Luigi deserves better than this truncated take on the Mario platforming formula. While the level-design enhancements are a nice touch, too much remains unchanged when it comes to boss encounters, and the ridiculously short time limit in every level destroys the real draw of a Mario game: patient exploration.

Don’t play Ride to Hell: Retribution. Don’t think about playing it. Don’t think about thinking about playing it. Forget it exists, and continue your life as though it never did.

It may be a bit rough around the edges, but Hotline Miami still makes for an immensely interesting addition to the PSN library, and its short, pick-up-and-play levels are an especially good fit for the Vita.

You’ll be fighting the camera sometimes as much as enemies, and the balance between guns and melee needs a bit more work, but most of the time, I was laughing too hard to care. The script is a love letter to Deadpool fans, so if you love the Merc with the Mouth, this game will hit your chimichanga-flavored sweet spot.

While there’s little new here to differentiate between titles besides the change of scenery to WWII’s Eastern Front, Relic once again delivers a premiere RTS experience.

While Marvel Heroes does some nice things, the Marvel license isn’t enough to cover up glaring technical and design flaws. As much as I wanted to like this game, I can’t recommend something that is, at its core, broken. In the end, you get what you pay for (or less, if you actually invested in this).

WarioWare fans have been waiting more than three years for the next proper entry in the series—and they’ll still be waiting after Game & Wario. This collection of minigames designed specifically for the Wii U doesn’t have the same style and panache of a regular WarioWare entry, but several entries do manage to re-create at least some of that classic magic.

Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara brings back two of Capcom’s classic arcade side-scrolling beat-em-ups—and while both indeed show their age, they still have an immense amount of fun and adventure to offer those brave enough to stand up to their challenges.

It’s easy to initially expect The Last of Us to be a game about killing zombies, surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, and exploring for supplies. Instead, it’s a game about two people, and the bond that forms between them—and that journey is far more exciting than any amount of infected monsters or food scavenging could ever provide.

New Leaf brings updates both major and minor, but the most important of them for me was the push for customization. You’ll now spend far more time making your town just the way you want it to be and personalizing your character to suit your specific tastes—and, really, that’s what Animal Crossing should be about.

Strikes the perfect balance between narrative exposition and gameplay. With expert pacing, the game offers an engaging cyberpunk story blended into a solid action-adventure that’s equal parts brawling and platforming. Remember Me utimately delivers the whole package—a very pretty, very pleasurable, very engaging gaming experience.

Grid 2‘s racing once again succeeds at offering a nice balance between true simulation and accessible arcade handling, but the lack of depth offline and a repetitive, punishing second half wind up holding it back.

It’s a technically solid game, but Fuse lacks a soul; the story and character development are bland beyond belief. The gameplay is a saving grace, though, and the experience can get quite addictive when working with a few friends—but it can also become a tiresome grind when playing solo.

While it doesn’t completely escape the shortcomings of its original outing, Capcom’s HD-ified version of Resident Evil: Revelations is still as fun and enthralling as it was on the 3DS—while now also benefiting from the improvements in controls, visuals, and audio that other gaming platforms can offer. If you previously missed this chapter of the legendary Resident Evil saga, this is the best way to rectify that.

The meager number of additions here—including the useless 3D gimmick—aren’t enough to make this worth picking up if you played Donkey Kong Country Returns the first time around on the Wii in 2010. If it’s your first time, though, and you’re still curious about checking out Donkey Kong’s latest adventure, this is a solid port.

If you love a great story and some fun first-person shooter action, Metro: Last Light is sure to please. Only a couple of minor shortcomings hold the experience back, including the much-improved—but still not completely polished—stealth gameplay.

Minis on the Move is a welcome addition to Mario’s many offshoots, boasting smartly crafted puzzles that demand an adroit touch—well, tap.

If you expected some hefty gameplay changes to match Blood Dragon’s turbo-rad ’80s makeover, you’ll be sorely disappointed. This standalone expansion is essentially a pared-down version of the Far Cry 3 formula with a few minor innovations, but its hysterical take on the decade of excess is well worth the price of admission.

Soul Sacrifice is a decent action-RPG for fans familiar with this type of game, but for newcomers, there’s very little that will impress or feel particularly interesting. It’s the very definition of “fine.”

Despite all its promise, Star Trek proves to be a spectacular sci-fi letdown: bugs and glitches galore, unresponsive controls, and a phoned-in story traveling at warp zero. Set phasers to “disappointment.”

While the writing is solid and the card playing has been notably improved over the first game, Poker Night 2 suffers from the same basic problem that plagued the original: a lack of staying power, thanks to the absence of competitive multiplayer and eventually repetitive dialogue.

A strong start and finish to the final King Washington episode help carry what’s probably the weakest action and narrative of the entire DLC miniseries. The new bear powers are also more fun to use than the wolf and eagle powers from previous episodes, though only hardcore Assassin’s Creed fans will be totally satisfied with the experience.

The content added to Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen over the original Dragon’s Dogma might not be enough for previous players to be able to justify buying the game for a second time. For those who missed out on Dragon’s Dogma the first time around, however, this is a great way to finally give the game a shot.

The demanding difficulty may be a turnoff for some, but Monaco manages to deliver an impressively minimalist twist on stealth that doesn’t sacrifice the depth or strategy the genre is known for.

The last of the “Operation Rainfall Three,” Pandora’s Tower borrows heavily from Shadow of the Colossus—young lad must rescue his beloved from a gruesome fate by felling massive beasts—but you can’t help but think you’ve played a far better version of this game before. Hardcore Japanese RPG fans might forgive some of the glaring flaws here, but Pandora’s Tower certainly won’t have the mass appeal of Team Ico’s 2005 PS2 classic.

For fans of Dishonored, Knife of Dunwall does not disappoint. And for those less infatuated than I, the Daud DLC may offer a promising look at the series’ potential. Unfortunately, Knife of Dunwall’s across-the-board improvements are incremental at best.

If you’re looking for a fun way to spend a few hours on the cheap, then God Mode is a decent investment. The gameplay is solid, and there are plenty of little extras to keep things fun and interesting—though the meager selection of maps means there’s a good chance the game will become stale after a few hours.

Newcomers to the franchise will likely be more forgiving of many flaws, much like many of us were with the first Dead Island, considering the fun zombie-bashing core and unique dichotomy of an apocalypse in paradise has remained intact. Veterans of the first Dead Island, on the other hand, will feel cheated, as they’ll recognize the cheap carbon copy that Riptide actually is. Combine this with glitches galore and a plot with more holes in it than the sinking ship the game starts off on, and it’s hard to recommend Riptide to all but the most naïve of zombie enthusiasts.