It's obvious from its opening moments that Indivisible has a lot of loved poured into it, boasting gorgeous visuals and interesting characters sure to win over your heart. It isn't a perfect example of either of the two genres it blends together, but it does plenty with each of them to make for an exciting adventure.
Gears 5 is a beautiful balancing act of new and old, and it manages to offer the franchise's trademark action and gore while telling a compelling story that sets up the future of the series in a big way.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order suffers from some annoying pacing issues, but the attention to detail and fundamentally solid gameplay makes it the best Star Wars game in over a decade.
Far Cry 6 isn't quite the powerful, cinematic experience that Ubisoft promised, but this flawed adventure is still great fun for open-world shooter fans.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II doesn't quite live up to the heights set by the game it reboots, but it's still great for those just looking for some fun online shootouts.
Blackout is the highlight mode in this year's iteration and zombies mode is fun, but the awful single player content drags down the overall experience.
NBA Live 19 is a great improvement over previous years' iterations, but the developers need to show some extra confidence to ever make the game feel like a true slam dunk.
EA has an impressive sports line-up, but this year's NHL entry clearly got a bit less love than some of the more universally adored sports.
From a gameplay perspective, there's no denying that NBA 2K20 reigns supreme as the best basketball game you'll want to play this year. Sadly, 2K Games seems to be expanding its microtransaction plague throughout the experience to a point that it feels oppressive. Still if you're able to wade through the muck and deal with the advertisements and pay-to-win modes, you won't be disappointed by the stellar updates and excellent presentation you've come to expect.
NHL 20 brings enough new to the table that it feels like a worthwhile upgrade over last year's entry, bringing the incredibly fun new Eliminator mode and revamped commentary that breathes some new life into the experience. Sadly, the AI remains occasionally nightmarish, and the game's consistently-growing collection of modes means EA is leaving some older modes out to die, resulting in a lot of fluff to sort through to get to the good stuff.
The Surge 2 builds on what made the original a sleeper hit, but it regrettably maintains some of the visual and design foibles that deserved to be improved on in a second outing.
In Bright Memory: Infinite, a brief campaign doesn't keep the game from providing some above-average shooter excitement.
Observation combines an excellent narrative and presentation with some often cumbersome gameplay elements that really drag the experience down. It's absolutely worth seeing through to its conclusion, but it may not come easy to the impatient and unforgiving.
Sea of Solitude isn't a bad game, but it's one that could've been far more profound if it handled its delicate subject matter with more care. There's an engaging story to be told, but all of its compelling narrative ideas are constantly undermined by its cringe-inducing voice acting and bad dialogue. Meanwhile, gameplay suffers from a general lack of things to do or discover in its beautiful world, leaving players with a sense of fatigue as the game wears on.
AO Tennis 2 can be a hell of a lot of fun, but if you're easily annoyed by some inconsistent controls and a steep learning curve, you're better off avoiding this one.
Chronos: Before the Ashes is neither terrible enough to disown entirely nor deep or engaging enough to warrant a recommendation for anyone but the most genre-craved diehards.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 might just be the series' worst installment yet.
There's just not much to The Lego Movie 2 Videogame that stands out as original. The core mechanics are mostly sound, but the rehashed movie story is told in a disjointed, unappealing fashion, and most of the things the game does well were done even better in previous games in the series.
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered is a conflicted game. It's one part phenomenal sniping experience and one part clunky, run-of-the-mill third-person shooting gallery full of awful AI. If you're able to overlook its glaring faults, there's fun to be derived from its attention to realism in its sniping and its brilliant bullet cam gore, but overall, the one's best left in the past.
There is some fun to be had piloting the robots in Cyberpilot, but the mission brevity and padding really dampens the experience and steals away control right as you're settling into a groove. There are worse ways to spend a few hours of your day, but there are much better ones too.