The Wild at Heart is a lovely game altogether. Its story and characters are just as charming as the gameplay is fun. There are a few nitpicks I can make about sound design and the Spriteling well menu having more tabs than it should need to, but they’re just nitpicks. It’s a touching and sharp game absolutely worth the dive into, especially for Xbox Game Pass members where it is currently available.
Maneater is the type of game that, as a kid, I would have played at a friend’s house and thought it was so cool but probably have rarely played if I owned it myself. It’s interesting and unique enough of a concept with some gameplay elements that keep it from being just a straightforward game or a straight-up simulator. It’s polished in some regards but rather empty in others—fun for a while, but ultimately, not the most captivating thing on the market.
Despite the mulligans I wish Mario Golf: Super Rush could take, it’s still a strongly delivered game any fan of party games and party sport simulators in particular can enjoy alone or with friends.
If you’re a fan of the base game, then Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Siege of Paris is more of what you’re already excited about. But it’s a weaker DLC than “Wrath of the Druids,” to be sure, despite higher levels of marketing hype.
Twelve Minutes is a truly phenomenal experience hindered only by forgivable a few gameplay bumps and the immense patience it takes to succeed.
At the end of the day, Monster Harvest is a good game that a little too closely resembles Stardew Valley and does not execute its Pokèmon-like mechanics cleanly or uniquely enough. Fortunately, it’s mostly visually beautiful with nice music and more than plenty to do.
What Lake was for me was not a peaceful, slow-paced reflection on what matters most in life. Instead, it was an anxious and difficult exercise in letting go of things that don’t bring me joy, even if they might hold other values. And it was a reflection on queer experience and the radicalness of choosing what’s genuinely best for yourself despite others’ expectations. However, while some moments of my time playing was difficult, it was because of how I saw my own ongoing experience through Merrideth’s eyes. And if a game can make me do that through expertly crafted gameplay, a perfect soundtrack, and captivating characters and relationships alone, you can certainly color me impressed.
If you’re patient and enjoy this game genre, you can certainly get a lot of fun out of Surgeon Simulator 2. With loads of unlockables, challenges, and basically unlimited levels, its concept is strong, its wit is impressive, and its style is very enjoyable. But if you’re looking for a tight and unstressful experience, either give the potentially less finicky PC version a try or skip this one altogether. However, it is free with Game Pass, so it’s certainly worth giving a shot for yourself if you subscribe to the service.
Sonic Colors: Ultimate may not be truly ultimate, but it’s a well worthwhile return to an oft-missed game.
While an older entry in the genre, Nuclear Throne is still creative and fun and feels totally fresh in the sea of bullet hells. It has just enough to it to keep you going, though, by comparison to more robust roguelikes, it has the potential to dry up after a while if you’re not mastering it fast enough. Nonetheless, it’s well worth a dive into, especially with its appearance on Xbox Game Pass.
Struggling is a very creative and endearing platformer that surprised me with both how much I enjoyed its grotesque universe and how tight its physics-based gameplay is.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Flynn: Son of Crimson. It feels just different enough from its genre brethren with cool unlockable weapons and upgrades and a whole heckin’ dog to fight by your side. It’s nothing special, though, and despite a constant feeling of progression, the game’s basicness eventually wore on me. For fans of action platformers, though, it will be an enjoyable new addition.
Eastward is a great game. It’s beautiful, it’s a story well-told, and it’s very fun to play. But for me, the entire experience was tainted by what I quickly and inescapably perceived as racist and sexually exploitative depictions, which is just such a monumental shame of a thing to tarnish an otherwise incredible experience. I mean, this game has an entire virtual RPG video game built into it that you can play. But I simply can’t rate this experience highly with how tarnished my view of it all is. I love playing it, I recommend playing it, but I also insist you judge for yourself these character depictions and whether they meet the standards we should expect from games.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is a good addition to the world of racing games, with enough to make it totally unique but not too much to overcomplicate it. There are a few things I wish would make it feel more full, but for what it does deliver, it delivers it well.
Dandy Ace is a great first roguelike and a fun take on the genre. Its very fun combat, not too sharp too fast difficulty, quick load times, and lack of central hub or anything to drag the time between runs on makes it extremely playable and very easy to get sucked into.
Nostalgia might have some fans of Super Monkey Ball trapped in the little ball with them, running their little feet, futile against the inevitability of gravity. But for those not already on the inside, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania is skippable.
Whether you’re looking for a great adventure or a devastating one, Unsighted is absolutely both and then some.
Rainbow Billy is truly a great kids’ RPG game. For anybody looking to hook their kid up with a fun, unique adventure with great morals and a creative “combat” system that doesn’t throw any punches, this is absolutely it.
Metroid Dread is not only an excellent game and return of a beloved franchise, it’s emblematic of everything that defined the genre in the first place in a way that many modern Metroidvanias simply aren’t. Its exploration, upgrading, and re-exploration are never spoonfed to you and feel constantly like great accomplishments with great difficulty scaling and thrilling new mechanics and atmosphere.
Not perfect by any means, but PandaBall is a pretty solid arcade-style soccer game. It’s missing a few things I wish it had, and some things like the text size are less than ideal, but overall, it’s an enjoyable take on quick and simple soccer matches.