With Tropico 6, Limbic Entertainment is bringing back fan favorite features and combining them with their own personal touches in hopes of creating the most fully featured entry yet. As with the previous entry, you play through four eras (Colonial, World War, Cold War, and Modern) in this city-builder with a totalitarian twist. I checked out an early build of Tropico 6 and came away impressed by what the developer is doing with the title.

In Tropico 6, you once again assume the role of El Presidente as you build your fledgling nation up. The goal of the game is to stay in power long enough to complete 1 of 15 single-player missions or to see your nation become a powerhouse.

You can accomplish this through either acting as a benevolent patron or a ruthless dictator. Do you hold elections? Do you only open them up to the wealthy? Do you try and attract tourists? Do you invest in the weapons industry? Do you test nuclear weapons? These factors all affect how your citizens view you and how much they'll tolerate your reign.

Absolver is hands-down the most complex melee combat system I’ve encountered in a game, and the game will live or die by its ability to communicate that complexity to its players in a clear and steady learning curve. That’s my prognosis after a lengthy demo of the online martial arts action game, in which one to three players team up to explore the ruins of a city destroyed long ago. Plenty of AI enemies are scattered throughout the world, but, PvP is also enabled throughout the world, so there’s a constant need to improve your skills and be ready for anything. The combat system includes options for multiple stances switchable mid-combo, combo chains with multiple alternative finishers, dodges, blocks, feints, an active-reload style timing system for connecting moves, and distinct abilities for every potential class. 

Between battles, you can meditate to completely customize your own combos; develop a particularly great set of moves, and you might even found a martial arts school, and other players will adopt your style. Beyond in-world competitive or cooperative play, you can also opt in to dedicated game modes like 1v1 duels or 3v3 domination-style play styles. As you play, NPCs and players who use a particular attack on you begin to teach you – get attacked by a certain move enough times, and you learn it yourself. 

I get it. I was as skeptical as anyone. When Konami announced that Metal Gear would be continuing (without series creator Hideo Kojima) as a zombie/sruvival game, I was not interested. However, after playing Metal Gear Survive at E3, I've changed my tune a bit. Though a 20-minute demo isn't enough time to offer a full endorsement, I no longer question the game's right to exist – and neither should you. Here's why.

Familiar FoundationMetal Gear Survive generally uses the same control systems Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain – meticulously polished and executed games. After being refined during the course of Metal Gear Solid V's development, this control scheme still feels great. If you're familiar with MGS V, you'll be comfortable with Metal Gear Survive almost immediately. Responsive and intuitive gameplay is something that studios struggle to achieve, so starting with that already in place gives Metal Gear Survive a leg up.

I've played Forza Motorsport 7 on Xbox One X, and there's a lot to like about it – it looks great, it feels good, and its got some cool features. That's not unusual for a Forza title. However, there are some constituent aspects of the title that are under the radar which help set this entry apart from the others in the series as well as the rest of the pack.

CUSTOMIZATION

For the first time in a Forza title you can see your avatar (male or female) outside of the car, and there are over 300 firesuits that you can select to put them in (you'll even see your friends' drivatars in their suits). While the helmets aren't a separate, selectable part of the look, the firesuit/helmet combos span racing history. As you can see from the shot above, everything happens trackside in the pits. Thus, there isn't a different showroom to check out your car via Forzavista.

I enjoyed Saint's Row: The Third and its follow-ups, but was a little let down Agents of Mayhem's initial reveals. It certainly had the tone of Saint's Row, but seemed to be a different beast. I was able to go hands on with the game at E3 and am happy to report that it feels more like an evolution of Saint's Row, as opposed to a hard turn.

Volition describes the game and its narrative, which has bizarre alternate universe ties to the world of Saint's Row, as G.I. Joe versus Cobra 2020. It's a description that Volition actually got from a focus tester that was taking an early look at the game and it encapsulates exactly what the studio is going for.

You are a member of Mayhem (lead by Persephone seen above) who is fighting the dastardly Legion, which involves you and two partners taking out an assortment of boss characters. For my demo I tried to track down and defeat August Gaunt – a renowned Justin Bieber-style popstar inventor who is funded by the evil Legion corporation. Volition insists the similarities to the popstar are purely coincidental.

There is no shortage of Lego games, so I wouldn’t blame you for feeling burned out on them by now. But if you only dive into the series occasionally, you might want to check out Traveller's Tales' next exploration of the Marvel universe. Here are five reasons that Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 should be an epic superhero romp.

A Fun Time-Warping StoryMarvel Comics has a lot of heroes, so TT Games needs an epic story that will bring all its characters together. For Marvel Super Heroes 2, TT Games has teamed up with award-winning comic author Kurt Busiek (Astro City, Marvels, other good comics) to tell a story loosely based off comics series like Avengers Forever and Kang Dynasty. In the game’s story, Kang the Conqueror – a warlord from the 30th century – travels back in time, attempting to conquer the planet and rewrite history.

Boss Key Productions has released several new LawBreakers trailers, each of which highlights a different aspect of the gravity-defying shooter.

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The first video focuses on the game's Vertigo map. It's small, but gravity anomalies outside of its immediate borders create opportunities for risk-taking combatants to skirt the edges and surprise their foes. As the video says, you'll definitely need to coordinate with your teammates if you want to win in this cramped stage.

After Dragon Quest and The Legend of Zelda, Fire Emblem is the latest series to get the Dynasty Warriors-style treatment. For fans, the action-packed combat is a departure from Fire Emblem’s strategy, turn-based gameplay, which requires you to stop and think carefully about your moves. As someone who loves the series, I wasn’t sure how much I’d like this change of pace, but after playing a demo on Switch and chatting with the developers behind Fire Emblem Warriors, I’m happy to report I had a lot of fun. 

True to a Warriors game, you fight through gigantic crowds of baddies. Fire Emblem Warriors takes place in an alternate world, where portals to other dimensions are opening, which sets these warriors to come together to fight. The main characters are new to the series – twins named Shion and Liane. You can choose to play as either the prince (Shion) or princess (Liane) as they recruit characters to help them save their homeland. 

The long-running political simulator Tropico returns with its sixth installment. As El Presidente, it's up to you to juggle the multiple political factions emerging on your islands. Appease your citizens through democratic (or not-so democratic) means, or risk a violent coup d'etat.

In Tropico 6, players now must manage large archipelagos. Judging from the teaser trailer, you may be able to decide whether you unite these individual islands, or rule them separately. If you do decide to bring your people together, you're able to construct bridges, tunnels and cable cars to transport your islands' citizens and tourists. As your government grows, you can send agents to swipe famous foreign landmarks and bring them to your island home, adding to its prestige and beauty.

Election speeches return in Tropico 6; spout empty promises to secure your reelection. Tropico's research system is also getting revamped, with a new focus on the politics that come with ruling an archipelago.

Microsoft and Stunlock Studios have announced that Battlerite, the top-down arena brawler inspired by games such as League of Legends and Overwatch, is coming to Xbox One. Stunlock Studios is the developer behind other MOBAs such as Bloodline Champions and Dead Island: Epidemic.

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Players choose from a variety of unique champions, join up with friends, and take on their enemies in an adrenaline-fueled coliseum setting, complete with a boisterous crowd. Teams engage in matches made up of several, short rounds rather than one drawn-out battle such as in League of Legends or Dota 2.