Very few of the many stories you'll encounter in The Blood of Dawnwalker end happily. It seems foolish to expect anything else from a dark, medieval action-RPG about a secluded valley ruled over by vampires who demand blood and subservience from its human populace. While hoping for anyone to get out unscathed is perhaps naive, it's impressive that developer Rebel Wolves manages to give just about every story enough depth and nuance to keep all that death and tragedy compelling all the way through.

Dawnwalker is composed of what feels like a ridiculous number of quests. Due to its structure, they seem haphazardly constructed at first, with no dedicated throughline; only a story you construct by taking on whatever tasks you think are worth your limited time. What's shocking is that these quests, from the intricate stories of rebels fighting to free the valley and vampires following shadowy agendas, to the momentary tidbits of setup from a group of soldiers by the side of the road before you start hacking them apart with your sword, are so well-written. To the game's credit, there's a good chance you'll want to do everything in Dawnwalker. The fact that you can't is part of what makes it so compelling.

Dawnwalker's story is built on a ticking clock, and that feature is among the game's best ideas. You play as Coen, a human who loses his family to Brencis, the valley's vampire sovereign. Coen quickly comes to realize that Brencis is set to host a feast in 30 in-game days, so you have that long to make preparations and storm the castle to free the captured humans, doing whatever you can to strengthen yourself, gather allies, and figure out a plan before time runs out.

Time advances when you take on or complete quests and activities. Each of these takes an allotted amount of time, so you're always weighing whether you want to dedicate time to one quest over another. Dilly dallying with other activities while a quest is active can change the situation or even cause it to end in failure, so stacking up 50 things to do is a bad idea. While you have enough time on your hands that you're not forced to consider every single hour you spend along the way, the sense that the clock is against you gives everything you do in Dawnwalker the feeling of weight and importance. It also might make you think twice about stopping to lend a hand to a minor character you meet, or choosing a merciful but time-consuming option over a more expedient but harmful one.

Time also dictates the way that you address quests. At the end of the tutorial section, Coen is forcibly turned into a vampire, but thanks to this world's supernatural rules, he unexpectedly becomes a Dawnwalker--he transforms into a vampire when night falls but reverts to a human under the sun. During the day, the human Coen can do things like interact with shopkeepers or make his way into occupied settlements, looking like any other person; if he gets into a fight with Brencis's soldiers, he does it with a sword. At night, Coen is more deadly in a fight, but often more noticeable, and enemies tend to attack on sight. An area might be public during the day and off limits at night, so when you decide to solve a problem can change how you do so. And of course, some events only take place during the day, while others only happen at night.

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Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy faces a difficult balancing act. Can it move away from its predecessors' terrifying waves of rats and still deliver a supernatural terror that ties into rewarding environmental puzzles? Can it ditch the series' sibling protagonists and still tell a moving story focused on two people learning to lean on one another? And can it add fierce, frenetic combat to the franchise's formula as a new gameplay pillar without abandoning its core identity as a puzzle game? At times, Resonance succeeds--especially during its stronger first half--but it too often loses its footing. And as the game increasingly misses the mark, it further distances itself from what worked so well in the first two A Plague Tale games without adding anything to make up for the loss.

Set in 1334, about 15 years prior to the first two A Plague Tale games, Resonance follows Sophia instead of series protagonist Amicia de Rune. As a young girl, Sophia was forcibly injected with blood that causes her to have visions of a long-lost civilization. Wanting to cure her of these visions, her father eventually finds and travels to the island that she has seen in her visions, but in his attempts to uncover the island's history, he is killed by a mysterious and terrifying beast. Wanting to discover what her visions mean and learn about what truly happened to her dad, Sophia travels to the island with her best friend, Leni, in tow. 

The story, especially in the first half, is very good. This series has consistently done a fantastic job of quickly building up characters or situations in its introductions to be narrative buy-ins that are solely there to be destroyed or yanked away early on and create emotional stakes: Amicia's happy family life in the first game, the hope that Amicia's life had returned to some degree of normalcy in the second game. Resonance does the same. You actually spend quite a bit of time getting to know Sophia in Europe and the fairly happy life she has with the adopted family of smugglers she grew up with before a tragic event forces Sophia to go to the island. There's a real sense of desperation in her tale, and the stakes of what may happen to her or Leni if she were to return to her allies empty-handed and without answers are abundantly apparent.

Leni and Sophia have an odd dynamic. Narratively, it's pretty good. There's some angst beneath the playful banter of the two friends that implies there could be romantic feelings pushing the two together, and the two play off one another in cutscenes incredibly well with their very different skill sets--Sophia is a fighter who can muscle through problems that require strength, and Leni is a pickpocket who is adept at getting in and out of places she doesn't belong.

But that's never reflected in the ga

Star Wars has been inspiring video games practically since video games have existed, but unlike the trailblazing film series, it has mostly been content to follow the leader. As a result, we've gotten all sorts of Star Wars video games molded after familiar templates, from first-person shooters to racing games. Those have been enjoyable enough, but they're very much defined as: "genre, but Star Wars." It's rare, but not unheard of, for a Star Wars game to push a genre forward with a combination of new ideas and great execution. Star Wars Zero Company is one such case.

At first glance, it's easy to underestimate Zero Company, though. By all appearances this is simply XCOM, set in the world of Star Wars. You have a similar overhead perspective, commanding a small squad of commandos in turn-based combat as they take cover, flank and maneuver, and work together to take down formidable armies. And while that isn't inaccurate as shorthand, it would also sell the game short. Partly by capitalizing on the rich world of Star Wars itself, Zero Company finds ways to iterate further on XCOM, rather than merely imitate it.

First, some table-setting. Zero Company is set during the Clone Wars era of Star Wars, the tumultuous time seen in the prequel trilogy when the Republic was just on the verge of collapse into the Galactic Empire. Your player character, Hawks, is a down-and-out former Republic commander who started their own mercenary outfit after a disastrous mission gone wrong ruined their military career. The mercenaries, called Zero Company, are having money problems and struggling to find work, when a young Republic officer named Bennic offers steady, not-technically-Republic wet work in exchange for settling your debts. 

It would be easy to make Bennic sinister or conniving, dangling cash to desperate mercs, but this is one area where Zero Company excels. The characters are well-rounded and feel alive with humanity. Bennic is actually an honest broker for the Republic--a true believer who quickly folds himself into Zero Company and acts as the Republic's emissary. At first he seems like an assigned babysitter, but the friendship between Bennic and Hawks grows and changes in believable ways. The same could be said for the other members of Zero Company, like the decommissioned clone Trick or the grizzled old boxer Kabb Uppercut. 

The one slight exception is Cly, a Mandalorian bounty hunter who presents herself out of the blue to Zero Company as an asset they can't afford to refuse. Her story is the thinnest of all the named characters, and while it ultimately gets mildly more interesting, her inclusion felt perfunctory. Mandalorians are a popular piece of the Star Wars franchise, and her power set makes her a great inclusion to the tactical combat, so it makes sense to represent the Mando clan. I just wish her individual story and characterization were as strong as the rest.

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For as long as I can remember, I've enjoyed zombie fiction. I've always figured it's because I saw Romero's classics at way too young an age, but I've never wavered in my enthusiasm for the undead, be they in movies, TV shows, books, or video games. By now, I feel like I've seen, read, and played nearly all of them.

It's that familiarity with the genre that has had me so excited for No More Room in Hell 2 over the past few years, even through some early-access growing pains, and why I'm glad to see the 1.0 release stick the landing.

It's been a long journey to this 1.0 build for Torn Banner, the team behind the PvP medieval combat series Chivalry. I've been playing No More Room in Hell 2 for about two years now in early access and have watched as its studio tried to strike a chord with the community, which at times seemed fed up with the sequel and preferred its under-the-radar original. Balancing issues, bugs, and overall design issues got in the way at times, but I feel as though most have been washed away in its current form.

No More Room in Hell 2 is a first-person zombie-survival game designed for teams of eight. Right away, that's a pretty cool feature, as zombie games tend to be made for massive lobbies of dozens, like DayZ; smaller co-op teams, like Left 4 Dead; or solo experiences, like Days Gone. The novelty of eight players is a boon to the game, but it wouldn't mean much if, ultimately, that's all it had going for it. Thankfully, it has a lot else that works well in its favor. 

In its purposely slower-paced story missions, you'll move through campaigns set on large maps in Pennsylvania with a lot of lateral space to explore, taking you from the woods to residential neighborhoods to downtown areas and more, completing objectives as a group and hopefully escaping with the same number of beating hearts you arrived with.

No More Room in Hell 2 clearly draws on timeless zombie-fiction imagery, with the undead springing from caskets, banging on doors and windows until they break their seals, and shambling through graveyards like someone should warn Barbara. While the new console version naturally doesn't look as nice as the PC edition I've been playing for the past two years, the game has a strong sense of atmosphere no matter where you're playing it.

In some campaigns, you'll start alone and must find each other through exploration. These missions are my favorites, as they feel especially desolate and dangerous, and that's always been what I look for in zombie games. Throughout early access, this was always meant to be a slow-burning, Romero-esque walk through hell, and it excels by achieving that vision.

Though nearly all zombies in the game are of the classic slow-moving type, even just one of them can spell trouble. They're relentless. In fact, on higher difficulties, there may even be too many, offering not enough breathing room for the highs to feel as high as they should. But on normal difficul

For my entire life, sports games have lived under the shadow of a particular criticism: "same game, different year." It was never literally true, of course, but has often reasonably captured the sentiments of millions of players who jump into annualized sports sims year after year. EA's NFL sim Madden may be the most common target of this flavor of feedback.

There have been years when I, too, was very disappointed with Madden. It was taking the sport I love most and fumbling it every August. But for five years now, it's felt less true, and at this point, with Madden NFL 27, we just have to admit Madden is good again.

To be fair, I had even higher praise for Madden 26 than you'll find in this Madden 27 review, which takes a slight step back in some ways, but none of those shortcomings can be found on the virtual field itself. It's the continued gameplay improvements that keep Madden from succumbing once more to formerly reliable memes and criticisms. The Tiburon team has been building and iterating on its foundational gameplay in clear and beneficial ways on a timeline that, to my mind, began with Madden 23. It culminates with this year's game, which feels better than ever when you step onto the gridiron.

Defense is the key. Despite my career-high praise of last year's game, something shook it to its core a month or two after launch, breaking the pass rush for the duration of the game's time in the sun. It resulted in a Madden experience where games routinely went over 90 total points scored. In my competitive Madden league, I even saw some players score upwards of 70+ several times. Defense was sickly. Madden 27 is medicine. 

This year's game focuses intensely on giving players more control over their players and improving things like zone coverage and pass rushing, in particular. In last year's game, it felt like you needed a sixth sense as the user on D to make a stop. With smarter zone coverage, you can rely on AI defenders. Players won't spectate from the middle of their zone anymore, as they now "look for work," diagnosing a play's progression and playing proactively rather than reactively. Along with new tools to play conservatively, aggressively, or their ultra variants, you can now better prepare for what you think you know before the ball is snapped. 

These new shoulder-button commands are part of a complete remap of the pre-play adjustments. These take some getting used to, as they reconfigure years of muscle memory for longtime Madden players, but it's a worthy learning curve to run down, because the end result gives you not just more options, but options that are much quicker to activate. 

Things that may have taken four or five button presses in past games now take just two, and with new custom adjustments, you can create your own macro adjustments, bundling a set of would-be individual changes all in one go. For example, if you think you know what play your opponent is running, you can quickly activate a macro that adjusts your defensive line spacing, cornerback shading, and LB zone depth in ways that you feel counter that play correctly, all with the press of two buttons.

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