Don’t Starve is a weird and wonderful jaunt through a purgatorial wilderness. With the Reign of Giants DLC, there’s enough content for even well-seasoned Don’t Starve players. The brutal and unforgiving permadeath mechanic heightens tension and emphasizes player prudence. The lack of stylus and touch controls feels like a real missed opportunity to advantage of the platform’s primary peripheral.

"Splatoon" is everything you could want out of a new Nintendo IP. It somehow manages to be both cute and cool.

SFIV is a proof-of-concept to how a Street Fighter game can turn out when built and utilized properly on big time hardware.

Stretchmo is a great free-to-play puzzle game. Intelligent Systems does a superb job with putting together a bevy of creative puzzles to run through with a not so painful price tag attached.

Sunset survives as the antithesis of contemporary narrative construction, but lacks the confidence and vitality to thrive inside of its admirable periphery. It's all support with little regard for structure.

Technobabylon is loaded with cool ideas and it's a lot of fun to play. The story, multiple playable characters, creative and interesting settings, and challenging but logical puzzles kept me entertained from start to finish.

It's an unexpected dichotomy—tranquility isn't the sort of evocation expected of extremely topical police-state paranoia—but one that Neon Struct dispenses with plausible seeds of insurrection. Colorful symmetry is the expected outcome, but Neon Struct surprises with plenty of shades of grey, too.

While Puzzle & Dragons Z + Super Mario Bros. Edition might seem like another tile-based puzzle game that doesn’t go beyond what’s on the surface, it’s far deeper than what you would expect. It has RPG elements and a bevy of options to engage and motivate the addiction it creates.

Schrödinger's Cat and the Raiders of the Lost Quark is a fun platformer that has an interesting quark system in place to make puzzle solving unique and engaging. The game isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s good and unique enough in certain areas to warrant at least a look.

Cool concept and well executed, Lost Orbit is worth your attention.

A robust, entirely worthwhile release that gives you plenty of bang for the buck and expands upon one of last year's best games in a purposeful way.

For those that really enjoy the point and click genre, Perils of Man is worth a look, despite its flaws.

Color Guardians is a simple game with a straightforward purpose - run and button-mash. It will certainly challenge gamers with fast gameplay and demand multi-tasking sharpness from its players, but doesn't offer a lot beyond those things.

Among contemporary Ys releases and remakes—Seven, The Oath in Felghana, and Memories of Celceta—The Ark of Napishtim is more reliant on support provided by its adopted hardware. Unfortunately its tangled journey to the personal computer cost as many features as it gained, leaving The Ark of Napishtim as little more than a curious architect of the Ys games that followed.

Project CARS is going to give some of the bigger racing games a run for their money. There is depth, detail and fun to be had with this game. It certainly was worth the wait.

Ultimately, Block N Load is a ….load of fun (I’m sorry) and will be seeing a lot more playtime on my part moving forward. A highly strategic game that allows you a lot of freedom in what that strategy is. The team with the most innovative plan will likely be the winner, and that key element of innovation can come from anyone and any class.

A very worthwhile game for anyone who enjoys a point and click adventure with a compelling story, characters, and outstanding presentation.

Truth may be the driving force of any revenge tale, but whether Westerado's truth is fabricated, earned, implied, or rejected is left to the player. You can practically do whatever you want, and, rather than damn the consequences, Westerado makes it easier to embrace them.

An obvious must have for those who have cleared The Assignment and are eager to continue the story, but if you aren't in that position, you might want to wait for a probable 'ultimate' edition later this year.

It's the acquired and applied knowledge of a roguelike against the demanding drive of a rhythm game, and yet Crypt of the NecroDancer escapes the gaze of a simple curiosity and leaps to an ideal hybrid of two disparate genres.

Short but very much worth the time and price of admission, The Charnel House Trilogy should be on any adventure gamer's playlist.

GTA V and the wealth of assets it claims have, quite literally, never been better.

Beyond its nostalgic surface, though, is a game that’s freaky fun and well-suited for pick-up-and-play gamers as much as it is for hardcore enthusiasts looking to set world records.

Can you be angry at a game that examines frustration? Slow Down, Bull explores the aggressive relationship between creative inhibition and self-expression—and completely stresses the player out in the process. That's (probably) the point, but Slow Down, Bull may be a little too sharp to handle without an informed sense of patience.

An excellent fighter and another superb addition to the series, MKX kicks ass.

50 Pinch Barrage!! looks simple on the outside, but its complicated interior gameplay will bring intrigue and unexpected depth. Beware, though, as there is plenty of frustration to be had with the game.

Indifferent to the temptations of aberration and bombast, Element4l's Spartan aesthetic plays nicely with its devotion to pure platforming. It also buries Element4l's identity beneath waves of difficulty and a few inventive tricks. Still, seeing Element4l to its conclusion is enjoyable enough, and worth it for moments of earned validation.

The best, most complete version of a great game that offers compelling reasons for current owners and newcomers to invest in. It's not for everyone, but if you can "get into it," you're likely going to be hooked on not only the game, but the franchise.