acts as a bookend to one of the best gaming sagas of the decade.

Sure, The Division 2 isn’t perfect. Those hoping for an in-depth and engaging story will find themselves extremely disappointed in the meager offering on hand here. But, if you can overlook that, you’ll find an amazing experience beneath that is just teeming with engaging content. Considering how easy it is to sink 60+ hours into the game and still have activities to complete, I’m confident in saying that Massive Entertainment has earned themselves a giant gold star.

Beat Cop serves well as a Police sim, although that aspect of the game grows stale as time goes on. The story can be janky and oddly paced at times, but overall tells a fascinating cop story with some neat revelations. The pixel art style fits the 80’s theme of Beat Cop and really nails the retro vibe that the devs are shooting for. Beat Cop works just as well on console as it did on PC, but there’s still some room to improve.

Devil May Cry 5 is an excellent action game. It's an even better Devil May Cry, perhaps the best the series has seen just yet. It's aesthetically pleasing in ways I never thought possible for the series, and chock-full of love for the fans, oozing out of every pore.

The game is a tight package that hits all the right notes when things are working well, though it can possibly push you into madness if you falter. 8/10 dismembered arms.

Dead or Alive 6 has complex, satisfying combat and enough variety to keep players of all skill levels happy. It has great graphics, it's stylish, and it's packed with bonuses. It's also full of what still feels like unintentional humor, which somehow makes the experience more of a spectacle. Sadly, the unimpressive online infrastructure and convoluted character customization serve as two big blots that mar the overall experience.

Like Destiny, like No Man's Sky, like Fallout 76, like The Elder Scrolls Online, Anthem could be a great game by next year. But that doesn't make it a good game now. Right now, Anthem is not good. And given what's come out of BioWare in the past and the kinds of lasting, impactful experiences that the gaming world knows BioWare is capable of delivering, that's truly sad.

Where Trials Rising falls off is with its presentation. While the tracks are all unique in appearance and boast expert level design, the visuals on PC felt dated. I’m not looking for realism, but I was disappointed to find low-quality textures and an overall lack of polish. Console players might not share that view, but it was noticeable in my experience.

Apex Legends is the battle royale game players have been waiting for. It nails the movement and terrain traversal while ensuring weapons feel meaty and responsive. Even the inclusion of light hero shooter features melds surprisingly well with the battle royale genre. Respawn Entertainment has set a new gold standard for what players should expect from their battle royale experiences.

Metro Exodus is best when it follows the classic Metro formula, painting the world with tension as you dive deeper into the darkness of the world. While the game does suffer with a bit of an identity crisis at times, at the end of it all, the tension and fear that is peppered throughout more than makes the journey worth the trouble as players get their first look at a much bigger world and the dangers that lie within it.

There’s a time and place for games like Crackdown 3. It’s not bad by any means, it’s even quantifiably good and enjoyable. However, while games can be lauded for not following trends, there’s a difference between carving your own path and simply not innovating. You will have a blast playing Crackdown 3, but it won’t stay with you after the credits roll and even the 1,000 orbs to collect might not keep you playing. Much like the old friend, perhaps our lives don’t gel as well as they used to, maybe Crackdown is better left as a cherished memory.

Ubisoft brought many of their strengths to the table in Far Cry New Dawn. The gunplay, sights and sounds, and environmental storytelling were great. I’m not sure the light RPG approach worked and would have loved to see more consistency throughout the narrative and from the characters that presented it. Far Cry New Dawn did provide me with a sense of closure in Hope County, and the highs outweighed the lows, but ultimately it left me craving a more complete experience.

What this game is really about is fan service and I must admit that it succeeds in offering folks up a hefty chunk in that department. Jump Force knows that it’s really for the Shonen Jump fans and if you are a fan there’s plenty to like here. One would probably be better off focusing on the core fighting game aspects though.

It provides an experience that is generally therapeutic and almost never stressful. It’s not a perfect game, but it’s the kind of game that could be perfect for certain situations or groups of gamers looking for their next adventure.

There’s a lot on offer here, and while it does lose itself in the grind sometimes, the sheer amount of content here more than makes up for the negatives that you’ll encounter, especially if you’re a fan of the games that inspired it.

It's not just a great Kingdom Hearts game, it may very well be a game that gets revisited in December.

Despite its deceptively intriguing prologue, Vane quickly goes from a journey of discovery to a laborious chore, mainly due to the abundance of technical issues and a lack of a decent save system.

Pikuniku is a fun puzzle game based in a fascinating dystopian world. It’s look and feel gives it a charming aesthetic that draws you in, and its solid controls coupled with balanced puzzles makes you stay a while.

Maybe it’s because I grew up having my mind blown by Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, but side-scrolling Mario games have always had a place in my heart. While I wouldn’t put this latest entry on the same pedestal, this is still a very solid game with a lot of what we’ve all come to love about the series thrown into a melting pot. I don’t think Nintendo would ever put out a “bad” Mario, honestly. There’s plenty here to keep fans and next of kin busy and entertained for quite some time.

Don't labor under the delusion that, if you played the original Resident Evil 2, that you should skip this one for some reason. There’s no excuse of “I’ve already played the original, so I don’t need to grab this one.” You couldn’t be more wrong if that’s your line of thinking. From top to bottom, this is already an early contender for Game of the Year 2019, and one of the greatest reasons ever to be a survival horror fan.

Aftercharge isn’t starting out perfect, but thankfully we live in an age where patches and updates continue to shape an experience well after launch. All that’s needed to grow is an interesting and polished foundation to start with and Aftercharge certainly has that with a lot of charm to boot.

There’s a fun and challenging experience down in the depths of Below, especially in the very lowest levels. Unfortunately, the cumbersome design will turn players away and keep the game’s treasures hidden forever.

While I dug absolutely every facet of the game's aesthetics and the fact that I was finally able to get more No More Heroes after such a long wait, I didn't quite want it in this format. While it was clear at the start that this wouldn't be a core entry in the series, it's also bereft of much of what makes No More Heroes such an unforgettable and classic game in the first place. Technical issues, strange gameplay decisions, and an overall lackluster series of features make Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes an unworthy placeholder for the next entry in the series.

Bury Me, My Love is an ambitious game with a great premise. I just wish it didn't feel so disingenuous so much of the time.

Boobs Saga is a confusing mess of poor controls, bad voice acting, terrible combat, and awful English text and dialogue. It's a shame, because it seems otherwise it could shape up to be a serviceable lewd adventure. [Early Access Score = 40]

It's really only good for mindless entertainment. I guess the same can be said of most YouTube channels, too.

It's an odd thing for a video game to bank so heavily on its aesthetics, but in the case of Desert Child, the plan works. This isn't a dense game, nor is it necessarily a complex game; instead, it's a simple title that suits retro gaming enthusiasts with good visuals, good music, amusing interactions, and a series of high-speed races.

Even with it’s inherited flaws, this is still one of the best installments yet for the series. EDF 5 makes no apologies for what it is and is more accessible than its predecessors. The game has just the right blend of cheesiness and action-packed gameplay that makes for a cult hit.

We've seen Gris before, back when it was sold in the wrapper of Limbo, Journey, or Ori and the Blind Forest. It's the same old platformer that's being turned around yet again for a new audience with new gimmickry that, while functional, simply brings little to the table. It's easy to fall in love with, at least superficially, until you examine it even closer. It looks great, it's smooth, and you sure can jump a lot – but it's unsatisfying in so many ways that make it difficult to recommend over more competent and feature-rich games in the genre. After all, you know the old adage: beauty is only skin-deep.

As it stands now, Road to Eden feels less like a full release and more like an extended demo.

The World of Light campaign is the absolute icing on the cake, offering up tens of hours of fun and some genuine surprises. The only thing really holding Ultimate back from perfection is its online play, both because of its connectivity hiccups and because of some odd design choices.

Just Cause 4 is a very entertaining package and its potential won’t be fully tapped for a long time.

Fallout 76 is a bit of a disaster, which is a shame because there are good ideas and good bits of content here. There wasn’t a single play session where I didn’t have a lot of fun, but there also wasn’t a session where something ridiculous didn’t cause frustration. It feels like it should have been released into early access as a work in progress for the next several months, thus alleviating some of the frustration from poor performance, bugs, and balancing issues.

Artifact feels like the MOBA of card games, in more ways than one. There's just as much strategy, just as much variety, just as many resources to manage, and it's just as challenging.

If you're aching to go dancing with your favorite Persona characters, Persona 4: Dancing All Night remains the best choice for now. If you want to listen to Persona 3 or Persona 5 songs instead, opt to borrow these games if possible instead of investing in them for now.

If you're aching to go dancing with your favorite Persona characters, Persona 4: Dancing All Night remains the best choice for now. If you want to listen to Persona 3 or Persona 5 songs instead, opt to borrow these games if possible instead of investing in them for now.

Darksiders 3 does seem a bit lacking when compared to its series brethren, at least for those who come in with high expectations. Darksiders 3 is recognizably a Darksiders game. However, the game would have benefited from more risk-taking in areas where it chose to play it safe. Nevertheless, Fury’s story is one worth experiencing, especially for long-time fans who are anxious to see how the next chapter of the four horsemen unfurls.

As it stands right now, the game is a rough, uncut diamond that could’ve been the crown jewel of class-based multiplayer first-person shooters.

Tetris Effect is the best iteration of the game franchise since the New Tetris on Nintendo 64.

As it is in life, perception and consideration go a very long way here, and players who are willing to put in the proper amount of time and effort will see just how perplexing, engaging, and rewarding stealth action games can be. Hitman 2 will undoubtedly serve to define the stealth genre for years to come, and I can't wait to see where IO Interactive takes the series next.

Despite the developer's pedigree with slower-moving games like Echo Night, it had great difficulty putting together a meaningful narrative that was pleasurable in any real way to watch unfold. If From Software opts to create another VR title in the future, I hope it's at the very least a different genre.

While I personally already own much of SNK’s NES catalog on cartridges, having portable versions of several arcade classics that I can take anywhere on my Nintendo Switch along with their 8-bit counterparts is definitely a bonus. While most of them are gems in their own right, the actual arcade cabinets can be rare and hard to come by in the wild, especially since most titles like the Ikari Warriors series had a proprietary joystick that twisted as opposed to a twin-stick shooter setup.

Blizzard should be commended for the gestalt that is Diablo 3: Eternal Collection. If you’ve followed Diablo 3’s history, you know the game walked a long, often bumpy path. It’s been addictive for several years, but the option to play on the go makes this package a must-have any Switch owner, especially players looking for a game to lose themselves in for dozens or hundreds of hours.

If you've never adventured with Mario's lankier brother throughout his haunted mansion exploits, Luigi's Mansion 3DS is absolutely worth the price of admission.

It wouldn’t surprise me if I ended up spending 200 hours on a single save, then loading it back up in a few months to do it all again. Whether I’m chasing the thrill of a daring train robbery, or the serenity of a solo camping trip, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an open-world game I will return to time and time again.

Insomniac’s first DLC outing for Marvel’s Spider-Man proves to be a worthy one. While it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, it adds more activities for players to dive into and features a fully fleshed out story with some pretty memorable characters. The best thing The Heist has going for it is that it gets to build on top of the spectacular foundation laid with the original game.

Quest structure and design centered on pacing are unfortunate obstacles for this experience, but Windlands is still a lot of fun. It's even more fun when you can get a few friends to swing around with you. Just make sure to optimize your VR sensor setup before swinging into action.

While Capcom Beat’Em Up Bundle does have some online multiplayer issues it’s still a ton of fun overall.

A solid entry into the lexicon of Lego and DC adventure-puzzle games. There’s a ton of family friendly content that will keep kids busy for hours and entertain their adult counterparts as well.

SoulCalibur VI is an incredible package, only bogged down by a few minor issues, and one that should be near the top of any fighting game fan's library.

Black Ops 4 feels like one of the strongest Call of Duty entries to come along in years. Despite not having a solo campaign or some of the past games' more bombastic mechanics, Treyarch has proved the adage that "less is more." And this game's "less" is good enough to keep me waiting around for "more."

There are a few open-world games that sit above the rest, but Assassin’s Creed Odyssey falls just short of them. Its use of systems that appear in other open-world Ubisoft titles make this a bit like a yearly installment of a sports franchise looking to build on last year than a genre-defining experience.

Mega Man 11 manages to bring our favorite Blue Bomber back into the modern conversation, and the Double Gear system helps tweak the familiar formula into something that feels fresh even in 2018. It may not be the smoothest transition — purists may shun the new mechanics, while unfamiliar players may wonder how the game was ever interesting without them — but the bottom line is that Capcom has found a way to keep Mega Man alive without banking solely on retro gaming nostalgia.

Against other racing games, Forza Horizon 4 stands alone as the best representation of what arcade fun is all about, evoking the spirit of OutRun, Need for Speed, and Burnout: Paradise. It is a love letter to car enthusiasts that doesn’t shun outsiders and casual players.

A new journey in the Life is Strange universe has begun, but so far, it's not one I'm particularly enjoying.

This Legend is definitely worth exploring, especially since it’s free to play, which seems like a must today in the overcrowded mobile marketplace.

Bard’s Tale IV started off on the right foot, but proved to be [a] boring installment in a franchise that probably would’ve been better off staying in the 80’s.

There are still things that need addressing, but NHL 19 is the best hockey experience I’ve had with the NHL franchise in the PS4 era.

As a final blowoff to the Trinity saga, I couldn't help but walk away feeling that the resolution to the story and to Lara Croft's character could have been so much better. But in terms of a pure "Tomb Raider" game, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is everything a bold explorer could ask for, giving players a vast jungle to explore and daring them to master it.

Marvel's Spider-Man is at once a fantastic action game, a dramatic story-driven adventure, and a love letter to fans of Marvel's ever-endearing wall-crawler. It's also one of the strongest titles in Insomniac Games' catalog, and will no doubt be counted not only among the best games of 2018, but also among the best PlayStation 4 exclusives ever released.

Two Point Hospital is just what the doctor ordered. Management sim fans will eat this up and the game’s expertly executed presentation will be able to draw in players new to the genre with its humor and charm.

When you add all of the sensibilities of the Nintendo Switch to the mix, you’ve got yourself a robust little JRPG to sink your teeth into.

There’s a growing number of games on virtual reality platforms that gamers without an HMD are missing out on and this is certainly one of them. Do not miss this one if you have the means to play.

If you’re a fan of the JRPG genre, especially classics Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, or any of the original Dragon Quests I would heavily encourage you to check out Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is such a fun, wild, and weird creature that it feels almost like fanservice.

Look at Guacamelee 2 as gaming's equivalent of NXT Takeovers or New Japan Pro Wrestling's annual G1 Climax tournaments. They may not feel overly different from each another, but there's no questioning their high quality and they'll leave you anxiously awaiting the next main event.

I’m not a big Metroidvania guy, but Dead Cells managed to conjure up the same feelings I had when I played Super Mario World, Portal, and Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. It isn’t perfect, but no game is. It evokes feelings that remind me why I fell in love with video games in the first place.

The game deftly balances exploration, crafting, combat, and puzzle-solving as you move through the game in the direction of the next story-based waypoint. It moves at an appropriate pace, and there's always something new around the corner, with plenty to discover as the world feels as though it's slowly unraveling around you.

It’s a shame that Seeking Dawn didn’t perform as well as I hoped, especially with the production values through the roof. Multiverse clearly has a firm grasp on creating worlds within VR. Hopefully, their next experience will trim the fat and give us the lean adventure VR game the team is certainly capable of delivering.

I, for one, will be anxiously awaiting the day when we get a host of all new WarioWare microgames for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo, call me. I've got tons of ideas.

The minimalist design gives it a distinct, futuristic style but doesn’t excite.

When it all comes together, slaying a pack of Pixar-esque monsters with your carefully planned turret barrage is incredibly satisfying.

No matter if you've played the rest of the Yakuza series and know it like the back of your hand, or you're just now getting started as a fledgling fan, Yakuza 0 is a must-play.

A challenging puzzle platformer with excellent level design and art style.

The experience of embodying superheroes is a lot of fun at times, but the lack of variety sets it way back.

There's really no stone left unturned with either Mega Man X Legacy Collection, making them perfect for longtime series fans or for gamers new to the Mega Man X formula.

Sniper Rust VR is a collection of things that make for an unentertaining experience, but a poor shooting experience is the final straw.

It's quite the barebones package, despite being an uproarious amount of fun in small doses. Some small control tweaks, additional content, and other changes might make this the best Tempest out of the rest, but for now it's still a great diversion and addition to the series' portfolio.

Captain Toad is a happy game and those are becoming fewer and farther between in the modern landscape.

Sonic Mania Plus cranks the game up to eleven with its new content and it is a must-play for fans of the original Sonic the Hedgehog 2D platformers.

Octopath Traveler succeeds where other classically-styled RPGs fail: the presentation is spot-on, the combat is addictive, and the potential for party customization is tremendous. Small stumbles with dialog and framerate can be forgiven simply because the rest of the game is an absolute delight. This is an experience that players can easily get lost in for dozens of hours, and it's sure to be counted among the best Nintendo Switch exclusives released to date.

A hidden gem in this year's long list of video game releases.

An incredible party game and with Nintendo's multitude of controller options, it's possible to get up to eight players together for total madness.

They say the Tetris Effect happens when you start seeing Tetris blocks everywhere, but I'm starting to see Insane Robots chips and circuitry wherever I go. Does that mean I'm addicted?

Bus Simulator 18 is not a game changer and to be honest, it’s not the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had in front of my PC. Still, it has solid driving mechanics, some detailed buses, and a gameplay loop that is strangely relaxing.

New Gundam Breaker definitely has some great nuanced aspects to its core concept of mix-and-match mech model making, but what it needed was more variety to spice up the gameplay. While last year’s Gundam Vs was nothing mind-blowing it was a much more solid and mixed combat experience.

Musynx is a light, quick, and challenging music game with plenty of reasons to keep you coming back for more. It may be devoid of endless options, additional difficulties, and all the window dressing that comes with the "bigger" rhythm games out there, but it's well worth taking for a test drive.

The Crew 2 fails at providing the heart of what what a racing game should offer, specifically a fun and rewarding driving experience. All the icing and fancy decoration in the world won’t make a crappy cake into a great cake. The Crew 2 can take a pack of exotic cars racing on a mountain road and produce results that are about as exciting as a round of solitaire.

It's stuffed to the brim with Moto Grand Prix-related details like racers, tracks, and commentary, and includes plenty of different options that riders can use to tweak their bikes and chase a podium finish. With that said, MotoGP 18 simply feels less thrilling than it should, mostly due to its underwhelming graphics, spartan presentation, and monotonous gameplay.

I walked away from Captain Spirit wanting to know more about where the story is headed, but even without the game's overt hints pointing to the eventual Life is Strange sequel, I enjoyed Chris' story for what it was. And given the current state of the world, it's nice to experience a story from the eyes of an innocent child. Captain Spirit challenges players to approach it with a different perspective and that challenge is one everyone should welcome.

An adequate follow up to 2016’s indie darling. It hosts a plethora of new puzzles that force players to think, but without making them go mad. Too many checkpoints may turn off players looking for a genuine challenge, though. The all new dynamic of co-op really gives a jolt of energy to this game; Without that new component I’m afraid Unravel 2 would’ve just felt like a level expansion. Those that really dug the first Unravel will love what its sequel has to offer.

Should you pick up Mario Tennis Aces? If the answer wasn't immediately obvious already, that's a resounding yes. It's the best the series has seen in years, and that's saying something for this tennis fan. If you're looking for one of the best sports games the Switch has to offer, look no further. You've found it.

The visuals are crisp, the music is great, and there's a wide variety of things to do, but unfortunately it veers too far into freemium territory to elevate it above other, extremely similar titles.

This is a bad game. It’s not worth $20 and, in my opinion, not worth $5, unless you’re the kind of person that would get a kick out of Paris Hilton slut jokes in 2018 and can’t get enough lazy, casual racism.

You'll come away with a new appreciation for those oft-ignored indies that make their way to the system every so often.

It’s fun title with some great RPG elements and a lot of nods and winks to the Pokemon series while still being its own thing. Nintendo has definitely once again struck gold with another first party title for the Switch.

In the end, it's all about bringing the fight and the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection can throw down with the best of them, making it a worthy challenger.