
1348 Ex Voto makes a promising first impression that it doesn't live up to at all, leaning most of its gameplay on shallow and shoddy combat and mission structures.

1348 Ex Voto makes a promising first impression that it doesn't live up to at all, leaning most of its gameplay on shallow and shoddy combat and mission structures.

This isn't a knockout blow for the series, but it's certainly a threat to the champion.

A pretty mediocre metroidvania, clearly taking the form and function of these games but failing to meet the high bar set by the titans of the genre.

A futuristic bloodbath that feels as prehistoric as its dinosaurs.

Less a miraculous resurrection and more like exhuming a shambling corpse.

A gritty, metroidvania reboot of Pac-Man.

The long-awaited Japan adventure sharpens and refines its edge without fully reforging it.

New crew missions and a revamped stress system propel this sequel to success.

In the Space Imperialist vs Alien war for your attention, Starship Troopers: Extermination brings a knife to a nuke fight. It’s a shooter you and some friends can find fun in, especially in its tough Horde mode using its simple-yet-distinct classes that help focus the overall large-scale bug-blasting vision. But you’re doing so in spite of how long it takes to unlock all the more interesting gear and abilities those classes have in store, how uncoordinated some of the multiplayer modes are, how downright bad the single-player campaign is, how barren the handful of available maps feel, and the lack of biodiversity in the bug swarm. It’s a serviceable battle that can get frantic in the thick of it, but there are far more noble causes to give your virtual lives for in 2024 than this.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a final flash from the past, sometimes to a fault, but the feeling of traveling back to a simpler time when games didn’t have to be balanced or competitive to be fun is still a good one.

Frostpunk 2 successfully expands on everything that the original brutal city builder had, and its larger scale, great story campaign, and new faction system are as "fun" as a calamity reduction simulator can get.

Sun-drenched environments are a breath of fresh air in the soulslike genre.

Magical charm and inventive skills more than make up for a lack of challenge.

A solid Metroidvania elevated by a truly moving story.

More of a redo than a sequel, Dragon's Dogma 2 is a strange and wonderful action-RPG that bolsters the original’s strengths without addressing its weaknesses.