Tom Marks's Reviews
Murder by Numbers successfully blends a Phoenix Wright-style visual novel with a Picross-style puzzle game by making each aspect great in its own right.
Kentucky Route Zero is a beautiful poetry generator in the body of a point-and-click adventure game.
Wattam is a weird and wild fever dream of a game, but it's the most enjoyable fever dream I've ever had.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne adds loads of impressive monsters and tons of quality-of-life improvements to an already incredible game.
Far: Lone Sails is a gorgeous little game with an incredible soundtrack and a journey packed full of both stressful and serene moments alike.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order is a fun, if fairly simple, comic book beat-em-up that's enjoyable alone or with friends alike.
Defector is fun, but shallow mechanics and a brief, jumbled story keep it from being the appealing spy game it starts out as.
Trover Saves the Universe is a short and sweet VR platformer wrapped in one of the most ridiculous and funny video game stories you'll ever see.
SteamWorld Quest's card-based RPG combat offers an insane amount of choice, making it as flexible as it is fun.
Yoshi's Crafted World is a very fun platformer that's light on challenge or ambition, but brimming with creativity and charm.
Trials Rising has an impressive new tutorial, even more extensive customization, and an awesome pool of levels that can be disappointingly discouraging to unlock.
Slay the Spire takes some of the best parts of deckbuilding games, roguelikes, and dungeon crawlers, and mixes them into a wholly new and extremely satisfying package.
Wargroove's brain-teasing tactics and impressive level editor make it the Advance Wars successor fans have been waiting for.
Artifact is a challenging, deep, and surprisingly approachable card game.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is Smash Bros. done right, and done bigger than ever before.
Warframe isn't an easily approachable game, but it's one that's worth getting comfortable with.
Return of the Obra Dinn stands as something wholly unique, a challenging detective game that empowers you to solve its mysteries through actual investigation.
Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the sequel I've been waiting for, returning to the roots of what made the first game so special. It adds a handful of new and interesting mechanics to its tactical battles, nearly all of which improve the formula in tangible ways, but otherwise plays it fairly safe. The story can feel a little bit impersonal and disconnected from the rest of the series, but the way it makes even the smallest characters important and alive is remarkable. It's great to see the Valkyria Chronicles series back on track, as it's still one-of-a-kind.
Chasm is a lovely and fun Metroidvania with a lot of cool new ideas, even if its randomized maps are uninteresting.
Hollow Knight’s rich world and incredible depth of content will make you want to explore its caves for dozens of hours.