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Despite an obtuse overarching narrative and minimal gameplay, Karma: The Dark World continually swings for the fences. Pollard Studio's debut heavily leans on artistic direction that will linger with the player long after the story fades from memory.
DOOM: The Dark Ages dials back the complexity of Eternal, hoping to capitalize on what made DOOM a household gore fest. Hordes of enemies are meat under the player's boot in yet another evolved take on the classic arena shooter.
Wanderstop often feels like a diversion from any traditional standards a player may expect from a game, even one so cozy or hinting at purported narrative subterfuge. But in abandoning expectations, it truly thrives.
The First Berserker: Khazan from developer Neople is a different and more accessible take on the action role-playing game Souls blueprint. It’s difficult most of the time but brings a good story, great enemies, and a hefty and well-executed backend system. While mostly a great game, its downside is that it is a linear journey that will test a gamer’s frustration limits.
Breakout Beyond from developer Choice Provisions and publisher Atari is a nice tip of the cap to the classic game. While its screen configuration and pacing might be a little jarring for new players, the power-ups and gameplay elements that present good challenges will certainly hook them. The game does a great job of balancing classic Breakout ideas with well-thought-through gameplay design.
Path of Fury – Episode I: Tetsuo’s Tower from developer Leonard Menchiari is a wonderful and beautifully brutal VR experience. It delivers accuracy, a good brawling environment, and makes use of Meta Quest’s tech well. The only hiccups are repetitive enemies and sometimes visuals. Both can be forgiven with its brawling gameplay that comes straight from the best 90s fighting games.
The gameplay feels tighter and smoother on the offense and defense side of the field. Including the new feature Diamond Quest gives more depth to what a typical baseball game would be, bringing in new ideas on how you can compete in Diamond Dynasty. MLB leads the way again by bringing a solid experience and off-beat innovation that works more than it doesn’t.
The combat is lighting fast, the setting engaging, the visuals striking, and the violence plentiful. Mullet MadJack is exactly the type of game that your parents would worry about you getting your hands on as a kid. Or at least I assume so, I didn’t grow up in an era in which Congress was so bored it turned its sights on pixelated blood.
Reignbreaker from developer Studio Fizbin and publisher Thunderful Publishing is a solid rogue-lite experience that brings a good story, wonderful gameplay progression, and motivating rewards to the table. While it stumbles with common enemy and level design, it has far more positives than negatives with what it delivers in its gameplay.
Assassin's Creed Shadows finally brings the series to its most requested locale. And it is in Japan's tumultuous Sengoku period where Ubisoft seems to have found the most harmony with the series in years, delivering an experience worthy of the setting.
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If I was to call MainFrames a proof of concept, I would be grossly overlooking its stellar presentation of byte-sized platforming as a little floppy disk. Yes, it's difficult at times, but just about anyone can reach its end credits within a few hours. Developer Assoupi has nailed the platforming formula to a T; I can't wait for more!
Rome was not built in a day. The wonders in Civilization VII take a good many turns to be built and come at the cost of food, happiness, and a city's production. With the new 1.1.0 update to Civilization VII, it's clear that Firaxis understands what needs to be fixed for the future of the game and is already on track to improve UI, AI, and more of what makes the Civ series so great.
Knights in Tight Spaces from developer Ground Shatter and Raw Fury is an exceptional game that shows how well a turn-based card game can be when given a thick amount of strategy from good gameplay design and a branching story to help push it all along. While it isn’t perfect, it’s still a bar set for future games in this genre.
Overall, I'm torn about Everhood 2. Its rhythm-based battles are unlike any RPG I've played before. Its soundtrack is incredible. Walking through emptiness and seeing delayed payoffs from the worldbuilding side, though, makes the game feel less fun than it should be. I enjoyed Everhood 2, but I wish that I spent more time in the rhythm battles than exploring.
PGA Tour 2K25 from developer HB Studios and 2K Games is probably one of the best entries to the franchise in the last three years. It brings better gameplay, gorgeous graphics, and just enough modes to keep the game consistently interesting as you play. It is one of the better sports games to arrive in the last year.
I loved Star of Providence to the point of having trouble putting it down because of its fast-paced shmup gameplay, punishing bullet hell patterns, and replayability. Defeating its astoundingly difficult boss battles is satisfying and encourages the player to improve mechanically and thoughtfully. If you make it to the Hard mode, you'll be treated to bullet patterns that will test your dexterity like few others have done before.
Split Fiction is the culmination of Hazelight Studios' work in the cooperative space, a vision only constrained by the boundless limits of creativity. Players are fed a buffet of expertly executed ideas, bursting at the seams with variety and challenge.
Overall, the gameplay was far more together, understandable, and executable than it has been in the past. The action was led by story, upping the ante with tremendously lovely, yet terrifying monsters, and together everything felt far more cohesive than I remember with the series’ previous games.
As a longtime Yakuza fan, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is the Goro Majima game I've always dreamed of and somehow more unhinged than ever before. Ryu Ga Gotoku has outdone themselves once again and I'm so excited for players to get their hands on the helm to take Yakuza's version of a naval RPG for a spin.