In its current form, Resident Evil 7 is a damn fine game. Damn, damn fine. Although it initially looks like a desperate chase for Outlast‘s credibility, it slowly reveals itself to be more of a traditional Resident Evil adventure than one might believe, while taking successful elements from contemporary horror games and utilizing them effectively...After Resident Evil 6, this is exactly what the series needed. Both a change of pace and a return to long-neglected roots, it thrills me to say that, for the first time in a long time, Capcom is on the right track.

If Yakuza‘s always been this magnificent, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do and a lot of “friends” to chew out for not recommending it to me sooner.

Gravity Rush 2 is a bigger sequel, but not necessarily a better one. While it offers more to play with and in greater variety, the lack of improvements to core features – as well as graphics that are far from impressive – hold it back from being something truly great.

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.

Super Mario Run would have been better if it had committed to a single idea. Instead, we’ve got a lacking runner game melded to a half-baked city builder that relies on repetition and artificial setbacks in order to pad itself out. With a premium cost – as well as a data-hogging always-online requirement – this is a game that’s worth neither the time nor the money it’s demanding.

This is why Final Fantasy XV, despite significant and glaring problems, is still a lovely time that managed to make me like Final Fantasy again. It’s a character piece, and the characters we spend our time with are fully realized and play off each other so well. It’s a lighter journey that nonetheless knows when to get serious, spurred by a charismatic nemesis and a quartet of lovable, beautiful boys...And good God is it weird.

It’s definitely worth the time, especially being free to start, and I would recommend anybody with a PS4 and a love of brawling check it out. It’s a well put together little game with a good dash of trademark Grasshopper oddity. As a throwaway bit of violent action with some clever online features, it’s a good time...A good time, but not a particularly enthralling one. At some point, as with everything involved in this production, you’ll eventually just have to Let It Die.

I wish I could say I love the game, that its plagued by only minor setbacks, but I cannot honestly do that. I can’t look back at how much time was spent not enjoying myself, at how much time was spent actively wrestling with the game to wring anything worthwhile from it, and say I played the masterpiece many are going to say it is. Maybe, a long time ago, that’s something I’d have been able to say. Not today though. Not today.

While there are some disappointments and archaic clunkiness, Dead Rising 4 is a great time that makes smart improvements over Dead Rising 3. The comedic beats are surprisingly well executed, especially early on in the campaign, and while the conclusion may be hugely disappointing to some, I can’t fault the series its boldness.

Despite my grumbles, I have to admit Sun and Moon gets its hooks in even if it’s tough to get into at first. Once it clicks, it can instill obsession as well as any prior game, and that’s before getting to the new minigames and features that only serve to make the adventure more rewarding.

Despite my grumbles, I have to admit Sun and Moon gets its hooks in even if it’s tough to get into at first. Once it clicks, it can instill obsession as well as any prior game, and that’s before getting to the new minigames and features that only serve to make the adventure more rewarding.

Feels like a tiresome retread – enjoyable enough when it sticks to the old script, but frustrating in its disappointment when it does attempt anything new. With a rushed story, colorless characters, and total misuse of a whole new playable character, the best I can say is that I didn’t hate it. I didn’t particularly like it, but I didn’t hate it. Dishonored deserves more than that.

Most importantly, Watch Dogs 2 offers a sense of humor running through it that the series badly needed. You don’t need miserable family death stories in a ludicrous game about “smart cities” and cartoony hackers. You need writing that leans into the silliness, that has a laugh at its own expense, which is exactly what this game gets.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is very much like Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate in that it’s a promising show of energy for a series that desperately needs a break. Despite alternating studios and the claim this game took Infinity Ward three years to make, the backbone of this series is tired and needs a considerable rest. Incremental updates just aren’t cutting it, especially not so soon after the financially less successful but creatively superior Titanfall 2. Still… good campaign while it lasts.

A shoddy product all the way through, Super Slam is a sneering grab for ad revenue and microtransactions that weakly trades on nostalgia and brings nothing else to the table. Unappealing on its own and doubly distasteful to anybody who actually knows what Pogs are, it’s safe to say this is not the big Pog comeback it pretends to be...I’d rather play with fucking Tazos, for God’s sake, and a diehard Pog expert like me should not be saying that.

Titanfall 2 is everything Titanfall should have been – storified, robust, and sufficiently multiplatform. The real series starts here, and I’m surprised at how nothing at all feels phoned in or tacked-on.

At this point, playing The Elder Scrolls V is like putting on a comfortable old pair of sweatpants. It’s not exactly stylish, it’s frayed around the edges, it’s showing its age, and there might be a few old cumstains, but it’s warm and familiar and it just feels good to have around...The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition is that same pair of sweatpants put through the laundry.

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.

It’s reverent without being mawkish, exciting without being tacky, and robust with content despite all the usual trappings of a big-budget EA product. War is hell… but Battlefield 1 is pretty damn lovely.

With the humor and silliness of Dragon Quest, a series of goals to keep players compelled, as well as the introduction of form and meaning in that everso popular survival crafting gameplay, Builders escapes being the cynical reskin it may at first glance appear to be. On the contrary, it evidences more love and care than could be expected.

The worst that can be said of Mafia III is that it’s tolerable. This is also the best that can be said. A perfectly sufficient game that does nothing unique with a unique setting, providing instead hours upon hours of predictable, uniform material. Likeable enough, but nowhere near as gripping as it should have been.

These glimmers of entertainment, however, are not frequent enough to make up for the number of times I’m left shaking my head at another “Failure” screen, wondering exactly what the hell just happened.

Here They Lie smacks of cynicism – a game designed with the knowledge that horror works really well in VR, without anybody involved knowing how VR games should operate. It’s distinctly unpleasant to play, and I fear it’ll be only one of many horror games that pull the same stunt as virtual reality continues to hold sway.

RIGS: Mechanized Combat League joins Until Dawn: Rush of Blood as one of the very few virtual reality games I’ve truly come to enjoy. The head-track aiming system works great, the combat is engrossing, and it’s a remarkably comfortable experience even after extended periods of time with the PSVR clamped on...Guerrilla most definitely gave Sony what it needed – a deserving mech battling game for its virtual reality foray, as well as a damn fine multiplayer frolic to boot.

For all intents and purposes, it is PSVR’s official demo – Sony just wants to ensure it makes some extra money off the thing. Not exactly a great look, kicking PSVR off with something so nakedly cynical, but that’s business for you...Worlds includes five games, barely any of which are worth playing more than once, and only one of which I genuinely enjoyed

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood may be a brief and silly spin-off, something far removed from 2015’s fantastic adventure game, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a virtual reality game to date, and it’s just a brilliantly entertaining pop horror experience with enjoyable shooty-bang-bang combat.

The campaign is flimsy, and despite claims of signifying a new generation for the series, Gears of War 4 is ultimately an upholder of the status quo.

Zenith isn’t just badly made – it’s appalling. A boorish, cynical failure of a comedy game broken in ways I’ve never before seen. The fact it somehow – everso rarely – manages to show a glimmer of wit under all the misery only worsens the deal, highlighting how this could have perhaps been something decent before it was run through whatever thresher led to it becoming the mangled carcass it is...There is no cure for the disease this game carries. The kindest thing to do is take it out back and put a bullet between its glazed, gormless eyes.