Andrew Farrell
Gorgeous and full of varied events, it still isn’t nearly enough to help the The Crew Motorfest stand up to the other top racing dogs thanks to a laundry list of poor decisions, awkward vehicle handling, and a distinct failure to make use of some of the franchise’s strongest attributes.
Armored Core 6 is easily one of the best mech games around, with blisteringly fast combat and a big focus on customization, even if its difficulty is lacking and repetition sets in before the end.
Blasphemous 2 is another excellent Metroidvania that’s quite different from its predecessor in a number of ways, even if it doesn’t quite manage to supersede it overall.
En Garde! has plenty of style and looks and controls well enough, but the extremely tedious gameplay focusing more on tricks than swordplay quickly starts to wear thin.
While it may be missing the visual improvements that came with the RTX version of the game, the quality of life additions, amount of content, and jaw-dropping new campaign make this remaster a must-play for fans new and old.
Exoprimal has a lot of fun dino-blasting to be had, but you’ll need to get past some truly questionable barriers to get to that point.
Short but packing a hell of a wallop, Gravity Circuit delivers on most of what fans of Mega Man X and Zero would want out of a fast, challenging 2D platformer.
Not being able to turn the ever-present bright flashes off is a shame, but Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a ridiculously unique, captivating game that is very much worth puzzling through.
We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie is another joyous re-release of a beloved game filled with the best kind of nonsense.
While the classic Amnesia gameplay is available here in a lot of ways, it’s mixed with some underwhelming, poorly balanced monster gameplay that doesn’t work as well as it should.
System Shock is an upgraded classic with dated elements that needs quality of life improvements, yet despite everything is still a fun treat for immersive sim fans.
Glitch Busters is visually charming but it lacks too many basic characteristics that are expected from team-based shooters
Boltgun unleashes a torrent of satisfying carnage with a lot of sharp levels over a good-sized campaign, but repetition and the lack of a sense of progression hold it back some
Ravenlok isn't deep or lengthy, but it's a brief, dreamy foray into the wonders of voxels. It may not last long, but it's a looking glass worth going through.
As long as you don't mind the truly daft AI making things a bit mindless, Redfall is a good-enough co-op action game, but it makes me sad for the vampire-hunting immersive sim Arkane could've delivered.
It isn't complex enough to satiate veteran RTS players and doesn't offer mountains of content, but Minecraft Legends delivers the basic loop of attacking and defending territory and finds the odd inventive way to use its iconic IP.
With a story that's as empty and meandering as its gameplay, The Last Worker is an ugly, tedious slog that I'm glad to be done with.
Beautiful, complex, and captivating, Terra Nil is a delightful strategy game only held back by a smaller amount of content and some difficult-to-fulfill objectives.
It's pretty and it plays well, but this is a short, underwhelming Metroidvania with no exploration and uninteresting level design.
Breezy and cute, Plantera 2 has more of what made the original so charming