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The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty is a fascinating, challenging, and compelling story that uses its form as a visual novel to tell a story about normal, flawed, and vulnerable people.
Wanderstop is like Spiritfarer for burnout sufferers and overachievers. The central focus is meaningful and expertly executed in its own right. However, it's the attention to detail in every other area that makes Wanderstop feel special, to the point where anything, even just planting flowers, enriches everything else. Ivy Road just gets it.
WWE 2K25 is a banner year for the franchise. It’s easily the most refined entry yet, bursting with ways to play and the series’ largest roster to date, which is sure to please virtually everyone no matter which era of wrestling you prefer.
I think it’s a good game if you’re playing alone. I have high hopes for the co-op once it’s fixed. It’s charming and cute and playing with the spell system is a good time, and it has the ebb and flow of combat that makes Souls-likes fun. If you’re looking for a kinder, gentler Souls-like, Slime Heroes is the game for you.
Like Fights before it, Knights in Tight Spaces is the kind of game where it's easy to lose track of time. The story will have you reaching for the Skip button by the time you go on your 10th or 20th run, but there's nothing repetitive about the formula, especially as battles get more intense with tougher foes.
This is some of the best co-op platforming around and another must-have for those who want to take a fun journey with their bestie.
Carmen Sandiego is a fun romp through a genre that I had figured was lost to mobile marketplaces and predatory YouTube channels.
If it wasn’t for the tortuous combat I probably would’ve loved Omega 6: The Triangle Stars. It’s weird, it’s funny as heck, and it has ample Nintendo charm despite not being a Nintendo game.
PGA Tour 2K25 places plenty of pressure on EA Sports PGA Tour to step up its game. The two-year hiatus has given 2K’s latest effort, with its solid gameplay and improved graphics, a slight edge over its rival.
Two Point Museum is, for me, the best amalgam of Two Point Studios' business management and mechanics yet. The road to five-star museums is paved with fun challenges and customization that will likely have empty spaces looking like your personal dream attraction hours in.
Monster Hunter Wilds moves the franchise forward from previous games, yet it tends to step into some of the same traps that both World and Rise did. Those issues, however, are dwarfed by an addictive gameplay loop that will keep players engaged for hundreds of hours. When you factor in the game-changing Seikret, and the ease of which players can launch into hunts, Monster Hunter Wilds is a must-play for series fans.
This is not a game with ambitions to stand up and box with Hades, and it obviously isn’t “the next Warriors” by any means either. It’s a fascinating experiment that misses as many targets as it hits.
The concept of putting Goro Majima in a pirate adventure is pretty much everything I thought it would be. This is a silly game with an enjoyable gameplay loop and adventure.
Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog is a remarkable tribute to PC-98 visual novels and hard sci-fi anime of a specific vintage. The visuals are pitch-perfect with multiple settings that offer different vibes, and the soundtrack is a complex beast of speaker-straining chiptunes that enhances the mood even further.
Avowed delivers where it matters: an interesting world with memorable companions and a rich combat system that rewards experimentation. Pillars of Eternity fans will feast on the various nods and references to the beloved CRPGs, but newcomers to Eora will still find plenty to enjoy with Obsidian Entertainment’s latest RPG.
The music and vibe of Afterlove are both fittingly beautiful with the contrast in difficulty in certain rhythm sections doing a great job of showcasing Rama’s focus at the time.
It’s a clever core concept that doesn’t wear out its welcome with additional complications or gimmicks, opting instead to deliver the best experience possible based on that core.
If you can’t tell by now, I’m deeply in love with this game. I just don’t want to give away too much yet. But I believe it tells an important story about the made-up, easily digestible realities behind the complicated, horrible events in our day-to-day lives. About social media white knight justice as a feel-good spectator sport and how we treat tragedies, culprits, and their victims in our always-online world.
Any time I’m talking, writing, or thinking about the game, I want to play it. I’ve been writing this for hours, and those are precious hours where I could be growing my Ming empire and slapping the other leaders around. Civ 7 is an absolute banger.
When it comes down to it, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a brilliant and astounding experience by a developer that has shown itself to be a leader in the open-world genre. Henry makes for such a pleasant protagonist that you can’t help but love him, and the journey you go on across medieval Bohemia is equal parts complex and deeply absorbing. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 shines bright among its peers, even with its dints and dents.