The Lost Crown is a good modern template for an old franchise, taking the essence of Prince of Persia into a familiar metroidvania format. With fun combat, good boss battles, and smooth platforming mechanics, only the convoluted levels and overlong platforming keep it from being timeless.
Codemasters' first shot at the WRC license is underwhelming. Despite a responsive driving model and decent rally stages, EA Sports WRC offers an awkward career mode with shallow team management. Even the presentation quality is inconsistent, with some bothersome stuttering.
With weaponized nostalgia, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III delivers a satisfying experience in multiplayer and zombies. A diverse selection of returning battlegrounds augments the competitive action and the deep open-world undead mode is entertaining for hours, making it worth playing despite the disappointing campaign.
Despite its wonderful atmosphere and interesting locations, Alan Wake 2 is a middling third-person survival-horror game with sluggish pacing, a lackluster Mind Place feature, and lazy jump-scares, too concerned about being obscure and filling itself with quirky meta-references.
With thought-provoking philosophy and sharply varied puzzles, The Talos Principle 2 is a sublime sequel that seeks the knowledge of the gods but maintains its humanity.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is a decent return to the series' roots that puts stealth and free-running parkour back into focus. While it has several issues, and Basim's story is uninspired, many will still appreciate silently exploring a smaller sand castle.
Cocoon is a clever and original world-stacking puzzler with complex mechanics that are kept in check by limiting how players arrange and explore worlds. While it's possible to stumble upon solutions through a confusing haze, the game's few moments of brilliance make it worth checking out.
The Expanse: A Telltale Series is a short, unexciting, and slow narrative adventure, full of unlikable characters and repetitive gameplay. Despite a great performance from Cara Gee as Drummer and a few engaging player choices, it is a waste of space.
Starfield is a grand interstellar adventure with exciting pockets of exploration, detailed cities, interesting side quests, memorable characters, competent action, and fun ship building. Despite minor issues, it gracefully blends Bethesda's trademark gameplay with the wonders of space.
While the atmosphere in Fort Solis is excellent, backed by great visuals and understated horror, the ambiguous story, poor ending, and cumbersome interaction means that this walking adventure does not always put its best foot forward.
With a great supernatural pirate theme and excellent character synergy, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is another outstanding stealth strategy game from Mimimi, though revisiting the mostly unchanged islands throws a small cloud over the otherwise vibrant treasure hunt.
Star Trek: Resurgence has an interesting story with thought-provoking scenarios and two good protagonists. While it makes adequate use of the interactive-story genre, there was room to improve the choices and gameplay.
With a great underwater setting and an interesting story featuring lots to uncover, Stasis: Bone Totem's mix of horror and puzzles mean it is a veritable sunken treasure.
Despite some witty dialogue and a few poignant moments, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals is an unexciting talkie-walkie with conversation interruptions and dull gameplay.
Aliens: Dark Descent brilliantly translates the 1986 movie into a fun strategy game with good combat, an interesting story, and rewarding squad management, marred by some minor stealth and tech issues.
Thanks to an enjoyable combat loop and wonderfully dark environments, Diablo IV is a great blend of the previous two games in the series that brings a slew of basic MMO features while preserving the core tenets of the franchise.
Amnesia: The Bunker has a fantastic dynamic involving light and power management, as you explore an atmospheric WW1 bunker and avoid a monster with a keen sense of hearing. Despite a lack of puzzles, a bland story, and a few monster quirks, it packs enough good horror to keep players on edge.
Firmament's deficient storytelling, bland and sparse worlds, clumsy primary tool, and occasionally broken puzzles mean it is not worth playing, even if you are a fan of Cyan's previous adventures.
Deep and tantalizing combat, enticing exploration, smooth platforming, and strong narrative moments lead the way in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. This sequel improves nearly everything and only the suboptimal framerate leaves a sour taste.
Age of Wonders 4 is a deep and addictive turn-based strategy game that offers excellent player choice with custom worlds and varied rulers, alongside tweaks to the proven formula. Only its technical blemishes cast a dark shadow over the glorious realms found within.