Squirrel With a Gun, as the name implies, is all about a squirrel with a gun. Quite a few guns, actually. Although it's not an action game, nor is there as much shooting as expected. Instead, Squirrel With a Gun is mainly inspired by Goat Simulator and its ilk, letting you run amok in a zany sandbox full of platforming and physics-based puzzles to solve. None of these are particularly good, marred as they are by clunky, imprecise controls and a dearth of personality. Despite being around four hours in length, the whole rodent-wielding-a-firearm gimmick runs out of steam long before the credits roll, leaving you with a janky and unremarkable game that fails to live up to its absurd premise.

In terms of story, there isn't really one to speak of. The game opens with our titular Sciuridae dropping into a secret government bunker to procure a golden acorn. Once the tasty treat is in your possession, you then obtain a pistol from a clumsy Agent Smith-looking spook before being unleashed on a suburban neighborhood to cause mischief and blast away dozens of government agents in search of more acorns. Gathering a specific number of nuts grants you access to new areas, leading to two eventual boss battles against a pair of agents known as Father and Mother (for reasons that aren't clear). Defeating both wraps up the game, covering the entire extent of Squirrel With a Gun's paper-thin narrative.

Lacking any semblance of a story is fine in a game like this, but you would naturally expect some kind of irreverent humor to compensate for the scarcity of character elsewhere. Squirrel With a Gun doesn't attempt to be funny with any sort of regularity; instead, it mainly relies on the image of a squirrel holding a comparatively large shotgun or rocket launcher to provide comedic relief. Maybe you'll get a kick out of a section where you waterski down a river or chuckle when the ragdoll physics break entirely, but humor is not this game's forte.

In its heyday, the Marvel Vs. Capcom crossover fighting franchise was omnipresent. Every arcade--a concept that's also a relic of a time long passed--had walls lined with MvC machines, and each one was surrounded by players dropping quarters into X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and others. It's a bygone era, and for a while, fans believed that their beloved crossover franchise was as lost to time as the arcades of old.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection, however, brings together all six of those era-defining fighting games--along with the historic brawler that started the core partnership between Marvel and Capcom--in a new era. Thankfully, this package presents each game in a way that celebrates that storied past while also injecting new life into them with modern features, creating a collection that's up to the task of reintroducing these classics to a new age of players.

The meat of the collection is in the fighting games. Each of the six fighting games in this collection are the arcade version--no console ports to be found. This is of course the right call, as each title represents the purest form, running mostly as it was intended back in the 1990s--save for a few frame-rate issues that pop up from time to time. However, it also exposes which of these games are showing their age, and which can still stand with the modern fighters of today.

For multiple console life cycles, PlayStation has fostered a brand built on gritty anti-heroes, fantastical worlds at conflict with themselves, and a trope colloquially referred to as "sad dads." I like most of those games and find the praise they receive in many cases to be well-earned, but Astro Bot is a reminder of another side to the PlayStation DNA. Not only does it feel like a revitalization of an important part of the brand, but it also feels like a spotlight shifting to a character who has been lurking in the background, previously unable to see over the hulking Kratos, the war-ready Aloy, or the tortured Joel. Team Asobi's Astro Bot quickly, consistently, and joyously launches its titular hero into the pantheon of all-time greats, both in its first-party family and genre, with a platformer whose incredible ambition is matched by its brilliant execution.

Stranded in space following an attack from a googly-eyed alien, Astro's mission is to repair their ship and rescue all 300 pals scattered across five main clusters of planets, each composed of individual levels. Naturally, the story is not the focus here, and yet I was so immersed in the 15-hour game that I beat it in two long sittings. It may be 2024's most immersive game, and it achieves that without a line of dialogue. Instead, each level tells a story, clear as day, about where you ought to go next and what you should do there.

There is both depth and breadth to most levels, and frequent checkpoints mean you'll rarely be punished for exploration or missing a jump. Levels take only five to 10 minutes in most cases, but are overflowing with personality. Robot animals climb trees along the periphery or jump out of the ocean far beneath the levitating worlds you explore. Everything constantly moves around you, imbuing every level with life beyond the scraps you'll engage in with the game's enemies. Each level's theme is brought to life with aesthetic assets and design ideas that strengthen their themes. During a Japan-themed level in which Astro can soak up water to become something like a giant squishy kaiju, you'll simply plow over enemies the robot would otherwise need to be wary of, topple bamboo walls as the ground shakes around you, and soak in hot springs, all while string music evokes the country's signature sounds.