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Whether you're an old-school fan revisiting the horrors of the Zone or a new player curious to dive in, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy offers excellent value for money with a gameplay loop that still holds up.
While WWE 2K24's attempts at celebrating 40 years of WrestleMania with its new Showcase of the Immortals mode fall flat, the game's excellent match types and the great new storylines in the MyRise mode will ensure that fans will have plenty to sink their teeth into.
When it comes to the joy of off-road driving, few games can capture the feel as expertly or effortlessly as Expeditions: A MudRunner Game. The lack of online co-op at launch, or even a central narrative might hurt it a bit, but it's still an excellent driving game owing to the thousands of small player-driven emergent stories that can pop up, and the sense of exploration is still downright fantastic.
Sons of the Forest can fumble with its narrative, but its survival crafting fundamentals and sandbox still warrant a look.
The Thaumaturge tells an interesting story and pairs it up with fantastic presentation, and one of the most interesting combat systems in the genre. However, its uneven NPC animations and the lack of combat encounters drag down the experience.
In addition to proving that many of the timeless qualities of the original have endured, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster also shows once again just how much love and effort Nightdive Studios puts into the remasters that it works on.
Terminator: Dark Fate - Defiance is a strange game that doesn't seem like it would be all that fun at a cursory glance. Dig deeper, however, and you'll find that all of its smaller systems mingle together in a way that brings about one of the more fun and unique real-time strategy games out there. It's also the only one where I've had to count individual bullets on soldiers.
The Outlast Trials is brutal and unrelenting, constantly pushing you into the deep end and taunting you to stay afloat. Some aspects could use further touching up, but if co-op horror is your sickness, then this may be your kind of therapy.
Pacific Drive can be broken down easily into other genres, but it's unlike anything available in terms of tone, atmosphere and execution.
Nightingale is brimming with potential and can grow into something truly fascinating, but it has a long way to go.
While Wrath: Aeon of Ruin might give off the impression that it's just another boomer shooter in a market already well-past saturation, it manages to forge its own identity by being a throwback to classics of the genre with a flair of its own. And of course, the incredible level design and gunplay go a long way in making the game incredibly fun. The only real downside is that, for its wild settings and visuals, the weapons never really break the mold of classic shooter archetypes.
From its incredible story and how well it tells it to its wonderfully realized setting and more, all of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons' biggest strengths are present and accounted for in the remake. Given how faithful of a recreation it is though, those who own the original will likely wonder if the remake is worth a purchase.
Last Epoch offers a middle ground between its contemporaries in the action RPG genre, offering players plenty of deep character customization options while still managing to stay understandable and approachable. While its story might feel meandering, the endgame content is plenty fun on its own, and its dungeons are some of the most fun bits of content in the entire game.
Mario vs Donkey Kong on the Nintendo Switch is a satisfactory update of a great and often overlooked entry on the Game Boy Advance.
The promise of those old, grand, globe-trotting Final Fantasy epics from the series' 16- and 32-bit heyday in AAA form has been fulfilled at last. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth finally realizes the series' central, implicit potential, looking to the past to pave the way for hopefully the start of a new golden age for the series.
When it's not annoying with the lackluster story and mission structure, Skull and Bones is tedious with its end game grind and activities. Bland and repetitive, it's simply a drag to enjoy.
Foamstars definitely has some charm to it, but the general lack of polish in the gameplay department and shoddy single player can bring the experience from initially impressive to ultimately underwhelming.
Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered offers an appealing new visual style but retains all of the frustrating mechanics of the originals. Hardcore fans will probably enjoy it, but it's not for everyone.
Helldivers 2 is essentially the first game, except bigger, louder and more epic in scale. Despite issues with matchmaking and some desperately needed quality-of-life, it's enjoyably engaging.
Don't Nod has taken several key lessons from Vampyr and applied them to great effect with its second action RPG. Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden might not be revolutionary in anything that it does, and from a gameplay standpoint, it can sometimes feel a bit too straightforward for its own good, but with a well-realized setting, captivating story, excellent protagonists, and genuinely compelling choice-and-consequence moments, it's an easy game to recommend to fans of the genre.