Several years deep into the latest console releases, you’d think it would be easier to discuss the many options available at the hands of video game shoppers over the holidays. Heck, maybe there’s even a new inexpensive bundle box or two that’ll have items includes alongside the console, making for an attractive box and perhaps a free game or two to spark excitement. Alas, it’s the year 2022, where we’re stuck in the tidal shifts between supply-chain production issues and rising costs due to inflation (disproportionate as they might be). Instead, we’re left with a different sort of exciting aspect of shopping for video game systems over the holidays, one folks haven’t been able to enjoy for several years: if they shop early, they should be able to get a system this year without all the hoops.

Will this actually be the case this year? Who knows, but more and more retailers have been able to put stock of the ever-elusive PS5 on shelves over the past few months, and more online retailers have made pockets of stock available in one way or another. If you’d like a few hints on how to keep tabs on stock of the various systems through trackers, please check out Ben’s Bargains 2021 Video Game Hardware Guide about halfway down. Beyond, give this year’s guide a look and see what’s new in the landscape of consoles and accessories for the players in your life.

For Fans of Kratos, Comfy Controllers and 4K Horizons, Gift This.

PlayStation 5 Console – God of War: Rganarok Bundle

Pros: 4K Gaming, PS4 Compatibility, HDR Disc Playback, GAMES | MSRP: $559

But wait! Look! Is that a bundle I see before me? As someone who’s been covering the most unique, all-inclusive ways to give video game hardware as awesome gifts over the years, it’s admittedly been quite a bummer to see the snazzy All-In-One Bundle dry up and become such a scarce item.  This year, however, despite the rampant demand and chip supply/production complications, Sony will be offering a brand-new bundle that coincides with the release of the hotly-anticipated God of War: Ragnarok. How easy this will be to find remains a mystery; however, the optimist in me seems to think that if they’re designing specific PS5 retail boxes to draw attention to the bundle and, of course, will be including the digital info in the paperwork included with the system … then they’re going to be reasonable available.

Opinions about the power of the PS5 over the Xbox Series X have largely become moot, as they’re quite similar under the hood and will play most of the games anyone’s wanting to play, so the topic once again gravitates towards other factors: exclusive titles and the strength of supplemental features. PlayStation added several noteworthy games to the PS5-only roster this year, notably the sequels to sprawling action franchises like God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon: Forbidden West, to which their execution of both gameplay and aesthetics result in not-to-be-missed adventures. There’s also the remake of PlayStation darling The Last of Us, and that’ll become relevant at the beginning of next year when people are wanting to replay the game before the HBO series gets started.  Couple those things with an outstanding, comfy controller and continuously reliable 4K disc playback, and you’ve got the makings of a console that’s moved ahead of the pack in desirability.

Check Price/Availability on Amazon Or Search Ben’s for PS5 Console Deals

For Fans of High-End HD Tech, Legacy Gaming, and Bethesda, Gift This.

Xbox Series X Console

Pros: 4K Gaming/Media, Multi-Gen Back Compatibility, Not THAT Big | MSRP: $499

Both primary systems have been a pain to buy over the past few years, and that conversation usually lumps the Xbox Series X and the PS5 together as simply “hard-to-find” without much need to emphasize which is more difficult. When it comes to power under the hood, the specs may give the Xbox Series X a slight processing advantage, but if they’re viewed side-by-side it’s about as close as you can get … and outside of exclusive titles and compatibility choices, there aren’t many factors giving the edge to either one. Truth be told, it’s been a quieter year on the Xbox side of things, without much in the way of attention-grabbing exclusives that might push this decision any further in their direction; heavy hitter games like Bethesda’s Starfield and Arkane’s Redfall were pushed to 2023.

Instead, the Xbox Series X continues to rely on the pillars from which it was built: rock-solid operation, stunningly up-to-date graphics, and a dedication to backwards compatibility.  While it’s true that the Xbox team halted its efforts this year to add any further backwards compatible titles, this BC dedication resulted in the current generation of Xbox consoles being able to play close to 5,000 games across the platform’s history: 600+ of them being Xbox 360 titles and several dozen being original Xbox classics. It also shouldn’t go without saying that the process of unplugging the previous generation of Xbox peripherals from the One system and reconnecting/resynching them with the new Series console is a generally seamless process, all of which makes the choice of upgrading someone’s console as a gift pretty much a no-brainer. And it’s still a perfectly fine 4K disc player, too!

Check Price/Availability on Amazon Or Search Ben’s for Xbox Series X Deals

For Those Who Want Available, Reliable, Family-Friendly Fun, Gift This.

Nintendo Switch OLED Edition

Pros: Improved, Larger OLED Screen, Metal Body, Available | Cons: $50 More | MSRP: $349

Rumors have circulated over the past 2-3 years that Nintendo might be working on a beefed-up version of their Switch console – a higher-end “Switch Plus”, if you will. Given the age of the console’s life cycle, one would expect for this to be coming in the not-so-distant future; the Switch launched in 2017, after all. Instead, what materialized is an OLED screen model of the console everyone’s come to know and love, providing a dose of disappointment to those who expected improved graphics or performance … but also a satisfying new version with improved hardware all-around.   

Released last October, the Switch OLED model obviously boasts an improved screen, jumping from a 6-inch LCD to a 7-inch OLED for improved on-the-go play. A further adjustment to this comes in the widened stand for the screen that assists with Tabletop mode, further making this an appealing portable system even in comparison to their Switch Lite models. On top of that, the OLED model doubles up on the internal storage available, giving it 64GB of available space, and encases the system in a metal alloy body. Yes, these are upgrades to a system that’s 5 years into its product cycle – the Gamecube stuck around for 6 years and the Wii U lingered for 5 – and there’s a $50 upcharge, but there are a lot of great things still going for it. For instance, the Switch library has grown into an impressive range of both Nintendo franchises and third-party heavy hitters — Skyrim, The Witcher, Dark Souls and Minecraft are all options – and the upticks in material build quality suggest forward thinking for the Switch’s future.

Check Price/Availability on Amazon Or Search Ben’s for Switch Console Deals

For Those Who Light Up at Steam Sales And Want Their PC Library Mobile, Gift This.

Steam Deck

Pros: Play Steam Game Library on Strong Mobile Device | Cons: Battery Life | MSRP: $399-649

A specific piece of equipment designed to play PC games from a user’s Steam account on-the-go isn’t the easiest sell, because you’ve got to explain why this isn’t essentially a laptop and what it does that, say, a Switch wouldn’t. Once you’ve worked yourself into the conversation and learned that the Steam Deck does exactly what’s being described, focusing on the nuts-‘n-bolts of gaming instead of other PC noise and making it straightforward to play computer games on a ready-to-go device, the question kind of answers itself. The mastermind at Steam/Valve, Gabe Newell, has stated that he’s always wanted this product as a gamer and further wanted it for PC developers, and it’s easy to see why. Broad questions like “When will this game come to consoles?” and “Why is it worth it to build a gaming PC?” could reach an end with a device like the Steam Deck that makes it all … easy.

With a processor named after one of the main characters from Final Fantasy VII, a Linux-based version of the Steam desktop client, and a team of people curating and ensuring that games are “verified” to run on the device, the Steam Deck has a lot of thought poured into its power and accessibility.  Consoles have been priced relatively affordably — $399 for 64GB of storage; $520 for 128GB; $649 for 256GB – and the anticipated delivery dates have been trimmed down to just 1-2 weeks.  There’s also a peripheral charging and connection dock now available, which makes it easier to plug-and-play the system into conventional TVs and hook up other devices via USB-C ports. If someone has ever seen a PC gamer get all googly-eyed over the prospect of the “Steam Sale” and its heaps of cheap games, and wanted to revel in the good times, the Steam Deck might just be the way they finally take the plunge.  

Click to Buy Steam Deck Or Search Ben’s for Steam Deck Deals

For Those Into Getting Lots of Gaming For Their Buck, Gift This.

Xbox or PlayStation Branded Gift Cards – Pre-Paid Subscriptions

$100 Xbox Card on Amazon $110 PS+ Wallet Funds on Amazon

There has been lots of talk over the past few years about when and how the subscription services would ultimately change, moving into their next evolutionary step as the old, simple paradigm of “free downloads + online gaming” reaches its end. Sure enough, that finally happened this year as PlayStation Plus transformed into a 3-tier subscription service: the $9.99/month tier is the “free games + online” as it’s known; the $14.99 tier unlocks a gaming library similar to Xbox’s Game Pass; and the $17.99 tier unlocks an extensive retro gaming backlog. The change isn’t as drastic, but the team at Xbox also did a bit of restructuring by scrapping any further 360 and original Xbox freebies – and backwards compatibility – while keeping the number of free titles each month to 2, doing a heavy number of the perceived value of the Gold-only tier. The two lowest $10 sub tiers are looking … old, and obsolete.

 The $15 tiers, on the other hand, have risen more and more in value, and that’s where our gift recommendation comes from this year. Instead of the year-long Gold or bottom-tier PlayStation Plus subscription cards that we’ve generally recommended here, it’s probably best to go ahead and splurge on the more expensive $15 subscription programs for either the Xbox or the PlayStation to better maximize the dollar value. The Xbox has previously made Game Pass Ultimate prepaid subs available in up to 3-month increments; PlayStation hasn’t done the same yet, but they have a clearly labeled “PlayStation Plus” digital gift card / “wallet funds”. Best bet? Find a way of wrapping up a printed Sony or Microsoft gift card for them to apply to their accounts, or just hook them up with an Amazon gift card with a specific purpose in mind (hint: they may not use it for that).

For the Gamer That’ll Appreciate a Touch of Personality and Usefulness, Gift This.

Exquisite Games “Cable Guy” Character Device Holders

Pros: Holds Controllers, Holds Cellphones, Adds Personality to Game Space | MSRP: $20-40

There are 2 aspects to these statues that’ll appeal to gamers. The first should be obvious: these are awesome ways to represent one’s fandom in a functional way. Unlike, say, Funko Pop figures that merely sit there for the sole purpose of proclaiming one’s appreciation for a franchise, these will actually hold your favorite controller and wait patiently until it’s picked up again. The designers of these products – represented here by Exquisite Gaming’s Cable Guy brand – have figured out the right height and character arm distance to comfortably hold most modern controllers, at the perfect level for maximum stability and character recognition.  Keeping controllers safe from fluids or Cheeto dust? Let Sonic or Vault Boy hold ‘em above such hazards.

The other fun aspect of these “device holders” for gamers is, perhaps oddly enough, how they also function as mobile phone stands. If the player’s trying to pull off a certain combo of skills in a fighting game (or looking at a map or tutorial), they can have Claptrap hold up their phone with the button connection loaded up on the phone screen while brawling it out on the primary one.  Or, maybe there’s a sports event on and they’d like to flip it on while in the middle of a gaming session.  Just fork it over to Spyro or Ryu to hold for a while. Yes, it’s a simple concept with other, simpler solutions, but if there’s someone in your life who even mildly appreciates one of the available popular characters – which extend beyond gaming; Wolverine, Spider-man, and  they’ll get a charge out of these device holders.  Not a literal charge, mind you: a charge cable may be included, but actual cables aren’t looped through the statue itself.

Check Price of Vault Boy on Amazon Check Price of Sonic on Amazon

For Those Nostalgic For the Retro Arcade Glow But With Limited Space, Gift This.

Arcade1UP’s CounterCade and PartyCade Models

Pros: Retro Gaming That Occupies Small Spaces | Cons: Tight Control Spaces | MSRP: Varies ($150-300)

By now, even the significant others and family members of starry-eyed gamers have probably seen a photo or video of someone who’s transformed their basement or spare room into an arcade, thanks in large part to the affordable, fit-to-scale cabinets from Arcade 1Up. They’ve made it pretty easy to replicate the lovely neon radiance in any dedicated space, but they’ve also made it possible to just slide one near full-sized arcade machine into a corner for a splash of functional enjoyment, as the Arcade 1UP machines are also significantly above-average quality than one might expect for a pint-sized replication. Thing is, even that might occupy too much for space for some, but why should they be left out of the nostalgia?

Recently, Arcade 1UP introduced something new for that crowd: their PartyCade and CounterCade line. The Countercade is somewhat self-explanatory, compacting the scale of an arcade cabinet into a structure that both fits on a countertop and captures the retro feel of old-school machines. PartyCades are slightly different but essentially go in the other direction, condensing the cabinet into a long, slim profile that can be mounted to the wall (or, with the stabilizer feet attached, also placed on a tabletop surface). Sure, these smaller retro cabinets may be getting a little brave with what they’re doing – after all, the actual games can be bought and saved on most game consoles and any PC for a fraction of the price – but these scaled-down cabinets still capture enough of that vintage magic to be worth it.

Super Pac-Man PartyCade at BestBuy NBA Jam CounterCade at BestBuy

2022 Gift Guide: Video Game Hardware and Accessories

Another year, another complicated shopping season when it comes to buying that videogame system they want wrapped up in a bow. Much like 2021, this has also been something of a brutal year for gamers because some real banger titles have hit shelves this turn around the sun. One thing separates this year from last, though: one game has absolutely dominated the gaming conversation this year, and it’s one that can be played on either of the tough-to-find systems. Elden Ring has essentially existed in the same space that Skyrim occupied in its release year almost a decade ago, becoming something close to a mainstream pop culture beacon, a real achievement for its developers and their penchant for … uh, let’s just call them tough games. But Elden Ring is far from the only exceptional game released this year.

In fact, it’s been a long time since so many tremendous titles have come out in a short time, ranging from a new God of War to long-awaited sequels and a free-roaming game where you get to play as a … cat. It honestly doesn’t get much better than that, and we’re here to take you through some of the big ones to grab for those loved ones who’ve been fortunate enough to either get one of the new systems or will be getting one this holiday season. Below, you’ll find a dozen games in our Video Game Software Gift Guide, with links leading out for easy purchases. Let’s get started.

For the Open-World and Fantasy Fanatic

You’ll notice that a few of the games in other categories throughout this gift guide could’ve also fit into this section, and that’s because the fantasy and open exploration subgenres saw a tremendous amount of action this year. The three below are bound to thoroughly tickle their fancy, though, for the breadth of their realms and the extravagance of their fantastical ambitions.

Elden Ring

• The textual world-building of George R.R. Martin comes together with the literal open world-building of now legendary developer FROM Software in the creation of Elden Ring. Much ado may have been made about this partnership before its release, potentially setting it up to be another overhyped disappointment, but what’s become obvious since release is that it wasn’t just a bunch of talk
• Players take control of a fully customizable character who chooses a class at the game’s beginning to focus their skillset, and then they embark on an action-RPG exploratory journey through the Lands Between and its focal realms. From there, those with experience with FROM’s Souls series and Bloodborne will have an idea of what to expect: the deeper the player delves into the lavish world’s many caverns, woods, dungeons, and other hazardous areas, the tougher the challenges become and the more they’ll produce helpful rewards. And boy, there’s a lot of gear available to make ‘em your own.
• FROM Software knows their reputation, though, and they found a way with Elden Ring to both make it accessible for a wider audience and preserves their signature challenge. They’ve done so by smartly crafting the fantastical atmosphere in a way that’s both gritty and mythical, making the player want to explore its nooks and crannies instead of it being a masochistic endeavor. Skyrim may provide more of a free-roaming RPG playground, but Elden Ring has taken the throne for the most multifaceted, absorbing, and rewarding playground for combat and puzzle-solving RPing.  

Click to Order on Amazon

Horizon: Forbidden West

• Horizon: Zero Dawn proved to be one of the breakout hits from the PS4 era, delivering a new franchise and heroine in Aloy that explores a unique post-event world, one where ancient machines post threats to humans of varied levels of technological advancement who have reverted to tribal dynamics.  Forbidden West takes Aloy to another region of the US on a journey that’ll save the world.
• Further west in a region in the space of California, Utah, and Nevada, the protagonist explores a beautiful, verdant, yet hostile open world populated with aggressive weather and volatile machines. In search of the source of an infectious plague and means of survival along the way, Aloy ventures beyond just land discovery this time, utilizing underwater diving and free-form rock climbing to reach the bottoms and tops of the land. Coupled with the Assassin’s Creed-meets-Batman-meets-Tomb Raider style of gameplay and light armor customization, this atmospheric expansion is most welcome.
• Where Elden Ring poses deliberately frazzling challenges, Horizon: Forbidden West lays out its more traditional open landscape as an enjoyably manageable alternative with grand storytelling, thrillingly crafted heroics and a fine heroine, despite the weird controversy before release about Aloy’s appearance. It’s a meticulously crafted sequel to the first Horizon.

Click to Order on Amazon

Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands

• The Borderlands franchise features a separate one-shot DLC featuring Tiny Tina and her attempt at being a Dungeon Master (DM) for the characters in the game, transporting the player into a raucous fantasy take on the loot-‘n-shoot atmosphere of the base game. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands takes that same cheeky fantasy energy and expands it into a full shooter-RPG experience.
• With Tiny Tina again showing up to DM a round of Bunkers and Badasses, the player gains control of The Newbie as they enter a mythical realm that could morph at the whims of the storyteller. Luckily, the player can customize their character and choose a class that works best for them, and from there the summary of “Borderlands mixed with Dungeons and Dragons” begins to take shape. Either solo or in a 4-player co-op scenario, the gameplay reworks the gear system of the popular franchise into one that utilizes fantasy concepts with spell slots and melee weapons … and doesn’t take itself too seriously.
• There’s a story involved with dragon lords and swords and armies of skeletons, but the player needs to remember that there isn’t a reliable narrator here, and that’s part of the massive appeal of Wonderlands. This is Borderlands gameplay embracing a lot of the meta potential and silliness factor at its fingertips with a tabletop role-playing game, not unlike Saints Row 4 or Far Cry: Blood Dragon with how players get wrapped up in the twisted novelty and sink hours into it.

Click to Order on Amazon

For Those Who Love A Great Story Above All

Certain games don’t require a great story to be successful; conversely, there are certain gamers who don’t require a great story to enjoy their gaming entertainment. While that’s perfectly understandable, the titles below are specifically built up for their story and how it makes its audience members think and feel, sometimes sacrificing pure gaming adrenaline for the subtleties of a narrative and the invitation for the player’s input.

God of War: Ragnarok

• Old Man Kratos returns for another outing as the revamped protagonist for this retooled take on God of War, this time expanding the storytelling’s reach to all 9 realms of Norse mythology in telling a story of destiny, predetermination, and preventing the end of the world. All that alongside the continuing story of father and son against the backdrop of Norse mythology.
• God of War has had the luxury of being able to see its gameplay evolve across many titles and generations, so while Ragnarok may feel different in terms of camera angles and landscapes, it continues a similar gameplay energy of mild action-RPG systems and brisk combat as its predecessors. With Kratos’ son Atreus providing support, the duo traverse the more open-world layout of this sequel, which incorporates an increase in mini-boss challenges and allows for light gear customization.
• Most importantly, God of War: Ragnarok yearns to tell another grand, momentous story in the same vein as the other grandiose installments in the franchise, and once again the folks at Santa Monica Studio seem to have succeeded in that pursuit. Critics have so far been very kind to it, heaping almost exactly the same amount of praise on it as the 2018 reboot.

Click to Order on Amazon

The Quarry

• Supermassive Games have established themselves as one of the best in the tight gaming niche of “interactive drama and horror” titles, reaching a peak with Until Dawn several years ago and shaping their legacy with the Dark Picture Anthology. They’ve gone back to a more straightforward storytelling place with The Quarry, a tale of hunted teenagers and mysterious monsters lurking in the shadows.
• Like the studio’s other games, the experience isn’t hinged on engaging combat or other fun gameplay aspects, instead finding its satisfaction in the immersion of the storytelling and the complexity of the branching storylines and possible endings. From that standpoint, The Quarry aims to capture the tension and eeriness of classic ‘80s horror movies, incorporating a surprisingly star-studded cast of voices for the various characters in the narrative.
• What takes The Quarry to a place beyond other “interactive dramas” can be found in the technical execution from Supermassive Games, who understand how to utilize the format to maximize atmosphere, character authenticity, and ultimately dread. It’s a gaming experience that builds upon what the studio has done correctly up until now, with added bits of quality like couch co-op mode to deepen the fun with friends as each person takes control of different characters and makes choices.

Click to Order on Amazon

A Plague Tale: Requiem

• Few games have surprised with the capabilities of their setting quite like the original A Plague Tale did a few years back, discovering a way to make the medieval plague and hordes of rats into a fascinating setup for compelling stealth gameplay and harrowing dramatic horror storytelling. The gamemakers at Asobo Studio hope to sink their teeth into the concept again with a sequel, A Plague Tale: Requiem.
• Many aspects are similar from the first installment, in which the lead older sister Amicia employs stealth tactics to maneuver between locations with her brother Hugo while he, with a dose of mysticism, can intermittently gain control of waves of rats for his benefit.  In the trappings new location Provence that the developers selected to give the visual tone a livelier demeanor against the bleakness of the plague, the siblings from the first game exercise more refined versions of their skills, which opens the door for Amicia’s stealth and ranged attack abilities to be a more versatile gameplay facet.
• As with the first Plague Tale, there’s a lot of potential for heaviness in the storytelling for Requiem, hinged on the progression of disease and the unyielding protectiveness of brothers and systers. Most who’ve played it so far are more impressed with how Asobo Studio have one again brought videogame life to such a dour concept and improved upon the execution from the ground up.

Click to Order on Amazon

For Those Who Enjoy Smaller-Scale, Smaller-Price Gems

Whether you need something a little less expensive or are looking for a budget-minded stocking stuffer, these budget titles pack a lot of punch for a smaller dollar value.

Stray

• Speaking of unlikely concepts for a video game: what if all humans were stripped away from an open-world exploration environment, and instead, the player starts to control the everyday activities, puzzle-solving, and dangers of a cat? That’s exactly what happens in Stray, the latest title from BlueTwelve Studio and AnnaPurna Interactive.
• Trapped in a city where all human life has ceased to exist, only sentient robots remain, and a lethal mutated bacteria looms that can destroy both organics and synthetics, our stalwart kitty must find ways of solving puzzles to locate data banks and progress through the environment so they can get to safety. For the most part, the cat does this by leveraging its body mass and jumping from rooftop to rooftop, almost as if someone were thinking that “Assassin’s Creed, But With a Cat” was a good idea.  Turns out, they were right.
• An impeccable cyber dystopian atmosphere provides a unique backdrop for the impeccably captures motions of the cat’s movement throughout the city, and there’s certainly an interesting impetus to follow along with the story in Stray.  That said, there are certain free-roam areas in the game where you can just … waltz around and be a cat in a neon robot city, and who can argue with the splendor of that?

Click to Order on Amazon

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge

• There are many older gamers out there who’ll shiver with pleasure at the mention of retro Ninja Turtles video games, whether it’s the ones at the arcade or the ones they played on home consoles. These are the people who will be elated to see that there’s a brand new game released in the exact same vein, entitled Shredder’s Revenge, but the beat-‘em-up gameplay should grab more than that.
• All it takes is a brief glance at a screenshot, let alone any gameplay footage, to see what this TMNT title’s all about, sporting the familiar looking ability for 4 players to get together, pick their favorite character, and put their talents to work against the Foot before they overtake the Statue of Liberty. The pixel art style gets the vintage feel down while also strengthening the characterizations and landscapes, and it’s bound to make any gamer who’s experienced the older titles get giddy with excitement.
• Turns out, the game doesn’t stop there.  Shredder’s Revenge allows for up to 6 players through online multiplayer, and also makes the other TMNT good guys available as playable characters. Two different modes allow for an arcade one-sitting playthrough or a story-based continuation mode, to which the second mode also incorporates side content. From the graphics to the content, there’s a lot for the inner TMNT fan to love here, and at a respectable price tag.

Click to Order on Amazon

For Those Who Relish Quality Exclusive Gaming

Keep in mind that a few other exclusives appear earlier in this list, such as Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War: Ragnarok, but here are a pair of others that’ll be sure to make the receiver feel special about having their particular system.

The Last of Us – Part 1

• Joel and Ellie’s journey through the zombie-ish infested urban landscape, in which they struggle to survive in the face of horrors both supernatural and human alike, remains one of gaming’s most consequential and emotive narratives. Now, HBO’s about to take a crack at adapting the story in a television (mini-)series format, and what better way to relive it than through a brand new remaster?
• Obviously, the fine folks at Naughty Dog have no interest in making big changes to the experience of The Last of Us, either on the gaming design front or in terms of story, so it’s easy to appreciate that yet another version of this game has been created with the though that it’ll be the definitive one, the one that’ll preserve it for another handful of graphical upgrades across generations. What they have done, however, is given the whole experience a once-over to get it in line with modern expectations, resulting in more tactile character models, tightened shooting controls, and other adjustments that abide by a clear objective: don’t alter the way it feels, because it feels right.
• Does yet another version of The Last of Us need to exist, and should it be at full price? Those questions are hard to quantify, but the time and effort spent to keep this game fresh on people’s minds in the midst of conversations about the validity of video games as art will ultimately be justified.  If you know someone who hasn’t played it, regardless of their preferred genres, it’s undoubtedly worth it.

Click to Order on Amazon

Bayonetta 3

• If there’s no such thing as bad press, then the people caught in the sphere of the release of Bayonetta 3 must’ve been quite happy. Following a long, strange saga involving the replacement of the main character’s voice actress, now we have the latest from PlatinumGames.
• With the iconic Jennifer Hale in the driver’s seat as the titular black-clad, shade-wearing witch, the third installment in the over-the-top action franchise finds Bayonetta engaged in yet another particularly crazy mission: she’s jumping between universes and looking for alternate reality versions of herself. From there, however, the game should be as comfortable as an old sweater to those with experience with the franchise, hinged on the evasive Witch Time mechanic, the summoning and cooperation of demons, and lots of Wicked Weave action.
• What ensues is yet another of the craziest franchise in gaming to date, a vibrantly colorful and unabashedly vulgar streak of decadence that’s matched only by the challenges posed by PlatinumGames’ now legendary penchant for incredibly difficult games.  

Click to Order on Amazon

For Those Who Need a Gift The Whole Fam Can Dig

Good family-friendly games are those where players both young and old can grasp the controls and

Lego Star Wars: Skywalker Saga

• Hard to believe that it’s been over a decade and a half now since Traveller’s Tales made yet another of their franchise tie-in games: LEGO Star Wars. This time would be different, of course, in that the execution of enjoyable all-aged gameplay and delightfully characterizations of the Prequel Trilogy crew would spawn a franchise and, essentially, an entirely new niche of family friendly gaming.
• As one can expect, Traveller’s Tales went down the line and covered all of what’s known as the “Skywalker Saga” – all 3 of the Star Wars trilogies – and they just kept getting more entertaining and humorous each time they went back to the well. This Skywalker Saga release brings together all those efforts into a single game package, but it’s not as simple as calling it a collection.  Traveller’s Tales have revamped the gameplay to a moderate degree, adding new point-of-view tweaks to both lightsaber wielders and those who use blasters, while also allowing players to select whichever Star Wars trilogy they’d like to begin with. The graphics are entirely new, too.
• From explorable hub worlds and mini dogfights with LEGO-ified versions of the spacecraft to a roster of 380-ish different characters to (eventually) choose from, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is absolutely loaded down with content in a very attractively spruced-up package.

Click to Order on Amazon

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

• Quite a while before the little yellow minions were stumbling around and spouting gibberish, the Raving Rabbids from the Rayman universe were doing something quite similar, only with more effective slapstick humor. They’ve once again moved up to the big leagues by sharing a title with Nintendo’s Mario, teaming up with him for the turn-based strategy and management game Sparks of Hope.
• A sequel to Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Sparks of Hope models its combat largely off its predecessor, but it also makes a few adjustments to give the player some added freedom. Rabbid-ified versions of some of Nintendo’s signature characters get embroiled in a zany story involving flying manta rays, an ominous presence called Darkmess, and adorable little star-shaped Rabbids called Sparks that need saving. Out of a tight roster of familiar Mario and Rabbid characters, the player develops a team and progresses through obstacles and battles in charmingly over-the-top fashion.
• Critics can be tough on tactics games, especially sequels, but for the most part both players and pros seem to really appreciate the raucous attitude and addictive, accessible energy of the gameplay.   

Click to Order on Amazon

2022 Gift Guide: Video Games for the Holiday Season

All it takes is a few short months for subscription services to enact rumored, some might say “feared” choices that will pave the way for larger overhauls in the programs. The key one on the Xbox side of the coin being, of course: when will Games With Gold be phased out? For quite a while, Microsoft maintained that their original Gold subscription program would remain a component of their strategy for the foreseeable future, but that foreseeable future may be coming into sight with the elimination of legacy Xbox 360 and OG Xbox games in October as part of the subscription benefits. In contrast to the newer Game Pass titles, which remain eye-catching even if they aren’t high-profile, the energy has been dramatically slumping with what’s being offered through Game Pass – both Xbox One and legacy games – and seems to be slowing down as a way of approaching this discontinuation.

Let’s take a closer look at this month’s Gold titles and some recent Game Pass additions, but before doing so, head over and Grab a 3-Month Game Pass Ultimate Subscription to get the benefits of the Game Pass titles, the regular Gold sales, and of course online gaming.

XBOX Game Pass Ultimate — New and Upcoming

Inside

Many elements went into the success of LIMBO, the grayscale platformer from developers PLAYDEAD, chief among them being the stark shadowy aesthetic that gave it the visual tempo of a classic horror film. The studio had something to prove with their second project, though: that their talents extend beyond the slick gimmick that certainly accentuated the violence of a young, silhouetted protagonist repeatedly meeting their demise in gloomy shadows. INSIDE proves that there’s plenty more to them than that.

The second game from PLAYDEAD scraps the stark silhouettes and brings depth and dimension to their familiar side-scrolling gameplay mechanics, in which another young boy navigates a terrifying dystopian environment. While there might not be much color in INSIDE and the platform mechanics will feel similar, the sights and sounds come across very differently in this textural stream of nightmarish tableaus. Both critics and players have been absorbed by the insistently grim and grotesque experience, engaged by its tense levels and exploring interpretations of what its dual endings actually mean.  

Watch Dogs 2

Ubisoft’s first run at the Watch Dogs concept ended up being marred by potential that couldn’t quite be satisfied, delivering a surveillance tech stealth game that lacked the expected innovation and freedom boasted by its creators. Once the player cuts through those aspects, however, the overall experience delivers familiar stealth action game design with fresh tools at its disposal, eventually earning a reputation after a few years for being somewhat underrated. With expectations more in check and a list of things to improve, Ubisoft Montreal took a second crack at the concept with Watch Dogs 2.

Armed with a superior protagonist and a more engaging narrative that borrows a little from the likes of Minority Report, this sequel centers on a hacker wrongly accused of committing crimes by the predictive aspects of San Francisco’s electronic infrastructure. From there, Watch Dogs 2 takes the general outline of the first game and juices up the mission structure, the flexibility of the user interface, and the general openness of the game design. Both critics and players acknowledge the focus on those improvements while also dinging it for not refining its suspension of disbelief or not letting go of certain things that just didn’t work, landing on a generally more positive impression than the one left by the original.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

There was a glorious period in the mid-2010s where isometric RPGs made a serious run at a comeback in the absence of many other fantasy-RPing options, largely on the energy of wildly successful Kickstarter campaigns that proved the interest is still very much there. Alongside Pillars of Eternity that provides a “spiritual successor” to the likes of Baldur’s Gate, Torment: Tides of Numenera focuses on doing the same as a love letter to Planescape: Torment, concerning itself with dense, layered storytelling that molds to player choices throughout the adventure.

Taking place far into a future where civilizations have risen and fallen, Torment refocuses on the world in a less-advanced state full of scattered settlements and lingering mysteries from before the setting’s “Ninth Age”.  The protagonist has been constructed as the “vessel” for an ancient man who has discovered how to transfer consciousness from body to body, and it’s up to the protagonist to stop the chain and to defeat a force called “The Sorrow” before it consumes them both.  As expected, the narrative and choice-and-consequence versatility in Torment: Tides of Numenera have been widely celebrated and deemed worth playing for any RPG fan interested in those aspects; however, many critics and players view the clunky mundaneness of its combat and encounters as a big obstacle.

Xbox Games With Gold

For those still riding on the Gold train, we’ve got a foursome of middling, yet decent titles that can certainly be described as eclectic. Over on the Xbox One, we’ve got Calico (August 1-31), a management sim in which the player runs their own … cat café, or more accurately reconstructs one within a town and repopulates it with new furry residents. Some who might be drawn into the pastel, magical aesthetic and cat collection and management might want to give it a go, but critics and players have struggled with glitches and bugs since launch. The other title is ScourgeBringer (August 16 – September-15), a colorful and retro-infused roguelike platformer that delivers the kind of fast-paced challenge and rinse-and-repeat learning gameplay that devotees of the genres adore.

In one of the last months of legacy titles to be offered, at least Microsoft’s going out with a banger or two. This month, they’re offering folks the chance to have Saints Row 2 (August 1-15) — yes, the game that’s routinely priced lower than $5 through digital sales — ready to go on their hard-drives for free. As the middle title between the franchise’s slightly more serious first game and the balls-out humor of Saints Row: The Third (my personal favorite), the second one strikes a pretty satisfying balance between those two spectrums as it imitates the open-world gangster gameplay of Grand Theft Auto with a satirical edge. Finally, there’s Monaco: What’s Yours is Mine (August 16-31), a top-down heist management and strategy game noteworthy for being developed by the sole designer behind Pocketwatch Games.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Freebies for August Keep Excitement on Inside

There’s a storm coming on the horizon for Xbox’s Game Pass and Games With Gold subscription service, in the form of relatively even competition in the monthly game subscription arena. By the time June rolls around, the comparisons will become much more evenly balanced. Who knows whether a new sub service arms race will kick into gear – here’s hoping both really push it to make their services extra appealing – but until then, it’s unsurprising to see the Xbox take a step back from huge titles at this point.

April is a relatively normal month for Game Pass and Gold, in which the biggest titles are an interactive adventure game and a repeat of a day-and-date sports title that came to the service last year to much more fanfare, and once again with very little attention paid to the waning Games With Gold section of the program.  Let’s take a closer look at the games, but before doing so, head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at Amazon.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

Life is Strange: True Colors

The development teams at Dontnod Entertainment and Deck Nine Games have gradually crafted a franchise of meaningful interactive adventures with the Life is Strange series, which incorporate meaningful relationship, political, and sexual identity themes into alluring mysteries. Responsibility for the series moving forward seems to be in the hands of Deck Nine, though – Dontnod plunged deeper into challenging character mysteries with the middling-reviewed Tell Me Why – with Life is Strange: True Colors standing as Deck Nine’s first fresh creation independent from the established characters.  

Players gain control of Alex Chen, a young woman with supernatural “empathy” powers whose traumatic family history looped her into the foster care system, but who later gets to reconnect with her brother in the town of Haven Springs, Colorado. When her brother ends up being murdered shortly after, Alex has to use her powers to help connect with those in connection with Gabe and bring her closer to answers to what happened. Both critics and players appreciate the substance of Alex’s character, the ways that graphics and facial animations enhanced small dramatic conversations, and the intimacy of the supernatural powers, though Life is Strange: True Colors does get dinged for being too effortlessly pleasant and for the branching paths all seeming like they arrive at the same destination.

MLB The Show 2022

Last year around this time, The Show made its debut onto Xbox consoles for the very first time, marking the end of a very long exclusivity deal that kept licensed MLB simulation games locked onto its competitor’s devices. Also at this time last year, the decision was made to also include The Show 2021 through the Game Pass program, a significant move from the growing premium subscription service. With those things together, expectations naturally grew with how San Diego Studio would elevate the quality for this new generation of video game consoles.  Turns out? Not significantly enough to be celebrated by critics or players, who acknowledge its continuing high quality and lack of advancement.

Well, the folks at Xbox have once again made this year’s installment of The Show available through their subscription program, with the game arriving just in time in April for the MLB lockout to end. This iteration changes things up a bit more – a beefed-up stadium creation feature, new play-by-play announcers pulled from ESPN Radio, an expanded version of the shorter career mode – but for the most part critics and players acknowledge that the gameplay’s about the same as it was from the previous iteration.  This isn’t a bad thing exactly, as it remains a deep, engaging and up-to-date sim that can scratch the itch either for a quick game or a lengthy customized career experience.

Weird West

As players continue to get the itch to run through a new Fallout experience – one that isn’t online, mind you – they continue to pursue alternatives, whether it’s similar first-person survival exploration games or top-down, storytelling-rich dystopian RPGs in the vein of Wasteland 3 or Disco Elysium. Weird West, the debut title from WolfEye Studios made up of creative heads from Arkane Studios, aims to tap into the attitude of the latter with some of the vigorousness of the former. The key difference? If you screw up in this warped frontier, you might not be able to fix it.

Weird West allows the player to explore a dark western landscape and gives them the freedom to interact with the environment in a multitude of ways, though the gameplay itself hinges on twinstick shooting action that’s faster-paced and more reactive than similar isometric games. Certain aspects are randomized in the world, yet if something’s destroyed or killed, it stays that way in the game.  That can also apply to the player character, as there’s also a permadeath mode available.  As with many games from this subgenre, both critics and players heap praise upon the world-building, character interactions, and the ambitions of the gameplay systems in Weird World, but have taken issue with the execution of the gameplay and aesthetics, leading to imbalanced RPing and polarizing combat through tech issues.

F1 2021

The most recent season of F1 racing turned out to be one of the most high-stakes and controversial on the books, which was already made complicated by the cancellations of several races due to the pandemic. There’s obviously no way for the team at Codemasters to predict the future when developing their videogame adaptation of F1’s 2021 season, so this title ends up being unique in a bunch of ways, most prominently in the fact that players are still able to engage in the races that were cancelled in Australia, Canada, Japan and China.

On top of that, F1 2021 is also noteworthy for being the first title released after EA acquired Codemasters and took over publishing duties. The move didn’t seem to hamper the developer’s ambitions for this latest title, though, as the inclusion of new career storytelling, multiple player modes, playable professionals, and improved graphics bring the franchise into the new console generation with a fresh coat of paint and a few new parts under the hood. It’s what folks have come to expect from Codemasters, though, and hope to continue expecting it from them in the years to come.

Xbox Games With Gold

The Games With Gold aspect of the subscription service remains a footnote, unfortunately, sporting 2 Xbox One titles and 2 legacy Xbox titles that generate very little enthusiasm for a download … yet still hold some mild intrigue for the fastidious subscriber. Over on the Xbox One, there’s Another Sight (April 1-30), a puzzle-platformer about a blind girl and her cat as they use their strengths and weaknesses to get through challenging environments. While it earned praise for a unique concept, it doesn’t offer enough focused execution or challenge to be regarded as highly as others. Then there’s HUE (April 16 – May 15), another puzzle platformer that merges gameplay concepts from the likes of Outland and Braid, creating a silhouetted play experience based on how the player changes the background shade and interacts with it. Players and critics have been warmer to HUE, praising its aesthetic and polished execution.

On the legacy Xbox side of things, there’s Outpost: Kaloki X (April 1-15), in which the player gets to channel their inner Elon Musk and dream up new living space stations in a fashion similar to SimCity. The more revenue generated by the type of station created by the user, the more they can expand and improve, and the better they can balance their resources.  The other title is MX vs ATV Alive (Apri; 16-30), a middling-reviewed dirt bike and 4-wheeler racing game that players and critics have dinged for being a superficial title that’s got extreme racing across a limited number of courses and little else.

April’s Xbox Game Pass, Gold Newcomers Not Putting On a Big Show

Typically, these articles begin with a fun or creative way of introducing the month, often with a seasonal bend, but there’s no use describing February’s new video game releases with anything other than getting into it, being straightforward and direct: this month’s going to rock. Hard. There’s the obvious reason lying within the open-world RPG that’s been co-written by an actual household name in dark fantasy, as well as the wildly anticipated (exclusive) sequel to one of the best new IPs to come out in a long time, yet another open-world time sink. Alongside that, however, there are other new open-world games, several monumental expansions to longstanding shooters and MMOs, a number of appealing ports and releases in the racing and fighting genres … and the next-gen, immensely improved re-release of one of 2020’s most controversial games. An outstanding month all-around; let’s just get into it.

Dying Light 2: Stay Human — February 4 (PS 4,5; Xbox O/S/X; Switch; PC)

Many games have captured the intensity of the zombie apocalypse or smaller-scale takeovers of towns or buildings – from Resident Evil to Dead Rising and Dead Island — but even after those, there remained a consistent desire for a true, versatile open-world survival horror game within that setting. The studio behind Dead Island, Techland, then took another stab at the concept with Dying Light, meshing the refinement of their gory game philosophies from the previous title with the additions of parkour movement through the environment and a dynamic day-night cycle. This all comes together into a tense horror title with a convincing-enough amount of freedom to scratch that “zombie sim” itch, enough for Dying Light to receive a sequel in pursuit of even better thrills.

One area where Dying Light 2 aims to improve upon its predecessor is with storytelling, which it does by lightly rebooting the universe, jumping ahead 30+ years to a state where the world has eradicated the zombie disease, a mutated strand again escapes a lab, and most of humanity is wiped out. The player gains control of Aiden, who sets off to a European city in search of his sister, which drops the player in a post-pandemic playground that’s roughly 4x the size of the original Dying Light’s sandbox area. Armed with parkour skills and tools like grappling hooks and gliders, the player gets thrown into conflicts with factions across the city that activate a choice and consequence system, which shapes the narrative. Whether the familiar search-and-rescue tale will add anything remains to be seen, but everything else makes it seem like Dying Light 2 is a step up.   

Get Dying Light 2 on Amazon

Cyberpunk 2077 — Next-Gen Re-Release (Xbox Series X and PS5)

At the tail end of 2020, after continuous delays and a draining year like no other, many gamers were looking to Cyberpunk 2077 as the medicine that might cure all their ailments. CD Projekt Red had built a near-flawless reputation with their Witcher role-playing series, so the concept of them reviving a classic ‘80s tabletop RPG setting for a sci-fi RPG was … well, almost hard to believe.  When it finally came out, folks were hit with a cold, hard truth: not only had CDPR delivered a game with myriad technical flaws and a lack of current-gen polish, they delivered a game packed with broken promises and missed marks in terms of the experience they were delivering. The disappointment was overwhelming, but for the most part players took the “Let’s come back to this later” approach instead of disavowing the studio.

Well, “later” is now. It might be nearly a year and a half later, but the recent update to Cyberpunk 2077 just before its official next-gen upgrade release on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 this month has dramatically overhauled the game’s systems, atmosphere, and overall experience. Those looking for a different RPG than what was there at launch might still not be satisfied; it hasn’t magically turned into a choose-your-adventure game like Cyberpunk Fallout or something. For those who feel the game would be successful if it had a world that was more filled with life and the environment and people organically reacted to in-game actions, if weapons were overhauled for balance and combat AI was improved, if the player character could occupy other living space hubs and more extensively change their appearance on the fly … ? They might be ready to jump into Night City, for the first time or as a return.

Don’t take my word for it: Check Out the Notes for Patch 1.5.

Get Cyberpunk 2077 at Amazon

Horizon: Forbidden West — February 18 (PS4,5)

There’s a special feeling that comes around when a title surprises the video game community, when a lower-key studio delivers on ambitious ideas to create something entirely new, satisfying, and iconic. Guerrilla Games – known for the Killzone series – pulled this off in grand fashion with Horizon: Zero Dawn, the PS4 exclusive that blends primal/tribal tones with advanced mech and tech across an open-world landscape. Despite being released almost exactly at the same time as Breath of the Wild, Horizon remains in people’s minds for its layered combat, strong characterization, and unique landscape, begging for Guerilla Games to deliver a sequel that’ll push the hardware of next-gen systems.

Horizon: Forbidden West is that sequel, which takes the series protagonist Aloy into the region of California, Nevada, and Utah for its new open-world explorable area within the post-apocalyptic setting, populated by dominant advanced machines and secluded human tribes. Naturally, Guerilla Games wants to preserve as much of what works from the first entry as they can while adding new features, so they’ve given Aloy new and improved methods of exploration – underwater, rock climbing – as well as tightened combat mechanics and tool implementation. They’ve also spruced up the graphics, and despite the early harsh memes about Aloy appearing … chubbier than she was in the first game, it looks absolutely stunning.

GRID Legends — February 25 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC)

We’re shifting gears at the end of the month into a noteworthy racing game from Codemasters, GRID Legends. It’s noteworthy for a number of reasons: it will feature over 125 routes in both real circuits and manufactured ones in hallmark cities, as well as over 100 different vehicles at their disposal; it’ll feature a race creation feature for the first time; it’ll have a documentary-inspired narrative/career mode with established actors and a mixing of real and CG people; and it’ll offer cross-platform and cross-generational online multiplayer. The arcade street racer is showcasing a lot of ambition for its fifth installment and as a longstanding predecessor to Codemasters’ other street racers.

GRID Legends is also noteworthy for being the first title in the franchise released under Codemasters’ new publishers and owners, EA, and it’s also the first title in general from Codemasters that’d potentially have substantive input from the gaming giant into its development, if they were to get involved. In general, the developers have a record of reliability with their games, ranging in quality but always being reputable and enjoyable entries in the racing genre. Here’s hoping the trend continues under the new guard and that GRID Legends lives up to its potential.

Elden Ring — February 25 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC)

Look, it’s hard not to get hyped up about certain games. Common sense should tell players to temper expectations when it seems like something could be really, really good … but life’s short and enthusiasm can be much more fun than pragmatic calmness. One of such situations comes at the end of February when the folks at FromSoftware, responsible for the Souls line of games and for essentially creating a subgenre of challenging dungeon crawler RPGs, will be delivering another new title for both Xbox and PlayStation consoles with Hidetaka Miyazaki at the helm, Elden Ring. That by itself is exciting, but it’s the other half of the equation that really gets the blood flowing: the worldbuilding will be handled by none other than Mr. Game of Thrones himself, George R.R. Martin. Say what you will about the timeliness of his novels, but it’s hard to argue with the man’s ability to flesh out a dark fantasy world.

When it comes to the gaming innards of Elden Ring, it sounds a whole lot like a continuation of the Souls formula that’s worked so well for FromSoftware, seen in its successes outside the franchise in Bloodborne and Sekiro. On top of the merciless, tactical hack-‘n-slash fantasy combat that’s part of the DNA of the studio’s titles, they’re also incorporating stealth combat – a component of Sekiro – and mounted combat atop the character’s mount, their chief method of travel across the landscape. Customization of the third-person battle experience will be key, though, and the director has stated that it’ll be “richer” than in his previous games, from skills to weapons.  Hype’s a dangerous thing and it’s almost a certainty that Elden Ring won’t live up to it, but boy, the potential’s there for it to be great.

Get Elden Ring at Amazon

Along with a slew of heavy-hitting titles, February also comes with an impressive rush of expansions for other titles. Dynasty Warriors 9 gets its Empires expansion on February 15, and on the same day BioWare Austin and EA will be releasing their hype-up Legacy of the Sith addition to Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Perhaps more high-profile, however, is the hotly anticipated and heavily pre-ordered Destiny 2: The Witch Queen expansion from Bungie, the game’s sixth expansion that’s finally seeing the light of day after getting delayed by COVID-19. A number of great games are also getting appealing ports, such as the entire Life is Strange: Remastered collection for the PS4, Xbox One, PC an Stadia on February 1, as well as the Assassin’s Creed Ezio Trilogy for the Switch on February 17.  Fighting fans will also have a new King of Fighters, KOF XV, to engage on February 17.

February’s Video Game New Releases: A Legendary Month in the Making

It’s February and love’s in the air, so that means the folks at Xbox will be extra generous with their Games With Gold and Game Pass offerings this month … right? Well, it was worth a try. In actuality, this month feels a bit different in the other direction since neither of Microsoft’s subscription services have been gifted much in the way of “WOW!” titles.  From lower-tier shooters to under-the-radar RPGs and hidden gem action-platformers, it’s a moderate yet unshowy month in terms of new content that’ll draw in subscribers for Game Pass, and, well, the less said about what’s going on with Games With Gold, the better. Let’s take a closer look at the titles, but before doing so, be sure to head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at Amazon.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

CrossfireX

Someone who sticks to consoles for their gaming needs very likely hasn’t heard of Crossfire, though most PC gamers who enjoy the online shooter space know that it’s one of the most popular and widely played free-to-play shooting games in existence, remaining as such a decade-plus after release.  For the most part, and understandably so due to the gap in time for in a western release and the culture surrounding several other online shooters, a huge part of this popularity rests in eastern countries.  Despite the rampant regional enthusiasm, Smilegate hopes to further break into the global market, and they’re making an attempt with the Xbox exclusive semi-sequel CrossfireX.

Partnering with Max Payne and Control developers Remedy Entertainment to help craft the campaign side of the game, Smilegate essentially drops CrossfireX as the console representation of their already-popular online offering with a unique episodic campaign tacked on for good measure. Impressions from both players and critics haven’t been kind to CrossfireX thus far, though: the campaign additions have come across as atypically short and generic for a unique studio like Remedy, but it’s the general shooter gameplay that’s getting dragged for being uninteresting and lacking content.  The multiplayer of CrossfireX is inherently free-to-play, whereas the campaign constitutes pay-to-play content, both of which seem to be included with the Game Pass listing for free download.

Edge of Eternity

Gaming culture has reached a point where turn-based RPGs really need something extra and noteworthy to be worth the time and energy investment required to pour into them. Whether it’s mixing modern gaming styles and techniques with the old, the novelty of turn-based combat in an unlikely genre (like martial arts in Yakuza), or the resurrection of a beloved franchise whose identity is tied to it, there needs to be a “reason” for players to engage in those legacy designs. More than that, it seems as if simply creating a new world and hoping that turn-based RPG elements will be serviceable enough to carry the player through it doesn’t work as well as it once did.

The aptly-titled Midgar Studio – named after the primary city in the classic turn-based JRPG Final Fantasy VII — have delivered Edge of Eternity on the hopes that its sci-fi/fantasy fusion of storytelling will still get the job done. As the story follows along weatherworn tropes of a corrosive “taint” spreading across the open-world realm due to an advanced race of alien invaders and the chosen pair of heroes hoping to cure it, the gameplay centers on both hex-based and semi-live combat scenarios that pay homage to many classic JRPGs. Both critics and players have pointed out that Edge of Eternity has significant roughness to its execution and drags in pacing throughout, though players have also commended it for the nostalgic spirit, flickers of ambitiousness, and eventual spikes of intensity in the story.

Nobody Saves the World

Guacamelee remains one of the more overlooked action games on consoles. The folks at Drinkbox Games telegraph heaps of Mexican lucha-libre bravado and beat-‘em-up Metroidvania gameplay in a setting that repeatedly shifts between the realms of the living and the dead — long before Pixar did similar things with Coco — all beautifully rendered in vibrant colors and charm. The developer’s success with Guacamelee and its sequel can’t help but make one enthusiastic about what they’d do with the fantasy dungeon-crawling subgenre, how they’ll possibly make it jut as vivid and humorous. The result is Nobody Saves the World, the tale of a stark white protagonist with no personality of their own who must adopt the “skins” of other fallen heroes to power through their dungeons.

With a magical wand in hand granting them the power to transform into an assortment of critters and characters – from rats and slugs to rogues and monks – Nobody delves into a world of procedurally-generated dungeons packed with quests and challenges, which naturally earns experience points.   The signature personality of Drinkbox once again comes through in both the character animations and the ways in which the energized gameplay interacts with the characters. Perhaps the sweetest detail about Nobody Saves the World is that one Nobody doesn’t have to go at it alone: the game not only features multiplayer, but encourages it through how the magical forms can interact. Both players and critics have been enthusiastic about what Drinkbox has created, even if the general dungeon-crawling repetition still seems to set in after a while with the game despite the variety of forms.

Hitman Trilogy

Like many franchises moving from console generation to generation, the Hitman franchise of stealth-action games hit a lull near the end of the Xbox/PS2 era. Eventually, this led to a new release in the PS3/360 era, Hitman: Absolution, but it didn’t quite capture the same tight experience of the originals and, thus, didn’t have the kind of sales performance that’d reignite confidence in the franchise.  Hitman was, once again, put on the shelf for a number of years to better figure out how to make it work in the current gaming era. Eventually, developers IO Interactive and Square Enix made what seems to have been the correct decision: it was time to “soft reboot” Agent 47 without fully starting from scratch, taking the lessons learned from Absolution and applying them to a version of Hitman that gets the series back to its open-ended, puzzle-solving roots.

Despite the minor snafu of initially releasing it in episodic segments, the full breadth of 2016’s Hitman reestablished the franchise as a contender in the increasingly crowded space of quality stealth games. This eventually led to a pair of sequels, the simply-titled Hitman 2 and Hitman 3, that understand their audience and what they want: while IO Interactive does experiment with the zaniness of the missions, landscapes, and skills, they never stray very far from the core enjoyment factors and mechanics that satisfy their player base and connect them into a cohesive trilogy. Thus, it’s no surprise to see them package in a Hitman Trilogy such as this, which utilizes the Access Pass system through Hitman 3 to access all three titles.

Xbox Games With Gold

Sure, the Games With Gold program has been going for quite a while now, and it might be slightly difficult to come up with feasible higher-profile free Xbox One and 360 titles to include with Xbox’s baseline subscription service … but other options are still there. Instead of pinpointing some of these exciting titles perhaps as a last hurrah for a fading subscription service, we’ve once again got a pair of low-attention indies for the Xbox One and less-than-stellar inclusions for the legacy consoles. Now, admittedly, it does make me smile to see something like Broken Sword 5: The Serpent’s Curse (February 1-28) available as a free download, since some of my fondest gaming memories come from similar point-and-click adventures (LucasArts, Sierra, etc) to that of the globetrotting adventure and murder mystery it provides. The stylish but repetitive indie puzzle runner Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield (February 16 – March 15) feels like an obligation filler instead of an excitement driver.

On the retro console side, there’s Hydrophobia (February 1-15), an action game that received middling reviews over a decade ago and only succeeded as, essentially, a tech demo for environmental water effects. Rounding out the offerings is Band of Bugs (February 16-28), a turn-based tactics RPG-ish game with a Hero’s Journey type of story, several multiplayer modes, and a level editor for continued enjoyment after finishing the game.  Both have middling critical and audience scores, leaving one to wonder why they aren’t at least pairing iffy titles with at least one solidly good one.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Titles for February: Nobody’s Saving the World With This Middling Lineup

Well, we’ve entered into the year 2022, and Microsoft continues to maintain both their Game Pass Ultimate and Games With Gold programs, available separately or the more common priced-reduced bundled service. One remains an outstanding value, and the games introduced into the Game Pass library this month only strengthen those impressions, making available both heavy-hitters and indie darlings alike. The other … ? Well, the benefits of Games With Gold continue to center on access to sales and being able to play online with friends, though that’s rumored to be on the chopping block in the near future to make online gaming free for both paid and free-to-play titles. The free titles are a footnote upon a footnote, and continue to become more discouraging with each passing month.

The baseline subscription fee for both Game Pass + Gold is still worthwhile, however, and should be considered the ideal way to be a member of Team Xbox, whereas Microsoft’s making it harder and harder to justify being purely a Games With Gold subscriber. Let’s take a closer look at what’s on offer from both sides, but before doing so, be sure to head over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Game Pass Ultimate Card at Amazon so save a few space bucks.  

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming Titles

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

This year will mark a decade since the original Mass Effect trilogy concluded in spectacular, albeit polarizing fashion. Despite the nature of its ending, the series has maintained a loyal, passionate fanbase who — whether through the good old passage of time, the assistance of end-game mods, or understanding that it wasn’t so bad after all — has come to accept what’s there and clamored for a remastering of the emotive space opera RPG. Years passed without a peep, and then rumors emerged about a new “legendary edition” that would be bringing the games to the new generation of console gaming. Would it just be a simple pass-through remaster to get the visuals up to proper HD strength, or would they be overhauling the gameplay and tinkering with a few things, such as the disparity between the first clunky, RP-centric Mass Effect and the more fluidly engineered third-person shooting of ME2 and ME3. And up until release, this kind of remained a mystery.

The answer, as seen in the Legendary Edition remastered bundle of all three Mass Effect games with every ounce of story DLC included, is something in between. ME2 and ME3 have seen subtle, but noticeable improvements in graphical prowess, environment layouts, character cohesiveness, the morality system’s levels and other aspects, but by and large remain “the same”. Mass Effect 1, however, has been dramatically altered in terms of both impressive visuals and gameplay, yet in such a way that doesn’t stray from the original game’s intentions; weapon access, using cover, squad control and general AI, gunplay accuracy, and enemy vulnerability have all been overhauled. Those looking for a remake with additional content will be disappointed; those looking for a vastly superior upgrade in how they enjoy the Mass Effect universe should absolutely suit up to turn some virtual asses into actual dust.

Gears (of War) 5

While Mass Effect often showed up on short lists for one of those “must play” games for the Xbox 360, it was almost always guaranteed that the original Gears of War would be near the top of ‘em all. Other games did it well enough before, but the sci-fi shooter mastered the art of designing levels and gameplay intensity around cover-based action. Cap that off with an undeniably cheesy ‘80s-movie amount of bravado from the heroes and their thirst for bloody violence, and you’ve got the recipe for a franchise that runs strong for an entire trilogy … and then carries over into less iconic, yet still enjoyable spinoffs and additional games.  Thing is, with both the games outside the original trilogy, it became obvious that both the narrative and the third-person shooter gameplay were starting to show some rust. The excitement’s still there, along with the fanbase, but the series just needed something fresh.

Gears of War 5 makes it clear that they’re getting things up to new standards by dropping the “of War” from the title that so often gets left off anyway in casual conversation, delivering just Gears 5. On top of developing the younger, newer characters from the previous games, game-makers The Coalition also get their hands dirty with semi open-world gameplay concepts and very light RPG aspects for variety and breadth. When adding these things, The Coalition makes sure to preserve – and, in a way, recapture – the bravado of the earlier titles from Epic Games, showcasing a devotion not just to getting back to the series’ roots, but also to spruce them up and make them feel relevant in the new generation.  Both critics and players agree that the craftsmanship was largely a success, praising the campaign and the open-world implementation, even though some feel it retreads old storytelling elements.

Outer Wilds

What started out as a college thesis project made by someone who wasn’t really interested in crafting full video games at the time, soon developed into a fleshed-out, commercial sci-fi exploration experience that shows up on numerous “best of year” lists and even a few “best of all time” lists as well. Outer Wilds – not to be confused with Obsidian’s Outer Worlds, which shares a few similar gameplay and atmospheric elements – takes the player on an adventure through a solar system caught in a time loop.  Every 22 minutes, a star goes supernova and effectively resets the clock, sending our stalwart alien astronaut character back to square one in his search for an answer.  With some help from alien technology, he’s able to remember anything he’s learned in the previous loops, so his objective becomes to explore the galaxy and gather as much info as possible to discover a solution to the supernova.

Outer Wilds relies entirely on the immersion of its exploration, a combination of the general atmospheric intentions and objective-based adventuring of the likes of No Man’s Sky, Mass Effect, and Outer Worlds. The activity isn’t about engaging enemies, though, instead about discovering answers, solving puzzles, and unearthing knowledge at the various points of the solar system to fix the problem. This pieces together into more of an interactive experience than a traditional game, though survival is a concern and death can reset the clock if not monitored carefully.  Both critics and players have heaps of wonderful things to say about Outer Wilds, from the direction and destination of the narrative to the  execution of exploration and atmosphere.

Xbox Games With Gold

The strategy behind the games selected for Xbox’s Games With Gold doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at this stage, unless one applies a simple, pessimistic line of thought to it: they’ve stopped being concerned with keeping their subscriber base satisfied or interested. For the Xbox One, they’ve selected a retro twinstick shooter indie called NeuroVoider (January 1-30) that blends pixel graphics with robotics, as well as a 8-bit sidescrolling building/resource sim called Aground (January 16 – February 15) that shows some clear similarities to Minecraft. Both seem well-crafted and potentially engaging, yet neither have pulled enough attention from critics or players to have much of a reputation, certainly not on the level of the bounty of high-profile titles that Microsoft could theoretically include with the program. This signals de-prioritization.  

The legacy titles are about of the same caliber, though a bit more significant than the Xbox One offerings as of late.  Radiant Silvergun (January 1-15) is a polished “restored” version of a popular late-‘90s arcade shoot-‘em-up featuring futuristic fighter pilots versus alien forces, and is viewed as the precursor to the classic Ikaruga. Space Invaders: Infinite Gene (January 16 – January 31) takes the classic arcade title and spit-shines it for the semi-modern era, capturing a similar tone and excitement to the updated iteration of Tetris or Geometry Wars. These will at least ignite a spark of nostalgia.

Xbox Game Pass, Gold Freebies: Lotsa Sci-Fi For the New Year

Regardless of how extreme the video game industry’s business was throughout the month of December, typically the month of January is, at the very least, massively slowed down in terms of new releases. It’s still a numbers game after all, and heavy holiday spending typically doesn’t bode well for sales figures in the months following, where people are likely enjoying their video game gifts or recovering financially. 2022 isn’t any different; in fact, the month seems even sparser than normal. While the month does mark the awaited return of a AAA shooting franchise, the low volume and attention-grabbing nature of this January leave it feeling empty even by comparison to last year. Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on, though!

Nobody Saves the World — January 18 (Xbox O/S/X; PC)

Sometimes, games simply feel like a bunch of other titles have been thrown into a blender, thoroughly mixed, and served to its audience.  Whether that’s acceptable or not depends on the mixture of ingredients; after all, mangoes and blueberries don’t really work in all smoothies they’re thrown in. The ingredients of Nobody Saves the World seem like a delightful blend, though, beginning with a action-RPG base where the main character embraces different forms to combat different foes. Add in a retro top-down aesthetic to the dungeon crawling, a roguelike procedural generation to the underlayers of the dungeons, and a crafty sense of humor, and you’ve got the components of the latest title from Drinkbox Games, the folks behind the delightful Guacamelee.

The lead character isn’t a charismatic, dashing hero either, instead a pale and weak little human equipped with a star-topped wand that grants new forms and abilities.  As one can expect, the character starts out with limited capabilities and gains more as they progress through dungeons and battles, eventually totaling over a dozen. In a similar vein to Guacamelee, the art style is delightfully vibrant and fluid, and the hack-‘n-slash combat seems basic but fast-paced and responsive to meet the standard control’s demands. Nobody Saves the World will also launch with a co-op multiplayer function as well, so you and a buddy can tackle dungeons together on the same screen; this covers online co-op, as the state of couch co-op is currently unknown.

Get Nobody Saves the World at Microsoft

Rainbow Six: Extraction — January 20 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC; Stadia)

When Rainbow Six: Vegas came out early in the Xbox 360’s lifecycle, it became one of those must-play experiences for nearly everyone who owned the console, whether they were shooter fans or not. The smooth tactical controls, visual polish and perceived realism established the franchise’s popularity early and quickly. However, it shouldn’t require much to get the point across that the landscape of shooters changed dramatically soon after its release, especially when it comes to those aiming for precise realism.  Amid the flurry of Call of Duties and Battlefields as well as the sci-fi themed Halo and Gears of War series, interest in Rainbow Six became sloshy even through the release of the online-only Rainbow Six: Siege, which has both logged an impressive number of users and earned tepid impressions on the game itself.

Amid this strange mixture of interest and lukewarmness with the online game, Rainbow Six: Extraction arrives with the intention of shaking up the franchise’s objectives and reputation. How? It makes the bold choice of tossing the tactical shooter combat into a science-fiction setting, hinged on an alien invasion, essentially providing the alien counterpoint to Call of Duty’s popular zombie modes. Extraction has also been designed with multiplayer as its firm focus, though, using Siege as a gameplay springboard and adopting some of its “operator” characters for familiarity. A cluster of nearly 20 different operator types with various skillsets can be selected before engaging in the partly procedurally-generated “incursions”, where the players infiltrate alien spaces to collect items. It’s a bold new direction, but perhaps it’s what Rainbox Six needs to stand out in the modern era, and it’s been budget priced at $40 to get folks interested.

Order Rainbow Six: Extraction at Amazon

Pokemon Legends: Arceus — January 28 (Switch)

Sure, it has essentially always been popular, but Pokemon seems to be at a particularly high point right now. Between the rampant attention drawn to the card game market, the thriving community built around the “augmented reality” Pokemon Go mobile game, and the creation of a few fan concept trailers, the demand has never been higher for an open-world style of role-playing game set within the Pokemon universe. Therefore, when the trailer for Pokemon Legends: Arceus emerged on the scene, excitement and enthusiasm reach a particular high.  It had a visual grandeur, openness and flow akin to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, only featuring landscapes and characters from the Poke universe, so the assumptions that this would finally be “it” had some merit.

The folks at Pokemon let this perception continue unanswered up until a few months ago, where they eventually confirmed that Pokemon Legends: Arceus wouldn’t exactly be the open experience many believed it would be.  What further information and trailers have confirmed since, however, is that it’s a feature-rich, customizable RPG in the vein of the other video games in the series that instead has “open-world areas” to engage in the historical region of Hisui (Sinnoh).  The objective? To create the very first Pokedex, which should inherently get their audience excited so long as they’re game for a prequel. Whether it will satisfy beyond that remains to be seen, especially considering the perceived disappointment in this lack of open-world delivery. There’s always the real open-world Pokemon Go.

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The rest of January has been populated with ports, with the likes of Monster Hunter Rise and God of War getting PC editions on January 12 and 14, as well as the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves game bundle coming to PS5 at the end of the month. There’s also a pair of unique sports titles coming out on January 20: RPGolf Legends (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC) sounds like it could be a golf role-playing game, but it’s actually more of a retro, top-down JRPG with golf as an underlying gameplay aspect; and Windjammers 2 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, Stadia) brings the Pong-meets-Dodgeball quirkiness of the ‘90s Neo Geo title to the current era.

January’s New Video Games: Rainbow Six Goes Alien, Pokemon Goes Prequel

There’s little use denying that the past year has been a challenge for the video game industry, notably for fans of Xbox systems who haven’t had much luck finding their Series console of choice since November of 2020. There aren’t many ways that Microsoft can really make up for it, either, because of factors beyond their control. However, one could consider their big Game Pass Ultimate addition at least a mild way of softening the blow for those who subscribe to their preferred monthly service regardless of console: the inclusion of the latest title in what’s arguably the most significant, important franchise in the history of Xbox.

Like most other things surrounding it, the rest of the titles are less memorable from both the other Game Pass offerings and the Games With Gold, but there are a few gems that aren’t so sus from among the rest.  Let’s take a closer look, but before we do, jump over and Grab a 3-Month Subscription to Game Pass Ultimate on Amazon to gain the benefits of both sides.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – New and Upcoming

Halo: Infinite

For an entertaining deep-dive into the evolution of gaming and evidence of just how ingrained Halo is with the culture, head over and search through the images on Google for “Halo LAN party”. You’ll spot many things: big, outdated televisions and monitors; bottles of beer and Mountain Dew atop foldout tables; nearly as many smiles or intense faces as there are cables spread out everywhere. Most of these parties focused on the highly refined multiplayer of Halo 2, but all the early titles had their moments of fun like this before online multiplayer really took over … and even now, convenience be damned, people tap into nostalgia with classic LAN get-togethers. In essence, this is the spirit of Xbox as a gaming console, and while Halo has had its ups and down in quality in recent years, this’ll never change.

Halo: Infinite ends the franchise’s half-decade hiatus by way of 343 Industries, throwing Master Chief into battle against an alien coalition known as the Banished on the ringworld Zeta Halo. Tied to this is an extension of the saga between Master Chief and Cortana, now a rogue and rebelling AI who’s the target for removal, as well as a more open-world landscape for battle engagements. Players have been notoriously fickle about the recent lore and storytelling of Halo, but for the most part they’ve been satisfied thus far with the directions the plot has taken. Multiplayer is, of course, paramount for Halo: Infinite, and luckily it seems as if the community has remained satisfied with the quality since it entered beta testing in the middle of November. After two decades, Halo delivers once again.

Among Us

The pandemic succeeded in making a pair of games surprisingly popular, likely much more so than they would have under other circumstances, and they’re both for widely different reasons. Animal Crossing provided a creative, stable outlet for people to just … well, tend their garden and mind their business in a calming and cute slice-of-life management simulator.  The other does exactly the opposite. Among Us borrows the gameplay philosophy behind Werewolf, Mafia, and other identity deduction games, and during the pandemic’s peaks it provided ways for players to interact online and play a unique, layered game with one another.

The concept sounds like the classic sci-fi movie The Thing, in which a group of astronauts on an isolated station have been infiltrated by “impostors” whose objective is to sabotage and eliminate the crew. Players, who can range from 4 to now over a dozen, are randomly and discreetly selected to be either legitimate crewmates or impostors; impostors go about fake duties to try and convince others that they’re on the up and up, or they end up being labeled “sus”-picious.  Votes are held as to who gets to stay aboard when something suspicious happens, and the deduction skills – and deflection skills – of the players will determine who gets thrown out the airlock.  It’s a familiar party-game derivative a la Resistance and Secret Hitler, but the personality and online versatility of Among Us make it a quite enjoyable iteration in these trying times.

Mortal Kombat 11

Next year will mark the 30^th anniversary of the release of the original Mortal Kombat, and it’s really tough to wrap one’s brain around that. It started as a taboo gaming experience – one that sparked Congressional hearings – and morphed into a console decision maker during the peak of the “wars”, dependent on whether someone wanted Nintendo’s edited version or SEGA’s unedited release. It all seems like old news now, but the topic of the realistic body models and the gruesome fatalities – end-of-battle finishing moves that involve heaps of blood and broken or impaled body parts – caused an immense stir. The folks at Midway, and now the folks at NetherRealm Studios, have embraced that unsavory reputation and continued to up the ante in the brutal, yet engaging and layered fighting game.  

With that reputation also comes a hefty fanbase that’s ready to scrutinize every title, and the latest installment, MK11, earned a mixture of polarized opinions from among its fanbase. For some, it’s the pinnacle of what Mortal Kombat can be in the current era and heavily satisfies those who “grew up” with the original iconic 3-4 games that started the franchise. For others, the game’s emphasis on flashier aspects over more hardcore fighting-game complexity comes across as trying to appeal to too-broad of an audience. Regardless of where one falls on that spectrum, Mortal Kombat 11 continues to offer narrative progression and bountiful item/cosmetic collection in single player and fluid combat in online and multiplayer formats, and it’s universally regarded as the best-looking MK to date.

It’s also worth noting that the version of Flight Simulator 2020 available through Game Pass has been upgraded to the Game of the Year edition, and that two exquisite narrative-based adventure games — Campo Santo’s Firewatch and Double Fine’s Broken Age — have also snuck in under the radar.

Xbox Games With Gold

Over on the legacy subscription wing at Xbox, they’ve served up yet another passable, unexciting foursome of free titles for the Xbox One and Xbox 360 that fail to prompt one to continue shelling out for the service if that’s their primary reason for doing so.  On current-gen consoles, they’ve made available The Escapists 2 (December 1-31), a prison break sim that taps into a similarly charming multiplayer energy to that of Among Us. Retro pixel graphics mesh with a top-down gaming perspective as the player crafts a strategy to flee, both figuratively and literally through the game’s item crafting system. Players seem to run out of fun with the single player experience after a while, but still enjoy the multiplayer escapes. There’s also Tropico 5 (December 16-January 15), the last installment in the longstanding island construction sim franchise developed by Haemimont Games, which was met with irritation from players and critics alike for spit-polishing the status quo and not improving the wobbly infrastructure of the previous games.

In terms of legacy titles, there’s Orcs Must Die! (December 1-15), a third-person fantasy action game that’s a mix of tower defense and horde mode. It has spawned a handful of sequels, notably one that came out last year on Stadia and ported over to consoles in July of this year, and they’ve all received moderately positive marks from critics and players for its quirky attitude and clever blending of genres. The other title is Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (December 16-31), a side-scrolling spacecraft shooting game that comes across as if a flying saucer with a little blaster has decided to explore the worlds of LIMBO and World of Goo.  

December’s Xbox Game Pass, Gold Titles: More Than Halo: Infinite is Among Us

Regardless of the shortage in consoles available to purchase, 2021 has been a terrific year for new video game titles. Be sure to hop over to Ben’s Bargain’s Holiday Software Gift Guide to see a brief rundown of some of the hits, which range from novel spins on open-world games and innovations in horror and sci-fi to several celebrated rejuvenations of franchises. There are three variables clogging up the last two months in the year, though, that’d understandably scare off other developers from dropping anything too big during the period: holiday shopping in an already complicated year, the approaching release of Halo in December, and of course Call of Duty.

Even with those things in mind, the months of November ad December shaped up into a diverse, packed stretch of remasters, unique new titles, and one delayed long enough to unfortunately “compete” with CoD in the same genre during November, resulting in a nice array of titles squeezed into the last months before the holidays that could end up being worthwhile gifts. Let’s take a closer look.

Call of Duty: Vanguard – November 5 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC)

It’s difficult to make heads or tails over whether the gaming community really feels positive or negative about a new Call of Duty title at release, as there’s always a hefty rush of impressions and opinions before and around the big date. Ultimately, this has all but stopped mattering, as the latest COD title works off the nonstop energy of its multiplayer fanbase who’ll continue to purchase the FPS juggernaut despite any iffy thoughts about the latest campaign’s tone and longevity or the multiplayer’s sameness. Despite this, the folks at Sledgehammer, Treyarch, and Infinity Ward – and Raven Software in a support role – have continued to deliver annual titles that utilize AAA polish and ambitions to keep the series immersive, versatile, and exhilarating for both campaign and online players.

Vanguard is the latest, in which the campaign takes the audience back to the World War II and shortly after, where special ops forces are tracking down the actors involved with “Project Phoenix” and a theoretical true successor to Hitler’s place in government. Alongside the interesting single-player narrative, the multiplayer hopes to shake things up with a new “Combat Pacing” function, which allows players to select the intensity, style, and team size for the upcoming match. So far, critics have received both those core aspects of Vanguard fairly well, though there seems to be some “been there, done that” attitudes towards those things and a stronger consensus that the Zombies mode is lacking this year.    

Order Call of Duty: Vanguard at Amazon

Jurassic World Evolution 2 – November 9 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC)

Sequels to sim games have a different set of benchmarks to hit than other genres, and they also tend to have a bit more of a forgiving player base when it comes to delivering incrementally better versions instead of drastically new entries. While enhanced features and expanded options will always be celebrated, there’s also lots of satisfaction to be found in picking up a simulator and discovering that a lot of the gameplay aspects remain the same, kind of like having a bunch of brand-new tools and upcoming projects yet the same workbench and organization area to know where everything’s at. Jurassic World Evolution delivers on the concept of, essentially, a “dinosaur zoo simulator” with callbacks to the movies and books, but critics generally felt that the sim could use more depth.

Evolution 2 has the opportunity to improve upon its middlingly reviewed first entry by improving its big draws, by deepening the business and construction aspects and refining its dinosaur interactions. It hopes to do so by widening the workspace maps – relocated to the US for more landscape variety — and placing more unique demands upon the players, such as maintaining animal diets and catering to different visitor tastes.  Improvements in those areas seem less pertinent to game-makers Frontier Developments than enhancing the authenticity of the dinosaurs themselves, though, upping the species count to 75 and ensuring that their behaviors authentically intersect on a more frequent basis. Whether that’ll amount to enough to make Evolution 2 a worthwhile upgrade remains to be seen.

Order Jurassic World Evolution 2 at Amazon

Skyrim: Anniversary Edition – November 11 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; PC)

At this point, the multiple iterations of Skyrim across several consoles have transformed into a running joke – a meme, if you will. For the most part, all the re-releases have had their purpose for showing up when they did, from lateral ports to other consoles and virtual reality accessibility to new console upgrades that’d hopefully tide players over until Elder Scrolls 6 finally arrives. The mantra’s pretty simple, according to Bethesda’s studio head: so long as players are buying and enjoying Skyrim, they’ll keep finding ways of re-releasing and upgrading the celebrated open-world RPG. Thus, when the announcement came that the studio would release an “anniversary edition” of Skyrim designed for Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles, few if any people were surprised. So, what else could possibly be added?

In essence, the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim makes it easy for players to have an up-to-date version of the complete Special Edition game – including all official DLC — that’s also beefed up with a ton of small to moderate additions through Bethesda’s Creation Club, ranging from artifacts to activities and quests. This includes brand-new content released alongside the Anniversary Edition from the Creation Club, such as fishing, a simulator-ish survival mode, and new quests. The Anniversary Edition also touches up the visuals for next-gen consoles, though those on the Xbox Series X will likely see no appreciable difference over the already optimized version of the Special Edition. There’s a $20 digital upgrade options for those who already own the Special Edition, but there’s also a complete physical copy of the Anniversary Edition for $50.

Get ESV: Skyrim Anniversary Edition at Amazon

GTA: Definitive Trilogy – November 11 (PS4,5; Xbox O/S/X; Switch; PC)

It’s hard to overstate how influential the sequence of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas was to the video game landscape. GTA III brought together different aspects of free-roaming action and emergent gameplay into a singular experience, Vice City took that blueprint and gave it a distinct, violent attitude … and then San Andreas upped the attitude, narrative potency, and sheer volume and variety of things to do to such a degree that it almost felt like a simulation. The ability for players to do essentially whatever they wanted in a “sandbox”, to create whatever degree of chaos they wanted, became a blueprint for other games to follow that range from revolutionary and historical assassin sims to animated show tie-ins.   They’ve aged, but their legacy exists in the bones of countless modern titles.

One would naturally assume, then, that games with such a rich legacy would receive high-quality remasters, especially during a time when remasters are hotter than normal. The recently renamed Grove Street Games, previously known as War Drum Studios, the developers behind mobile ports of this same trilogy, have undertaken the challenge with this Definitive Edition, and they showed clear inspiration early on in how to approach the project. From what aspects to preserve full stop (such as the physics engine) to which aesthetics should be cleaned up and which ones should be amplified, it sounds like worthwhile promises. The execution, however, has been polarizing, due in large part to the underwhelming visuals and a lack of editing and refinement, alongside a hefty share of technical glitches.

Order GTA Trilogy: Definitive Edition at Amazon

Shin Megami Tensei V – November 12 (Switch)

It took a bit of time, but Atlus has really grasped one fact about their Shin Megami Tensei series: the fanbase still really, really likes the third entry, Nocturne. Even as the spinoff Persona series mounts in popularity and creates its own hot spinoffs – like the fighting-based Arena line – there remained plenty of enthusiasm behind the prospect of a remastered iteration of the PS2-era Nocturne, which was finally released to critical acclaim earlier this year. Aside from the rerelease, the enthusiasm has also spread into the development philosophies of the long-awaited fifth entry in the primary numbered Shin Megami Tensei series, where the vague but somewhat telling description of its “profound charm” has been laced into the new entry alongside the more objective demon-raising aspects of SMT IV.

As one would expect, players gain control of a high-school student who ropes a few buddies into a demon search through underground tunnels. Shortly after entering the tunnels, the player gets transported to an alternate reality version of Tokyo embroiled in a war between angels and demons, where the existence of the high-schooler – and his friends — soon becomes linked with that of a god-like being so that the students can get directly involved with the battle. From there, the signature turn-based combat system of the Shin Megami Tensei series and the frequently challenging nature of its battles take hold, supported by a choice-and-consequence system that’ll help dictate the sort of ending you’ll receive.  It’s a manifestation of much enthusiasm that’s currently exclusive to the Switch.

Halo: Infinite – December 8 (Xbox O/S/X; PC)

Xbox turns 20 this year, and it’s hard to argue with the assertion that the most popular … well, thing, period, to ever come out of Microsoft’s console would be their exhilarating sci-fi shooter series, Halo. The first confidently labeled itself “Combat Evolved” and the distinction didn’t feel unmerited, providing an engaging campaign and multiplayer experience that handily dethroned previous competitors such as GoldenEye, escalating the popularity of LAN parties and shaping the PvP landscape as it’s known today. Its sequels would refine the positive aspects of that experience, even when the campaign’s storytelling or brevity would wobble and waver across both Bungie and 343’s installments. After half of a decade away from regular installments, Master Chief has decided to jump back into action for the 20^th anniversary of Xbox in Halo: Infinite.

With the creative energy of former Bungie writer and cinematics director Joseph Staten as the project lead of the campaign, Halo: Infinite aspires to bring the series back to its original glory in the modern era, tying familiar aesthetics and plot devices into a new story of alien invasion and world repair. Players once again control Master Chief for the entirety of the game as they zip across the landscape of Zeta Halo, opening up the gameplay for free roaming and emergent battles while also sticking to a firm campaign with its sights sets on Cortana. The multiplayer also has its heart in the right place by focusing on familiar modes such as capture the flag and slayer, while also incorporating new powers and designs to spice up the formula. More than anything, though, folks who’ve played Halo: Infinite have reaffirmed the expected: the gunplay is outstanding, and should make either campaign or multiplayer a blast.

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The end of year has a cluster of other interesting titles worth looking into, though one of them may or may not be Battlefield 2042, which has been getting dragged through the mud by the community and certainly is up against some hefty competition in the shooter genre through here. Just Dance 2022 (November 4) gets the party moving at the end of the year with a smattering of new songs and intricate choreography, while Football Manager 2022 (November 9) keeps the pace slow, familiar, yet addictive with its updated roster simulation gameplay. Similar to Far Cry: Blood Dragon, the Borderlands-themed DLC Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon’s Keep (November 9) has received a standalone release, while Frogwares has returned to the Sherlock Holmes for something of a prequel, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One (November 16), that focuses on the detective’s career in his early twenties. There’s also a space combat game called Chorus (December 3) worth keeping an eye on, as well as a futuristic platformer Solar Ash (December 2).

Notable Video Game Releases Closing Out 2021: Call of Duty, Halo, MOAR SKYRIM