If InterWave manage to grow alongside the community, Nuclear Dawn could become the most important FPS game to arrive in a long time. Right now, it's a welcome replacement for Team Fortress 2 and stopgap until Natural Selection 2.

Earth Defense Force 2 may not be a brand new game per say, but has enough original content to keep it feeling fresh alongside the other recent releases in the series. With a lot of replayability, online four-player co-op, and a budget price tag it is easy to recommend to Vita owners looking for some campy over-the-top action in spite of its flaws.

It's a good chunk of content for an absolute steal of a price. The wackiness of grabbing your friends, flinging yourself around, making faces and noises, and just causing shenanigans all around doesn't really get old. Heave Ho is a much harder sell to anyone expecting to play it solo, but it's an absolute must-have for any local multiplayer get-together with friends.

As much as I loved Project X Zone, it's not for everyone. The story is incomprehensible. It can be pretty repetitive. And those lacking a strong attachment to Capcom, Namco Bandai, and Sega's iconic characters might want to stay away. That said, this is a love letter from Japan that just any RPG fan should seriously consider checking out.

L.A. Noire isn't the prettiest project, but it still holds up because there isn't anything quite like it even today.

Despite the serious tone set by the plot, it's best to go into Clandestine with a light-hearted approach. The movement is a bit clunky, the animations and voice acting are stiff as a board, and there's plenty of visual issues. However, the core gameplay and asymmetric ideas work well together.

Total War: Pharaoh stands atop the pyramids of grand-scale RTS. It takes the franchise in a bold new direction, adding a slew of new systems and features that enhance the gameplay. Despite choosing to play it safe with battles, the new systems are a big step forward. And while it has its flaws, Pharaoh features one of the best campaigns yet in an exciting and beautiful setting.

Like a Dragon Gaiden has games, laughs, tears, and brawls where characters dramatically reveal their resplendent back tattoos. It does what a new Like a Dragon entry needs to do, and tees up some big emotional moments for its longtime series lead along the way. If you want a deep story with twists and turns, this may not be all you hope for. But if you run off the beaten path to get a model AiAi out of the UFO Catcher, this should more than tide you over to Infinite Wealth.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a huge step up from its predecessor, mostly because it manages to tell a more compelling and personal tale. At the same time, that intimate feel is juxtaposed against a gigantic, sprawling open-world adventure that may hit some snags along the way but still comes out on top.

The experience is not flawless by any means, with a story mode that stumbles over too many frustrating sequences and not enough narrative pay-off to make it worthwhile on its own. But taken as a whole -- with its frequent bits of brilliance and its delightful, heart-pounding moments -- Mirror’s Edge is a leap of faith worth taking.

In terms of addressing and incorporating the new standards established by Kinect, Kung Fu High Impact has done well. It's fun played alone or with a group, and is even a great workout.

I found myself largely enamored with Phoenotopia Awakening. Its often humorous and sometimes sentimental dialogue got through to me, and its challenging but tight platforming action really appealed. I’m a little bit weary from my trek through its expansive campaign, but I’m satisfied all the same. It’s an aesthetically pleasing, unforgivingly mean, but an altogether lovingly assembled experience.

Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is worth it for 9 alone, but you'll also get to experience several legacy games that were passed by.

Simply put, it’s a title that knows what it is and seems to hit all its targets with deadly precision. This results in a game that isn’t exactly transcendental, but is as solid as bedrock. Even if you’re not a fan of the Record of Lodoss War source material, it is worth a look. At the very least, it took me back to my days of binging on Castlevania’s Game Boy and DS titles, which I mean as a compliment. It may not be the freshest meal in the cafeteria, but it’s still a tasty dish at the right price.

Although GNOG is brief enough to be a single-sitting game, that length feels about right, give or take another puzzle or two to really round out the package. Most everything is well-thought-out, polished, and delightful, so even with those quibbles, there's a lot to love.

Drawful 2 is a phenomenal vehicle to waste away an entire evening with your friends doubled over in fits of laughter. It's hard to care about the lack of real innovation when tears are blurring your vision and you can't catch your breath from laughing so hard.

It’s a loving tribute to Atari’s early console and the games that defined it, and it provides a nostalgic vision of yesteryear’s gaming laced with a bit of horror. The final act might be a bit too much torment, but it doesn’t crack the polish of the game’s bulk. It’s absolutely worth it, just maybe chamber a few swears in preparation.

Everything is pretty clearly laid out for you and none of the puzzles are excessively challenging or logically obtuse, leaving you free to enjoy the humor and absurdity.

Gunbrella is a rather easy recommendation. It’s a solid platformer with a lot of charm. I’m not sure it will be at the top of my mind when I think of my favorite games, and I don’t think I’m going to be eager to scoop up a physical copy sometime in the future, but I undoubtedly enjoyed my time with it. It’s worth keeping for a rainy day.

Perfect Gold is one such game that did manage to hit paydirt. It’s absolutely solid, and finding a narrative, even in the VN genre, that deserves to be called that can be difficult. The characters are flawed without being annoying, interesting without being archetypal, and the storytelling does a great job of focusing on them. It’s worthwhile if you’re into watching two people in love while figuring themselves out.

It's not likely that Your Shape will or should replace an actual in-the-gym routine, but it's a great supplement and a step in the right direction for the more sedentary gamers among us.

Blackguards is a wonderful tactics game with some rough edges. The core gameplay and character progression elements are easily some of the best in the genre, but as battles tend to drag on and more and more enemies scream “owAUGH,” the interest tends to fade.

Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters is certainly one of the most unique titles the Vita has seen or will see by far, and while it can take an astronomical amount of getting used to, it's absolutely worth investing time in.

Rain is not quite the model of refinement that some of its PlayStation Network peers have been, but it's an overwhelmingly amiable, effectively cultivated little adventure. Calming and scary, amusing and sorrowful, Rain is a game that jogs calmly through a gamut of emotions, rather than sprints headlong into mood whiplash, and it's incredibly difficult to ever dislike it, even during its twitchier moments. Rain is, above all, a most balmy experience.

Toy Soldiers is a great tower defense game for fans of the genre, and a pretty solid experience even for those who normally don't like such titles. Well worth checking out and could easily provide a day's distraction at the very least, with potential to become addictive for those who just love watching plastic army men burn.

As long as you can deal with a little skin and a silly plotline, Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed is a fun little action romp.

This is a playground that doesn't feel overly gamified. It's something I'd want to periodically return to just to roam around in it and take in the sights.

Krunch is a title that is sure to please anyone who stayed up late completing the Skyscraper Warp Zone in Super Meat Boy or ripped their hair out completing the Veni Vidi Vici room in VVVVVV. Fellow masochists, rejoice!