Destructoid

Mon Amour, as seen on the box, is fine. It even has that sometimes annoying “one more turn” addictiveness. That doesn’t last long, and beneath that, there’s nothing to sink your teeth into. It’s the Taco Bell of Onion Games. It’s tastes like food, it’s inoffensive, but once you dig in, you won’t find any real meat.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is obviously in no position to take the platform fighter throne right now, but I think the teams at Ludosity and Fair Play Labs have created a very good blueprint for what could be a very great franchise.

The Good Life does many things, but they never felt like they coalesced together into an experience that could stick with me. I certainly enjoyed parts of it, and some of its stranger moments really do land as big, enjoyable peaks. But there’s a lot of valley in-between, and while I arrived in Rainy Woods eager for a pleasant countryside escape, I didn’t feel like making a return trip after the credits had rolled.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles is another decent brawler adaptation that sort of asks you to already have a bit of background on the source material to truly enjoy it. In that sense, it joins a very crowded space of many other anime games before it, and many of you out there know where you stand on these.

Jackbox is at its strongest when the games are simple and let the interactions with you and your friends really shine. There’s a reason why Quiplash and Drawful have been so successful — they’re really good at letting us showcase our creativity, often to hilarious ends.

Metroid Dread doesn’t take a lot of big swings, but it rarely bats a foul ball. You can tell this was carefully crafted with existing fans in mind, but it’s not so heady that newcomers wouldn’t be able to pick it up.

The refinements are appreciated. The reliable gunplay — and the even greater ease with which you can get around and fight without being bogged down — go a long way in Far Cry 6. I have to give props there. And while I wasn’t able to test co-op, that’s going to be a bigger draw this time, and might be the ideal way to play. It’s supposed to be a thrill ride, after all.

Eastward pays a lot of homage, but those loving references feel like just that. One exception is the game-within-a-game you can play throughout the story, Earth Born. It’s a roguelike RPG in the vein of Dragon Quest that narratively mirrors the main story, and it’s extremely good. I might make a new save file just to play more Earth Born.

I’m not ready to let this one go yet. I waited more than 10 years to finally play Alan Wake, and now that I’ve seen the credits roll, I can’t get it out of my mind. It’s firmly sunk its teeth into me, and like with many of the other greats, I’ll be returning to this world again and again for years to come.

Hot Wheels Unleashed impressed me on basically every marker. It looks terrific, it feels great, and the track design is extremely well done. I kind of hate the blind box approach of unlocking cars, but that’s a small complaint when getting my wheels on the track is always a delight.