If you're going to take on a juggernaut like NBA 2K, you'd better have a strong gameplan. Built from the cherished streetball memories of yesteryear and the charismatic vibes of today, NBA The Run is Play by Play Studios' debut effort and the team's attempt to squeeze into basketball fandom's gaming timeshare. As soon as you see it, it's clear this is a very different take on the sport than the true-to-life simulation that is NBA 2K, but doing something different isn't enough on its own. The team has to do it well, too. Thankfully, NBA The Run scores on most of its attempts, earning it a place in the rotation.

NBA The Run is essentially a modern take on NBA Street and the colorful, exaggerated arcade sports games we don't often see anymore. The team at Play by Play includes some former EA Sports developers, and they've brought their experience to this new endeavor: rekindling the magic of streetball games from decades past while modernizing the experience in clever ways.

The Run is played in games of 3v3, whether you're playing in solo mode, teaming up with friends, or matchmaking with other players online. No game is played as a standalone exhibition. Instead, you're always chasing championships in its tournament structure. Inspired by Fall Guys, The Run pits you and your teammates in a tourney that can be won by coming out on top in four consecutive games. Like March Madness, these are one-game, survive-and-advance showdowns, not series like in the NBA playoffs. Lose, and you're sent back to the start of a new tourney the next time you play. Win, and you're one step closer to glory.

This tournament structure is so simple yet so effective. Games are quick, at about two to five minutes per matchup, meaning winning a trophy takes only 15-20 minutes, or roughly as long as winning a round of Fortnite. Each round, a spinner randomly lands on a new rule set. In one round, you might be playing first to 18, with dunks counting as three-pointers, while other shots net you just one point each. In the next round, you might be playing for speed, with unlimited stamina and a first-to-11 scoring cap. Each round is unpredictable, making each tournament as a whole feel fresh. 

The swiftness with which you move through tourneys also feels like a secret weapon working in The Run's favor. Title wins feel prestigious, with a trophy presentation and stats summary that cements your championship as hard-fought--you can even emote and show off your total number of trophies--but losing before you get to the championship podium doesn't sting too much, because matchmaking is fast, your time investment is never steep, and the next tourney is just seconds away if you want it to be. This PvP structure respects your time, both by not asking you for much of it in the first place and by giving you a fun game to play when you do decide to sit down and play it. 

It's a smart way to bring arcade basketball into the present, but The Run doesn't want to merely port those older games into 2026. Things like NBA Street and NBA Jam always felt heavily skewed toward offense. Excitingly, everyone in The Run is overpowered, but that's true on defense as much as on offense. Shooting is done by simply timing the release at the height of your jump shot, and with an open look, it's likely to go in--provided your chosen player is skilled from the given range. But getting in the player's face can be enough to disrupt the shot's timing, and if you go for a steal or a block while using a player skilled in those areas, you may just wind up with the ball, saving your team the trouble of fighting for a rebound.

With Mina the Hollower, Yacht Club Games has cemented itself as one of the premiere independent studios in the industry today. Its breakout hit, Shovel Knight, was a retro-throwback platformer that merged classic 8-bit-style action with some modern touches. Mina the Hollower looked similarly old-school, with a look and feel that obviously pays tribute to the Zelda Game Boy spin-offs. But this time, the fusion of newer souls-like design sensibilities makes it more than a freshened-up homage. It resembles those Zelda games, but it's so densely packed with secrets and intertwining cause-and-effect outcomes that at times it feels more like Elden Ring than Link's Awakening.

The comparisons to Link's Awakening, and Game Boy Color games Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, are visually obvious. Mina has a similar color palette, the sprite artwork is familiar, and it uses an overhead camera. But whereas those games were relatively simple iterations on the template set by the classic Legend of Zelda and Link to the Past, Mina the Hollower is much darker, much denser, and much more difficult. The challenge level can be brutal and unforgiving, and there are elements of gothic horror, body horror, and gruesome violence--at least, as expressed through cute pixelated animals.

The story starts when Mina gets a letter from Baron Lionel, the leader of Tenebrous Isle, who requests her help with the island's power generators. Mina is a Hollower, which in this world essentially means a sort of structural engineer and earth scientist. Mina is the best of them, having invented the spark technology that powers the generators, which in turn makes all of the modern technological wonders of Tenebrous possible. But the generators have been breaking down, so Mina is asked to come see to the problem. 

After her boat to Tenebrous is attacked by a monster, Mina chooses her weapon. You're presented with just three at the start, and already, this feels like a statement of intent. Link's trusty sword has always seen him through, and Mina's twin daggers, Whisper and Vesper, offer a very similar play-feel. But this time you could also select the Nightstar, a whip-like morningstar with longer reach, or the Blaststrike Maul, a massive bludgeoning hammer. The message, which becomes even clearer as you play, is that this is a game that wants you to take combat seriously. And you'll need to.

Once you make landfall and enter the city of Ossex, you start to gain a better idea of what's going on. The generators have been sabotaged by an eco-terrorist named Thorne. Lionel tasks Mina with going to repair the six main generators surrounding the city, and you're vaguely pointed in a handful of directions to pursue. Immediately as you head out, though, you realize that this world does not spoonfeed its structure to you. It's not immediately clear where to go. The city itself is massive and bustling, loaded with named characters who all drop meaningful bits of information, though the game doesn't log these for you. What you do with that information is up to you--whether you commit it to memory, write it down, or chase a lead immediately. Like the open world of Elden Ring, the freedom initially feels overwhelming. A city newspaper points you in the direction of a dungeon, but the fact is that you can do them in almost any order.

When IO Interactive was first announced as developing a James Bond game, people connected the obvious dots: James Bond inspired Hitman, the series IO is best known for, so the studio seemed like a great fit to take on a proper 007 game. But it's where those two experiences would need to be different that had me most intrigued. A 007 game can't just be a Hitman game with different hair. Thankfully, IO's first foray into the James Bond world proves the team knows this and leans into it, delivering a thrilling Bond experience worthy of the character, while also applying lessons learned from the studio's own international man of mystery.

Though it isn't the first to tell an original story, 007 First Light is IO's very own take on Ian Fleming's iconic spy himself. With a new leading man in Patrick Gibson, and a story that takes Bond back to the age of 26, when he's still serving in the military sans any ties to MI6, it's a natural on-ramp for people who may not be familiar with Bond or who have been waiting since 2021's No Time to Die for the next reboot. This is a fresh start, and the team makes it their own.

In First Light, the Bond we meet is younger than ever, and this invites a more stubborn, mistake-prone version of the character, whom I quickly found myself interested in. Recruited to MI6's soon-to-be-rebooted 00 program, Bond can't catch a break, making enemies of his fellow recruits and his irritable supervisor, John Greenway, played by The Walking Dead's Lennie James, who shines in his newfound role in the Bond universe. 

In the movies, I loved how Daniel Craig's take on the hero often saw him receive his fair share of beatings. I strongly prefer that to an untouchable good guy who can do no wrong. That aspect of Bond feels ramped up even more in First Light, with a version of the spy who is hardly out of the figurative cradle at the intelligence agency. James Bond is a headstrong young man, and his tendency to ask for forgiveness rather than permission is both his best and worst attribute in the eyes of his superiors.

Before long, Bond is on assignment, using his tricks of social engineering and stealth to infiltrate a lavish hotel, where the agency believes a disgruntled ex-00 agent is plotting something. While this plot thread initially sounds a bit too much like Skyfall, it quickly finds its own path forward, eventually erasing my concerns that the 20-hour story would lean too much on things I've already seen. It's also during this early mission that First Light starts to reveal its familial ties to Hitman, so to speak. Like IO's flagship game, you'll be dropped into a massive gala full of NPCs, some of whom are guardians of certain areas of the hotel. And like IO's bald assassin, Bond will need to trick, sneak past, or otherwise dispatch the security to get where he needs to be. 

While the game rightly doesn't have the same level of dark humor as Hitman, many of the ways you'll move about the world feel plucked right out of it. You can distract guards, then sneak from cover to cover when they look away, shimmy across hand-holds and pipes outside the building, eavesdrop on conversations to get crucial information, and lie to peopl

Perhaps because he's so cute and marketable, Yoshi's adventures have been designed for a younger and younger audience for the last several years. 2006's Yoshi's Island DS was not out-of-step with the difficulty of a mainline Mario game, but since then, the challenge of mainline Yoshi games has been slowly softened to target younger audiences. With Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Nintendo has made the gameplay even more gentle for gaming novices--but what it lacks in difficulty, it mostly makes up for in creativity and a playful gimmick built around discovery and exploration.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn't a typical platformer. You don't move left to right to reach a finish line, Yoshi can't die, and there aren't enemies to overcome in a traditional sense. Instead, the stages are little biospheres teeming with natural flora and fauna. Rather than fight them, you're there to study and document them--Yoshi is less of an adventurer this time around, and more of a research assistant.

You're conducting research inside the pages of Mister Encyclopedia, aka Mr. E, a conscious compendium of all life on a remote, unnamed island. The Yoshis volunteer to jump into the pages of the book and document their findings, putting each of the creatures there through their paces. That usually includes documenting how they taste, what happens if you throw them, how they interact with their environment, and even how they interact with each other. This transforms stages into little standalone playgrounds where you experiment with a new creature and see what it can do. The play is about the discovery itself, as you observe different reactions and the game gently guides you to try new things.

Perhaps because he's so cute and marketable, Yoshi's adventures have been designed for a younger and younger audience for the last several years. 2006's Yoshi's Island DS was not out-of-step with the difficulty of a mainline Mario game, but since then, the challenge of mainline Yoshi games has been slowly softened to target younger audiences. With Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, Nintendo has made the gameplay even more gentle for gaming novices--but what it lacks in difficulty, it mostly makes up for in creativity and a playful gimmick built around discovery and exploration.

Yoshi and the Mysterious Book isn't a typical platformer. You don't move left to right to reach a finish line, Yoshi can't die, and there aren't enemies to overcome in a traditional sense. Instead, the stages are little biospheres teeming with natural flora and fauna. Rather than fight them, you're there to study and document them--Yoshi is less of an adventurer this time around, and more of a research assistant.

You're conducting research inside the pages of Mister Encyclopedia, aka Mr. E, a conscious compendium of all life on a remote, unnamed island. The Yoshis volunteer to jump into the pages of the book and document their findings, putting each of the creatures there through their paces. That usually includes documenting how they taste, what happens if you throw them, how they interact with their environment, and even how they interact with each other. This transforms stages into little standalone playgrounds where you experiment with a new creature and see what it can do. The play is about the discovery itself, as you observe different reactions and the game gently guides you to try new things.

It's surprising how well this works. Instead of reaching a goal line, the stages conclude when you make some pre-defined, especially significant discovery. For a set of flowers called ​​Crazee Dayzees, for example, it's using them to grow large flower buds. For Shy Guys, it's finding all of their hiding spots. For Casterway, a creature with a fishing pole, it's catching a huge lunker of a fish lurking in the water below. I wasn't sure how well the game would approach guiding you towards your goals when no two goals are exactly the same, but it works remarkably well. You can always ask Mr. E for a hint, but I rarely needed to. The rhythms of the stages and cascading discoveries often just led me to the right conclusion.

Years of Mario platformers, of which Yoshi owes its lineage, makes the general controls feel natural and fluid. You can run, jump, swallow things with your sticky tongue, and throw eggs using the left stick for aiming. But Yoshi and the Mysterious Book also gets a delightful amount of variety out of both its differentiated goals, and its myriad strange creatures. A Snurfboard creature functions like a surfboard, letting you ride on it and do tricks. Meanwhile, a Slugarang, a bug shaped like a boomerang, lets you toss it away as a projectile to mow down grass and trim trees, allowing you to make new discoveries. Each world has at least one creature like these two examples, and their inclusion mixes up the gameplay in some new and surprising way, which helps maintain a brisk pace of variety. And as you get deeper into the game, you start to find creatures that interact with other, earlier ones you had already discovered. You can go back and spend coins to buy hints for interactions you may have missed in a previous area if you want to see them all.

I should say here, by the way, that each of these creature