Vessel of Hatred has a great start, mediocre middle, and frustrating ending. The Spiritborn class is a fantastic addition, along with the new Mercenary system. At $40 if you’re in it for the story you may come out as frustrated as I am, but if gameplay is all you care about then there’s a lot to love.

Starfield’s first expansion is an excellent dive into one of the game’s key pieces of lore. There are answers to be had and mysteries to be born anew. It is all wrapped up in one of the best ‘looks’ I’ve seen in a video game to date. For any fan of the base game, this is a solid 10+ hour adventure you do not want to miss.

Funko Fusion is a simple game, perhaps overly so, following the footsteps of Travellers’ Tales’ iconic LEGO games but with the Funko figurines instead of the brick characters. The IP crossover aspect is sound, and the game is very accessible, but excessive repetition and a baffling lack of any form of co-op at launch, with online co-op but no local co-op coming down the line, surely severely crippling its value in the eyes of much of the target audience. Once co-op is finally added, as long as the online one fits the bill for you, I’d still recommend playing through the storyline at least once, at least to the people who are craving for a new LEGO-style adventure and are looking for a new twist or two on the formula.

At the end of the day, I had a fun time with Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports. Sure it is a bit janky, its progression for unlocking new content is odd, and the lack of online multiplayer is a bit of a stinger. Yet, its simple arcade recreations of popular sports brings me back the simple days of mascot sports games of old, and it brought me a good couple hours of Looney Tunes-themed fun with my partner as well.

In short, Monopoly (2024) is hardly an essential buy for those who already own other Monopoly videogames. In a vacuum, however, it does most everything right to be a solid digital recreation of this iconic, friendship-breaking board game.

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.

There’s a lot to like about Ara: History Untold, even with the rough edges that appear every so often. Barring some performance issues, I’d say anyone even a little curious about the genre should give the game a shot and try it for themselves (especially if you have Xbox Game Pass). As for those of you with hundreds of hours in 4X games? Well, Civilization VII is still months away and Ara is a worthwhile competitor in the space and so I highly recommend playing at least a few games during this wait. Who knows, maybe you’ll find yourself with a new favourite in the genre…

Shadows of Doubt should be great. A lack of variety leads to repetition so quickly that I can’t recommend this 1.0 and console release. If the devs continue supporting the game with new content, especially something more directed like the tutorial mission, then it could potentially become an indie classic. For now, though the game is a mere shadow of its potential.

It’s a really unfortunate development for me that I just couldn’t find much enjoyment in the simple act of actually just playing this game. It undermined the quality of everything around it and the issue is, gameplay/combat/control is the most important aspect of this genre and if it’s not up to snuff, then the rest falls down around it.

Keylocker is a fun, beautiful turn-based RPG that does a great job of meshing not only a fun combat system but a sleuth of other minigames to keep its journey fresh. If you like rhythm games and an extensive timing-based combat system, look no further than this one.

Prince of Persia The Lost Crown’s Mask of Darkness DLC adds multiple hours of mostly enjoyable new content. It’s a mission pack and not an expansion, thankfully this cutting room floor material is nearly as good as the base game and well worth checking out.

The Plucky Squire is a game clearly made with a serious amount of love for the wonderful medium of glorious interactivity that is video games. And for it being the first title from development team All Possible Futures, it’s a staggering achievement in art, design and ideas. It’s just a shame the gameplay didn’t get as much attention as the nostalgia it so skilfully indulges.

If you are a fan of Dead Rising there’s a good chance you will really like this remaster. If you’ve never played the game before and want a fun zombie slaughter simulation, this game still holds up well, but you’ll have to look past some of the game’s flaws and remind yourself that it is still bound by 360-era design.

Enotria: The Last Song is a beautiful, weird tale that almost nailed the gameplay and customization side of a Soulslike. It is by no means a bad game, it’s just not one I can easily recommend for all but the most ardent players of the genre.

For fans of Jackbox games, myself included, this is a rock solid addition for game nights with friends and family (maybe not your parents though). The addition of genuinely adult subject matter is a lot of fun, even though at times, it literally devolves into drawing multiple cartoon dicks or boobs.

Caravan SandWitch is a beautiful adventure that covers stories of struggles and grief, paired with pleasant French vocals and a vibrant art style. And even though I found its main progression to be tedious, I did enjoy exploring the world of Cigalo and learning about its lovely peoples. If you seek a nomad’s adventure, van included, look no further than this little journey right here.

For all its clunky aiming, messy visuals, glitches and limited content and variety, I still wanna say I enjoyed running through the campaign on a summer evening. Bloodhound is like a cheesy Z-tier movie. You know it’s far from great, yet getting demons splattered left and right for the duration of a summer blockbuster might just be worth your time and money – if not at the full price of 10 bucks or so, maybe on a deeper discount.

Episode Aigis is a great addition to Persona 3 Reload, if only for the additional story content and new battle challenges. But this episode sheds too much from the base game, leaving a tedious adventure in the wake for those looking for The Answer.

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.

Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 is an amazing, epic ride through a glorious hellscape. Visceral combat is matched by stunning graphics to create a title that never relents in being as over the top as possible. It is one of my favorite titles of the year so far, and one I cannot wait to dive back into as post-launch content starts to stream in.

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.

Star Trucker can be as relaxing or sweaty as you like. While the main story’s writing wasn’t the best it was more than made up for by how solid the rest of the title is. It looks great, feels damned good to play, and I could see it easily becoming a new go-to podcast game for millions of Game Pass players.

The developers have once again done a wonderful job of bringing one of the classic and legendary games from history to the present day. Are you interested in a strategy game with a twist? Are you tired of the human/historical conflicts exhibited in Age of Empires and the like? Then take a look at the mythical world of Age of Mythology: Retold. I think you won’t be disappointed. If they can fix some of the AI problems and balance issues in future patches, Age of Mythology can truly stand among its peers. It might even become the true fan favorite it was always destined to be. Maybe we should ask the gods for their favor and start praying.

I had a great time with Milestone’s take on the Monster Jam world. The gameplay is tight and surprisingly accessible, with these behemoth vehicles bouncing and flipping left and right in such fun and satisfying ways in both racing and stunt modes. With a great technical background, too, what’s a bit lacking is the inventive in the single player campaign, with merely a largely repetitive sequence of events to beat with little reason or rhyme – one that even shows how little variety the game itself has, as of now, before all DLC or eventual sequels arrive. Personally, that’s a prospect I really look forward to, because Monster Jam Showdown’s base gameplay is really good, so I’d really love to see the format get expanded upon from here on.

Schim is certainly cute, charming, and has a surprisingly emotional look into the themes of depression and midlife crisis. Perhaps it could dig deeper into its arguments, and maybe even dare a bit more with its gamepaly. Similarly, with a length of only about 3 hours and limited replayability, the launch price of 24.99USD/24,99EUR feels a little excessive, and I would absolutely recommend waiting for a sale. But when that sale does arrive, give Schim your consideration: it’s a quite beautiful little game with an intriguing concept and even a good message to give to its players.

STAR WARS Outlaws is the dream 3rd-person open world title so many of us wanted. It’s big, and fun, and while it has some flaws I have greatly enjoyed my time with it. A massive progression blocking soft-lock is a bit of a bummer and instead of this being a final score it’s going to be a review-in-progress one as I wait to see the rest of the title once it’s fixed. [Provisional Score = 80]

The game is just a blast to look and listen to, which pardons some of the less impressive combat encounters and the play-it-safe game design. It’s not a game that reinvents anything, but it sets out to do specific things, all of which it does pretty well. Fans of third person action adventure games should definitely consider playing Kena: Bridge of Spirits, with accessibility options and a story mode difficulty allowing even newcomers to videogames to enjoy this colourful, cartoon-esque journey.

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).