Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines has always held a special place in my heart for many reasons, but certainly the most prominent is this: It was the first time I remember playing a game and thinking, "Wow, I am absolutely too young to be playing this."

I was 11 years old when I took my first stroll down the streets of Bloodline's Santa Monica--when I clumsily WASD'd my way through rooms filled with empty pill bottles, condom wrappers, and other bits of paraphernalia that I can only recall with an accompanying blush. I was too young (and timid!) to be sucking on necks, canoodling with the scantily-clad Jeanette, and traversing the Ocean House Hotel's utterly horrifying floorplan. And yet, I loved it. I loved knowing games could be... this: dark, mature, and wicked.

Alongside 2002's Neverwinter Nights, Bloodlines turned me into a die-hard fan of both TTRPGs and CRPGs in equal measure. So, needless to say, you can count me among the thousands of us who have been waiting--impatiently and a bit nervously--for Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2.

For the past few years, developer Game Freak has been experimenting with the Pokemon formula. 2021's Pokemon Legends: Arceus redefined what it meant to catch a Pokemon, and 2022's Pokemon Scarlet and Violet broke from the linear structure to let you take on gyms in any order. With Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Game Freak sets its sights on rethinking the battle mechanics. For the first time, Pokemon battles are real-time, with attacks utilizing a cooldown system and positioning playing a key role. This fresh take on the battle system keeps Legends: Z-A engaging from start to finish, but a bland presentation leaves Legends: Z-A feeling like a relic of the past.

Pokemon Legends: Z-A exclusively takes place in Lumiose City, the crown jewel of the Kalos region that is heavily inspired by Paris, France. A canal bisects the city, cafes can be found on nearly every block, and the Prism Tower--modeled after the Eiffel Tower--sits directly in the center. It's odd to play a Pokemon game set within the walls of a single town, but Lumiose City is probably one of the only places in the Pokemon universe that could support an entire game. That's not only due to its size, but also thanks to its rich history, which was established in 2013's Pokemon X and Y. Taking place only five years after the events of Pokemon X and Y means Legends: Z-A feels like a sequel rather than a spin-off.

By day, you're tasked with uncovering the truth behind Rogue Mega Evolved Pokemon popping up all over the city, and by night, you're climbing the Z-A Royale tournament ladder. Before long, these two goals become intertwined and missions alternate between hunting down Mega Evolved Pokemon and raising your rank in the Z-A Royale. Each rank introduces you to a new opponent who represents a different faction in Lumiose City. Over the course of the tournament, you'll spend time with a martial arts club and a crime syndicate, as well as mingle in aristocratic society. As you're getting to know these characters and their backstories, Rogue Mega Evolved Pokemon will threaten the city and you'll need to defeat them before ranking up in the tournament. It's a predictable structure, but one that affords Game Freak the opportunity to delve into the different sides of Lumiose City and its eccentric denizens. Ivor is a hulking man with long blond hair who wants to tear down the Wild Zones so Pokemon and people can live together in harmony. Corbeau is a sharply dressed mob boss who's dedicated his life to making Lumiose City a safe place.

When it comes to games about human kids partnering with cute critters that can evolve into powerful monsters, I've always been a bigger fan of Digimon than Pokemon. But most of that preference comes down to what's outside the video games: Digimon has more interesting monster designs, for example, and a far superior anime. Pokemon has always had the video games I prefer to play, usually having more engaging gameplay loops and satisfying battles.

Digimon's latest foray, however, Digimon Story: Time Stranger, has finally shifted the needle for me. While its story and characters don't rise to the heights achieved in the best moments of the Digimon anime, Time Stranger is a consistently fun turn-based RPG with great voice acting and rewarding, strategic team-building.

In Time Stranger, you play as an agent of a secret organization that works in the shadows of Tokyo to find, study, and confront urban legends, many of which turn out to be a strange lifeform the higher-ups have nicknamed Digimon. During your latest mission, you witness the emergence of a terrifying behemoth that destroys the city and begins spreading devastation across Japan.

At its best, Battlefield 6 is everything you could ask for from a Battlefield game. Intense, close-quarters firefights transition into long-range skirmishes as control points change hands and the action moves from the tight confines of half-destroyed buildings to open stretches of land. As fighter jets and helicopters swoop overhead, a medic pulls out a defibrillator and rushes into a hail of bullets to revive a squadmate who was just blown up trying to destroy a tank with a handful of C4.

Elsewhere, a sniper taking residence in a high-rise building is snuffed out by a well-placed RPG, blowing a hole in their nest until the entire building eventually collapses in on itself, while just a few yards away, the burnt husk of a helicopter drops out of the sky as its previous occupants parachute to the ground amidst a salvo of gunfire. Battlefield 6 is a return to form for a multiplayer shooter that thrives on emergent chaos.

For myriad reasons, Battlefield 2042 didn't evoke these moments often enough, leading Battlefield Studios--the collective name for developers DICE, Criterion, Motive, and Ripple Effect--to look to the past for the series' future. It's well-documented that Battlefield 3 and 4 were key inspirations in designing the series' latest iteration, and that's certainly reflected in how it plays. It's a safe approach, which isn't surprising given the negative reception to Battlefield 2042, especially when so many fans have been clamoring for a direct sequel to the series' fourth mainline entry. As a result, there's very little about Battlefield 6 that feels particularly fresh or new, but there's also no denying that it's quintessentially Battlefield. There's still nothing else quite like its multipronged chaos, so a return to form is more than enough to get pulses racing, even if it doesn't necessarily push the series forward.

I have a pet theory about roguelikes: The play-die-repeat loop has been fused with almost every genre imaginable, but the ones that pair best are genres that have always revolved around repeated play. Balatro's gonzo approach to poker or Hades' riff on the isometric action game took the core of games that had been built from the start to accommodate repeated runs and then added the incentives of stacking, iterative power-ups and progression on top of them.

Absolum is a game that is fundamentally built around the classic beat-'em-up. That genre is among the earliest, virtually a cave painting in video game history--the classic quarter-muncher. Beat-'em-ups were built for repeated fun because they needed to keep attracting you back to plunk in another coin, but they were also built to be remarkably hard. These qualities, which developers have sometimes struggled to modernize, make the roguelike element fit like a glove. As a result, Absolum is an absolute blast to play, over and over again.

It shouldn't be surprising that Absolum hews so closely to its beat-'em-up roots. This is an original world from Guard Crush Games, the studio behind Streets of Rage 4. But rather than cleaning up the mean streets in a retro-modern setting, Absolum borrows liberally from swords-and-sorcery classics like Golden Axe. This is a fresh fantasy world in which a cataclysm resulted in the outlawing of all magic in the land of Talamh. A totalitarian ruler, the Sun King Azra, rules the land with an iron fist, and he hypocritically instrumentalizes magic to keep rogue wizards in check. As a small band of rebel wizards, you wage war on the Sun King, making your way to his imperial tower with the blessing of the Root Mother Uchawi, who revives you after each unsuccessful run.