Risk of Rain is a lot of fun. Though it is held back by its technical faults (which can be reasonably expected from a project created by two students), it has the right stuff to elicit the "just one more run" response that roguelike games are known for. With a little more polish, it could be truly great.

A Link Between World's main problem at the end of the day is a complete lack of heart. There's no defining moment, no memorable villains or characters, and no truly "new" items that make their mark on the series. It's certainly playable in every sense of the word, but I didn't feel the magic I had felt so many times before.

A fun romp, and definitely worth a play. It’s easy to pick up, a joy to look at, and and some of the boss battles are pretty great. My recommendation is that you take it in smaller doses, or try out the drop-in/drop-out cooperative play, which will definitely help when the going gets tough.

I like Killzone: Shadow Fall for its change of direction from previous series games, as well as its change of pace over other first-person shooters. Guerrilla has tried a few new things this time around, and should be commended as such. I welcome the almost sandbox-ish level approach, and the stealth segments did a nice job of breaking up the standard shooting action.

It’s an eye-searing blur of a loop that you’ll be happy to jump into again and again. Don’t miss it.

To put it simply: Final Exam is forgettable.

What Football Manager needs to do as a franchise is make it much more approachable to new players.

There's just no reason to play this. Beer Pong! is a joyless and broken shell a college drinking game. It revolves entirely around mechanics that do not function with any sense of accuracy or precision. Save your money and play the real thing. Or do anything else. Anything at all.

For all the XCOM veterans out there, you'll find a solid amount of new activities to engage in, as well as an unprecedented amount of squad customization. In other words, this is now the definiive Enemy experience.

Nexus is short, sweet, and to the point, with hardly a dull moment in sight, making it a fitting conclusion to the Future series. When you add in the fact that the game is budget priced and you get Quest for Booty for free, it only sweetens the deal.

I wasn't too impressed by Burial at Sea Episode One, mostly because it just doesn't add a whole lot to the overall franchise outside of the last 30 seconds, and it's simply not compelling enough. While it's quite possible that Episode Two will tie everything together in a neat bow and blow us all away, Irrational Games has yet to make a legitimate case for a return to Rapture.

At it's core, Mario & Sonic 2014 is fairly competent at what it does, but never manages to be outstanding.

Rayman Fiesta Run flirts with the concept of unacceptable microtransactions, but thankfully, there's still a ton of bang for your buck here if you can deal with the progression requirements. With a wonderful set of visuals and an even better control scheme, Rayman fans have a lot to be excited about.

Sure, it's in LEGO form, but whether you're a casual super hero fan or take a trip to the local comic book store every Wednesday, there's no question there's something for everyone here.

Call of Duty: Ghosts, however, with its slapdash campaign and unambitious multiplayer, contains enough factory-standard cynicism to earn itself plenty of scorn. Nothing Ghosts does is especially bad, but nothing Ghosts does is worth paying any attention to. It exists to exist, a stopgap bit of filler spat out as the industry transitions from one generation of consoles to another.

The Guided Fate Paradox may not have the most engrossing story, and at times, it can roll at a snails pace when in full swing, but its overall attention to the little things is what makes it one of this year's surprises.

While I'd have a hard time recommending this game to casual fans of racing, those that like steep, technical challenges will be thrilled, as will fans of the sport. I want to be clear, though. You will have to have a lot of patience and time on your hands to make F1 2013 a rewarding experience. It's tough.

Mordecai and Rigby in 8-Bit Land feels a lot like one of my favorite DSi platformers no one played -- Pro Jumper: Guilty Gear Tangent. It pretty much knows what it is, and even if it doesn't offer up anything new for those who normally loathe platform games, it'll still placate fans of the genre. So while it feels a bit phoned in at times, fans of old-school gaming will no doubt get an afternoon of enjoyment out of it.

Open-world game design works best when the player feels as though something fun is just around any corner. In this respect, Black Flag is the best Assassin's Creed yet. Strong environment design props up the well-worn, on-foot gameplay and the slightly more persistent enemy AI can present a decent threat to the incautious, but no real ground is broken on land.

It's a game full of minor improvements to what remains one of the best multiplayer experiences available but, at this point, there's not much left to improve upon without taking some genuine risks for the sake of innovation. DICE is hitting diminishing returns and I'm curious to see where the series goes from here.

The worst problem, however, is all the backtracking is needlessly empty. Once foes are defeated, they're gone for good. I'm never usually a fan of respawning enemies, but running through corridor after corridor of bleak, prison-gray nothingness just gets tedious after a while without something to do other than just traveling.

There's something to be said for a quiet, gentle game that can take you on a journey as effortlessly as Lilly Looking Through and that's something to be thankful for.

It's contemptuously pissed all over what Rocksteady accomplished with the previous Arkham games and shat out a soulless wreckage of a game. The only good in Origins comes from work already accomplished in previous games, with a whole lot of bad added in.

WWE 2K14 lets me be creative, it told me a wonderful story of titans colliding, and gave me the gift of being a kid again. 2K Sports really picked the ball up and ran with it.

Outside of the sheer amount of minigames and modes on offer, there isn't a whole lot to unlock in Wii Party U -- what you see is basically what you get. In terms of replay value you'd be hard pressed to be entertained for more than a week by yourself, and with two players, you may get another week or two out of it.

Topped off with beautiful 3D animations, an unsurprisingly excellent soundtrack, and some great anime sequences that highlight major moments in each case, Dual Destinies is not to be missed.

It's impossible not to have fun with these tables, unless you just don't like Star Wars at all, or pinball. For those who do, these tables are the cream of the crop, offering everything you want not only in a Star Wars pinball game, but in a pinball game more generally.

What's here is decent, there just isn't much of it.