The legendary Shawn Michaels retired from pro wrestling in 1998 after suffering a career-ending back injury at the Royal Rumble. No one expected him to lace up his boots and step back into the ring again, yet the Heartbreak Kid made a triumphant return in 2002, eventually going on to cement his legacy with unforgettable matches against the likes of Triple H, The Undertaker, and Ric Flair. The quality of the second half of Michaels' career ensured that his surprise comeback would be remembered as one of the most spectacular returns in WWE history, and it's one that's echoed in some ways by WWE 2K23. Following the disaster that was 2K20--a game so bad its successor was outright canceled--developer Visual Concepts returned to the squared circle last year with a solid foundation that 2K23 improves upon in a variety of ways, finally putting the long-running series back on form with a surprise comeback Mr. WrestleMania himself would be proud of.

Little has changed since last year's entry from a gameplay perspective. You still alternate between light and heavy strikes to execute various combos; grapple your opponent to hit them with suplexes, DDTs, and spinning neck breakers; and build up meters to gain access to signature moves and flashy match-ending finishers. Some may bemoan that it still doesn't play like No Mercy--an N64 game that many still consider the best wrestling game ever--but the series has never tried to. 2K23 is a solid wrestling sim, with most matches swaying back and forth as momentum shifts via desperate reversals and last-ditch kick-outs.

The improvements Visual Concepts has implemented are subtle, yet prove to be welcome adjustments, successfully banishing some minor annoyances from 2K22. The timing window on reversals, for instance, has been tightened up. Previously, it was a little too easy to turn the tide of a contest thanks to the generous amount of time you were given to nullify an attack. With a shorter window, reversals feel more impactful this year, encouraging you to study your opponent's move set and sharpen your reaction times as a result. This ensures matches are more engaging and also imbues each one with some added tension.

How do you remake Resident Evil 4, an experience that changed the way action games are made today? It is, at best, an unfair challenge and, at worst, an impossible task. So, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel a second time, developer Capcom has doubled down on the brilliance of the original's design--elaborated on it, and finely tuned the experience. The result is a stunning remake that reminds longtime fans like me of its brilliance, while also introducing an all-new generation to a modern classic and one of the most important games of all time.

If you're not familiar, the premise of Resident Evil 4 is straightforward: Leon S. Kennedy, the cool and handsome rookie-cop-turned-government-agent who you may remember from his escapades in Resident Evil 2's Raccoon City, has been sent to rural Spain to track down Ashley Graham, the US President's missing daughter. Yes, it's a "save the princess" trope but, even 18 years later, its juxtaposition against the survival-horror genre serves as an immaculate setup for the game's over-the-top set pieces. In this case, the princess is in another castle, but it's a castle besieged by parasitic infections and mind-controlled cultists, so you'll have to blast your way from a rundown village to a military island to get her back. While the core pillars of tense, up-close-and-personal action and careful resource management remain welcomingly unchanged, improvements to character development elevate the story as a whole. Now more than ever, Capcom is aware of the tone and humor of the game after it felt accidental in the original. This time, it feels like Capcom is leaning into it, striking a considered balance between heart-pounding horror and laugh-out-loud cheese.

This time, Leon isn't just a cool-looking dude with swoopy hair and a sweet jacket, who says sometimes cool, sometimes corny things, and does super-cool stuff. He's more than that: Now he's a cool dude with cool hair doing cool stuff who also acts like a human being. This is a Leon who carries the trauma of the Raccoon City incident from Resident Evil 2 remake, which gives more weight to his character and serves as compelling context for his motivation to save Ashley Graham. This time around, it's not just another assignment for Leon--it's a chance at redemption for the lives he couldn't save in Raccoon City. This narrative continuity is a strong thread that ties the remakes together with emotional heft, making this new era of the franchise feel stronger and more unified than the originals.

The difference in direction between the Bayonetta trilogy and the newest entry in the series, Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and The Lost Demon, is impossible to ignore. In place of the self-assured dominatrix we know and love is a timid young girl who is far more comfortable clutching a stuffed animal than she is a pistol. Instead of large-scale, action-packed set pieces and the mainline series' unapologetically over-the-top style, we are treated to enchanted forests, well-worn book pages adorned with soft illustrations, and gentle, childlike curiosity. As such, the first few hours I spent with Bayonetta Origins were filled with complete and utter confusion. I couldn't find the connection between Bayonetta Origins and the Bayonetta trilogy, or the threads that connected the two experiences to one another. But thankfully, the team behind Bayonetta Origins could.

Bayonetta Origins is an achievement, both within the Bayonetta series and games as a whole. It is proof the rules and limitations placed on certain, big budget series are made to be broken--especially when you can do it with this much creativity and tact. The charming adventure-puzzler is also just delightful to play, and is far more than what it appears on the surface. As its story unfolds, it slowly builds into a recognizably Bayonetta game--one filled with excitement, darkness, subversions, and feminine liberation--all while maintaining an identity all its own. All this combined with a touching tale of companionship and maternal love--that may or may not have made me cry a lot--makes for a game I urge you not to overlook whether or not you're a fan of the Bayonetta games.

Set long before Cereza steps into the souped-up shoes of Bayonetta, Origins is best described as a "coming-of-half-lumen-sage" story. After witnessing her mother's imprisonment due to a forbidden romance with Cereza's father, the young girl is forced to seek refuge under the tutelage of a powerful witch who lives on the outskirts of the forbidden Avalon forest. Her teacher is firm-yet-kind--clearly intended to show in part where Bayonetta's cool demeanor comes from--but is often frustrated by Cereza's cowardice. As such, when a spirit visits Cereza and tells her that the courage she needs to become a proper witch and rescue her mother lies deep in Avalon, the young witch quickly sets off in search of it.