Fast fun and devilishly hard, Luftrausers shows once again that Vlambeer understands how to make classic arcade mechanics feel fresh and exciting. It's great in short bursts, the speed of each round often terribly brief, but lends itself to hour-long sessions of hammering on the controller to start a new game.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z reminds me a lot of last year's Deadpool game. It's a very limited hack and slash that enthusiasts will enjoy on a rainy weekend, but it fails to really ascend beyond that status. Yaiba isn't a bad game per se, it's just shallow.

Serving three masters as it does, Strike Vector might not have a whole lot of mass-market appeal, but what it lacks in that field, it more than makes up for by being a gorgeous, intensely competitive experience that matches its aesthetic appeal with pure shooter satisfaction.

I can't stress how underwhelming the game will be if you aren't a huge fan of the series, or you can't see yourself playing in the same sandbox enough to really get your money's worth. But for everyone else can't can't wait to get even a taste of Phantom Pain, it's worth the budget price of entry -- especially on a current-gen console.

While it may not be as complicated as an actual collectible card game, or have the appeal of showing off your collection to your friends, it is a great videogame that has minimal issues and is in a neat package, so it would be foolish to try to compare it to something it’s not trying to be.

Tappingo is a semi-clever idea held back by its lack of ambition and amateurish presentation.

If you enjoyed your first taste of Shadowrun, then Dragonfall should be an immediate purchase.

As you can probably tell from my time with it, Yoshi's New Island isn't a "must have," but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. It's very much by the books based on any genre standard, and there's pretty much nothing new here that you'll need to run out to experience. But even so, fans of the genre will still dig it.

Titanfall has all of the pieces to make a very nice FPS puzzle -- a wide variety of well crafted maps, a decent amount of familiar game modes, and a prestige system to hold the interest of veterans. In that sense, it's a very welcoming game that many disenfranchised genre fans will enjoy. Just don't expect anything monumentally different, or a worthwhile world to enjoy while you're having fun shooting everything in sight.

A fun spin on sci-fi real-time strategy that makes good use of tower defense mechanics in an offense-focused game. A little rough around the edges, it still manages to succeed in creating an experience that is challenging and unique every round while providing options which accommodate a wide range of skill level.

Rest assured if you liked Dark and Demon's you will like Dark Souls II. I was skeptical at first given the proposed changes, but ultimately I had an enjoyable time as I was aimlessly exploring its world and dying over and over to its bosses.

What it does to differentiate itself from previous entries in the series is mostly superficial, but Layton fans and puzzle lovers do not really need or want a great departure for the series. All we want is a puzzle-solving adventure, and Azran Legacy delivers a good one.

As far as videogame remasters go, Final Fantasy X and X-2 are at the top of the list as far as quality is concerned. It's clear that Square Enix put a lot of time into both of these beloved titles, and as a series fan I really appreciate that. They've made both of these great games even better with this remastering, and any fan of either should definitely check them out.

Tower of Guns is a beautiful marriage of two of my favorite genres, the first-person shooter and the roguelike. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my run I paused to finish this review.

Another major advantage the PC version has over the 3DS iteration is the new aforementioned multiplayer mode. Before you get your hopes up, it's asynchronous -- meaning your co-op partner cannot control themselves until you manually switch over to the other screen, and vice-versa. Because you'll have to quickly "take over" sometimes in mid-air in situations beyond your control, multiplayer is even harder than the base game.

If you do have some local friends who can come over and hold a controller, buy this game immediately and invite them over, because TowerFall: Ascension is easily one of the best things you can do on a couch.

Although I'm still not sure if this new cast is going to top Lee's old crew, A House Divided is a great second offering, and I'm sufficiently hooked.

The RPG elements are very serviceable but they're not going to satiate most of the hardcore genre fans out there. It's a good thing then that the rest of the package is filled with so much care from the show's creators, that it makes it something truly special.

While the difficulty curve is smartly placed overall, there are some levels where you'll feel you've hit a brick wall and will have to try over and over again. Still, the leaderboards will offer dedicated players a reason to keep coming back and doing exactly that.

If you've never played Championship Edition before and thus do not have DX to compare it to, it's a perfect way to re-acclimate yourself to the franchise, while you use Royale to spice up your next local gathering. Everyone else who lacks friends on-hand or has already played CE should wait for a sale, or pass this one up entirely.

Basement Crawl is not only a broken, unfinished game -- it's also a poor one.

Gunslugs is a great tribute to the old school, while still maintaining a fresh outlook on the genre. While its random level generation isn't perfect, the control and chaos at play here is a fun distraction for an afternoon. You'll shoot a lot, you'll die a lot, and you'll always be moving right, but you'll always be having fun too.

The music is infectious and lends itself to a focused tunnel vision. And it's occasionally disorienting in the best way. Getting that turned around becomes hypnotic and rhythmic, with TxK acting as the snake charmer.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 could have either used significantly more development time, or significantly less. Either way you slice it, ideas that just have no place in the game could have either been expanded upon or pared down to the point where it doesn't feel like Dracula was wasted.

The problem with Chaos Rising is that while it offers up something unique compared to the other two DLCs, it suffers from a weak, unengaging lead character and uninteresting sidequests.

The fact that Rambo: The Video Game is being sold for almost full retail price is insulting, not to mention the fact that it feels mostly unfinished and uninspired.

Even with its blemishes, I was incredibly surprised by the amount of depth the game has to offer on top of all of its charm. Hopefully EA will ease off the microtransactions in the future and even more content will pile in.

Nintendo made a good attempt to salvage Steel Diver with Sub Wars, but other than the solid implementation of free-to-play, it doesn't really do anything exciting.