Company of Heroes 3 is an excellent game for veterans of the RTS genre and complete newbies who've never felt the rush of overseeing resources while micromanaging units on a virtual battlefield. Its double campaign feature provides two very distinct ways to experience the game, while the real-time strategy gameplay shows just how engaging and rewarding the genre can be if you give it the time and learn the systems in place.
I'd be hard-pressed to say Atomic Heart is an outright bad game, and despite featuring some awful elements, there's clear quality in its gameplay mechanics, art direction, and encounters that highlight Mundfish's talent. Stories from before release painted the development as largely directionless, causing them to have to fashion it into something playable and structured near the end, and this seems evident in the final product. Mundfish bit off more than it could chew, leading to a lot of half-baked ideas that should have been scrapped and reigned in. It makes the game's greatest moments ultimately bittersweet, as deep down there is potential for something excellent.
Dead Island 2 could have been the Return of the Living Dead of zombie video games, making for an irreverent, B-movie romp through an undead-filled LA, but it just ends up marginally better than the original game without ever approaching its full potential. The improved combat is the game's main saving grace, but it isn't enough to redeem the shallow progression mechanics, inconsistent tone, and unfocused story.
Beyond just claiming the title of the best Amnesia game to date, it's also one of the best survival horror experiences of recent times, and a perfect entry to spearhead the franchise's future into a new direction.
The Lamplighters League is a fun turn-based strategy game that keeps things fresh with its pulpy aesthetic and characters, and a solid gameplay loop that's not afraid to dish out the consequences of your actions. While the decision to add a real-time element to missions doesn't fully pan out, it's not enough to diminish the game's best qualities.
Total War: PHARAOH presents an interesting window into the time and place of a tumultuous historical period while handing you the reigns to make your own story out of it. While learning the ropes takes some work to get into due to poor use of tutorials and the overwhelming amount of extra mechanics in the campaign layer, buried underneath is an excellent gameplay formula that continues to stand the test of time.
Ghostrunner 2 is exactly the kind of sequel you'd want after the first game - expanding on the concept with more gameplay options, encounters, and mechanics to great effect...Not all the improvements are straight home runs, and some bugginess does occasionally frustrate - but they aren't big enough deals to distract from what is an overwhelmingly fun gameplay loop.
While lacking the polish and production value that saw the genre float into the mainstream this year, Rogue Trader is a refreshing CRPG experience that values everything that makes games like these so special. It's impossibly expansive, full of rich characters and stories, complex without being over-encumbered, and so much more that doesn't fit into a snappy conclusion. Owlcat has really gone out of its way to bring the Warhammer 40K universe to life here, and in doing so, it's created one of the most memorable RPGs of the decade.
It's tempting for me to say that Prince of Persia is back with the release of The Lost Crown and leave it that. But that feels like a disservice to a game so boldly different from its predecessors because ultimately it's more than that. While it certainly still feels like a Prince of Persia game at the core, it stands on its own merits as a consistently brilliant and challenging Metroidvania experience, holding its own against some of the genre's very best.
Classified: France '44 is a strong debut from Absolutely Games that's worth a go if you're looking for hours of well-designed turn-based combat, varied missions and encounters, and a highly replayable campaign. However, it doesn't quite hit the potato masher on the head when it comes to exploring its WWII setting and creating a narrative about the human cost of war.
The game certainly gets better as time goes on, and the story is well-told enough that it's worth experiencing for survival horror fans. However, it comes with the caveats that the overall gameplay leaves a lot to be desired, and its survival horror contemporaries just do a better job on nearly every front.