A year later, Ghost of Tsushima is still a great game, and this Director's Cut is the definitive version, especially if you own a PlayStation 5. It's a great experience, but it's mainly for newcomers: the improvements are welcome, but hardly enough to tempt veterans of the original.

Apart from the "30 fps" issue, which in no way detracts from the overall quality of the experience, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is, today as yesterday, an extremely enjoyable, fun, perfectly calibrated and absolutely unmissable title. Whether or not it's right to entrust a remake with Nintendo Switch's swan song is not our concern, play it without asking too many questions and you won't regret it.

Codemasters has succeeded in perfecting an already spectacular driving model, making it more reactive and enjoyable, launching DiRT Rally 2.0 towards the throne of the best rally game ever. Launching, at day one, without events on the snow, the title is missing a fundamental piece. Apart from that, this is now the most refined rally simulator on the market.

The Alters blends 3D survival, resource management and base building with a strong narrative component. As Jan Dolski, we must explore a hostile planet, manage a space base and create alternate versions of ourselves to survive. Each Alter has unique abilities, but also memory, personality and unresolved conflicts. Managing tensions between clones, assigning the right roles, keeping morale high and coping with extreme environmental conditions becomes the heart of the gameplay. A deep challenge, between micro management, psychology and human science fiction drama told through multiple multiple choice dialogues.

South of the Circle is a weird and fascinating experience, that mixes poor gameplay with a great script. It's essentially an interactive film, where all we're asked to do is look at the screen.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a huge game in which exploration plays a very important role, as every corner of the Western Frontier is full of plants to catalogue, ingredients to collect and materials to use to improve our equipment. The fights are very exciting and it is essential to combine stealth actions with incursions based on the surprise effect. The proprietary Snowdrop engine offers us a wonderful graphic representation, which combined with a quality soundtrack guarantees an almost cinematic experience. Those looking for non-stop action might find a few too many dead moments, but it remains an extremely high-quality open world shooter adventure despite never trying to introduce any innovations to the genre.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero may be the first chapter of the Budokai Tenkaichi series not to be called Budokai Tenkaichi, or the first not to indicate the “Z” with which the second part of the series is famously indicated. Yet it is in all respects a chapter 4 updated to 2024, with lots of lights (and incredible particles) and some shadows that in the end you can easily ignore.

Anomaly Agent is a debut with a bang for Phew Phew Games, which arrives on our monitors with a beat'em up with Canabalt-style endless runner elements, a charismatic and crazy protagonist, plus music to shoot at full volume that accompanies the action in beautiful pixel art. The attack and dodge combination starts with the simple press of two buttons and gradually becomes more and more complex with combos and special weapons. Sudden gameplay changes and gigantic bosses each one with its own fighting style make this game unmissable for those who love action.

Starfield is for cautious and patient explorers, not for those who want it all at once. The incipit of the story is rather bland, the sense of estrangement at the highest levels. But as the fog thins out, all its potential and the free will left to the player are understood and appreciated, who really has a thousand things to do as he wants and when he prefers, perhaps leaving the continuation of a mission to better times (and stats). On the other hand, the slowness of the movements on the ground and the small design defects have their weight and, albeit reluctantly, they must be taken into account in the global assessment, which remains high in anticipation of future developments. Maybe a few more weeks of playtesting would help.

Metal: Hellsinger is an interesting hybrid between FPS and rhythm game that sounds like a real Love Letter to the great classics like Doom. Its gameplay and music come together in a combination of violence and adrenaline in which it is easy to get lost.

Life is Strange: True Colors catches up with the original Life is Strange on a narrative level and, unsurprisingly, improves the experience with superior graphics quality, remarkable voice acting, and a beautiful soundtrack. Once stepped out of the bus, it will be easy to totally identify with Alex and be carried away not only by her search for truth but also, more simply, by the everyday life and warmth that only a place like Haven Springs can offer.

Those who got excited with Slay the Spire should also jump on Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles without delay. Everyone else will find a very complete deck builder in which there are dice instead of cards, using them to build chains of combos relying on the dualism Purification and Corruption. The huge amount of Oracles, dice and Blessing to unlock, Sentinels to upgrade and enemies to defeat ensures excellent replayability even if the too many combinations available encourage a bit too much luck at the expense of strategy. The graphics are inspired although the colors chosen, pale blue and crimson, do not provide good contrast.

Saints Row proved to be a worthy reboot of the saga, capable of looking back to draw heavily on the soul of the franchise, but also of looking forward to the future of the series, creating a perfect starting point for everything that, potentially, will come. Volition has given its best both on the content and on the technical front, and the result is an open world that has nothing, or almost nothing, to envy to the competition.

Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[st] is a sublime fighting game, with a lot of content to enjoy, a varied gameplay and a generous roster. The graphics show their age, but the art direction is still pretty unique. Despite the fact that several fighting games were released in the past few weeks, this one should be on top of your list.

Intense, detailed and capable of telling a story that goes far beyond expectations, Dordogne is a story that strikes the soul, thanks to an excellent play system. Must have absolutely.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is an original and exciting video game, capable of captivating through its game design and showing a pleasant and touching story. It might be challenging for those who are unaccustomed, but that's the beauty of deep video games, with a playful expression that reaches its peak through a fantastic approach.

Diablo IV is only the first stage of a long journey and already a convincing ARPG that throws you into a dark open world from which it is increasingly difficult to detach thanks to addictive gameplay and deep customization of your alter ego. Those who dreamed of a work capable of rewriting history might be a little disappointed, but sometimes less is enough to be happy.

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is not only a successful return: it is a love letter to long-time fans and, at the same time, a great entry point for newcomers. Thanks to a deep but accessible gameplay, an inspired artistic direction and an avalanche of content for all modes, SNK signs one of its most convincing works of the modern era. The resistance of the online sector and the weight of certain unpopular choices in the initial roster still need to be verified, but the heart is there, and it beats strong. South Town is alive again.

If you can look past some balancing issues in the combat system, or a storyline that is not too captivating, you'll find that Divinity: Original Sin 2 is an excellent RPG, that basically does everything right, and offers what a fan of the genre could expect.

The Riftbreaker will throw you on an alien planet both lush and unforgiving, in what could be the perfect mix between a survival RTS and an action/shooter game.

Code Vein II could be described as a more accessible Elden Ring, and that wouldn't be entirely wrong. But it would be a shame to stop at the obvious similarities and simplifications, because the game behind it is undoubtedly a great game. It's a little didactic in some choices, a little fan service in others, but it's also capable of frequently resonating with the player on the other side of the screen.

Under the disguise of a traditional point and click adventure, The Red Strings Club shows us once again the ability of Decostructeam to use videogames to explore the human soul. The story is a pretty standard cyberpunk tale, but the "alcohol system" during conversations at the bar is amazing, and the moral choices are intriguing and demanding.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 is an excellent role-playing game of classic style, absolutely unmissable for the veterans of the saga. Everyone else may find themselves overwhelmed by excessive references, compromising the experience.

Worms is a timeless classic that finds the perfect home on Switch. One of the best episodes in the series, to play on the go. What could go possibly wrong? Nothing! Another must have for the new Nintendo console. This version has some exclusive content, soon-to-be released on other platforms as well.

Milestone has done it. The Milan-based team decided to take a risk, stepping out of their comfort zone of motorcycle simulations to return to their roots with a *Screamer* reboot—a title that establishes itself as one of the most distinctive, entertaining, and engaging racing games on the market. The driving system—though occasionally a tad clunky—is a sheer delight of speed, technique, and drifting; the narrative compels you to tackle every race at full throttle; and the characters form a cast it is impossible not to grow fond of. It lacks only that extra aesthetic flair to truly stand out amidst the endless array of cyberpunk worlds released in recent years; yet, the technical solidity—combined with the meticulous aesthetic polish applied to the UI, the cars (some of which are truly stunning), and the characters—still manages to make Milestone’s work shine, even in this regard. *Screamer* is the racing game that both the market and the players have been waiting for.

Tokuro Fujiwara strikes again by taking Ghosts 'n Goblins back to its roots. As difficult as it gets and as inventive as it gets, this is a return in style for Arthur fans.

Octopath Traveler has several flaws, especially in the narrative component, but still remains a beautifully presented game, with tons of good ideas.

F1 2016 is the best Formula 1 videogame developed by Codemasters, and one of the most captivating racing games of this year. It perfectly combines simulation and accessibility, offers a great Career Mode and a lot of multiplayer options, but most of all it literally drags the player into the chaos and adrenaline of the competition.