I know volleyball and dodgeball are totally different activities, but the inspiration is pretty obvious here. And if you want to play a sports game like this that’s wacky, over the top, and still has a competitive element, Mario Tennis or the Kunip-kun Dodgeball games are much more fulfilling in every way. And if you’re just a Fairy Tail fan looking for something fun to play with these characters, Fairy Tail: Dungeons or the GUST-developed RPG from a few years ago (with a sequel coming soon) are much more successful in nailing their own concepts. It’s a shame, but aside from some fun visuals and occasional on-screen wackiness, Fairy Tail: Beach Volleyball Havoc doesn’t deliver in either the volleyball or the havoc.

NBA 2K25 is in the same place as most modern sports franchises. There are iterative changes and refinements that improve existing modes, but so many of the game’s issues—several of which have existed for multiple games now—remain unchanged. The hardcore base knows what they’re getting and will appreciate the incremental changes, but if you’re still having fun on 2K24, there’s no pressing reason to upgrade.

Wild Bastards has a lot of charm and style, and that’s enough of a hook to want to dive in and see what the game has to offer. Using a sizable roster of characters who are the major differentiators for gameplay as the main motivator to keep going is effective as well. But once you’ve got the Bastards roster filled out and you have combat figured out well enough, that’s about where the buck stops in this sci-fi western. It’s a chaotic and challenging experience, but promises a lot of complexity and nuance that seems bountiful at first, but fizzles a bit given time. Some balancing issues hold it back the most from being truly fulfilling, but there’s a little bit of genre fatigue talking on my part as well. On its own merits, Wild Bastards is ambitious and kinetic, and will definitely put FPS fans’ skills to the test.

Those looking for a different kind of Ace Attorney experience that still delivers that same sense of justice can find a pair of gems with Miles Edgeworth's games. Even if the setting is slightly different, few should have any objections to more of these captivating tales of justice.

Spectre Divide’s main selling point, the Spectre mechanic, is admittedly rather cool. It’s great to get a second chance at a tactical shooter mid-round. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel like a strong enough hook to draw players across from the other games that have solidified themselves as the leaders in the genre. Add to this the problems with match pacing, bland weapons, and laughable microtransaction prices and you’ve got a game that is unlikely to convince hardcore fans to dive in, let alone keep players around for the long run.

It’s surreal to see a game I played in my first year of work at Shacknews finally find its way to that Version 1.0. I couldn’t be happier for Coffee Stain after its lengthy journey, but it helps that this is a really dang good sim, and a true creative sandbox. I think the freeform nature of Satisfactory is both its greatest power and its most intimidating offering, simply because the sheer lack of guidance can leave players directionless and overwhelmed, especially as you wait and stew on it while resources bake in the early game. However, the sheer beauty of Satisfactory as you slowly expand a little base into a highly programmed and automated industrial machine is a neat and rewarding process, and if you have a friend or two to bring along, all the more fun.

I’ve gone on too long at this point, but I kind of want to just keep gushing! Yars Rising looks like a bunch of wacky stuff that shouldn’t work. Yet when it comes together it’s a blast for nearly its entire runtime. It’s WayForward at its most self-indulgent, but that turns out to be a great gaming experience that extends into a sweet, clever, little love letter to Atari’s classic library in a way that feels fresh and unique. The way Yars' Revenge, as the core of this concept, is woven throughout what from the outside seems like a totally unrelated kind of game is a constant source of dopamine. And while the stealth is kind of a dud, the action and exploration on the Metroidvania side is top notch, especially with all the neat and unusual powers you get to play with. Yars Rising is a big surprise, and one of the most memorable games I’ve played in 2024.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a love letter to 40k fans. The minor gripes I have with PvP cross play and cutscenes pale in comparison to the overall package that’s bursting with content and hours of fun times with friends. The insane dedicated attention to detail is everywhere, even in the smallest corner of the game. Saber really took their time, cared about the IP, and it shows. I highly suggest grabbing a copy, getting your friends together and killing some Xenos scum.

What the Car? was a nice, little moment of silliness in a packed summer, full of games that have demanded a lot of time and energy. It made my hardened critic's face crack a smile multiple times, even if it had just annoyed me moments before. I’m not ready to turn all the way around and start banging the “wiggly game” drums just yet, but it was nice to know there’s still hope out there for this particular brand of video game foolishness.

Astro Bot is a charming and cheeky nod to a lot of PlayStation history and a powerful demonstration of PS5 hardware, but more than anything, it's just a ridiculously good game.

Star Trucker shows a lot of promise. Its ease of entry, limited learning curve, and beautiful environments promise many hours of enjoyment. However, this welcome simplicity is also one of its main drawbacks. There's so much more that could have been done to improve the user experience. The biggest problem, however, is the skewed economy. Resources essential for enjoying Star Trucker are too expensive and hard to come by, making it more of a power management simulator than a space truck simulator. Choosing an easier difficulty level may alleviate some of these issues, but it points to an overall imbalance in the game. Nevertheless, given its low price and easy approachability, Star Trucker can be a lot of fun for fans of space and truck simulations, but you may not want to visit this truck stop very often.

As a modern blast from the past, Akimbot is an acceptable adventure that takes its cues from PS2 platforming classics but falls short of its own expectations. Its gunplay, platforming, and variety of mini-games are mostly adequate, and some levels show moments of creativity. However, the lack of character progression, uneven difficulty spikes, and unrewarding exploration hinder the effort. Ultimately, the original Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank have stronger level design and more interesting ideas, and those games came out over two decades ago.

That creative freedom and the tools Artificer gives you to work with make it easy to deal with Sumerian Six’s rockier moments and, frankly blatant imitation of games that came before. The team clearly has a strong understanding of how to make the most of the genre's basic tools, and here is where I'd normally say I hope to see even better things from them in the future. With Devolver having laid off half of Artificer's staff earlier in 2024, though, the studio's future seems unclear.

It takes advantage of its lore, iconography, and even some of its mechanics to tell a tale that fans will undoubtedly dissect for the foreseeable future.

The bottom line is that Fate/Stay Night is a keystone work in a genre that’s never been more popular on our side of the globe. For decades, it seemed like this historically important (and good as heck by itself anyway) visual novel would never be readily available and professionally localized like this. Anyone with an interest in anime, gaming, and alternative forms of digital storytelling owes it to themselves to check this story out. It’s one of the all-time greats, and if you do take the time (and it does take a lot of time), you’ll easily understand why Fate is such a big deal nowadays. And if this is your first time, welcome to one of the most absurd, yet rewarding rabbit holes you can dive into.

I had a good time playing Concord. The gunplay feels good, and the match pacing made it easy to jump in and quickly play a couple of games before peacing out. That said, I’m not confident that “just fine” will be enough to survive in the brutal landscape of live-service games in 2024. Concord suffers from a lack of innovation and identity, and I’m curious to see how Firewalk Studios and PlayStation will navigate the path forward.

Ultimately, Black Myth: Wukong is what I like to call “Peak Fine.” It’s great when it finally opens up and lets you play it, and has a number of memorable bosses to fight. There’s a lot to explore and see and do, and I imagine most players will miss a good chunk of the game’s optional content on their first playthrough. But even at its best, Wukong never reaches the highs of the genre’s greats, and never completely comes together in the way the best action games do. It’s not bad, but it’s not special. It’ll take you to the dance and it has a few killer moves, but how much you enjoy it will depend on how much you’re willing to put up with when you get there, and how much you don’t mind if it steps on your toes now and again. Me? I prefer an Action Jackson that lets me lead now and again, and that can hit the high notes.

If you’re a fan of Umamusume Pretty Derby, Party Dash is worth getting. Its cute retro art direction manages to capture the energy and charisma of the franchise even if it's a little lackluster on the surface level. The PC port I played ahead of release ran perfectly fine but being able to use resolutions above 1080p would've been nice. What is here is a great and will delight fans but might not be enough to turn newcomers into Umamusume-believers.

I can see why longtime Famicom Detective Club producer Yoshio Sakamoto was so excited to share the story of this game. Emio - The Smiling Man is an intriguing story that takes us on a deeply emotional journey. The characters, both old and new, are very fun and easy to follow as well, not to mention coming out great in their animations and dialogue. I wish Emio stretched its legs a bit in terms of gameplay, but I also can’t argue too much with a working system that’s mostly meant to be a vehicle for an engaging mystery. If this is the final Famicom Detective Club game, it’s a strong one to go out on, but I can't help but hope we get more Famicom Mystery Club with this game acting as a stepping stone to the series’ future.

Ultimately, Bloodless is an interesting, straightforward kind of game that is exactly what it says it is on the box. There’s a central premise, and the gameplay revolves (almost) entirely around it, even if it wavers a little out of an apparent necessity. And even then, takes the care to justify the shift in a way that lines up in the fiction. The non-lethal combat is fun to engage with, and doesn’t simply feel like another samurai game about parrying. There also isn’t a ton more to Bloodless than that, which is totally fine. There’s a target, the game lines up its shot, and hits it dead center. Good stuff.

Age of Mythology Retold is fun, don’t get me wrong. The visual overhaul alone is enough to make playing this 22-year-old game easier, and the quality-of-life improvements sand down some of the older versions’ more annoying edges. However, with more substantial structural improvements in later Age of Empires games, plus with the likes of Ara: History Untold just around the corner, I’m just not sure Retold needed to exist.

I had no idea what I was in for with Gori: Cuddly Carnage, and I certainly didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Its crassness is kind of a take-it-or-leave-it for me, but it fits a ridiculous world taken over by crazed toys that are in desperate need of murder by a sentient cat friend and his blade hoverboard. And that feels like a good way to look at most of Gori. It sets out do all sorts of things gameplay-wise and it does all of them pretty well to make a ridiculously graphic world and narrative pretty dang fun. Mind the tykes in the room when you’re playing this one.

Visions of Mana is simply refined RPG goodness in every way. It’s got compelling characters, an engaging story, and a challenging combat system. Its only shortcomings are minute, and don’t do too much to bog down what is an overwhelmingly enjoyable adventure.

When it comes down to it, Gundam Breaker 4 is all about the bits and pieces. Literally. If you’ve ever put a Gunpla kit together you understand how long it takes, how it feels to put the parts together, and how awesome it is to pose and admire the finished kit. A video game version of that is obviously different, and this game takes full advantage of those differences. When the laws of reality and resource scarcity don’t apply, Gunpla can be something completely different, exciting, and fun in its own ways. Drop some fun combat and multiplayer capacity on top and you have a formidable time sink. You get out what you put in, and there’s an admirable amount of space to let that mean different things to different players, and it all feels rewarding.

I think the biggest praise I can give to the game is that I cannot wait to dig into it with a few friends over the coming weeks. It's the kind of game you can slowly chip away at over several evenings and the hardcore mode even offers some replayability down the line. While it doesn’t reinvent the wheels of its genre, Pugstorm’s Core Keeper emerges confidently out of early access and I’m looking forward to revisiting it over and over again in the coming years.

Outlaws is at its best when it’s telling you a story. I was immediately invested in Kay and Nix and loved going on this journey with them. I didn’t skip a single cinematic or hurry through dialogue and, as a casual Star Wars fan, I would say that’s a big win for the folks at Massive Entertainment. There were certainly some places where the gameplay felt repetitive, but climbing, grappling, and taking out my foes in chaotic battles with my Blaster always felt satisfying. Working with Nix to solve puzzles or stealth through areas was a treat. Now that I’ve beaten the story, I’m not sure I’ll spend much time in the open world, but Outlaws did such a good job that I’m thinking of digging into some of the movies and television shows I’ve been passing on. That’s about as big a compliment as I can give the story.

I don’t love Bakeru like I love Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and that’s okay. This is very much a vibes game, and Good-Feel in 2024 isn’t Konami in 1998. There’s a lot of nostalgic evocation happening for sure, but it’s more like a collection of smiles and nods in service to a project that very much has its own identity. I appreciate it, even as I understand Bakeru isn’t entirely for me. A kid at the age I was back then, with a budding interest in anime and other Japanese cultural affectations would probably have a blast. And since the barriers for that space are so much smaller these days, Bakeru can be its whole self in a way that would’ve barred it from international travel (or a decent localization) back then. That’s what it feels like Bakeru is aiming for, and I think it hits that target cleanly.

Meta progression isn’t a necessary facet of the genre, but when those systems do show up in more obtuse and fumbly ways it can be kind of tiresome to engage with them. I’d rather have something more straightforward, or just focus on the core mechanics entirely. And a game like this, with its smaller scope but explosive energy thanks to the Fairy Tail stuff, really thrives on a foundational level. The art is sharp and colorful, the series’ personality shines from every angle, and the combat itself is fun to grapple with. The game even has some interesting ideas with its checkpoint-like boss stages meant to challenge your saved builds. Making use of such a burly anime/manga IP as Fairy Tail to hoist up indie games is an awesome idea, and it’s great to see Fairy Tail: Dungeons come out swinging the moment the door opens.