World of Warcraft: Midnight is the middle act of the Worldsoul saga. Xal'atath has succeeded in her plan to subvert Azeroth's champions once again, potentially leading the planet to ruin. But hey, at least you'll have a cozy house to wait out the apocalypse in. Midnight is potentially one of the most pivotal expansions in recent WoW history, but the expansion is creaking under the weight of its sheer ambition. A variety of bugs, gameplay disruption, and polish issues hold back what is otherwise a very solid expansion.

High on Life 2 can be a pain when it comes to performance, but if you're willing to look past that, there's some decent gameplay wrapped in the funniest dialogue a game can have.

Sniper Elite: Resistance is the meat and potatoes of Nazi-killing games, and that's okay. It doesn't, however, do anything at all to shake up the gameplay from Sniper Elite 5, apart from introducing us to yet another generic protagonist. If you're going to stick with the same old template for the main character's design, then just give us Karl back again.

Combat and platforming controls remain unchanged, which benefits Soul Reaver 1 but hinders Soul Reaver 2 and its clunky movement tweaks. Both games flaunt lavish character upgrades and stunning re-renders of the original's cutscenes. Still, environment texture upscales are often unnoticeable, and the lack of video options is a sore point, especially as the all-new map screen misbehaves on 16:10 screens at launch.

Empire of the Ants is a visual masterpiece based on the 1991 sci-fi book by Bernard Werber, but its streamlined RTS gameplay may be too limited for hardcore fans of the genre. The game is approachable for newbies or those who do not want to hassle with elaborate strategic maneuvers, and it offers additional gameplay via the hub, world exploration, and a surprising amount of platforming.

There has been a range of mixed feelings about what Blizzard has put on offer with Vessel of Hatred. Just as the story starts to ramp up, it ends quite abruptly, leaving you with the sour taste of knowing you'll need to pay another $40 next year if you want the conclusion. Some of the new features, like mercenaries, feel a tad underbaked. And the new dungeons are still littered with the same choring events from the base game, with many of the same enemies and even the same layouts in some cases. But, the 4-6 hour story has some incredible highs. The new Spiritborn class is incredibly fun to play, and the game's artwork and music direction continue to be a strong suit for Blizzard. But too much of Vessel of Hatred's base experience is undermined by the story's pacing, which runs you through its major events and new characters with a breakneck cadence. And right at the end, it sends you back to grind out more Helltides and familiar dungeons, begging the question of how much here is actually "new." For every new angle in the endgame loop, there are new bugs and balance issues that frustrate the experience. Blizzard is working fast to correct them, but it's only possible to review what's on offer today, and what's on offer today isn't very polished.

Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions gives you the chance to play the wizarding sport that was missing in Hogwarts Legacy. There are fun characters to unlock, plenty of fun cosmetics, and iconic locations from the books to play in. Aspects of the game have been altered to make it more multiplayer friendly than in the books. However, the game feels very imbalanced when it comes to online matchmaking and even responsibilities within a team. It needs some considerable tweaking but can still be fun for big Harry Potter fans.

Ultimately, Black Myth: Wukong is a very solid action RPG, complete with thrilling cinematic boss fights, diverse, gorgeously rendered locales, a rich combat system replete with build options, and a well-told story. However, it holds itself back with bland level design and disappointing enemy variety, along with a superfluous gear system and a few noteworthy performance issues.

Ubisoft's free-to-play first-person arena shooter is less Call of Duty and more Overwatch, but the Snowdrop engine shines even on maps that are way too large for their purpose. Weapon grinds are sluggish, leaving players with more time in the game access to better attachments, while newcomers struggle to even leave their spawns. The lack of skill based matchmaking is being celebrated by influencers on social media, but in practice it makes for unbalanced matches where high ranking players are steamrolling beginners, even in the Welcome Playlist.

Despite a few downsides, I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing Another Crab's Treasure. The game's humor was a standout feature that had me laughing out loud on several occasions. As a fan of soulslike experiences, I can confidently say that it's one of the few AA games that's truly worth playing through. What's more, it's incredibly accessible to play, making it a great entry point for newcomers to the genre.

Zau's journey with grief is compounded by his desire to be a valued member of his society, and to fill the empty footsteps left behind by his father's death. Surgent Studio's efforts to twist the heartbreaking experience of a son mourning his father with metroidvania style gameplay gives homage to how one person's time with grief is not always linear. Just as grief presents new challenges, we learn new tools to cope with the obstacles. It is an excellent juxtaposition that is marred with some frustrating technical issues and the need for just a bit more polish.

War Hospital is a fantastic concept mired by bugs and crashing issues. During Chapter 1, the game struggled with various bugs, UI quirks, and performance degradation. But perhaps most egregiously, was the fact it crashed on the victory screen without an auto-save to back up 4+ hours of progress. As it stands right now, War Hospital is difficult to recommend, even though it emulates the best aspects of Frostpunk quite well.

For the first time in years, NHL 24 feels like a brand-new hockey game made for a modern generation. The addition of some much-needed gameplay features makes for a great time, but relatively unchanged game modes make this more of a small leap than a big jump.

Star Trek: Infinite is a fun strategy game and a great entry point to the genre for newcomers that doesn't cost as much as many big games, but a plethora of bugs bog down the gameplay and mission design.

Wizard with a Gun from Devolver Digital and Galvanic Games successfully builds an enthralling apocalyptic world with unique time and magic-based mechanics to power its addictive, roguelite gameplay loop. Some rough performance and visual edges detract from the magic, though.

Party Animals' adorable, floppy characters and variety of maps should make for an easy win. However, awkward mechanics and sluggish controls can make the game very frustrating to play.

NBA 2K24 is a great game that features some of the best features the franchise has had in years. A streamlined MyCareer mode, additions to MyNBA Eras, and more should make this a classic. However, microtransactions litter nearly every meaningful mode, ruining what would be a stellar entry.

The latest DLC for Total War: Warhammer 3 has some fun new lords and units, but a steeper cost means it's not quite the obvious jump-in point that past packs have provided. All three Legendary Lords provide new ways of engaging with the existing factions, with the Changeling's campaign providing a particular highlight.Whether or not you should jump on this pack immediately depends on just how many of the three leaders you're interested in trying.

Immortals of Aveum provides a great deal of first-person spell-slinging fun, but writing and balance issues keep this new adventure down from what it could have been.

Madden NFL 24 is a step up from Madden NFL 23 in some ways, but not enough to make it feel like a huge improvement. Animations and AI have never been better, but the stale vibes past Madden games have suffered remain the same in the latest entry in this long-running franchise.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre presents a distinctive virtual house of nightmares unlike any of its asymmetrical contemporaries. Every match feels like a bite-sized, three-act horror flick packed with gripping tension, genuine scares, and gratuitous murder. Technical problems and limited content variety put a damper on the overall package, but there’s ample twisted fun to have with friends and foes in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

F1 Manager 23 is another great F1 experience and does so many things right, but its lack of multiplayer causes it to fall short of being one of the greats.

After Us features a sprawling, desolate world painstakingly crafted to show the destruction wrought by human greed, but its camera controls and level design make the platforming awkward and often frustrating.

F1 23 falls short in the same areas as its predecessors have over many years. There's a great single player experience let down by a completely neglected multiplayer, which brings the games longevity into question. Those who love the F1 games regardless will find this iteration to at least be better in some ways.

Exoprimal is a somewhat fun action shooter that can’t decide what it wants to be. What potential fun there is to be had in its awesome PvE boss fights and horde-mode missions are bogged down by tacked-on and unfun PvP-elements and locking gameplay content behind hours of story progression without informing the player beforehand. If it had launched with the PvE-only Savage Gauntlet mode and removed all PvP elements from Dino Survival, Exoprimal would’ve been a better and more focused game.

Layers of Fear (2023) makes full use of Unreal Engine 5 to elevate its visuals, lighting, and environments to all-new heights, reimagines the original Layers of Fear, and features brand-new DLC content to tie the entire story together. Layers of Fear 2 still struggles to compare, however, and scares often fail to land.

Redfall is a serviceable first-person open-world shooter with perhaps the most needless "RPG layer" in the history of always-online games. Tools that might make the sandbox more fun are arbitrarily spread across four separate playable class characters. Weapons you enjoy using will lose effectiveness as you "level up" with the game's pointless progression system, which only hinders the otherwise interesting campaign. There are far too many similar shooters out there that simply do almost everything Redfall is trying to do, only far better. Redfall struggles to grasp an identity of its own in a very noisy market. While embers of fun do exist in Redfall, it's maddening that this is the product of the legendary studio that gave us Prey. Arkane is very clearly out of its depth with Redfall.

Age of Wonders 4 is the first entry in the mainline series I've ever played, and I had little to no idea what to expect. Age of Wonders 4's stunning high-fantasy tapestry immediately captured my imagination, and it wasn't long before I was creating my own personal undead army and marching across the land, leaving chaos and decay in my wake. Despite the game's complexity and depth, the biggest hurdle for me was its performance on Xbox Series X. However, it's by no means unplayable, and I suspect I'll find myself playing it for many dozens more hours before I get tired. This is a stunning 4X game that Civilization fans will most likely adore.