Steven Petite
Pokémon: Let's Go is a streamlined, marvelous reimagining of Pokémon Yellow with mostly welcome improvements.
There's explosive fun to be had in Just Cause 4, but it's mostly a rehash of old ideas.
Ashen's handful of new ideas make it a stellar Souls-like with solid combat, a great art style, and an interesting world.
Last Year: The Nightmare is among the best the asymmetrical survival-horror genre has to offer so far. While it's light on content and has some severe bugs, the rewarding class-based gameplay and great killer diversity makes each match feel slightly different and equally exciting.
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes has Suda51's eccentric charm, but the repetitive hack and slash gameplay doesn't feel nearly as great as previous entries in the series.
Kingdom Hearts 3 oozes Disney charm and magic both in and outside of combat.
Apex Legends is squad-based battle royale done right, complete with cool heroes, a superb communication system, and polished mechanics.
Far Cry New Dawn is a great open world shooter that rewards exploration in explosive ways.
A riveting take on an all-time classic, Tetris 99 is wondrous pandemonium in a (battle royale) bottle.
The Walking Dead's and Telltale's goodbye succeeds by closely examining the mother/son dynamic between Clementine and A.J.
MLB The Show 19 is a comprehensive baseball sim with a wide variety of engaging modes.
Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition holds up as a fun loot shooter, but the improvements made in the remaster are minimal.
Days Gone is a generic open world zombie fest riddled with tedium and performance issues.
A Plague Tale: Innocence has a great story, but the gameplay has a level of convenience that undercuts the perilous world.
Layers of Fear 2 is a stirring horror adventure with incredible writing that consistently subverts expectations.
Highly engaging whether you want to create levels or not, Super Mario Maker 2 is utterly fantastic.
SolSeraph is an authentic ode to ActRaiser undercut by unbalanced action levels and shallow strategy gameplay.
Madden NFL 20's Ultimate Team and Franchise modes are superb, but the career mode misses the mark.
Astral Chain is every bit as awesome as it looks in motion, which is to say it's downright incredible.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne is one of the best games of the year, expansion or not.