Ether One nails its puzzles, atmosphere, and sound (ambient and voice acting). It also nails its story -- whether or not you decide to fully unravel its world and its mysteries -- culminating in a, well, refreshing, smart finale that will stay on my mind for years to come.

Along with Deathsmiles and Gradius V, SideScroller is one of the few side-scrolling gems of the past decade.

You should absolutely play Afterbirth. If you're already an Isaac diehard, or someone fresh to the genre, Afterbirth has hours upon hours of genuine joy in store for you. But you should know it will also have moments of soul-annihilating frustration. Maybe that's the price for flying so close to perfection.

The experience of New Vegas is sublime and so incredibly big that the ratio between getting annoyed by freezes and getting excited by the game's wonderfully engaging world firmly favors a positive outlook. Very few games could be good enough to make up for serious technical errors. In fact, I could count them on one hand...New Vegas is good enough, though.

You really can't go wrong by spending some time with Resonance. While at first glance it may hark back to games like Beneath a Steel Sky, it's a fresh, modern mystery. It's set the bar rather high for other adventure game developers, and not just indies, though they really drive the genre right now. It might have been over all too quickly, but it was undoubtedly worth the five year wait.

The Making of Karateka feels like a huge step in documenting the history of video games. There have been plenty of titles that have packed in making of details, but I can’t really name another that has gone to this much effort of establishing context for the games it’s spotlighting. Aside from Atari 50, I mean. Digital Eclipse has put together a masterful formula that speaks to retro explorers such as myself, and this is the perfect test of it. It’s absolute gold, and I can’t wait to see what they dive into next.

Content wise, this game is bursting at the seams. With cross-game promotion add-ons, tons of heads to unlock (that you can trade with other players), new weapons, replayable online and offline game modes, bonus levels, encore story levels, collectibles to capture, A+ grades to earn for every level, and the level editor with community challenges, you'll be at BattleBlock for quite a while.

Burn it All is a true gem of a game that shows just how you can mix creativity across many levels of mobile game design. Given how hard it can be to complete every level as fast as the game wants you to, prepare yourself to keep playing this on and off for quite some hours.

It features all of the best aspects of the series with very little of the negatives, making for a game that I’ll probably still be digging through by the time Kiwami releases over here.

It's a shame about the lack of multiplayer, but Rayman Origins is still 2D platforming at this console generation's finest. This is a huge, deep, challenging, artfully crafted masterpiece that is now portable, which opens the door for even more gamers to get lost in its goofy and delightful world.

On it's own, Blast Works' campaign mode would probably only deserve a 7.5. It's a solid shooter with an amazing gameplay mechanic, but overall the main game is too bland to deserve a higher score, even at the budget retail price of forty bones.

This is masterfully crafted sensory experience. Visually stunning, hilarious, and brutally challenging, Electronic Super Joy is a delightful and charming musical platformer that will ensnare your heart.

While Fire Emblem: Awakening may not turn the notch up to 11, it's everything that's right about strategy RPGs. Whatever options you choose to go with at the beginning of the game, it's either one of the most accessible strategy games to date, or one of the most difficult.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe is another re-release that isn't going to blow some people away, but provides another means in which to play a potentially forgotten Wii U classic.

Again, PixelJunk Monsters on the PS3 was already a great game, but this PSP update is the ultimate version. Both the original and the expansion are included, as well as online play, new stages and new weapons.

FIFA 12 proves that human beings -- not Autobots -- make videogames, and these particular people are sharp observers of the beautiful game. I think it shows, and I think FIFA 12 is a better game for it.

It's a delight to play at every turn, and it strikes the perfect balance between providing new content and not overloading players. Beneath its unassuming appearance exists a challenging experience that will last a good long time.

In my eyes, Happy’s Humble Burger Farm is a genius game. A horror game tied to the drudgeries of life isn’t a new concept. Even the idea of avoiding the wrath of cute mascots has been done before. However, Happy’s Humble Burger Farm does it with such dreamlike depth and panache that I can’t help but be impressed. I doubt this will be the last time I dawn the ugly apron and sling fattening food, and I just know there are more pieces of the mystery waiting to be scraped off the grill.

While you don’t necessarily need to enjoy racing games to fully "get it," I'm sure it'd certainly help. There aren’t many games like Trials HD in existence, especially not on Xbox LIVE Arcade, which should be reason enough to get you looking in the first place.

Like BEAT, it caused me to marvel at the the creative use of economic game design to create an experience that inspired both comfort and anxiety, familiarity and wonder.

Regardless of a few minor gripes, Odallus: The Dark Call is a worthy addition to any metroidvania fan's library and is worth the asking price.

If you've ever had thoughts of throwing your phone away or abandoning the internet to its robotic rulers, Mullet Madjack taps into that frustration.

Star Control: Origins was an absolute joy for me. Its story and characters were utterly charming and unique. Its combat is a ton of fun.

Now all I'm hoping for is the sequel that this is a little too set up for. I'm hoping it goes the Diablo route and lets me go to a heaven dimension to blast some weird, fu.ked-up angels. Uh, sorry. I've been playing too much Doom. I'm going to go rip up a steak or something.

When all is said and done, I found very little to dislike with Colors! 3D and I urge anyone with even the vaguest interest in art, and especially in utilizing the 3D aspect of the 3DS, to give this application a purchase. At $6.99, the program offers an incredible amount of utility and ease for every kind of artist, from the lazy school doodler to the masterpiece painter honing his or her craft. Besides all that, it's a simple and incredibly fun tool with an amazing community of artists proudly displaying their beautiful and funny 3D images.

Despite it not being what I expected and having a few quirks like unusually long load times (30 seconds at most at odd times), Sucker for Love: Date to Die For is an easy recommendation for anyone. It’s a genuinely heartwarming tale steeped in horror. The way it utilizes concepts familiar to Lovecraft fans and makes them its own is inspiring. It’s flirty, charming, funny, and frightful in equal parts. If Akabaka was able to make this kind of leap between the first and second entries, I can’t wait to see what they do for the third.

The seemingly endless possibilities of Shin Megami Tensei V directly fueled my desire to play it from the moment I got my copy.

It may have some rough spots, but it is one of the most well-designed RPGs I have had the pleasure of enjoying.