272 moons later, I've "beaten" Super Mario Odyssey, but it feels like I've only scratched the surface of Mario's latest, a breathlessly creative adventure equal parts surprising and bewildering—in a good way.

Somehow, in a game about gods fighting other gods, God of War feels grounded. And because of some of the new directions it moves the series in, it has the room to explore this mythological family drama. By giving God of War small stake tension, the whole thing benefits.

It’s a beautifully weird system, one I’m not entirely convinced Nintendo and Retro Studios will have the confidence to adopt with the upcoming Metroid Prime 4. It’s one thing to ask players to marinate in the tension of a video game whose design is from several decades ago, will they have the courage to do so today? I hope so. What is Metroid, if not asking the player to take a leap of faith on themselves? The future is unknown, but the past is present here. And it’s a reminder that not all change is good when it comes to re-releases. Metroid Prime feels awkward—and it’s better for it.

Twenty-five hours in, I still have no idea what I’ll see next. It's a testament to Elden Ring that I'm so excited at the possibilities that remain, but it's also a problem that after all this time, I feel like it needs to show me more than it has so far.

The Last of Us Part II feels complacent, yet also preoccupied with its predecessor. Every facet of the original game has been expanded and enlarged in the sequel, but not actually improved. It is as if its only inspiration is the original game, and the well of pop culture it was drawing from. There is practically nothing here we haven’t seen and done repeatedly throughout previous Naughty Dog games. It sets out to surpass its predecessor, but the only meaningful contrast between them is in its even more oppressive bleakness and violence. It digs two graves, fills them with blood, and then just fu.king wallows in them.

It’s also a performance hog of a video game. My PC is quickly aging, but my GTX 1080 is usually able to brute force its way through a lot of things. Alyx, however, chewed away at my older CPU, despite the settings being at “low.” This didn’t prove bothersome for most of my time with Alyx—VR can get away with cutting corners on fidelity because of the way you interact with it—but there were a handful of sequences, especially towards the end when things ramp up, where my computer slowed to a crawl. It’s less fun to fight your way through a hallway of enemies when their animation is moving at half speed. Your mileage may vary...All the problems were worth it, though.

This remake is a celebration of the past, and does not view it, and what hindsight often does to it, with contempt. It stands on the shoulders of a gaming masterpiece, and tries to climb a little higher.

It's impossible to know if Smash Ultimate could ever serve everyone. But with this strategic mix of nostalgia and experimentation, it was able to do something I didn't expect: Bring me home.

Blue Prince is, hands down, one of the best games I’ve ever played. And that’s indie or AAA. It’s a triumph in environmental storytelling, as well as game and puzzle design. It’s a game that you need to play. The only thing it asks of you is to truly engage with its world. I still can’t say enough about what Tonda Ros and his team have put together. There is nothing like this game. Blue Prince should be front and center in contention for 2025’s Game of the Year award. [Class Of Its Own]

But damn if this doesn't feel like Demon's Souls, an accomplishment in and of itself that feels like a magic trick. Part of what happens when you revisit an older game is having to confront the reality of the time it was developed in, realizing your imagination had been filling in serious nostalgia gaps. How you felt was informing your too-rosy remembrance of what it looked like. Here, Bluepoint tries to bridge that gap with an updated presentation that makes Demon's Souls truly feel like a 2020 game worthy of being a next-generation launch title. [Opening Hours impressions]

Flight Simulator presents itself as a work in progress. A lot depends on the nature of that remaining work. It’s a game whose potential is evident, but so are the hurdles to realizing all that potential.

Crusader Kings III is massively, powerfully alive. You can almost feel it pulsing when you play it. Often, deep into the third, fourth, fifth hour of play, I'd realize I wasn't so much playing it as watching it develop.

That the story of Split Fiction could be looked at as a commentary on AI is not lost on me. AI can’t do what these people just did. You need humans to make the end of this game happen. You need people who care about what they do — who put themselves wholeheartedly into what they do — to make something this incredible. From a pure gameplay perspective, what I experienced shouldn’t be possible, and yet, they pulled it off seamlessly. Split Fiction is an outstanding commentary on friendship, opening up, and creativity that everyone must experience. [Strongly Recommended]

But it’s also a story of perseverance. Of pushing forward even when it feels impossible. Of carrying the weight of sorrow without letting it define you. And daring to believe in a future no one has ever seen – simply because someone has to. And that’s what makes Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 so quietly powerful, and such a stroke of brilliance in this medium. [Best in Class]

For the first time in a long time, a survival horror game that actually makes you feel like you're barely surviving... Horror fans should be very excited—it’s excellent. [Quick Thoughts - 1/2 through game]

There's a simplicity to life on Ella that I cherish.

For those about to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth for the first time, enjoy the ride. You’ll find out why it’s one of the highest-rated games of 2024. Those who played the initial PlayStation 5 release last year, well, some games truly are worth buying twice. [Highly Recommended]

Watching the creatures of Monster Hunter: World leap, and climb, and lunge isn’t like watching an enemy in a video game. It’s like being a kid and seeing a plane lift off the runway for the first time, or an elephant picking up speed, ears flapping, or a cruise ship coming too-quickly into harbor. This is the sort of scale where disaster seems imminent, always...In its very best moments, Monster Hunter World captures that feeling, and shifts it only a little, by testing whether you or the monster will be the disaster.

Just as FTL got to the heart of space opera—the experimental ship, the camaraderie of a ragtag crew, the spiraling of crises—Subset Games has found the core of the mech fantasy with Into the Breach.

Yes, FromSoft could have shipped another game that more cleanly fits one of their successful molds, another Souls, another Bloodborne. Instead, they radically iterated and came away with something that feels genuinely new to play. Which is appropriate: Like one of their own protagonists, FromSoft faced a choice between sustaining the past and charging into the unknown, and they chose the latter. [Impressoins]

The presentation of this game is what makes its gameplay feel so sharp, including the way it tells its story and characterizes the other Neons that compete with you and tease you shamelessly. Once you get the hang of Neon White’s fast-paced gameplay, it feels incredibly natural—as natural as the witty, sexy banter between the characters therein. It’s sweet as sin itself, and goes down just as easy.

The way the Nightshade Paolumu toyed with me, trapping me when least expected it, is a far cry from the original Paolumu’s fight, and in my opinion is one of the more interesting fights in the game to date. It shows the game’s designers have a few tricks left, too.

All told, that's the most exciting part about Bowser's Fury: it feels genuinely new. That's not always the case with a new game in a franchise as long-running as Mario, but Bowser's Fury proves there are still ways to make the act of making Mario jump feel exciting all over again. Onward.

Dead Space kicked ass in 2008, and this version kicks ass in 2023. It’s spooky, and it feels good to tear apart ugly dudes. What else is there to say? I hope the same team gets a chance to apply this same treatment for Dead Space 2, though perhaps with the confidence to put more of their own bloody stamp on it. And if that’s a problem, screw it—just let them make their own Dead Space, pull some elements from the sequels, and chart a new path.

This shift away from the generational system of the Awakening and Fates, and towards a more robust take on character development that takes notes from influences as diverse as Final Fantasy Tactics and Princess Maker, should not be undersold. Stepping away from that design, instead of simply making it shine bright on the big screen thanks to the Switch, is fundamentally a risky move. But I also think it’s a smart one.

The strangest curveballs make sense here, and these moments of utter plain future hellscape are punctuated by strange moments of beauty.

The moment you scratch beneath the surface, you find a fascinating world of surrealist art, copyright infringement, kids doing weird experiments, and so much more.

If you're picking up Horizon Zero Dawn today, you're in for a treat. Some of the reviews might have skewed a little high, score wise, for my liking, but Guerrilla's open-worlder is one of 2017's finest games so far. There's been stiff competition, with more to come—but I feel this is one we'll see nudge into the upper parts of several publications' year-end best lists.