Polygon

hat reuse captures NHL 17 in a nutshell. In places like the revamped Franchise mode and the improved EA Sports Hockey League, the game is full of promising new elements that are held back by a number of nagging issues. In others, like Be a Pro, the lack of change is more pervasive. Despite the major additions and upgrades in NHL 17, a sense of stagnation threatens the considerable progress that the series has made in three years on current consoles.

"Give ’em a wreck at the finish and they’ll bring a friend," as Richard Lee Petty of Level Cross, North Carolina, observed 30 years ago, in one of the truest things ever said about any sport. That white-knuckle last lap, even racing for 24th place, is NASCAR’s distinguishing product, and NASCAR Heat Evolution brings it to every race.

Virginia’s deviance from norms makes it the sort of game that demands to be discussed among friends and, in this respect, the comparisons with Twin Peaks are apt. Although there’s only one ending to this game, it’s confounding enough to leave multiple possible interpretations, which is often the mark of a great story. Such is its power and originality, I suspect Virginia will have significant influences over games yet to be conceived.

It’s hard not to compare Shin Megami Tensei 4: Apocalypse directly to its predecessor, but that comparison doesn’t really do the game justice. Apocalypse is more robust than the average remix, and in some ways it’s even better made than Shin Megami Tensei 4. It piggybacks on the game that came before it, but Apocalypse introduces just enough improvements to the original to be a meaningful improvement that’s worth experiencing — as long as you can handle a little déjà vu.

NBA 2K17’s story falls apart in the end, despite the Hollywood talents, but luckily, created players still have plenty to do with their custom creation, both online and off. With 2K Pro-Am providing an intriguing look at 2K’s esports future, and despite the presence of microtransactions, the basis is there for something long term. Taken as a whole, NBA 2K17 is a worthy if subtle upgrade to an already extensive, even exhaustive, sports sim.

Forza Horizon 3 is as much a driving game as a racing game. Through a superbly realized version of Australia as well as a wide variety of terrain, cars and challenges, this free-roaming car simulation offers a valuable playbox. But it also managed to muster "cor blimey" moments that made me feel a whooping rush of speed and liberation.

Spirit of Justice's confident story outweighs its clumsy moments...But muddling through the occasional poorly designed riddle to experience all that Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice executes on well is worth it in the end. It gets the important things right, even if the occasional clipboard or contract still slips through the cracks.

I’m usually more than willing to forgive boring, repetitive gameplay if a game leaves me a frenzied, sobbing mess on the floor. But in the case of Alone With You, I spent too much time bored with the gameplay, and annoyed that the characters were telling me how they assumed I felt. I'm curious about the other secrets I could discover, and other endings — but not curious enough to go back.

Its controls (particularly if you have an older 3DS) couldn’t be more cumbersome, and systems like weight limits don’t provide an interesting challenge so much as they just get in the way. Between my cramping hands and the constant need to recruit strangers into my squad simply to progress I found it hard to care about what I was supposed to be doing, no matter how many times the game dangled a certain iconic bounty hunter under my nose.

It would be easy for a game like Obduction to feel like a solitary, lonely experience, but the trick of the thing is that it doesn’t at all. In the story, although you are mostly alone, you are surrounded by signs of life: tiny slices of normality in an impossible place. In the play of it, I was always aware that Obduction is a thing meant to be beaten — that unlike so many things in life, each instance of confusion will eventually be paired to clarity.