For fans of the series and its world, I think they’ll definitely find yet another fun, physics-based adventure here.

Featuring some of the best on-the-field action I’ve ever experienced in a baseball title, a massive amount of game modes, excellent commentary from the new team, and incredible customization options, it is worth your time.

Expeditions: A Mudrunner game looks great and is a more palatable entry in the series. It’s still full of that truck-puzzle maddening charm though, so both new entrants and fans of the series alike have a lot to enjoy in this 100+ hour-long title.

Ivy Road brings up the question “is something wrong with me”, something we all might ask ourselves at one point. You’re probably narcissistic if not. It’s a question lots of stories ask and, for many, said stories never really answer the question in any satisfactory way. Wanderstop instead opts to do what we all do when faced with questions like this—trudge about, skirt the line, use lots of adverbs. And for what it’s worth, it’s a refreshingly grounded take on the matter. Yes, something might just be wrong with me and will likely be the death of me. Can something be done about? Maybe. A bit of self-awareness never hurts, though.

The gameplay is the best it has ever been, and the live service is the most predatory feeling, but there is enough other content on offer that I’d still recommend this year’s title. It’s stunning to look at, thanks in part to its jaw-droppingly large install size, features tons of classic teams, and far better WNBA integration. If you haven’t played an NBA 2K game in a while this might finally be the year for you to jump back in.

I think HYPERCHARGE Unboxed’s biggest strength has been its marketing over the years. They’re not going for some live service title that is your forever game. The base game is $30 and if you have friends to play with you’ll get a week or two of fun out of the campaign as you try to unlock everything. It’s never bad, it’s never great, it’s fine.

System Shock is an all-time classic, and this is by far the best way to experience it. Nightdive Studios have followed through on their promise and delivered a full remake that gets what made the original so special.

Avowed is an excellent game. One major issue that keeps it from being an all-timer for me, with the gear progression system being as restrictive as it is at launch. They can patch that, and I hope they do as the rest of the game is excellent. Obsidian’s top-tier writing has finally been matched with gorgeous visuals and satisfying gameplay.

OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0 is a damn good JRPG. The world, despite my grievances with the main story, is interesting and fun to explore when the game lets you. Wishvale’s rebirth’s best parts aren’t the uninteresting city building but, again, the stories of the characters within. With great music and visuals accompanying all this, you can’t go wrong with SQUARE ENIX’s latest turn-based title.

Remnant II tickles greatness but falls short due to a few design choices. It is gorgeous, plays incredibly well, and should be one of the year’s best releases. I’m not sure if my issues with the game can be easily patched out, but I hope the devs at Gunfire Games give this one the same love the first game received over time.

Temtem has a lot of content to crawl through and it makes for a great MMO. Even if it’s not the most charming monster collecting game, it’s certainly one of the best I’ve seen from a western developer yet.

Though my thoughts on Silver Star Story aren’t necessarily the best, LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue does a lot of heavy lifting as the remaster work does for me. Both games’ Remastered modes have had a lot of care put into them to make them look good on modern display, as best as you can get when working with native code really. LUNAR Remastered Collection is a set of games I think can be enjoyed by anybody, particularly those who have a love for old-school, adventure-focused anime and JRPGs alike.

An incredible, nigh-on herculean effort from a very small team, developers Microbird Games have made something very special in Dungeons of Hinterberg. In my 20 or so hours exploring, I found a successful medley of genres with enjoyable combat and a variety of gameplay mechanics resulting in something uniquely memorable. Throw in a whole heap of imaginative puzzling and level design, great characters, and a surprisingly engaging plot to boot, and I can’t help but give this vacation spot very high marks indeed. I thoroughly enjoyed my ‘slay’.

Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is an excellent remaster of one of the Wii’s best games. It fixes its shortcomings, adds to it with quality-of-life changes, and most importantly makes it available to all on modern platforms. Rebrushed does a good job being both a 3D platformer and a narrative driven-adventure title, sprinkled in with a lot of love for old Disney animation—a fun, unique adventure game for all.

Indika is an odd, wonderful title. Mixing 3D photo-realistic art with 2D-pixel graphics makes some bold choices. Excellent writing and voice acting help carry mediocre gameplay and created an experience I will never forget.

Priced at $30 and only lasting two or three hours I wouldn’t normally recommend the game unless it was something unique and special. As a father of two, this story hit me in a way that few others have, though. If you’re looking for a game that is gorgeous, heartbreaking, and that tackles the most serious issue our and future generations will face then Endling – Extinction is Forever deserves your attention.

Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a fantastic value for its price. Boasting great network play and a solid amount of offline content with more story mode updates and a season pass of new characters on the way. I love the art direction and the characters, who are voiced by some awesome talent and have bits and pieces of personality from the show it took inspiration from, but still having enough to differentiate themselves by game mechanics and aesthetics. Oh, and I love the music—just the right amount of synth and instrumentation that match their stages really well.

It’s a comprehensive and entertaining package. The story is a bit basic overall but features well-written, snappy dialogue. Combat is solid and making your ultimate gear setup never got old, and the graphics are gorgeous. Despite their flaming red hair, these twins are full of (Young) Soul(s).

As the credits rolled, I found myself reflecting on companionship and what shared experiences mean to me personally. How many games can do that to a player?

Darkest Dungeon 2 is a beautiful, great-sounding, difficult, and addictive roguelike. If you’re into the genre then it’s an easy recommendation on whatever platform you prefer. It works great with a controller and can last 100+ hours if you want to see everything.

Overall the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is a great kit of two very fun adventure titles. Alongside new quality-of-life features and development documents on characters and environments, this collection finally completes the series’ transition to modern platforms and brings an untranslated game westward for the first time. Highly recommended for Ace Attorney fans who’ve never played these games before.

UFC 5 is fun to play, looks great, has a ton of fighters, though the career mode is a glorified tutorial. If you love the sport this seems like the best one yet, and should be well worth checking out.

The First Berserker: Khazan wears its inspiration on its sleeve and lives up to those past titles. It’s a gorgeous, brutal action-focused Soulslike that brings the DFO universe into an incredibly dark place. At least at launch, this is one of the hardest games I have played recently. I blasted through Elden Ring and its DLC with far less of an issue than I did here. It’s Sekiro levels of ‘git gud’ and god damn if it isn’t fun doing so.

It’s fair to say I really enjoyed Keeper. It stuck it’s hooks into me and didn’t let go, right up until the moment I rolled credits. I laughed, I gasped in shock, and I beamed as brilliantly as a lighthouse. Double Fine have made a lovely game here, one that throws in the sorts of surprises that only this medium can achieve.

WWE 2K23 continues the series’ upwards trajectory. It’s a massive package full of different things to do. The roster is enormous, the microtransactions seem egregious in familiar “yearly sports title ways”, and the in-ring action almost nails riding the line between sports sim and scripted tv show. There is a love of the genre on display here and for any major or minor fan of sports entertainment, this year’s entry is worth checking out.

Cursed to Golf is charming, smart, sounds and plays great, and is full of heart. It mashes up a side-scrolling arcade golf game with roguelike mechanics in a fresh and exciting way. At only $20 US at launch, I think it’s well worth a purchase if anything you’ve seen here has you intrigued. This is one curse that’s well worth the cost.

Although there were aspects of this game that I had a hard time vibing with, overall, I think this is a fun game if you’re in the mood for some 90’s 90s-style survival horror. And maybe if I was simply in the mood for this type of game, I would have enjoyed it more. It certainly isn’t a bad game, and I hope no one has that takeaway from my review. I think anyone who likes this style of game should absolutely check it out!

Yakuza Kiwami 3 is a mostly competent remake of an original that needed an update. The combat and upgrade changes are welcome, though those in the ending and its attempt to justify the expansion are not. If you’re a longtime fan of the series, there may be enough here to drive you mad. If you’re a lesser fan like me or brand new to it all, there’s enough fun to be had here that it’s worth checking out.

Mediterranea Inferno is an excellent contemporary visual novel that will connect to you even through its eccentricities. A gorgeous presentation along with a mash of personal struggle grounded in Italian culture and LGBT-positive themes.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a brilliant reboot of the series. Playing as a central character instead of hopping between classic heroes works. It looks damned good most of the time, sounds great, and features an excellent mix of group and single-fighter combat. For those new or returning to the series you’ll find dozens of hours of combative bliss.

I enjoyed my time with Discounty quite a bit, in part thanks to the pacing of the game’s narrative beats and because I can run a store from the comfort of my home. The town of Blomkest is in desperate need of a hero, and it’s got to be you that shines a light on the smog encroaching upon this secluded bit of land.

It's not all that unique, with games like BPM: Bullets Per Minute already "inventing" some of these concepts, but the quality is undeniable, and FPS fans should not skip this one for sure. Especially since it's launching day one into Xbox Game Pass.

Top-tier movement and combat elevate a decent story into something worth your time.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is an epic ass-kicking time. Featuring ridiculously cool characters, stunning music, and a deeply engaging combat system, this one is an easy recommendation for purchase or downloading on Game Pass.

Gamers who have been craving more mascot platformers should definitely give the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series a shot. It’s a great little time capsule to a period where this was one of the dominant genres in gaming, in a franchise that I feel never got the recognition it truly deserved.

Without a doubt, this is the best Dark Anthology game so far and a true climax to season one. Not only fans of the series but fans of the genre will love playing this. The acting, visual detail, sound design and writing could not be bettered here. Series mechanics have not only been improved but also extended delivering an extra level of depth to a fantastic experience. In short developer, Supermassive Games has delivered a horror classic that will keep players on the edge of their seats for hours.

Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 – Turbocharged is an extremely safe, but ultimately very fun sequel. The new story mode doesn’t change the formula, but the new game modes, the tons of content and customization on top of an improved core gameplay make this an exhilarating racer for young and old.

Despite a handful of bizarre small changes from the original games, Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy is still quite a riot. Naughty Dog’s iconic “on-rails” 3D platformers, remade from the ground up by Vicarious Visions, is still a lot of fun, with the main character’s iconic spins making for what is still a quite fresh experience that differentiates itself from other titles in the genre. With tons of content and a massive amount of extremely hard challenges to aim for in the search of that elusive 100% completion (and beyond), this is one of those platformers that could keep you coming back for a while – making this a great addition to Game Pass (also on PC and cloud – the first Activision-published game to be playable via cloud on Game Pass).

Terminator 2D: NO FATE is a gorgeous, fun time, with all the positives and negatives of 90s arcade games. The inclusion of alternate story paths helps the title from feeling too repetitive. Any fan of the franchise would do well to check this one out.

In short, FIFA 23 makes a lot of great additions to the core gameplay, making the actual football feel smoother, more realistic and tactically more diverse, with the new AcceleRATE system in particular ensuring that fast players no longer dominate the online sphere. Tons of behind the scenes changes like a new physics system, a revamped AI, and the long-awaited cross-play make this year’s installment of EA Sports’ eternal franchise the most fresh experience it’s been in years. On the flipside, aside from adding women teams and tweaking a few game modes, content-wise the game has very little new to offer compared to FIFA 22, to a point that casual players may barely even notice most of this year’s changes. A transition game of sorts before next year’s name change, making a lot of important changes under the game’s hood, without really reinventing or adding any standout feature. Whether these changes are essential enough for a buy or not largely depend on the way you play FIFA.

For fans of the franchise, the game has both a gallery where you can look at previously seen story moments, and a jukebox where you can listen to music from various games in the series. I also appreciated how the game lets you customize the colour tones for the characters, such as making Billy’s jacket a bright neon green. I didn’t come across any bugs at all in my time with the game; everything felt polished and smooth playing on an Xbox Series X. Oh, and Ronaldo is in this game. Like the football player Ronaldo. Not really sure how I feel about that still…

SteamWorld Build is a city-builder with heart that successfully mixes various genres. It is also accessible to players who don’t put hundreds of hours into Cities Skylines and for players who have played many games in the genre it is a cute palate cleanser that can be played through in one weekend. The game offers various maps, but the replayability is what’s going to hold this title back.

You need to see it in motion to truly appreciate it. Both graphically and setup-wise I’m not sure I’ve played something like it before on an Xbox system.

Monsters Are Coming! Rock and Road is a solid addition to the never-ending bullet-heaven/rogue-lite/survivors-like (yeesh) genre. It looks nice, plays well, and has at least one bopping track to help carry it through a series of runs that are only let down by some punitive progression requirements.

Besides being a darn good collection, it all comes down to whether or not you’re interested in the games. For fans of Darkstalkers and Capcom’s fighters in general, the improvements and first-time ports are worth it, plus the museum has some nice goodies like concept art and design documents. These games are still visual treats with lovely spritework and animations, too. And while I don’t think this will net a tonne of newcomers into fighting games and Darlkstalkers, ports for today’s hardware (with good improvements!) are always welcome.

I enjoyed playing Civilization VII. It hits the right notes for me and it’s a good opening salvo for a game I expect will continue to grow with its player base through time. Yes, the age change can be a bit jarring and yes, the crisis mechanic didn’t always hit right for me in my first couple of games…The core elements of the game are there, they work and it’s fun to play. The incentives and dynamism that the new approach to Civilization switching with the legacy paths will keep the game fresh both across games and within them. Abandoning games after about 80 turns was a big issue for me in the last few titles. I’ve not had the notion to do that yet.

Like A Dragon: Ishin! deserves its acclaimed reputation and can only have been improved by this modernising makeover. The story, visuals, sound design, and game mechanics are all top-class. Complexity is the name of the game as usual, but fans of the series will have no complaints about what has been delivered here. Everything that gamers love about the series has been included and improved upon to freshen things up. Even the use of familiar faces feels right when it could have seemed very wrong.

Now mind, if you do enjoy the oppressive approach to randomness and lack of resources, Daemonhunters is a great XCOM-like with your favourite band of Marines. Even a newcomer could pick up this game pretty quickly thanks to a solid tutorial and a decent user experience. It’s a blast up until the chaos begins and that just might be a make it or break it moment for the player.

Herdling is special. It isn’t technically amazing, though it can be stupefyingly beautiful. No spoilers, like always, but the last 90 minutes of my 3 and ½ hour playthrough had my heart in my throat, and at the end, a few tears in my eyes.

SOPA – Tale of the Stolen Potato is a lovely adventure title that shows just how creative storytelling you can be with the smallest of foods. It encapsulates a piece of Latin America within its gorgeous art, enchanting music, and engaging puzzles. Technical issues do eventually compound to make for a bit of a cumbersome experience, but I can look past that to recommend this adventure to all.

The accessibility and approachability of MechWarrior 5: Clans then, may come at a cost – at least for now. It may just however, lead to a mainstream rejuvenation the series so sorely deserves, and with its launch into Xbox Game Pass, bring a whole new generation into our Sibko.

Ultimately, Fear the Spotlight doesn’t really try to reinvent the formula, serving as a smart, respectful and well-designed homage to the PS1-era of horror games and the 90’s aesthetic in general. Lovely visuals, great voice acting and genuinely spooky vibes more than make up for the fairly simplicistic gameplay loop and short length, making this retro horror game one of the better picks for a playthrough in a spooky season.

Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter is a thoroughly enjoyable Metroidvania with detailed action-RPG mechanics, that still offers challenging soulslike combat without feeling like a punishing ride on its easiest mode. On its normal and hard difficulties, the game offers a grind that will leave you feeling tested at best, and a crying mess at very worst. It’s an extremely well-put-together experience that I can wholeheartedly recommend.

Overwatch 2 is a rebirth for one of my favorite games of the past generation. Featuring great new heroes, gorgeous and well-balanced new maps, a new mode in Push that I’ve greatly enjoyed, and a progression system that feels about the same as most free-to-play titles it’s an easy recommendation for both new and returning players alike. Add in an upcoming PVE co-op mode next year and I can see myself easily putting another one or two thousand hours into this title over the coming few years.

Hell Is Us is a game of two tales. One of a gripping world with devastating stories of humanity and lack thereof, challenging the player to truly think about their actions, understand the morbidly beautiful world around them, be able to solve intriguing puzzles and challenges without holding their hand, including the soulslike-inspired combat itself. The other tale, however, is of aimless wandering, tons of trial and error, getting stuck on some convoluted multi-level puzzle in some needlessly large and maze-like area, or dying to to some clunky combat features in some oddly designed areas. Such incredible highs with such frustrating lows are a rare sight, and your overall enjoyment of the game will largely depend on how much you tolerate the latter. I still feel like recommending Hell Is Us, to some people at least, because it is a unique experience worth digging into. Just, remember to arm yourself with a lot of patience – and maybe a guide or two.

This game is such a tribute to a beloved genre that it even contains rules that will help you to survive (if you bother to learn them.) It may not be the cheapest but it sure is an experience to enjoy. Having Jason’s ‘kill, kill, kill’ motif echoing around your head as you play it is not a prerequisite but it sure is fun.

This type of game has a ceiling it can normally hit. It’s a lower-budget genre-bending revival of a beloved but older IP. Leikir Studio has managed to find an excellent blend of old and new. While it can be insanely difficult on hard, it’s just the right amount of punishing on normal. As it is available on Day One on Game Pass for Cloud, Console, and PC I think this one is an easy download or buy for any tactics fan.

Road 96 is fun to play, a challenge, and also makes you question your political beliefs. Play this game, help others and always vote against fascism.

Assassin’s Creed Nexus is a success in bringing the movement and combat stylings of the ever-popular series into the VR space. While it is playable on a Quest 2 it’s downright gorgeous inside the 3. It’s the first time in a while I’ve played a VR title that felt close to a Triple-A release. There may be a hell of a lot of AC games, but after this solid entry, I hope there’s more to come in VR.

Outriders: Worldslayer is a solid 8 or so hour expansion that adds a seemingly long and quite enjoyable endgame grind to what was already a solid title. With the base game on Game Pass, it is worth giving that a shot and if you like it just know that this expansion is available, and it’s damned good. It takes everything the main campaign has and dials it up to eleven in a brilliantly dumb-fun kinda way.

While it doesn’t solve all of the franchise’s issues, such as how predatory Ultimate Team is with its pay-to-win lootbox mechanics, FC 26 creates two separate playstyles that should satisfy almost any football fan – those seeking the arcade thrills of the fast-paced online modes, and those who want a slower, more tactical single player career as well. The changes to the physics and AI are smart and felt, and the amount of content and polish really has no rivals, making FC 26 the best the franchise has been in years. Authentic Mode truly reignited my passion for the ball, and I can’t wait to finish my review to go back to my virtual dreams of Juventus winning the treble. One can dream, right?

Another Crab’s Treasure is a balls-hard Soulslike that was one of the most frustrating experiences of my reviewing career until I gave in and used its game-saving accessibility options. Once the difficulty was better balanced the game’s humor and heart were able to shine through.

It’s a bit light on content outside of the games, but every option you could want is here, things run great, and the full package is a decent value.

What kept me going was the excellent presentation and cool beats alongside the game’s short and sweet narrative campaign. The game supports multiple languages and the typeface for each one is simply gorgeous. I personally kept it in Japanese just because it almost looked like I was reading the game off an eReader. The game has plenty of bespoke panels that fly in and out effortlessly. If you are a fan of manga or manhwa and are curious about Asian stories (and in particular, those about countries under Japanese rule during the late 1800s), I can easily recommend this game. This is one of those few times I’ll take style over substance. I look forward to seeing what else this developer will come up with.

The Pathless has a nice visual design and cleverly designed puzzles to solve. The movement mechanic is different but may not be to everyone’s taste and could even be off-putting for some. My main issue is that once gameplay has been established in the first and second sections it is pretty much repeated for the remainder of the game. I am sure that there are people out there (completionists especially) who will love this game as it is, but I cannot help but feel that a bit more inventiveness and a less cliché story would have made it much better.

Metal Eden can’t, nor it wants to hide its Doom Eternal inspiration in a more sci-fi theme, but it’s hard to fault a game for trying to live up to one of the best shooters ever made. Metal Eden is an adrenaline rush of a high speed shooter with excellent shooting, great traversal, lovely visuals and soundscapes, one that keeps throwing fancy new moves and brutal new weaponry to play with. It’s a short ride, ending just around 4 hours, and a couple technical gremlins and perhaps its lack of innovation may deny it a spot among the gods of the genre. Still, if you wanna burst through a fast-paced FPS’ campaign before the barrage of massive releases in the next couple months, Metal Eden is an excellent choice!

Eriksholm is a tough game to fully review, as giving away the gameplay mechanics and plot elements that made me enjoy it should be experienced without spoilers. If you have the time, in this never-ending deluge of excellent games, consider adding this one to the backlog. It’s fun and not frustrating stealth and shockingly high production values make this one of my favorite surprises of the year.

PGA Tour 2K25 is a golf video game. It is neither offensive nor special in any way. It can be shockingly expensive vs. the amount of content on offer, starting at $70 and going all the way up to $120. If you haven’t played a round of videogame golf in a long time it may be worth a go if you can split the cost with some friends. Outside of that, and especially if the crashing issues are happening, it’s tough to recommend.

Return to Grace is a short but sweet narrative adventure game. The puzzles are infrequent and never frustrating, while the storytelling and voice acting do an admirable job in telling this futuristic tale about the hopes and dreams of humanity. I think it’s well worth checking out on Game Pass.

The DioField Chronicle is a great real-time strategy game for consoles. It controls well, the stages aren’t too long, and there’s enough mechanical depth to make stage replays interesting. Although I couldn’t be bothered with the game’s story, the scenes themselves don’t last long and all of it can be skipped at any point. I would have liked some more quality-of-life features such as always-on enemy range marking, but what’s missing hardly impacts the gameplay. This is a game I can recommend to tactics and JRPG fans alike.

From solid level design and an extremely well-done character controller, this game is an easy recommendation for the momentum-favoured platformer player.

DOG WITCH is plenty cute as it is fun. Thanks to the short runs, it’s easy to hop into whenever you need to spend a bit of time without having to overthink on builds and setups. Thanks to a good amount of enemy and equipment variety, you can’t go wrong with this adorable deckbuilder.

I like every part of Alien: Rogue Incursion except for the most important one, the combat. It looks amazing, sounds great, and has a solid story. I am sad to say that I found said combat, and how often it was forced upon me, to make the game tough to recommend at launch. Not only that, but this is a ‘surprise’ Part One. At $40 I hope that the full package, many patches later, can find the brilliance that’s hidden underneath this game’s faults.

EA Sports FC 24 continues the legacy of a great football game series. It’s easy to pick up for anyone thanks to a good tutorial system and features addicting modes that you can take online and offline. The game’s gorgeous and runs really well on the Xbox Series X. EA has made sure to entrench its football series even without the FIFA license, so I think you can continue to expect only the best from this series going forward.

I wouldn’t recommend this at full retail price. However, it’s on Game Pass for Xbox and PC, which I would recommend if you’re interested and have about 8-10 hours to kill.

The Last Faith is a mostly good game, with a few moments of brilliance, and a few more that drove me into a rage. It’s a beautiful, great-sounding game with decent combat and a world I found intriguing. In a year of stellar releases, this is one to, at the very least, add to your back catalog.

Little Kitty, Big City is a short and sweet experience, much like this review. Full of charm and heart, it’s well worth checking out Day One on Xbox Game Pass whether you’re a cat person or not.

NeoSprint is a fun and well-made homage to racing games of old, with a fun and precise arcade driving model from a top-down view. There’s a vast selection of tracks, a solid editor to create and download new ones, various cars and plenty of customization, including several callbacks to other Atari classics, making this game worth the time for racing fans who aren’t afraid of playing something that winks to an era before 3D racers got popular. Lack of proper online multiplayer is a bummer, although leaderboards and downloadable ghosts are in the game. Ultimately, NeoSprint is a retro arcade bonanza that I can see myself coming back to for a while, especially if the community and developers keep the content and challenges coming.

Palia’s multiplayer-based life simulation experience is a unique one, something that sets it apart from other games in the genre. It’s got solid mechanics, an interesting lore, and a welcoming community. It’s a game best enjoyed in short bursts, but that can’t stop you from building the life of your dreams.

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands does not try to reinvent the Borderlands wheel. Instead, it molds it into something fresh enough to satisfy fans of the series that are looking for more.

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is a solid entry in the release-filled series. Featuring a far shorter campaign than previous titles it sacrifices “value in hours” for “valuable hours”. Mirage is a tight package that any Assassin’s Creed fan, new or old, will enjoy.

As finer an example of “AAA” Hollywood gaming spectacle as ever there was – full of incredible visuals and set-pieces with a tonne of gameplay variety and only a few moments that fall flat. It can’t help but occasionally feel to be a greatest hits collection of previous Call of Duty moments at times, despite the earnest and well intentioned efforts to mix things up a bit, and that’s okay. For fans of the series, they’ll be more than satisfied. [Campaign Score = 85]

Turnip Boy Robs A Bank is a damned good time, that is just as long as it needs to be. Whether you’ve played the first game or not it is well worth checking out on Game Pass. Good looks, fun gameplay, and excellent music make it another solid addition to the platform.

SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS is a good collection of two fun games. Sonic Generations is still a solid romp even if this port adds more issues to the game while Shadow’s offering is action-packed and builds on the former’s strengths. This is the most you’ll ever get of Shadow the Hedgehog for quite a while, so dig in while it’s hot.

Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is a good action platformer that comes together remarkably well. Another score for Inti Creates’ catalogue of fun 2D platformers.

There’s a pleasant puzzler in Projected Dreams, thanks to its visuals, music, and simple game design. Who knew making shadow puppets could make for an enjoyable afternoon? An easy recommendation for everyone.

Rally Adventure is grounded expansion. Those aren’t typically my favorite in the Horizon series, but this one is the exception. I’m still not a huge fan of the chatter from the NPCs but every other part of this expansion is top-notch. If you love the base game, this is more of it in a better-than-ever package.

Spellforce III: Reforced is a great package with a lot of content for players who are into a vibe of playing games like Baldurs Gate and Diablo or fans of RTS games like the original Warcraft 3 or Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series. While the campaign story is good and understandable it is easy to become overwhelmed by the forced dialogue and the RTS gameplay is intuitive but it can take a while to take it all in and program your hands to use the radial wheels efficiently.

Warhammer 40,000: Shootas, Blood, & Teef is a hilarious, fun, and joyous game. It knows what it is, and it leans heavily into being dumb and fun.

Team Ladybug’s latest release is a grand one—the slower-paced nature of the action feels good to play especially as you get a better grasp of Shin and his companion’s move sets. The downtrodden Osaka city landscape has plenty of exploration potential and baddies to encounter, meaning that I can wholeheartedly recommend Blade Chimera to the 2D Metroidvania aficionado and novice alike.

There is added depth and complexity to this title that elevates the experience above the solid game that went before it.

NBA 2K25 features phenomenal on-court action, every major mode you could hope for, and is one of the prettiest games of all time. Whether you’re a mtx loving maniac or just looking to shoot some hoops like you’re an all-star it has never been a better time to jump into this long-running franchise.

WRC Generations upgrades the general feel of Nacon’s yearly rally experience, tweaking the physics, handling, and smartly recreating the new challenges of the hybrid cars that are racing in the real-life series this season. The lower than usual price point is certainly very inviting, but it’s caused by the fact the game contains very little new content, with even the UIs, the career and practice tracks being virtually unchanged. There’s still a bit of “jank”, and the game is far from the best-looking racers out there, but WRC Generations offers a compelling middle ground between arcade and simulation rally, with a robust enough online and ranking system to push virtual drivers towards perfection for months to come. And now we wait for Codemasters’ first WRC game…

A Little to the Left is at its absolute best when it’s focusing on finding just the right spot for everyday things, and at its worst when it’s operating on its own, chaotic-puzzle logic. Those two worlds and design choices are at odds in my opinion, and collide to unfortunately produce an uneven end result. However, I feel confident in saying any puzzle game fan will find something to like and perhaps even love here, and with it being available to try on Xbox Game Pass, it’s worth a download.

Playing Tales of Graces f again gives me a chance to reflect on the game’s story, which I enjoyed more so in my last playthrough some eight years ago. But I enjoyed running through the game’s campaign way more than Vesperia’s (which is nothing but a blur to me) thanks to fun cast members with a great English dub and an incredibly fun combat system. Don’t go into Tales of Graces f Remastered expecting deep worldbuilding and level design and I think you’ll have a lot of fun that way.

A short game that is absolutely brilliant.

Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition is an absolutely inessential upgrade for what is quite the timeless classic. It’s still a mighty fun and deep single player RPG campaign, with a ridiculously addictive core gameplay and plenty of content to boot. But the few changes and additions barely warrant a new version, especially if you already own the previous backwards compatible Xbox 360 or PC version, with the lack of any sort of multiplayer being a bizarre omission. It’s quite the classic single player experience, but this remaster doesn’t quite change enough to become an essential buy.

Big Helmet Heroes is a charming little cooperative beat ’em up that’ll be a delight to smaller family members and parents alike. A lack of unique objectives throughout most of the stages might be a bit of a bore and visibility issues can sometimes frustrate, but there’s enough here for an amusing local coop experience.