South of Midnight is a remarkable celebration of the myths, sounds, culture, and language of the American Deep South, using the framework of a 3D action-platformer to spin a yarn about contending with pain and the strength necessary to rise above it. Developed by Compulsion Games--the team behind Contrast and We Happy Few--South of Midnight builds on the Canadian studio's strengths: intriguing narrative concepts, perturbing atmosphere, and memorable characters. Much like Contrast and We Happy Few, South of Midnight's gameplay pales in comparison to its narrative elements, but Compulsion Games' latest effort is its strongest game by far, delving into a setting and lore rarely seen in major video games to tell an incredible story.

In South of Midnight, you play as Hazel, a teenage track star who lives in Prospero, a town in the American Deep South. After a hurricane sweeps her home away with her mother inside, Hazel vows to track down and save her. However, she soon discovers that the storm has not only transformed the rural town and surrounding swampland into a dangerous jungle gym but also knocked loose a lot of lingering dark magic, making this journey all the more perilous. Hazel quickly learns that she is a weaver, a person born with the innate ability to see the underlying strands that tie the world together and can also knot into terrifying monstrosities in places where powerful negative emotions like grief, rage, and fear gather. Armed with surprisingly sharp textile-spinning tools, Hazel's search for her mom sees her stumble across numerous legendary spirits inspired by real-world myths, which she can help by uncovering the trauma that created them and doing her best to capture those feelings in magical bottles so that they can be taken away. To whom or where? That's just another mystery to solve.

It's a strong story that dips into Southern Gothic themes and cultivates a sense of dread that you cannot fully dismiss, for each of its tales exists in that unnerving middle ground of clearly being fantastical whilst pulling from real-world terrors like bigotry and child abuse. And when confronted with absurd displays of evil cruelty or agonizing tragedy in these stories, you can't easily discern where exactly reality ends and the myth begins--the pain in these gothic tales cling to you, much as they do to Hazel, and keep South of Midnight emotionally compelling all the way through.

Atomfall is not Fallout. The comparison has been a popular one, but the developers wanted to make it clear that this new IP from the creators of Sniper Elite is "its own thing for sure," and they're right. It is. But there are times when the similarities jump off the screen. Both focus on a post-apocalyptic world full of mutants, warring factions, and--most relatable of all--they both feature a sprawling locked bunker at the heart of their stories. But where the inciting incident in most Fallout games is escaping that bunker, Atomfall asks you to get inside its mysterious facility, The Interchange. It's in that simply stated objective that Atomfall's open-ended world design elevates the game to be something different and interesting in its own right, even as things like stealth and combat drag it down at times.

Just as Atomfall's major brushstrokes are derivative of Fallout and other post-apocalyptic fiction, its story starts with a similar penchant for the cliche. You awaken as an amnesiac in a 1950s-set British countryside. A nearby phone booth rings, and the voice on the other side demands you destroy someone or something called "Oberon." That same voice will call back nearly each time you approach a phone booth in the wild. The cryptic messages don't make a bit of sense, but it does swiftly push you toward your objective: Find and get inside The Interchange, a locked-down facility of some sort that seems to have been the site of a science experiment gone wrong. In there, Oberon can perish, if you so choose.

The region's people have been left to put the pieces back together following this event, and it's resulted in the forming of several opposing groups, such as the military force that claims authority, roaming bandits who use the chaos as an invitation to resort to lawlessness, and a cult of pagans who believe the catastrophe was good, actually. These territorial factions are often isolated to their own regions, which are experienced as a series of open-world maps that can be explored without limitations as soon as you start the game.

Juan Soto hopped on the subway and swapped one New York borough for another to become the highest-paid player in baseball. The Japanese phenom, Roki Sasaki, reunited with the growing list of his compatriots in Dodgers blue, making the World Series champions an even more formidable outfit. Corbin Burnes headed to the Arizona desert, the Cubs swung a trade for Kyle Tucker, and the Red Sox beefed up their rotation by acquiring ace Garrett Crotchet. It was an offseason of typical upheaval that even saw the Oakland Athletics leave their 57-year-old home for a temporary stay in Sacramento. But as the weather warms and spring training draws to a close, the return of the MLB season is just a few days away, which can only mean it's also time for the newest iteration of MLB The Show. While last year's game was one of minor iterations, MLB The Show 25 takes a few steps in the right direction by introducing a few long overdue changes to modes like Road to the Show and Franchise.

Road to the Show (RTTS) has grown stale over the past couple of years, with little to no improvements and an irritating connection to the card-collecting mode, Diamond Dynasty. This isn't the case in The Show 25, as it severs that link and completely overhauls the opening few hours of your career with the addition of amateur baseball. Now, you begin your journey to the Major Leagues as a fresh-faced high school student. By playing well in the three available games, potentially winning a high school championship, and showcasing your talents at the MLB combine, you'll garner interest from both MLB teams and the eight different college programs included in the game, such as Vanderbilt, LSU, UCLA, and Texas. You can opt to sign with an MLB team straight out of high school as an 18-year-old--like previous years' games--or head to college for four years to further improve your attributes and, ideally, increase your draft stock.

Each college has a rating from one to five stars in "exposure," which impacts your draft status and rating among scouts, and "skill development," which determines how many upgrade tokens you'll earn to improve your ballplayer. Once you've chosen a college that fits your needs, the game fast-forwards to your senior year as you prepare to compete in the College Baseball World Series in Omaha, Nebraska. Depending on the outcome of each game, you can potentially play in all four on the way to winning the national championship, which will significantly boost your standing in the draft if you also play well enough. After signing for an MLB team, you can expect to be fast-tracked through the minor leagues, as opposed to spending more time in AA and AAA if you decided to skip college, so there are some impactful choices to consider.

The First Berserker: Khazan has all the familiar hallmarks of a souls-like--from a bonfire-esque checkpoint system that respawns enemies to XP you can lose upon death--yet its primary influences might not be what you would expect. While its parry-heavy combat is immediately reminiscent of From Software's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, its level-based structure, weapon skills, and approach to gear are clearly inspired by Team Ninja's Nioh. Developer Neople has some ideas of its own, too, including a multifaceted progression system and cel-shaded art style that makes The First Berserker visually distinct from most of its contemporaries. As a result, this souls-like manages to feel familiar while also carving out an identity of its own, delivering a challenging yet rewarding experience that's anchored by a hard-hitting defensive style of combat and a degree of freedom in how you choose to play.

In terms of story, you play as the eponymous Khazan. Once a legendary general famed for saving the empire from the fearsome Berserk Dragon, he's falsely branded a traitor at the game's outset. After being mercilessly tortured--with the tendons in both of his arms severed--and exiled to a mountainous, snowy tundra, our hero manages to escape and forms an unlikely alliance with a mysterious entity known as Blade Phantom, who grants Khazan otherworldly powers in his quest for revenge.

What follows from here is a fairly boilerplate tale that's relatively light on story despite its ties to a broader world. The First Berserker is set in the Dungeon & Fighter universe--known for the MMO Dungeon Fighter Online and, most recently, the fighting game DNF Duel--so those familiar with the eclectic series might appreciate Khazan's origins. Those unfamiliar won't feel lost without this additional knowledge, but The First Berserker also gives you little reason to care about its narrative or dark fantasy world. Paper-thin characters anchor a forgettable tale that often tries to elicit emotion from characters you know next to nothing about. At least Ben Starr adds some gravitas in his role as the gruff protagonist.

Reviewing InZoi without mentioning The Sims, which is easily its most direct influence, comparison, and competitor is, quite simply, a fool's errand. There was a part of me--a very naive part, mind you--that thought it might be a bit fun to see how long I could go without making mention of the game in this review as a sort of challenge for myself. Clearly, I have already failed.

However, the context in which InZoi exists matters. Whereas the world is filled with cozy games, life sims, and plenty of other titles that reside somewhere between the two, extremely few play quite like The Sims. It goes without saying that Maxis created something extremely special back in 2000--something so creative, charming, innovative, and intricately designed that seemingly no other game studio has even attempted to put an end to its quarter-century long reign over the life-sim genre. There is no denying that the franchise's reputation has taken some hits over the years, primarily due to its perceived stagnation and parent company EA's predatory monetization tactics. As this discontent has grown, so too has the number of people looking for a viable competitor. And now, thanks to InZoi, we have a fresh-faced and utterly gorgeous new challenger.

Considering its good looks were among the first of many things that made InZoi such a highly anticipated title, I'll start by saying that it is just as mind-blowing to look at as it seems. From its UI to its city streets to its pouty-lipped, pop star-esque characters, everything about InZoi is visually remarkable. Vast amounts of customization options, an immersive and ever-changing open world, and an intense focus on making things feel true-to-life yet just slightly more grand further polish this gem. And I was relieved that, despite all its luster, the game ran perfectly fine on my less-than-great gaming PC (AMD Ryzen 5 3600/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Super). And yet, I was ultimately forced to reckon with the fact that, in my 20 or so hours with InZoi, I missed out on something incredibly important: having fun. Though InZoi is impressive, immersive, and brimming with potential, in its current state there is a sterility and lifelessness that is hard to move past. This paired with stale gameplay ultimately made InZoi a game I desperately wanted to enjoy, but seldom did.