'Ghost of Tsushima' was my favorite game of last year, and this is an excellent expansion of the story, the game systems (horse combat!), and the world. I really like Jin as a character and enjoyed learning more about his past. I didn't love that you're trapped on Iki Island until you finish the expansion quests. And if you're a stealthy player of the original, know that you'll need to be more aggressive here. There are very few hiding spots on Iki Island. On PS5, the game is stunningly beautiful. All told, this is an excellent expansion of an excellent game.

'Deathloop' is tedious, repetitive, and not nearly as funny or as clever as it thinks it is. First off, the dialogue made me instantly hate every character. Reminded me of 'Sunset Overdrive,' another game where I even hated (especially hated?) the player character. Everyone in 'Deathloop' speaks in the same excessively obscene, nihilistic voice and it grated on me so severely, that I would mute the game whenever I had to repeat scenes.

Speaking of repetition, I guess you can expect it in a time loop game, but even still, I think this was needlessly repetitive. For one example, you need four passwords to access a hangar. So you go to one area, find and charge two batteries, start two generators, flip a switch. Then leave that area, go to another, find the building now accessible from the flipped switch. Go in, hunt for the password. Leave the area. Loop the day. Time for password #2! So go back to that one area, charge the two batteries again, start the two generators again, flip another switch. Then leave that area, go to another, access the building now accessible from the flipped switch. Find the second password. Leave the area. Loop the day. Two down, two to go! Is this fun? Not to mention, fail on any of these steps and you need to restart the entire process.

And whose brilliant idea was it to have Julianna randomly pop into these stealth missions to not only try to kill you but also to call everyone's attention to your position. Like, who thought this would be additive in a stealth game like this? On top of it all, because massive progress may be lost by dying in a loop, game-crashing bugs are completely unexcusable. And yet they plague the PS5 version of this game to the point where the game is nearly daring you to abandon it. Add the bugs to the decidedly last-gen visuals and the whole package feels like it was dumped into market before it was ready.

I'd forgive it all if there were likable characters or if the story clicks into place and becomes something that transcends the trail of clues you uncover. But there weren't. And it doesn't. I anticipate the clever comebacks to my opinion, like 'get good' or 'you didn't understand it.' But the game isn't hard. Certainly not the puzzle that it should be, instead the game holds your hand along the one path you must travel to the credits. And I fully understand the story and didn't find it interesting. The concept of a time loop game is a good one, but not like this. Not like this. Two stars for the halfway decent play controls.

This game is just crazy fun once you (quickly) become the most powerful being in the ocean. Don't be discouraged in those early moments when you can easily get bit in half by an alligator. You'll soon be swallowing those damn things whole. There is very little variety in missions, but the game doesn't overstay its welcome so I was never bored. Not even remotely. Once you're a big, fast, powerful predator, traversal and combat are both joyful experiences. I do like Chris Parnell as a performer but the narration here is too snarky for my tastes. Considering this is a game where the player character is a shark, 'Maneater' is set in a surprisingly well-realized world. And the 'framed as a reality show' story, silly as it gets, does work.

'Life Is Strange,' when at its best, is a driver of empathy. I never quite clicked with 'LiS 2,' so I'm glad to report that 'True Colors' won me over completely, and did so in ways that no previous installments had. I think that, in Alex Chen, 'True Colors' has the strongest protagonist in the series. The game does an excellent job of peeling back the layers of her history to help you understand who and why she is. I am utterly convinced that, in Haven Springs, 'True Colors' has the most interesting and evocative setting of the series. The story here is so particular and unusual that it becomes more believable as a result. I don't think the surprises land quite like [redacted] did in the original. And none of the romance options here burn quite like Chloe and Rachel did in 'Before The Storm.' But this is an absorbing, emotional piece of fiction that had me shedding tears like no previous game in the series.

I didn't have a great time playing 'Jurassic World: Aftermath' and that's mostly because I find this kind of game grating. Similar in structure to 'Alien: Isolation,' 'JWA' asks you to stealthily perform very simple (minigame-esque) tasks on computer terminals while being hunted by ever-present velociraptors. The tasks themselves aren't fun, and so it's certainly not fun having to wait two minutes to perform the task while hiding under a desk from a velociraptor that won't go away. I really like the art style here, but I really wished for a greater variety of dinosaur encounters. You really only get the one (raptor stealth) repeated ad nauseam. Shame that I've been turned off to 'Part 2,' because the trailer for that shows pterosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, and Triceratops all on the attack. Why not any of this in 'Part 1?'

'It Takes Two' is just about as bad as a game can be while still having outstanding play controls. May and Cody are probably the two most obnoxious video game characters of all time. And you know how long cutscenes can be annoying even on a good day? Well, how about an endless parade of 5+ minute cutscenes wherein two awful characters berate, gaslight, accuse, and abuse one another? This game is about divorce but it handles the subject with all the depth and grace of 'The Santa Clause.' If a toxic couple are forced to spend some captive time together, they will fall back in love, right? Right?! Because the game's understanding of human relationships is so shallow, I presumed that I was the wrong audience. Maybe this was MEANT for children. But that feeling slips every time the characters drop a curse word or do something darkly, depressingly violent.

Despite the tight control and some fun co-operative play concepts, 'It Takes Two' is culturally tone deaf, juvenile in its storytelling, and is ultimately a chore to play. I dreaded every time my play partner suggested we get back to finishing it. I understand this has won game of the year awards, but I know only four people who have played it and none of them liked it. So take that for whatever it may be worth.

Very few of the sidequests in this open-world lifestyle sim are of any real value. And most of the time you'll spend in Rainy Woods will be tied up in fetchy side content that gives you only a marginally better understanding of the characters and the world. The controls are stiff and the graphics don't really stack up against the majority of Playstation 3 games. But all that said, 'The Good Life' is one more fascinating and trippy sci-fi horror fantasy comedy story from Swery65. I became very invested in Rainy Woods, Naomi Haywood, and the personalities around her. I think Swery is best known for his character building and dialogue writing, but his games also tend to have really interesting stories. The story of 'The Good Life' is so oddly specific that it's a marvel anyone would have thought it up. And it has a point to make too, about celebrity culture, social media, and alternative facts. I'll follow Swery where he goes, because even if the game is janky as all hell (and it often is), you are guaranteed to have a unique experience.

Smaller in geographic and topical scope than was 'LoS: True Colors,' but there is a real charm to 'Wavelengths.' Until this side-story, I never clicked with Steph. She always seemed to be trying too hard. And was stand-offy in all the wrong moments. But 'Wavelengths' helped me to understand how Steph was uniquely impacted by the events of 'Before the Storm' and the original 'LoS.' And I cared. And I warmed up to her. I love the seasonal approach to the storytelling here. Though you never leave the record store, you really feel the seasonal changes and the year slipping away. I predicted the final moment of 'Wavelengths,' but it didn't make it any less magical when it happened.

With Shu Takumi returning to the series to direct and write, this is 'Ace Attorney' through and through. Everything wonderful and frustrating about the series is back in full bloom here. I enjoyed the change of century (19th) and place (London) here in this first game of 'The Great Ace Attorney' collection. I do however think the characters here are decidedly less colorful than those of the 'Wright Anything Agency.' New protagonist Ryunosuke Naruhodo, while exhibiting some of Phoenix Wright's original trilogy clumsiness, was never quite as engaging as Phoenix. I recognize that this may have been the intention...to bring the series back down to planet Earth.

I enjoyed the story of 'Adventures' and this was especially true of cases 3 and 5. Case 3 has a resolution that is surprising for the series and sets up a cliffhanger that isn't resolved until the final moments of the game. I really enjoyed both of the new game mechanics. 'The Dance of Deductions' was additive to the experience of investigation. And the jury system and 'Summation Examinations' were additive to the experience of trials. Like many games in this series, 'Adventures' is long-winded. Your understanding of the case will almost always be ahead of the characters in the game and they will sometimes take literal hours to catch up. It took me 40 hours to complete this game. Now consider that this is a game where you, almost exclusively, read text. In 40 hours, the average reader can read ~1600 book pages. So the act of playing 'Adventures' is akin to reading a 1600 page book. Sixteen...HUNDRED...pages. I really think that's too long for an 'Ace Attorney' game or for any visual novel, really. It's the literal equivalent of four to five complete novels.

‘Cozy Grove’ makes a great first impression. Similar to ‘Animal Crossing,’ it plays out in real time, making use of the real world clock and calendar. First few days, and you'll be appreciating the cute visuals, the calming music, and the minimal amount of chores that are asked of you each day. But trust me when I say that this is a deception. The first problem with 'Cozy Grove' is that the game expands every day and the chores (all of them fetch quests) require increasingly more materials and therefore more time to collect them. Several weeks in and you'll be taking quests from ten different neighbors and each of them will be giving you quests that may take days or weeks to complete. It would be maddening enough if you were able to pick and choose which quests to prioritize, but you are not.

This brings us to the next big problem with 'Cozy Grove.' Unlike ‘Animal Crossing,’ ‘Cozy Grove’ is beatable. The story actually does resolve itself and completing the fetch quests is required to progress the story. As the story progresses, the asks get more and more outrageous. By game's end, you'll be getting single quests that ask for, no lie, over 300 items to complete. And if you don't do a quest, the story screeches to a halt. That quest will sit there waiting until you do as you're told. To make matters worse, there is no leveling. You are no more capable on day 100 than you were on day 1. So even though the requests are 100 times more difficult on day 100, you are no better equipped to complete them. It is a game recipe potent enough to put you in the madhouse.

Like ‘Animal Crossing,’ ‘Cozy Grove’ calls itself a lifestyle simulation. But because you are constantly being surprised by material and item requests, you can never just settle down and, for example, make furniture to customize your home or decorate your many gardens that unlock around the island. Does this game really think I’m going to spend 50 hardwood to build a table today when tomorrow it may force me to turnover 100 hardwood to complete a required quest? Why would I do that? Every day neighbors were demanding that I turn over my stuff to them, so my house was just a storage space for items I may need to give away to complete a future quest. ‘Animal Crossing,’ this is not.

By the time I finished ‘Cozy Grove,’ I hated it. I dreaded new neighbors being unlocked. My heart sank with each new unreasonable neighbor request. Others must be having a different experience because a DLC expansion(!) just released called ‘New Neighbears.’ More neighbors and more quests? They must be joking. I just narrowly missed the madhouse the first time around.

Haruka brings out the best in Kiryu. I love that she became an enduring part of this franchise. 'Yakuza 3' does have a now-typical game of thrones storyline like all of the previous games. But thanks to Kiryu managing a beachside orphanage with Haruka, 'Yakuza 3' adds a new city, a whole group of new children characters, and new kinds of priorities for Kiryu. Some of the most fun I had in the game had less to do with the big-city machinations of the Tojo Clan families and more to do with managing the orphanage. It was goofing off as a masked wrestler to cheer up a young kid with respiratory problems. It was having a family meeting to explain why a young girl got her feelings hurt. It was worrying about Haruka when she would run off to the city by herself.

This is my fifth game in the series after '0,' 'Kiwami,' 'Kiwami 2,' and 'Judgment.' By now, these games are comfort food for me. Each game rewards the time you invested in the previous games. Old characters show up here, especially in substories, to continue their stories. If I have one criticism of '3,' it may be that there were too many substories and they weren't as wacky as I've come to expect. I completed 106 of them and I missed a few. Minor complaint. I really enjoyed my time with 'Yakuza 3.'

So very short for $30. I played the entire campaign, at a leisurely pace, in under three hours, certainly. Maybe under two honestly. But I really did enjoy my time in there. For a 'Star Wars' fan, you really can't beat some of these experiences. A light saber duel with Vader, using force powers to defeat a raging darkghast, flying a ship into Vader's castle on Mustafar, commanding droid troops with light saber swipes. It really is something. And I like the story too. With both this and the 'Obi Wan Kenobi' series, I love learning about the different ways that Darth Vader...cares. His objective here was shocking to me. And indeed I was also surprised by what we learn about the geological history of Mustafar. I'm keeping the star score reasonable only because it's a steep price tag for an experience that's no longer than a feature film. But if you like 'Star Wars,' you really should play this. I played on PSVR and if you care about visuals, this game looks demonstrably better on PSVR than it does on Meta Quest 2.

I'm glad to report that nearly every complaint you might have had about the original 'JWE' has been corrected here in the sequel. And the new features, including botanical feeding, staff management, dinosaur herding, and medical services, are truly additive. The content distribution is unlike the original, in that the campaign plays more like a three- to four-hour tutorial, and the bulk of your time will be spent on Chaos Theory story maps (one for each of the six films in the franchise) and on Challenge maps. Building and perfecting in 'JWE2,' whether it is theme parks or wildlife preserves, is just FUN. I played only this game for six weeks and only tore myself away from it to move on to other games in the backlog. A very worthy sequel to an already great game.

'Alba' is a great little open-world photography game set on a Spanish-influenced island over one week of a young girl's summer vacation. I found it all to be very charming and comforting and the perfect kick-back video game for my own summer vacation. Along the way, you'll get more goals than just filling out your photo album. Alba becomes an important part of the culture of the island over the one week of game time. It's a stress free game but also one that promotes action, both political and conservational, to make one's living space better than it might be otherwise. 'Alba' is exactly what I needed in my quest for games to give me some summer vibes.