Stop me if you've heard this one before: Lady Love Dies, the "investigation freak" of Paradise, has been brought out of her 3-million-day exile for the end of the island's 24th cycle, her tryst with a demon forgiven in exchange for her solving the murder of the Council that, until last night, oversaw everything. Their eternal quest to summon the gods has been undone by what might or might not be a vast conspiracy, and a clear suspect has emerged: a demon-possessed slave citizen with a history of crime and a stomach full of Council blood. It's up to you to uncover the truth of what happened--or, at least, a version of events that you're satisfied with, one that's close enough to the truth--and pass judgment at trial, so that Paradise can end and the next cycle can begin.

Paradise Killer is a detective game like no other, an excellent, bizarre, and utterly singular take on the adventure game. It lets you loose on its island setting, leaving it up to you the order in which you question potential witnesses, where you'll explore, and just how much you'll uncover. Structurally, it's reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild--it's got that same freewheeling sense of adventure, where every mountain peak has allure, and every fresh new discovery feels earned. You can start the final trial at any time and lay out your evidence, solving the island's numerous mysteries and sentencing the accused to death. It's possible to return to the judge with very little evidence and only a thin understanding of what happened, or you can really do a thorough examination of the island and its remaining inhabitants.

It's wild to think that long before there was a new Call of Duty game every year, Activision's big annual franchise was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. It's a series in which you only have to worry about tying off each ludicrously long combo before you bail and lose hundreds of thousands of points. With the sounds of bands like Goldfinger and Rage Against the Machine burned into your head, you scour each dense park in search of S-K-A-T-E and that elusive secret tape. And as soon as you finally find them, it's time to restart the two-minute timer and jump back in for one last go--which you already told yourself was three sessions prior. The stimulating trick system keeps you clawing for larger numbers, while the cleverly crafted levels lead you to new gaps, lines, and secrets to add to your combo's path. It's a special series that is infinitely playable, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 captures that nearly perfectly.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 revamps the levels and skaters of the first two games, though it borrows many aspects from later titles as well. While the trick system's foundation stuck through the entire series' history, various trick types were added with each new release. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 features many of the best ones, including reverts and spine transfers, and thankfully, it doesn't stray further than Underground's wallplants and grind/manual transitions. This makes 1 + 2's trick system feel complete, neglecting the less crucial mechanics--like Freak Out from Underground 2--and focusing on the best aspects of the series' tricks. One very nice touch, however, lets you switch between the revamped trick system and the first and second game's trick systems, offering a more authentic experience akin to the originals.

No matter which trick system you go with, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 plays fantastically. While you still control it the exact same way you would the originals, it feels a lot less stiff. Tricks are as exciting to pull off as they've ever been, but the speed of the game moves faster and the skaters' animations are a lot more fluid. Transitioning from grab tricks and spins into a string of manuals and then finishing with a set of grind transitions feels incredible--it evokes the series' early days of nailing unrealistic and goofy combos, while also remaining engaging and exciting when you're checking off goals in 2020.

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Lady Love Dies, the "investigation freak" of Paradise, has been brought out of her 3-million-day exile for the end of the island's 24th cycle, her tryst with a demon forgiven in exchange for her solving the murder of the Council that, until last night, oversaw everything. Their eternal quest to summon the gods has been undone by what might or might not be a vast conspiracy, and a clear suspect has emerged: a demon-possessed slave citizen with a history of crime and a stomach full of Council blood. It's up to you to uncover the truth of what happened--or, at least, a version of events that you're satisfied with, one that's close enough to the truth--and pass judgment at trial, so that Paradise can end and the next cycle can begin.

Paradise Killer is a detective game like no other, an excellent, bizarre, and utterly singular take on the adventure game. It lets you loose on its island setting, leaving it up to you the order in which you question potential witnesses, where you'll explore, and just how much you'll uncover. Structurally, it's reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild--it's got that same freewheeling sense of adventure, where every mountain peak has allure, and every fresh new discovery feels earned. You can start the final trial at any time and lay out your evidence, solving the island's numerous mysteries and sentencing the accused to death. It's possible to return to the judge with very little evidence and only a thin understanding of what happened, or you can really do a thorough examination of the island and its remaining inhabitants.

It's wild to think that long before there was a new Call of Duty game every year, Activision's big annual franchise was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. It's a series in which you only have to worry about tying off each ludicrously long combo before you bail and lose hundreds of thousands of points. With the sounds of bands like Goldfinger and Rage Against the Machine burned into your head, you scour each dense park in search of S-K-A-T-E and that elusive secret tape. And as soon as you finally find them, it's time to restart the two-minute timer and jump back in for one last go--which you already told yourself was three sessions prior. The stimulating trick system keeps you clawing for larger numbers, while the cleverly crafted levels lead you to new gaps, lines, and secrets to add to your combo's path. It's a special series that is infinitely playable, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 captures that nearly perfectly.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 revamps the levels and skaters of the first two games, though it borrows many aspects from later titles as well. While the trick system's foundation stuck through the entire series' history, various trick types were added with each new release. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 features many of the best ones, including reverts and spine transfers, and thankfully, it doesn't stray further than Underground's wallplants and grind/manual transitions. This makes 1 + 2's trick system feel complete, neglecting the less crucial mechanics--like Freak Out from Underground 2--and focusing on the best aspects of the series' tricks. One very nice touch, however, lets you switch between the revamped trick system and the first and second game's trick systems, offering a more authentic experience akin to the originals.

No matter which trick system you go with, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 plays fantastically. While you still control it the exact same way you would the originals, it feels a lot less stiff. Tricks are as exciting to pull off as they've ever been, but the speed of the game moves faster and the skaters' animations are a lot more fluid. Transitioning from grab tricks and spins into a string of manuals and then finishing with a set of grind transitions feels incredible--it evokes the series' early days of nailing unrealistic and goofy combos, while also remaining engaging and exciting when you're checking off goals in 2020.

There's an important milestone in every adult's life when they realize that their parents aren't just monolithic figures known only as Mom and/or Dad, but people in their own right who have hopes, dreams, thoughts, and desires that have nothing to do with their children. That’s not exactly new territory in other art, but it's a rarity in games. In the few that do explore that idea, it's usually Dad who gets the attention. That makes Dontnod's Tell Me Why a fascinating anomaly right off the bat. It is, without question, a shattered portrait of a single mother, pieced back together by those who knew her best. The framework of the game screams narrative murder-mystery, but the game takes a Knives Out approach to that; the question of who killed Mary-Ann Ronan is answered by the end of the first episode. Why she died is a far more complex question, and the answers depending on unreliable, traumatic memories throws another wrench into the mix.

The memories in question mostly belong to Mary-Ann's twin children, Tyler and Alyson. The facts from the start are these: Mary-Ann and her kids live in a tiny middle-of-nowhere town in Alaska called Delos Crossing. The family is poor, relying on handouts from other folks in town, while all the entertainment comes from either nature itself or Mary-Ann's fantastical imagination teaching her kids how to tell stories with and to each other. Over time, however, Mary-Ann's mental health deteriorates, culminating in a fateful night where Mary-Ann suffers some sort of mental break and attacks Tyler, who is later accused of killing her in self-defense. Tyler is sent away to live in a group home, while Alyson is taken in by a family friend, a cop named Eddy. Fifteen years later, Tyler and Alyson finally reunite to go back to their old house and clear it out to be sold, only to unearth some harrowing truths about their mother and their hometown--and everyone's roles in how Mary-Ann died.

There are quite a few mysteries to be unraveled in Tell Me Why, but calling Tell Me Why a mystery suggests the game is more action-packed, twisty, and turny than it actually is. It's actually closer in tone and mechanics to Fullbright's Gone Home than Dontnod's own Life Is Strange. There’s still quite a lot of Life Is Strange in this game’s blood, though. Most of Tell Me Why involves simply walking around, pressing A when you come close to anything highlighted to hear characters expound on a particular object and continue the story, making dialogue choices for characters along the way. The developers' design ethos is familiar, they're excellent at making towns and communities that are awash in detail, places that feel rich, lived-in, and full of history and culture. That's particularly special in Tell Me Why, given the cultures represented here that are rarely if ever presented with this kind of TLC, if they've ever been presented at all. In particular, the way the indigenous Tlingit tribe is simply woven into the fabric of Delos Crossing, and doesn’t call out to itself as exotic or foreign is just excellent. There’s much to be said about the existence of The Other being portrayed not as a strange curiosity, but a fact of life in a narrative.

There's an important milestone in every adult's life when they realize that their parents aren't just monolithic figures known only as Mom and/or Dad, but people in their own right who have hopes, dreams, thoughts, and desires that have nothing to do with their children. That’s not exactly new territory in other art, but it's a rarity in games. In the few that do explore that idea, it's usually Dad who gets the attention. That makes Dontnod's Tell Me Why a fascinating anomaly right off the bat. It is, without question, a shattered portrait of a single mother, pieced back together by those who knew her best. The framework of the game screams narrative murder-mystery, but the game takes a Knives Out approach to that; the question of who killed Mary-Ann Ronan is answered by the end of the first episode. Why she died is a far more complex question, and the answers depending on unreliable, traumatic memories throws another wrench into the mix.

The memories in question mostly belong to Mary-Ann's twin children, Tyler and Alyson. The facts from the start are these: Mary-Ann and her kids live in a tiny middle-of-nowhere town in Alaska called Delos Crossing. The family is poor, relying on handouts from other folks in town, while all the entertainment comes from either nature itself or Mary-Ann's fantastical imagination teaching her kids how to tell stories with and to each other. Over time, however, Mary-Ann's mental health deteriorates, culminating in a fateful night where Mary-Ann suffers some sort of mental break and attacks Tyler, who is later accused of killing her in self-defense. Tyler is sent away to live in a group home, while Alyson is taken in by a family friend, a cop named Eddy. Fifteen years later, Tyler and Alyson finally reunite to go back to their old house and clear it out to be sold, only to unearth some harrowing truths about their mother and their hometown--and everyone's roles in how Mary-Ann died.

There are quite a few mysteries to be unraveled in Tell Me Why, but calling Tell Me Why a mystery suggests the game is more action-packed, twisty, and turny than it actually is. It's actually closer in tone and mechanics to Fullbright's Gone Home than Dontnod's own Life Is Strange. There’s still quite a lot of Life Is Strange in this game’s blood, though. Most of Tell Me Why involves simply walking around, pressing A when you come close to anything highlighted to hear characters expound on a particular object and continue the story, making dialogue choices for characters along the way. The developers' design ethos is familiar, they're excellent at making towns and communities that are awash in detail, places that feel rich, lived-in, and full of history and culture. That's particularly special in Tell Me Why, given the cultures represented here that are rarely if ever presented with this kind of TLC, if they've ever been presented at all. In particular, the way the indigenous Tlingit tribe is simply woven into the fabric of Delos Crossing, and doesn’t call out to itself as exotic or foreign is just excellent. There’s much to be said about the existence of The Other being portrayed not as a strange curiosity, but a fact of life in a narrative.

Evergate surprised me. It looked at first to be slightly derivative of Ori and the Blind Forest, and I became interested in it because of those similarities, not in spite of them. In actuality, its common traits with Ori are superficial, and its strong focus on the puzzle part of the puzzle-platformer genre makes for a rich and wholly distinct experience.

You play as Ki, a small wisp occupying the afterlife and awaiting reincarnation by journeying through the Evergate. When a crisis threatens to undo the entire afterlife itself, Ki assists by going through the Evergate to relive key memories throughout time and solve the mystery behind the looming disaster. If that concept sounds heady, it is. The game doesn't give you much exposition to start, so you spend the first few hours piecing together the mythology at play. Characters freely throw out terms without explanation, and it's on you to catch up.

The main gameplay hook bears a strong resemblance to one of the main platforming mechanics in the Ori games. In those, the "Bash" move lets you spring off objects in mid-air, shooting in a particular direction. Evergate uses the same basic concept, but plumbs the depths of it as a deep well of puzzle mechanics. The entire game is built around a series of nodes with different effects, as long as you have a clear line of sight to an ethereal white object or grounding. As you progress further, finding these sightlines and discovering the order of nodes to hit becomes increasingly complex--and often acrobatic, as you use a time-slowing mechanic to line up your shot in mid-air.