Destructoid

Metro Exodus: The Two Colonels is light on action and heavy on narrative, but will please dedicated Metro fans with its gripping, even unnerving, lore. While its smart story succeeds in engaging the player dramatically, the lack of extended gameplay sequences may leave some feeling like they're watching an interactive movie, rather than playing a new chapter of an action-adventure title. A short journey, yes, but still a trip worth taking.

The Coalition has achieved a lot with Gears 5. The writing and action often rivals the best moments in the series, even surpassing its predecessors at times. The overall package is the most robust Gears has ever seen. But, the big structural alteration feels like an unequivocal misstep. Gears 5 is a rousing success, but it could've done without the needless change.

The sum total of my experience with Daemon X Machina is positive. The combat is amazing, the game is bright and colorful, the framerate mostly holds up in either docked or handheld mode, and the hangar is great to tinker around in, checking out all the different configurations of my mech. That's what I'm going to remember out of all of this, which is safe for me to say because most everything else in this game is pretty forgettable.

Borderlands 3 takes most of the good bits of Borderlands 2 and either rolls with them or improves upon them. It didn't need to reinvent the wheel either, as Gearbox pretty much had the formula figured out the second time around.

I can't get Blasphemous off my mind. I may never fully grasp the opaque story even with the inevitable community-led theories and explainers lending a hand, but that's okay. Even taken as a fanatical fever-dream, this game delivers. Some aspects aren't as fine-tuned or ambitious as they could've been, leading to unevenness, but there's so much for metroidvania fans to latch onto here.

Flight School Studio has created an exceptional world to explore in Creature in the Well. Its prodigious art direction is enticing, wooing players into a unique puzzle game that very much feels like a history lesson on the medium itself. It combines ideas and concepts found throughout gaming into a single, dynamic experience with a memorable antagonist eerily watching your every move. I absolutely love it, but I recognize there is room for improvement. With a bit more variety in design and a fine-tuned difficulty curve, it could have been one for the ages.

That's what it comes down to, really. These days, there aren't many games I'm willing to surrender hundreds of hours of free time to, but somehow, some way, Monster Hunter found an opening. World laid the groundwork, and now Iceborne is here to carry me through the rest of 2019 and beyond. Mentally, I'm not even ready to start thinking about Capcom's post-launch plans for the expansion.

River City Girls succeeds in evolving both the Kunio-kun series and the brawler genre itself, offering entertaining gameplay, brilliant visuals, an amazing soundtrack and fun combat. While brawler fatigue, minor narrative flaws and a slim package threaten the experience, great characters, a reverence for the lore and addictive co-op gameplay prevail, ensuring Kyoko and Misako keep their fists flying to the very last round.

Catherine: Fully Body contains many of the blemishes from the original but doubles down on the amount of puzzles, which is a net gain. If you already had your fill though, you may as well catch up on some of the new endings and call it a day.

That's basically everything Heave Ho has to offer in a nutshell. It's a good chunk of content for an absolute steal of a price. The wackiness of grabbing your friends, flinging yourself around, making faces and noises, and just causing shenanigans all around doesn't really get old. Heave Ho is a much harder sell to anyone expecting to play it solo, but it's an absolute must-have for any local multiplayer get-together with friends.