Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line is a delight, and a massive time sink that I don’t regret spending hours on. From its colorful visuals to the excellently presented music and the simple yet challenging rhythm action itself, there’s a ton to love about the latest game in a series I was already hooked on. The massive collection of characters to unlock and loot to gather enhances the game tremendously, while the rewarding multiplayer is just a lovely extra on top. If the DLC wasn’t so vast I’d have almost nothing to criticize outside of a desire for more considered accessibility settings. Even then, the base game truly does have more going for it than the majority of mainstream games charging twenty bucks more...Still distraught over the lack of "Jesters of the Moon" though.

Kirby: Planet Robobot is yet another Kirby game, which I personally consider a positive. The new abilities and mechanized gimmickry are huge fun to fiddle around with, boss encounters are beautifully delivered, and the level design is some of the series’ most accomplished.

Comedy games are considered notoriously difficult to pull off, but ones like this demonstrate that the challenge isn’t inherent to the medium - it really just comes down to how many people making games are actually good at comedy. Death of the Reprobate, with humor that’s sharp and dumb in equally amusing measure, is some damn good comedy - and maybe more than a little damned.

Rise of Ronin really likes its players, and that’s what I love most about it. While its world features a lot of busywork, it’s also a joy to explore thanks to how easy and versatile movement is. An enthralling combat system openly traces the best of Sekiro and Nioh, serving the extract in a more accessible fashion with a huge variety of ways to fight. While co-op is restrictive, it’s still really funny to go online and turn bosses into confetti, plus you can run a cat rental service...Excellent stuff.

Guitar Hero Live is a bold new step forward for the series, as well as peripheral-based music games overall. While Rock Band 4 stuck more rigidly to tradition and provided a solid party game, Live delivers a more personal game, albeit one with a lot more going on under the hood.

Overwatch is a beautiful game. In dedicating itself to one strong, singular style of game rather than attempting to check too many boxes with heaps of modes and features, Blizzard has crafted a finely tuned and instantly playable production. It is a game of exceptional vision, a vision realized with utmost self-assurance. This game knows what it is, and doesn’t try to be anything else.

I say this without hyperbole and not as a stealth insult to anything else – I quite genuinely believe this to be the finest addition to the Switch’s library so far. I can’t argue with how much I’ve been playing it and how much I want to keep playing it, even as I type this. It’s exactly this kind of compulsive experience the Switch needed, and if that had to be the result of a remaster, so be it...It’s a damn fine remaster of a truly magnificent game.

I love Ghost of Yōtei. I adore the classic mold of Atsu’s revenge tale - it’s the kind of story for which “formulaic” is more compliment than criticism. I appreciate how rich a toybox has been provided in its combat. I give it immense credit for the transformative way it uses passive enhancements to so strongly influence a player’s active playstyle...It’s a beautiful production full of mechanically enriching treats that can make a player feel like the sports car of assassins. Seriously, when is Sucker Punch going to make a John Wick game? All told, I’d say this is some of the sleekest, tastiest action I’ve seen from the big budget space in a long, long time.

Crafting is intuitive, navigation is quick, and the sheer scale of what can be done is deceptively vast. Trying the intricate work of some of Course World’s most talented designers will showcase in seconds just what can be done. It’s an encouraging thing, and that’s something this game does so well – it encourages, inspiring its users to keep making bigger and better things.

Owlboy may have a few annoying navigational hangups, but none are enough to counter the overwhelming magic of the adventure at hand. Beautiful in both a visual and aural sense, littered with lovely characters, and home to a number of jawdropping combat encounters, Owlboy is a game almost ten years in the making that doesn’t show a trace of development hell.

Ultimate Edition works as a solid showcase of the Switch 2’s capabilities, at least between the occasional crash. It generally runs great, and playing such a massive production in handheld mode is a hell of a novelty. You can use the Joy-cons to activate commands via gestures, though as usual with such things, gyro’s best used for a little refinement while aiming...Whether on the Switch 2 or not, Cyberpunk 2077 is a fantastic RPG, especially after years of bodywork, and it has some of the best storytelling you’ll get out of the “AAA” space. I’ve played it so intently that I don’t even cringe when I hear cyberslang like “choom” and “preem” anymore...Can’t think of a more nova endorsement than that, ya gonk!

Few games are able to showcase the power of the medium like Nier: Automata...If history forgets this game, then f.ck history.

With Doom, id has delivered a highly polished, utterly shameless Hellbound hecatomb that confidently swaggers into the world with gaudy fervor. It’s huge, it’s preposterous, and it’s absolutely bloody majestic.

This ReREmake preserves everything that made the original remake great, and what a world we live in where “original remake” can be a valid term. In fact, I’m going to tell you right now that this is one of the most pointless reviews in existence – everybody should know already where they stand on this one. Either you squared the money away the day this was announced, or you’ll never play it.

All told, Flinthook is a damn good time. It’s demanding with its difficulty but provides all of the tools necessary for success; not so cruel as to seem unfair but steadfast in its expectations of the player. The core mechanics are satisfying to use and well balanced, while offering the player ways to upset individual aspects of that balance through perks and carve out their own style.

I’ve not had this much raw fun with a game in quite some time. It could have ditched the plot entirely and just thrown me into these environments with all the unique toys and I’d have had a roaring good time. This is, to date, Kojima Productions’ finest videogame if we’re looking at it as a piece of pure, unabashed entertainment.

I’m glad we got two wonderful action games out of the Darksiders property, even if that’s all we ever get, and I’m really glad I played them again, because they’re not lost a step.

Pacific Drive is one of those amazing games that I’ve fallen in love with despite it doing so much I’m inclined to loathe. It’s brilliant in its externalization of survival gameplay with a car that acts perfectly in its dual role of burden and bearer. Its humor, style, and a luxury assortment of modifier settings have kept me spellbound. I can paint my car pink. Game of the year contender.

I loved this latest episode, and I’m adoring Tales From The Borderlands, easily the best thing Telltale’s done since season one of The Walking Dead. It continues to demonstrate how the light-adventure formula can be played for humor as much as tragedy, how good writing can shine in a videogame with the right presentation, and just how accomplished the studio behind it is.

It’s the best game about a toy cat using his sentient hoverboard to dismember killer unicorns you could play this year.

I loved it back then, and I love it now. Its attempts at clever humor can be embarrassingly misjudged, its content is often alarming, and I think those who point out the game’s problematic elements are perfectly within their right to do so, and they’re very rarely wrong. Still, I can accept that the game is troubling while still enjoying it, and the extensive augmentations found within the PS4/Xbox One version makes it all the more pleasant.

Thank Goodness You're Here! rolls around in its Britishness to an almost obscene degree, but more than that it is simply… stupid. Majestically, gloriously stupid. It’s a wildly entertaining little adventure that revels in its own ludicrous indulgences. It delightedly broadcasts a sense of humor that some may find puerile and unappealing while others will find it puerile and very appealing...Thank goodness I’m in the latter camp.

While it likely won’t be remembered to the same degree as “bigger” Zelda installments, it’ll absolutely go down as a classic to me. Echoes of Wisdom is brilliant in its creativity and versatility, one of the best in the series as far as I’m concerned...Also, Octoroks. Octoroks for days.

While not quite the revelation Hyrule Warriors was, it’s nonetheless another case of lightning in a button-smacking bottle.

The HD rerelease is a good chance to hop back in and appreciate all that – the terrific character development, the unique gameplay ideas, and a very scary Bug Princess.

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is a very good thing. Adorable, silly, and quite funny indeed, this roguelite might be a big genre shift from its predecessor but it’s just as lovable. It hurries itself along a bit too much, but the fast pace of gameplay and swift progress at least ensures it never gets dull.

I was really impressed by my time with Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. It’s a polished X-Com style game that removes some of the obtuse layers to ensure the early gameplay curve is accessible, uses humor very well, and kept me coming back for more.

I’m absolutely a fan of the spin-off, with World Brothers 2 carrying on the quick, accessible, and nonsensically entertaining action of its predecessor. It’s packed full of fun toys, drowns the player in content, and you can play as a woman who thinks she’s a horse. She spawns carrots behind her when she sprints. How is that not what videogames are all about?