For many of us, the fantastic tales of knights and dragons, love and loss, and brave heroes overcoming all obstacles are the ones that made us fall in love with storytelling. However, as we get older and life grows more complex, so do the types of stories we yearn for. Although the hero's journey may serve as a foundation for countless tales, these stories ultimately evolve into retellings, reimaginings, subversions, and entirely new creations--ones that alter our notions as to what a story can be. It is this feeling of surprise and delight that Storyteller aims to capture. However, the imaginative puzzle game ultimately fails to bottle that magic, failing to meaningfully evolve and instead delivering a repetitive and underwhelming experience.

The premise of Storyteller is simple yet tantalizing: You create stories that yield a certain outcome by altering the order in which key events occur. You do this by filling in boxes that resemble comic strip panels, using an established list of characters and settings to do so. As you structure your story, adjusting variables where needed in order to create the ending needed to pass the level, the panels interact with each other, resulting in a sort of interactive butterfly effect.

The challenges start off simple enough--make the prince and princess fall in love, help the knight slay the monster, etc.--then quickly become a bit more complex, requiring you to understand a certain character's temperament and how that may flavor their interactions with others. For example, the noble knight is wary of murdering another character. The bloodthirsty baron, on the other hand, will leap at the opportunity. Similarly, the knight will always vie for the queen's affection, though it remains up to you to get her to feel the same towards him.

The Last of Us Part I's PS5 version was reviewed by Jake Dekker, while its PC port was reviewed by Alessandro Barbosa.

Joel looks different in The Last of Us Part I. It took me a while to notice, but once I did, it was hard to unsee. There's a pain in his eyes. His clothes and features are the same, but there's a quiet, unmistakable torment imprinted on his face. I've played The Last of Us nearly a dozen times across PS3 and PS4, and I had never seen it worn so plainly. I know Joel has a troubled past because The Last of Us Part I goes out of its way to show you a traumatic death in the opening scene, but that pain was never etched into his facial features this clearly.

There's an argument to be made that The Last of Us Part I is too similar to the PS3 and PS4 versions to be considered a remake, and part of me agrees with that sentiment. The story is identical, the level design is exactly the same, and the gameplay--apart from some quality-of-life improvements--is unchanged. On paper, if you've played The Last of Us and remember it well, there's little reason to return to it on PS5.

Jackie Robinson is many things: a hall of fame baseball player; a Rookie of the Year, MVP, and World Series winner; and, most notably, the first Black man to break baseball's color line and compete in the Major Leagues. The legendary number 42 made his Brooklyn Dodgers debut in 1947 and lit up the diamond with his electric playstyle, all while facing intolerance and hatred from fans, opposing players, and teammates alike. Jackie Robinson's alluring talent was one of the reasons he was chosen to be the first Negro League player to integrate into the previously segregated Major Leagues, but it was his outstanding intangibles--such as his ability to handle racist abuse with grace--that sealed the deal. Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, will tell you that Jackie Robinson wasn't the greatest player to ply his trade in the Negro Leagues. That's not to disparage one of the greatest players of all time, but to provide context for just how good some of the league's other players were.

MLB The Show 23 shines a spotlight on these unknown and forgotten heroes of the Negro Leagues. A new Storylines mode explores the league's rich history, telling a captivating story of extraordinary people triumphing in the face of abhorrent prejudice and hate. It's a landmark moment for sports games--and video games in general--meshing The Show's consistently excellent gameplay with educational and inspiring video packages narrated by the extremely knowledgeable Kendrick himself. The rest of the game iterates on its predecessors and shakes up the Diamond Dynasty formula with some major changes, but it's Storylines: The Negro Leagues that stands out above all else and elevates the entire experience.

Eight players are featured in this interactive learning tool: Leroy "Satchel" Page, Hilton Smith, Andrew "Rube" Foster, Hank Thompson, John Jordan "Buck" O'Neil, Jackie Robinson, John Donaldson, and Martin Dihigo. You may have only heard of one or two of these players, but every legendary figure has a whole series dedicated to their life and career, with each one spanning between eight and nine episodes.

For many, fishing is a serene, relaxing hobby. It's a playful, yet often deadly game, where typically the one holding the rod is in full control. Out on the open seas, this dynamic is often flipped. Manning a trawler for days on end, fighting devastating weather conditions, and drifting away from land for weeks at a time can take a toll on your body and mind. It's these sorts of conditions that Dredge so neatly encapsulates in a handful of smartly designed mechanics, but it's the sinister undertone seeping through every crack that makes its fishing expeditions that much more treacherous.

You begin Dredge arriving at a small fishing hamlet on an ever-so-slightly larger island. The town's mayor is in need of someone to supply its population with fish and loans you a small but capable boat to fulfill that. Fishing is what you'll do most in Dredge given that you'll never get the chance to set foot on land, so it's a blessing that it never feels tedious. Each battle with a creature beneath the crest of the waves plays out as a brief minigame focused on timed button presses. The format of each one changes depending on the class of fish you're trying to catch, but the basic premise and overall difficulty remains the same. Completing each one isn't even required for a successful catch. Instead, your ability in each minigame just speeds up the process, which can come in handy when you're trying to get back to shore before nightfall.

While the wide, sun-kissed ocean is inviting during the 12 hours of daylight you have during each day, it's an entirely different prospect at night. A thick fog settles in over the wide expanse, with your boat's lights often struggling to cut through them effectively for navigation. While out at night, your stress levels rise consistently (indicated by a Sauron-like eye that starts moving more erratically the higher the level goes), and with it, the chance for some surreal occurrences. Rocks that you might have been sure weren't on your path before suddenly appear, damaging your hull and potentially robbing you of some of your current haul. As you press on through the stress, your so-called delusions intensify, with anything from pitch-black ravens with glowing red eyes beginning to circle you to ghostly ships appearing in your periphery and setting themselves on a crash course with your vessel.

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.