Zack Palm
Moonlighter is an exciting dungeon crawler that offers a change of pace as you run the town's shop by day, making for an impressive adventure.
Cultist Simulator may have a high learning curve, but the meaningful rewards matter to you, and the variety of choices encourage you to experiment during each game.
This Is The Police 2 proves to be a challenging management simulator with a dark story that sometimes gets a little long-winded. A few hiccups hold it back, but fans of the genre will enjoy it all the same.
Hypergun offers a fun, interesting approach to the rouge-like scene, but lacks a certain inventiveness to make it standout to other titles among its genre.
The Messenger leans on classic platformers from the 80s and 90s, but comes with plenty of its own tricks to make it feel like a wonderful twist with plenty of tongue-in-cheek humor.
Megaquarium gives you the chance to run your own aquarium and figure out how to make fish the best thing since sliced bread
The painful progress of The Conjuring House makes it a difficult game to recommend for any horror fan looking for a fun scare this Halloween.
A cheeky 16-bit RPG game disguised as an MMO that holds your attention throughout the dozens of hours of gameplay and challenging puzzles
Build your own Lego character to star alongside DC's most notable baddies as they attempt the save the world from even worse villains!
Apparition is a horror game that quickly deflates as the gameplay becomes repetitive and the threats become rudimentary
Many of the characters in Psychonauts 2 struggle with loss, heartbreak, and coming to grips with mistakes they made in their past. It’s hard to imagine that a sequel released 16 years after the original game can handle tough topics in a mature and modern tone, but Psychonauts 2 nailed the landing with superb storytelling, character development, and rewarding gameplay.
There’s still a little bit of magic left in the Diablo 2 bottle to make Resurrected a worthwhile adventure, even for players who have been consistently going through the original game every so often with friends or by themselves. Resurrected gives a good amount of life to a game many may have only heard about but never went out of their way to try.
While the quests are thin, Disciples: Liberation has a fantasy world where good and evil don’t feel like a huge factor. It gives you the chance to immerse yourself in the game’s tactical combat, cleverly using your units in each encounter. You’ll use the quests to assist you in bolstering your forces to ensure you come out on time with the right allies on your side, leading to the ultimate conflict.
I was never completely won over by Age of Empires IV. Still, I had a great time playing it, and everything clicked together really well without feeling too overdone. The fact an Age of Empires game could be made in 2021 and not feel like something that’s trying too hard to lean into the nostalgia of the original games is a huge accomplishment.
Ghostwire: Tokyo’s story was brief and satisfying, with gorgeous visuals from beginning to end.
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is everything any Star Wars fan would want in a Lego game. The humor might lean a bit too much into the childish side during your favorite moments of the franchise, but the gameplay, galaxy exploration, and pile of challenges never leave you wanting more things to do.
While certain bosses’ attack combos are troublesome to avoid given your character’s recovery time, the journey of Salt and Sacrifice is thoroughly enjoyable for anyone who enjoys soulslike games.
I was surprised by how much I learned about the characters and Fódlan after playing Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, as I figured everything was said and done in Three Houses.
The core gameplay of combat and the roguelike nature of Eyes in the Dark are exciting. The flashlight is an interesting weapon and offers a good amount of flexibility for every player. However, the game lacks intense combat depth that makes repeating the battles exciting, which should be the core of any roguelike.
Two Point Campus has a solid and well-polished gameplay loop, and it’s undoubtedly an easily replayable experience. But unfortunately, the development team doesn't pull any surprises in the game's complexity or doesn’t take a risk by adding something that hasn’t been done before.