New, niggling concerns and abhorrent commentary aside, this is the most playable and robust Madden in years. The Infinity engine is shot in the arm the dulled, increasingly frustrated core gameplay needed. It makes plays more dynamic, fluid, realistic, and satisfying.

It's smart, it's pretty, and it never dwells on any one idea for too long. At its heart is a quality math puzzler, but what makes it shine is the dark comedy found in killing cartoon animals just to satisfy some arbitrary numerical requirements.

TEVI is a pleasant surprise that hopefully doesn’t fly under most radars. Even with my gripes, I can comfortably recommend TEVI to anyone looking for a solid Metroidvania with a bullet hell twist.

Its campaign is a thrill ride of rollercoaster-like set-pieces, huge boss battles, and consistently fast-paced action, and its multiplayer is a solid, enjoyable, anarchic complement. If you own a PS3 and you love first-person shooters, you would do well to add this one to your collection.

A year ago, I couldn't imagine another game mixing tower defense and third-person action as well as Orcs Must Die! Clearly, I was wrong.

It's a beautifully brief journey, but ustwo's reluctance to fully explore its possibilities only hampers its potential.

Octopath Traveler is a small triumph in that it mostly delivers on its promise to give us eight stories worth seeing through.

Bye-Bye BoxBoy! is being billed as the last of the BoxBoy! trilogy and if this is where things truly end I think that’s for the better. Qbby is great and this monochrome world is wonderful, but I feel as though its basic puzzle formula is on the cusp of getting stale.

Triangle Strategy stumbles just enough in those areas to note it, but excels when it comes to tactical combat. It feels right at home on the Switch, as a perfect blend of strategy and RPG to keep coming back to, with just enough reasons to keep exploring post-credits and alternate routes. It may not be a deft landing, but Triangle Strategy is ultimately the tactical RPG I was hoping it would be, holding its own in an increasingly competitive field.

Ratchet & Clank Collection is a reminder of how one developer dared to give some guns to a platforming mascot and made a couple classics in the process. In an era where every third-person shooter comes with bloodstains and a cover mechanic, it's nice to return to this lovable duo and discover that they haven't aged a bit.

If you've never given Pushmo a fair shake before, trying out the free stages in Stretchmo is a great way to start.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is like a good pie, the kind mothers used to make. It's warm and satisfying with a near-perfect consistency throughout. It might be appealing to try and devour all at once, but trying that may leave you with a bit of an ache. No, savor it. It's likely to be one of the best damn pies you're going to enjoy this year.

So long as you can deal with some antiquated visuals and a bit of exploration-based frustration with the ZX games in particular, you'll have plenty of rainy days squared away.

It feels like an experiment, but beyond merely proving that its innovations work, Betrayal at Club Low also manages to be an entertaining experience. This, along with games like Citizen Sleeper, is raising my expectations for RPG dialogue. That it manages to present itself as a complete narrative and aesthetic package is mind-blowing. This is a game I won’t soon forget and one you shouldn’t pass up.

It's simply a second-rate title that might have been good a decade ago, but doesn't need to exist in this day and age.

A truly new adventure, and deserves to be treated as such. As much as it will likely be enjoyed by fans of FFVII, I can also imagine gamers who missed that game playing this could become genuinely curious about going back in time to meet those old characters and learn about how their histories are connected.

Put simply, this is a game in which you get out what you put in. It is incremental in its brilliance. It is a game of pure mechanics and of player skill. It's confusing in a good way and difficult in the best way. From a game design perspective it is perfect, but the ambiguity will definitely push some players away.

Darksiders is one of the best action-adventure games of the current generation. Everything in it, you've played before, but never has such a collection of game mechanics been stitched together so well, not to mention feel like part of a coherent game world.

With a lot of polish in terms of the controls through a future update, this could be one of the finest games on the App Store. Otherwise, just stick to the other incredible versions if possible.

Monaco: What's Yours is Mine truly is a game for anyone and everyone. It is simple enough to pick up and immediately understand how things work, while at the same time offers the complexity to have multiple players spend a few minutes sitting still, devising a self-titled "Best Plan Ever" complete with tracing the plan on the screen with fingers, saying “Ready? GO!”, only to see it backfire in seconds.

The new tactical combat is welcome and there's some real enjoyment to be had in tinkering around with all of the available Functions. However, if parts of Bastion left you cold, then you may find the similar structure of Transistor and its themes will have a hard time winning you over.

I maintain that Castle Crashers is a good game. Great, even, if you're playing cooperatively. But seven years later, I'm not nearly as smitten. I just can't endlessly grind battles like I used to.

When the game is fixated on familial struggles – everything circling patriarch Arakawa, his son Masato, and Ichiban – I'm glued to the screen.

If you're interested in a modern classic that's both a loving retro homage and a cleverly design platformer, go ahead and give Mutant Mudds Deluxe a go first to see if it's your thing. If so, picking up Super Challenge wouldn't be a bad idea, because while it doesn't wildly alter the formula, it complements the series in an honorable way.

Complaints aside, inFAMOUS 2 makes huge strides in almost every facet of development. Story and character, combat, environment, enemy AI, the powers, and visual polish all receive an upgrade in this iteration.

Yakuza 5 is exactly the sort of game the expression "greater than the sum of its parts" was made to describe. Each facet of the experience, taken individually, leaves room for improvement, but, reflecting on my time with Yakuza 5, I can't conjure much in the way of disappointment. Some bumps notwithstanding, it's a hell of a ride, one that I heartily recommend.

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is successful in just about everything it attempts. Not only is its gameplay extremely replayable and constantly satisfying, but it also manages to stack it all on a very solid narrative foundation. Tangibly, it feels like keeping your head down while forces bigger than you decide your fate. Gross. But if you don’t want all the horrible management talk and resistance to unionization to drag you down, you can just go in and hack some ships apart. It’s a serene zero-g experience while a wasp flies around in your helmet. Ignore it, and maybe it will leave you alone. Except probably not, wasps are jerks.

The concept of “flow” was first outlined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and it describes a state of mind when you’re completely immersed in what you’re doing. Time disappears and it feels like you’re in the zone. The common example often given to describe this mental state is the climber who doesn’t need to think about what he does next — he simply moves. You can capture that feeling in Jusant if you allow yourself to get lost in the flow of gameplay. Before you know it, you’ll be at the peak, and all the sweat and setbacks will feel worth it.