The conclusion to Artyom's journey has the best gameplay and most compelling story of the series, on top of incredible visual and audio presentation. It retains the series' simplistic stealth system and falters with control, writing and dialogue issues, but even so, Metro Exodus is an odyssey worth undertaking.
Project Aces throws a bit too much at their long-awaited return to the franchise and not all of it sticks, but Ace Combat 7 delivers the heart-pounding air combat the series is best at and looks and sounds stellar doing it.
Insurgency: Sandstorm blends a fast pace and simple objective-based gameplay with a low time-to-kill, authentically modeled weapons and gear and an immersive, brutal and visceral style of combat to create the perfect intersection of competitive and tactical online shooters. Some graphical hiccups and at-times poor character models only slightly mar an otherwise fantastic experience.
The Freedom Chronicles finish off with yet another dull, repetitive rehash of the worst parts of The New Colossus' gameplay, with only a glimmer of the charm and none of the world-building that elevated the main game above its issues. Compared to The New Order's excellent The Old Blood expansion pack, these snippets of mediocrity are an insult. Skip the Season Pass entirely, I beg you.
Despite some occasional issues with abrupt tonal shifts and some frustrating elements of combat and difficulty, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus continues New Order's deft combination of smooth, exhilarating gunfights and a story and setting with surprising depth and character that effectively tackles some dark and heavy themes while ultimately remaining fun and hopeful.
Short but sweet, High Hell could benefit from a bit more variety in player abilities and weapons, but nonetheless makes the most of what it has to create a chaotic, challenging and gratifying few hours of vulgar, hilarious mayhem.
Despite some significant deficiencies in the gameplay department, Get Even more than makes up for dull shooting and inconsistent, frustrating stealth with a well-told, genuinely emotional and thought-provoking take on the "enter memories/dreams" concept.
Everspace's rewarding and beautifully presented playground is further bolstered by engrossing background lore and a dedication to keeping its rogue-like elements entrenched within the game's universe, resulting in perhaps the least-metagame of its kind I've ever played. What it lacks in content variety and originality where story is concerned, is made up for by its sheer ability to keep me going for hours - "just one more run."
Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is a mediocre shooter, elevated only by its smooth shooting controls and let down by its lackluster gameplay, boring open world, terrible writing, frequent crashes, bugs and performance issues. If you're a tactical shooter junkie like me there's some substance here, but there's better, more stable products out there that will respect your time a helluva lot more.