Call of Duty: WWII is mediocre. I enjoyed it anyway.
Assassin's Creed: Origins provides a solid foundation for the future, but a year off hasn't changed the series as much as you might've hoped.
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is one part timely social commentary, one part "Did you see Blazkowicz ride that robot-dog through the streets of New Orleans?" No other game could pull this off.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole builds off its predecessor's excellent foundation, with deeper combat, a stronger story, and vulgar jokes galore.
Total War: Warhammer II is a more daring take on fantasy than its predecessor, adding Lizardmen (dinosaurs) and Skaven (rat-men) to the mix—but it's not necessarily a more daring Total War game.
Pyre, the latest from Bastion and Transistor developer Supergiant, is as gorgeous and creative as anything the studio's done—but repetitive.
For anyone who played The Elder Scrolls III, who yearns for Morrowind and the island of Vvardenfell, being able to revisit even the shadow of those memories is a treat. The old theme music swells, you take those first steps into Seyda Neen, and it's almost the same. Close enough, anyway—like seeing the reunion tour of your favorite band. They're older, maybe less daring, but the hits are timeless.
Endless Space 2 is the rare 4X game where the writing is better than the strategy—though the strategy is still pretty decent.
With Prey, Arkane cements itself heir to the immersive sim. Exploiting Prey's systems in order to explore and discover Talos I is a constant source of joy, even when the combat and story falter.
Everything asks you to contemplate your place in the universe by inhabiting the point-of-view of hundreds of other creatures, plants, and objects.
Outlast 2 has a few solid horror moments, but undermines those scares with tedious gameplay.
Highly experimental, Introversion's Prison Architect follow-up has you mapping out a dark cave with a handheld LIDAR scanner. It's an inspired premise, but doesn't go much of anywhere.
With its unique 1940's monster movie aesthetic and excellent voice casting, Wilson's Heart feels like the first "can't-miss" VR game. Too bad it's a Rift exclusive.
Full Throttle is a relic of the time when games first really crossed the 2D/3D tech boundary, when designers devised a new set of rules for making games—with mixed results.
Playtonic promised a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie, and that's what Yooka-Laylee delivers, flaws and all. It's a loving throwback to a bygone era and style of gaming.
It's mediocre, not awful. This review slants negative because I find the writing mostly bad, but my experience with Andromeda is almost worse in some ways: For much of my 55 hours with it, I felt nothing at all. It just exists, content to let you run from fetch quest to fetch quest, chasing the appearance of importance while saying nothing at all. It'd be easier to just condemn the whole endeavor and write it off, but that's not entirely fair. I'm mostly ambivalent, or "I'm not mad, just disappointed," as my parents might've said—and ouch, that always stung much worse.
Thimbleweed Park is excellent, both as tongue-in-cheek homage and in its own right. It's a LucasArts adventure game the way you remember them being, with the same witty humor and, yes, the same sometimes-asinine puzzles. The good and the bad. And really, I don't think fans would want it any other way.
Rock Band VR's not exactly a must-have, but it's up there—at least for people who haven't burned out on the plastic instrument genre. Me? As long as Harmonix keeps supporting it with DLC I'll probably keep checking back in, snagging a few songs, and putting on a show.
Night in the Woods may be a pastiche of influences, but as far as video games go, there's really nothing else like it, and there's a lot to be learned from spending a dozen days in Mae's life—about her and her friends, about yourself, about America and towns forgotten by time.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands is not a fantastic game. Some part of me is fascinated by Wildlands in the same way I was once fascinated by Crysis. Look at what we can do. Look at these amazing virtual worlds people create from thin air. It's just a shame so many of these worlds are about as meaningful as virtual bubble wrap.