DiRT Rally 2.0 is a big win for the largely overlooked rally racing simulator genre.
Metro Exodus is an ambitious sequel that retains the best parts of its predecessors, while also expanding upon their ideas in significant ways. A general lack of polish hurts those ambitions somewhat, but in the end, this is a game that is well worth the price of entry.
Chucklefish could have easily won the adoration of many by simply trying to make a game that panders to the nostalgic Advance Wars crowd, but they've gone above and beyond to deliver a product that is surprisingly full-featured and absolutely brimming with content. Not only is Wargroove an accomplished turn based strategy title, its suite of creation tools also makes it an infinitely replayable one.
Resident Evil 2 is not only an accomplished remake that should serve as the blueprint for how to re-imagine beloved classics, but is an incredible game in its own right- so much so, that it might even stand as one of the very best games this venerated and decorated franchise has delivered to date.
Revisiting Onimusha: Warlords with this remastered release should be a treat for all fans of the original, while if you've never played it before, it's also an excellent opportunity to experience a classic action title that has aged surprisingly well.
The City That Never Sleeps feels surprisingly essential to the larger story Insomniac are telling in their own Spider-Man universe, and should be played by anyone who enjoyed the base game.
Ashen wears its influences unabashedly, but immaculate execution helps it rise above unoriginality.
RIDE 3 may not have the panache and the multiple coatings of polish of some of the other racing sims out there, but thanks to its attention to detail in terms of the bikes themselves, and how well those bikes control, it's a ride worth taking regardless.
Fallout 76 is not a completely broken game. It's not absolutely devoid of enjoyment, and every once in a while, it can live up to the franchise name it bears. The problem is that that enjoyment is buried under a mountainous pile of long stretches of boredom and emptiness, tedious and mind-numbing quests, baffling design choices, unbelievably bad technical issues, and a host of other problems that turn this into an experience that, frankly, has no business being out on shelves as a full-priced AAA game in its current state. What's concerning is that even if the issues that can be fixed through patches and updates are ironed out, the core fundamentals of the game are deeply flawed.
Battlefield V is yet another excellent addition in this admirably consistent franchise.
Football Manager 2019 is probably the best this series has been in years, if not ever.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a landmark achievement for Rockstar, for open world games, and for video games as a whole.
Thanks to key improvements and additions, WWE 2K19 is perhaps the most impressive game in the series in years. There are still issues that need sorting out, mostly on the technical side, while somewhat ageing mechanics and the microtransactions model also need to be given a bit more thought, but after years of stumbling around, 2K Sports at least have a very solid base to work with now.
The return of the Blue Bomber is something we've all been desperately hoping and waiting for for many years now, and thankfully, Mega Man 11 proves to be a worthy comeback for this industry icon. It successfully modernizes the series in a lot of ways, making sure that it doesn't feel out of place in today's day and age, but does so while making sure that at its core, it still very much feels like the Mega Man we know and love.
This is one of the best Assassin's Creed games Ubisoft has ever made, joining the likes of Assassin's Creed 2 and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood at the very top of the franchise's hierarchy. While its choice and consequence mechanics aren't radical reinventions, they add a great deal of agency and variation to the proceedings, while a beautiful and varied setting, a meaningful progression system, a ton of enjoyable content, and the series' best combat system all come together to deliver a memorable odyssey.
While in the last few years, FIFA games have been focused on making flashy, headline improvements in terms of modes or presentation, FIFA 19 instead chooses to make those improvements on the pitch. Off the pitch, there's not quite as much to talk about (other than the excellent House Rules Kick-Off matches), which is obviously a little disappointing, but thanks to a consciously slowed down pace and much more involved and methodical on-pitch gameplay, FIFA 19 proves to be a solid upgrade, and an excellent simulation of the beautiful game.
Living Dead Zombies, then, is pretty much what you would have expected it to be if you've played Far Cry 5's last two DLCs. Just like its two predecessors, this final piece of DLCs for Ubisoft's massive open world shooter doesn't really leverage the base game's biggest strengths, but it provides a unique flavour of experience of its own. It's a little bit on the shallow side and can be a bit repetitive, but it's definitely not unenjoyable.
Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 is absolutely amazing on the pitch, proving that as far as pure simulation goes, Konami's franchise still reigns supreme. But in all other areas, its refusal to improve is starting to become increasingly frustrating, to the point where several such flaws are actively damaging the experience in many ways.
Dragon Quest XI is a stellar game that displays a great command of the ins and outs of its genre the way few other games can and do. What it lacks in originality, it more than makes up for with its confident execution of ideas, showing that a game doesn't need to be revolutionary or the freshest thing on the block to be an incredible experience. With a memorable cast of characters, a well-told, briskly paced story, stunning and vibrant visuals, and a beautiful and extremely varied world as its setting, Dragon Quest XI serves as yet another excellent instalment in this amazingly consistent franchise.
Despite a lack of optimization in needed areas and some aspects of both games that haven't aged very well, this collection presents a good excuse to jump back into Shenmue 1 and 2, both of which remain inherently engaging games even today.