Polygon

For better and worse, We Are Chicago dares to spend as much time on life’s tinier moments as its most dramatic ones. That balance isn't always maintained successfully: Blunt dialogue often undercuts the power of otherwise understated scenes. But the combination of the two still gave me a broader, better perspective of what life is really like on the South Side.

Because of its complexity, because of it’s myriad of interlocking systems, Nioh can be hard to pin down. More than anything, it feels like a flawed but promising first draft. Team Ninja has taken some big chances here. They don’t all pay off, but the ones that do pull together for a game that justifies some of the pain required.

Resident Evil 7's changes — especially the shift to first-person — may be off-putting to some. But it's an evolution that fits perfectly into the world and source material Capcom has created. It's hard to know if Resident Evil 7 will stand the test of time as much as classics like the original, or RE4. Taken on its own, however, it's an excellent game that pushes the series in worthy new directions.

It's vicious and grand, but bears its heart and soul. It has fun without completely sacrificing its gravitas. And with Yakuza Kiwami (the remake of the first game) due out later this year, Yakuza 0 might be the perfect jumping-on point for those who have been put off by the density and complexity of the series up until now.

Coming in fresh, I found Gravity Rush 2 so bright and original that I'm still playing it, even after the end credits. Gravity Rush 2 has its stumbles — the camera often feels at complete odds with what the game requires of you, a real problem in a game that so aggressively eschews standards physics. But even with so many directions to fall head over heels in, it lands on its feet — just like Kat.

Don't get me wrong; it is wonderful to hear Clementine's voice and see the young woman she has become. But at the end of Season Two there was someone with her who is mentioned in these flashbacks but has yet to appear here. I very much fear what happened to take him away. Without a doubt, it is what made Clementine grow up so quickly since we last saw her.

It enhances its smart, challenging gameplay with likeable characters, beautiful art and clever new features. It's a style of game that I haven't seen done properly in more than a decade, and while it's handled differently than classics like Commandos, Shadow Tactics packs in a wonderful team of varied characters and tons of ways to experiment with your strategy.

Super Mario Run is an enjoyable but imperfect adaptation of the Mario games for touchscreen devices. Nintendo's unmatched craft in creating platformers is evident during the best moments of Super Mario Run, but the experience is sometimes hamstrung by the game's limited control.

Too many extreme-sports video games gate the fun of exploring what they offer behind endless challenges, forcing players to retry over and over until they get bored and move on. Steep sets itself apart by never holding players back and never slowing down. Across hours spent with the game, I was free to throw myself down the mountain as many times and in as many ways as I wanted. As it turns out, that made for a damn good time.

In its best moments, The Last Guardian pulls off feats that could only be done on modern hardware; at its weakest, it's not just "like a PlayStation 2 game," but like a particularly rough, unpolished PlayStation 2 game, one that recalls the legacy of its forebears, but can't quite recreate it.