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Its little games are simple, yet addictive, its imagery is silly and light-hearted, and there is undoubtedly music that will stay with players well after they clear any given round. I’m not crazy about how simplistic some of the bonuses are, but I did like the parallel progress through co-op games with their own unlocks.
Star Fox for Nintendo Switch 2 faithfully recreates the N64 classic with new additions like cinematic cutscenes, online battle modes, mouse aiming gameplay, and songs that will be stuck in your head for weeks to come.
For anyone who loves old-school Zelda-style action games, Elliot's story proves to be an adventure worth embarking on.
UFC 6 is my favorite game in the series so far. It’s content-rich, looks beautiful, and the actual fighting feels tight and responsive. It’s only bogged down by some smaller flaws, but overall, UFC 6 is a strong contender.
Bubsy 4D is, straight up, a bad time. It’s fun to jump around a little bit and play with the tools you get, but in a fleeting, shallow way that isn’t enough to sustain a multi-hour platforming video game.
Nostalgia, game development, and meta storytelling collide in this RPG-themed deduction game.
Mina the Hollower is a charming and challenging adventure that never ceased to delight and surprise in music, art, and gameplay.
007 First Light is a crowning achievement for IO Interactive and the culmination of the studio’s growth over the years.
Forbidden Solitaire is at its best when it’s being a new old game, perfectly capturing the look and feel of a spooky, experimental FMV horror game made for PCs in the 1990s.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book is a charming and welcome return for one of Nintendo’s most iconic characters. Mario fans looking for a new 2D platformer to chew on may bounce off quickly, but those who buy into the game’s concept will surely be delighted by Yoshi and the Mysterious Book.
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is a great experience overall, and will likely find a passionate audience among those who love this series, but it also won’t do much to convert people who simply don’t enjoy the silly simplicity of the genre.
Forza Horizon 6 isn’t trying to revolutionize the series. The game modes, customization, and even UI have a close resemblance to the franchise’s recent entries. Instead, Playground Games finds freshness in its Japanese setting, which paves the way for stunning new regions, dope cars, and an overall slickness to everything you do.
Perfect Tides: Station to Station is more somber than wistful, more grounded than nostalgic, and more realistic than fanciful. The 2003 setting feels circumstantial rather than deliberate as a storytelling device, and the autobiographical piece of it bleeds from every word of text.
Directive 8020 feels like Supermassive’s response to growing criticism around the Dark Pictures series.
Memories of Celceta isn’t my favorite Ys game, but if you have a Switch 2, Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta is probably the best way to play it. It’s a Vita game very much of its time, with some growing pains as a Ys entry, but the extra juice you get from Nintendo’s new platform helps realize the original vision as a 3D Ys delivering a higher fidelity experience on a handheld.
When I rolled credits on Mixtape, I was sad that it was over so soon. But then, I was immediately excited at the prospect of multiple future playthroughs where I could toy with all of the quirky minigames and their outcomes en route to seeing everything the game had to offer. It’s how I knew that I truly love a video game.
Last Flag has some cool ideas, many of which feel like a tribute to a bygone era.
Kiln is the latest example of one of gaming’s most creative studios executing well on a fresh idea. There may be a couple of aspects that could’ve used more time in the oven, but Double Fine’s Kiln is a cool and quirky addition to Xbox’s 2026 lineup.
Invincible VS is a great start. Quarter Up brought the characters, the mechanics, and an overall presentation that just might make Mortal Kombat fans blush. I really dig how many niches and specialties are represented in this pool, and it ends up making for a satisfying experience in both offline and online play, with solid netcode and crossplay systems to keep the fun going. I wish the story cutscenes weren’t jarring compared to the rest of the game’s animation, and that things like Sudden Death and Assist Break didn’t leave me feeling grumpy after a sweaty match, but I can’t deny I had a blast assembling teams and seeing how they matched up against the rest of the game. I found it hard not to read this as an opening chapter for Quarter Up and Invincible VS, and it's a good one.
Aphelion is far from the next classic Don’t Nod game, but fans of the studio will likely have a good enough time with it. The concept and narrative execution are strong here, but so much of it is bogged down by gameplay segments that made me wish I could skip like a cutscene.