If you are looking for a fresh new multiplayer arena shooter experience, LawBreakers is great at blazing its own zero-g path, and does so at a $30 “budget” price. That’s if you’re looking. With more open-ended multiplayer shooters available than ever, you may be fine with the shooter you’ve got.

Even without any changes to Franchise mode, Madden NFL 18 is the best entry in the series to date. Realistic visuals, overhauled mechanics, and Longshot mode create a more authentic NFL football experience.

Lost Legacy doesn’t reinvent Uncharted’s underlying Indiana Jones-meets-Prince of Persia conceit, but it tightens up many of its elements, with better gameplay design and a story that’s clear and thoughtful. This is probably the best Uncharted yet.

Developer Rocksteady reinvigorates its Arkham series formula with fresh gameplay features and an expansive open world in Batman: Arkham Knight.

While not without its flaws, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a monumental game.

Splatoon is a beautiful new twist on the shooting genre, but lacks team chat and other modern norms.

A solid shooter standing atop fan service and nostalgia.

A challenging game with a colossal chip on its shoulder.

Despite the extreme and often cringe-worthy violence, Mortal Kombat X is quite beautiful in its own way; like visiting a museum exhibit on the human body and all the ways it can be destroyed. And like a museum, there’s plenty to see and do here, including a surprisingly intimate story, one-on-one battles, endless challenges, and a competitive, socially-connected metagame.

Bloodborne is a significant evolution of the Souls series, but it comes with some new problems too.

Battlefield Hardline is a two-pronged success, with a killer cops-and-robbers story backed by a speedy take on competitive play.

Revelations 2 is neither a particularly good game nor a particularly bad one. It has all the ingredients of a good Resident Evil game, but lacks substance.

Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a weird and beautiful game, but it's an odd fit for the Wii U.

It’s particularly frustrating to see Last Round struggle in terms of raw performance when it has no problem marketing its DLC.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate’s accessibility and rapid early progression make it a deeply appealing Nintendo 3DS experience.

The Order: 1886 is a terrible game. Not because it’s broken or made without skill. Certainly not because it’s an average-length, story-driven shooter with minimal replay value. It’s just a bad game, forgettable in every conceivable way and safely ignored by all but the most ardent Trophy hunters.

Don’t let concerns with Techland’s previous Dead Island games stop you from taking on a chance on Dying Light. You have to slog through some really terrible story missions and some very janky combat, but there’s a detailed world to discover, and a lot of fun mechanics to take advantage of.

By locking away the other two monster classes at the beginning, Evolve needlessly gates off completely different styles of play that new players will want to experiment with immediately, if only to get a feel for competition. Even in the case of the hunters, the slow leveling and unlocking of new skills, perks, and characters feels needlessly complex in what could have been a simpler and more approachable game.

Grim Fandango is a comedy, a romance, an adventure, and sometimes a farce, but more than anything, it’s alive.

The Saints go straight to hell, both literally and metaphorically, in Saints Row IV standalone expansion, Gat Out of Hell.

With The Dark Below, Destiny is still a brilliantly fun but deeply flawed experience.

For every mission of dull gunplay, though, Saints Row IV offers up something freaky in response.

Resident Evil HD not only preserves Shinji Mikami’s classic, but introduces a new control scheme that perfectly balances its delicious challenge.

Playing through Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMix, it’s hard not to hope that making this collection has shown Nomura how best to approach the final, still upcoming chapter in his unlikely opus.

Without the scads of small talk, Persona Q feels lost in the shadow of its parent series.

Replaying stages to get everything is part of Treasure Tracker’s pleasure, but it doesn’t come at the expense of variety.

This is a series that refuses to grow, even as it chases an older audience.

The best way to escape Dead Island is to never land there in the first place.

Forza Horizon 2 is bigger and faster, sure, but it’s also a masterful snapshot of the joy that fuels car culture.

Is it overflowing with newness for anyone that’s already gorged the past year’s soccer bounty? Nope. But it’s still the very best soccer game in town.

Curtain Call is a rhythm game filled with artful nostalgia, but elements like the Quests elevate it beyond enjoyable pandering.

The Creative Assembly’s game, however, is cooked; left to boil so long it loses all flavor and texture. For 10 hours, Isolation is one of the best horror games ever made, until a second, poorly made game bursts out of its heart.

Dark Souls II desperately needed Ivory King's detailed frozen wasteland.

It’s a game that seemingly aims to bottle lighting a second time, and fails spectacularly.

There isn’t a AAA game out there that doesn’t exist to make money, but Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel stumps for dollars in a brazenly insipid way. It’s a paint-by-numbers effort, almost from top to bottom.

Costume Quest 2 is a classic JRPG, stripped of all the tedious baggage and wrapped in Double Fine’s impeccable writing and sense of whimsy.

Ultimax is practically a fandom fortress. It could be savory or bitter; that depends on the player's palette.

The Disney magic shines brightly in Fantasia: Music Evolved, and Harmonix has delivered another great reason to own a Kinect.

Skylanders: Trap Team seems intent on forcing players to open their wallets if they want the full experience of what the game has to offer.

Civilization: Beyond Earth takes the best that Civ V had to offer and liberates it from the baggage of history repeating.

Bayonetta 2 is a game whose gargantuan barrage of sex, violence, and surrealism sets the mind on fire in the best possible way.

This is the sort of game that people buy a new console for. It’s just that good. Sunset Overdrive celebrates the things that set us apart as gamers, and it draws strength from those differences. It never loses sight of the fact that fun trumps all in this sort of escapist fantasy.

Advanced Warfare is extremely unfriendly to the newcomer, with busy, text-laden menus that aren’t explained well and speedy play that is difficult to keep pace with. The campaign is a worthwhile training ground, but it’s hard to apply lessons and feel progress being made when crack human snipers are gunning you down seconds after a respawn.

Lords of the Fallen is a very good game, but its struggle to escape the shadow of the better games that preceded it colors every minute of the experience.

The higher resolution leads to a sort of spatial uncanny valley, leaving the world feeling a little cold, a little off.

The Master Chief Collection is a testament to the cult of fandom that Halo-lovers established around the series. Every map from every included game and their add-on packs is available in the multiplayer mode, and each runs in its originating game’s engine.

Assassin’s Creed Unity may be an incredible piece of architecture, but that’s sadly all it is.

As you delve further into Rebirth, you begin to realize that almost every facet of the game has been improved.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is BioWare’s strongest effort to date, but the massive scope of the world comes at no small cost.

Though enjoyable, Assassin’s Creed Rogue plays like a greatest hits version of previous games in the series.

After seven years, with myriad studios steering the ship in different directions, LittleBigPlanet 3 feels torn between wanting to be a toolbox and a colorful little platformer. If it wants to just be a platformer, it needs to think bigger and expand what it lets you play with. And if it wants to just be a toolbox, it needs to either think of a better way to teach how to use those tools or stop breathing so hard down the player’s neck.

Whether it bests past entries like Super Smash Bros. Melee or Brawl doesn’t matter; it’s a spectacular work unto itself.