Moss made a wonderful first impression and never let up. Spending four hours with Quill in this VR world was a joy, and no one element or environment type wears out its welcome. Its mix of combat and puzzles hooked me quickly, always kept things fresh, and left me wanting more.
If you go into A Way Out thinking its mandatory two-player co-op is a gimmick, you'll likely come out of it realizing that it couldn't have been done any other way. Vincent and Leo's journey will have you and a friend performing tasks together both mundane and dramatic, and the result is a memorable, variety-packed cinematic adventure that feels like what Telltale's games might've evolved into if they'd leaned into game mechanics instead of phasing them out.
Luigi's Mansion 3 is so fun, charming, and smartly designed that I hope we get more than three of these every 20 years.
I wish I'd been given the chance to actually solve more of The Riddler's puzzles on my own – adventure games are traditionally all about that, after all – but the tension and drama that permeate The Enemy Within's first episode make it a winner. This strong start also leaves me very excited to see how John Doe's inevitable transformation into The Joker plays out, and morbidly fascinated to see what scars this version of Gotham City will leave behind on its inhabitants.
Danger Zone 2 is exactly what I wanted the first Danger Zone to be: the true follow-up to Burnout's classic Crash mode that EA won't give me. It's not as fully fleshed out or polished as my dream game of this type would be, but as a self-contained and one-note smash-up it shines like a spectacular fireball explosion. Now how about reviving the rest of Burnout? Road Rage mode, anyone?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's varied gameplay modes and excellent gunplay suggest the series is headed in a promising direction.
The Ancient Gods Part 2 is a challenging, smart conclusion to Doom Eternal's story arc.
Twelve Minutes injects a compelling time-loop mystery into a traditional point-and-click adventure game to create original gameplay that complements its story's curiosity factor.
Hitman 2 is like a hearty stew: not pretty, but so full of nutrition that you're bound to walk away full and happy.
RAD is deeper and more challenging than it looks, making it a super fun post-apocalyptic adventure that's always fresh.
'What Ails You' takes The Enemy Within's biggest and boldest step yet toward redefining the Joker's role in the Batman universe – should you choose to push him in that direction (which I did). It's the other characters whose final impacts on Bruce Wayne/Batman's life have yet to be determined.
Dangerous Driving completes Burnout's revival, but not flawlessly.
Part 1 of BioShock Infinite's story-centric DLC returns to Rapture but doesn't give you long to enjoy it.
Rebounding from a weak second episode, Batman: The Enemy Within's third episode restores my hopes that this season will turn out well. Major developments around Batman's big secret and strong interactions with Harley Quinn, Selina Kyle, and John make Fractured Mask work, right up until the extremely abrupt ending.
Much of Modern Warfare 2 has aged pretty well, and the remaster is very well-done, but the 2019 reboot casts a shadow.
The "Saints Row The Third" part of Saints Row The Third Remastered is good. The "Remastered" part...not as much.
Cold War's quiet times are more memorable than the loud ones, even if the story's ambition outweighs its execution.
Story isn't its strong suit, but the rest of The Ascent delivers a wonderfully realized cyberpunk world mixed with satisfying twin-stick gunplay to create an enjoyable action-RPG.
Gearbox's New Tales from the Borderlands successfully recaptures the charm and humor of Telltale's original adventure-game spinoff of the Borderlands first-person shooter series, but its attempts to stretch out the gameplay and the story don't fare as well.
Somerville has ties to modern legends Limbo and Inside, but it’s equally reminiscent of another Hall of Famer: Out of This World. The end result is a unique physics-based puzzle adventure that isn’t quite on the level of the games that inspired it, but is nevertheless an extraterrestrial nightmare worth exploring.