Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 is a shining example of how to do a remake properly, and sits in stark contrast to the last woeful effort to revisit these classics, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD. Vicarious Visions demonstrates a wonderful understanding of what needs updating and what should be held sacred, even to the point that the team has bitten the bullet and let the lesser stages (yes, of course we mean you, Downhill Jam) stay bad just so the classics can stay superb without laying a finger on any of the layouts.
Hades goes above and beyond what you'd expect from a game like this, resulting in a unique experience that you'll likely still find yourself diving back into long after the completion is wrapped up. Supergiant has an incredible track record, but with Hades, the studio takes its throne alongside the gods of the indie scene.
Beautiful, vast, creative, varied, and exciting, Forza Horizon 5 is an incredible game that will have you hooning around Mexico for months. There's an amazing sense of variety to everything about this game, and the smart Accolades system should have many achievement hunters hooked as they explore the full extent of what this remarkable racer has to offer. Fantastic handling, interesting events, and a wonderful history-spanning selection of cars makes for an amazing experience — arguably the best game in the series to date, and inarguably the best game in the series to DOOT. See you in Mexico, amigos...
Lair of the Clockwork God is an exceptional fusion of genres that can't claim to do either individually better than any other game but can certainly claim to do both simultaneously better.
Both as a sequel and as a standalone game, Psychonauts 2 is superb.
Right now, it's a damn good game... but when it eventually catches up to its ambitions, it could wind up being something much more impressive.
OlliOlli World takes the tight, rewarding gameplay of its simple predecessors, dresses it up in a beautifully colourful and quirky new art style, and layers on a bunch of new systems that make it even more satisfying to master. It's a masterclass in how to make score attack games that can have players attack the same spot for hours at a time in search of those vital few points that would give them the lead over a rival, with dozens of awesome hand-crafted levels and countless procedural ones on which to chase those big numbers.
Elden Ring is very much 'just' From doing what From does best, this time performing its greatest hits on the biggest stage to date. And what a wonderful thing that is to witness.
There's a strong case to be made for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga being the best Lego game to date, with a massive variety of gameplay styles, oodles of additional content, and that perfectly pitched playfulness that evens out the highs and lows of the Star Wars main series into a uniformly entertaining experience. The whistle-stop nature of the translation from silver screen to video game means that die-hard fans could find that some of their favourite scenes don't make the cut, but it's generally a rock-solid playable summary of all nine movies, all wrapped up in that typical Lego charm.
The slow pace and amount of reading required may put some people off, but I'd encourage you to try it all the same — it's a fascinating period piece that tells both history lesson and original narrative while reflecting on the importance of art and stories, and comfortably one of the best examples of its genre in recent years and best Game Pass games.
"Resident Evil 4 is brilliant" is a statement that rings as true today as it did almost 20 years ago, with Capcom turning in yet another fantastic remake that revives and, to a degree, reinvents a classic for a new generation.
Battletoads was a pleasant surprise for me, and it’s great to see it really lean into the variety angle with so many different kinds of gameplay crammed into such a relatively small package.
Questionable writing aside, Immortals Fenyx Rising represents a strong start for Ubisoft's new IP. There's plenty more that could be done with the archives of Greek mythology left relatively untouched here — some of which will no doubt be covered in upcoming DLC — but the same format could easily be applied to other pantheons, just as Assassin's Creed uses different iconic time periods as its backdrop each instalment. Mechanics are fast, fluid, and flexible, while visuals are crisp, clean, and colourful, even if the art style might not be to everyone's tastes.
Outriders is comfortably one of the best games of the year so far, and it's only going to get better as the post-launch polish puts paid to the technical problems that currently hold it back from true greatness.
A cosmic rock voyage of self-discovery that doesn't folk about, The Artful Escape is a truly unique experience and a feast for the senses.
Banana Mania stands as a feature-packed reminder that 'simple' and 'easy' are not nearly as interchangeable as a lot of people might think.
BPM is an amazing concept, realised wonderfully. It's not the easiest of recommendations due to the game's brutal difficulty level and heavy metal skew, but if you're on board with those things, willing to learn something new (and get your ass handed to you repeatedly in the process), and prepared to overcome the whims of some random elements to bring down Nidhogg, you're in for one hell of a time. Honestly, well executed passages are next-level satisfying, from triple-tap kill combos to the beat to the simple act of reloading some of the fiddlier weapons. Completions beware, though — the list is a bit silly.
Jurassic World Evolution 2 certainly has a fitting title, because it's exactly that — a true evolution. The campaign might be a little on the short side, performance problems are unfortunate, and only having a handful of the movie actors reprise their roles can feel a little jarring (the Chris Pratt soundalike is kinda terrible). But rustling beyond the foliage of these superficial issues is a simulation game with the kind of depth and nuance that the original game promised but never really delivered.
Nobody Saves the World is a bold change of direction for the team best known for the Guacamelee! games, and the gamble pays off
Monster Hunter Rise is a fantastic action game that will keep you busy for hundreds of hours, and the upgrades on Xbox compared to the Switch original are considerable.