Is Rocksmith always a thrill a minute? No. However, few recent games offer so novel an experience as playing a guitar part, and hearing the notes you play flow out of your TV as part of a great rock song. It's the added incentive a lot of potential musicians might need to put in the time it takes to excel.

Not many games are built like The Centennial Case, and I enjoyed the ambition behind trying something different to tell a complex story and involve the player in piecing it together. It gave me the feeling of reading a great mystery novel, where your head is spinning with possibilities, but the interactivity and structure allow you to better understand the clues and what they all mean. Sometimes The Centennial Case stumbles, but it’s worth enduring for the wild ride it puts you on and the broader questions it poses about what’s ethical in the world of science.

It's an engaging game that took me about 20 hours to finish. It travels to far lands, features challenging bosses, and does an impressive job of showing that, even from a third-person perspective, games in VR can transport you to another world. [Tested with Oculus Rift]

Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is a solid action/platforming throwback, but it’s held back by the subpar games it lampoons. It plays well and packs a challenge, but the by-the-numbers level design detracts from the fun. I recommend AVGNA for fans of the show and anyone looking for straight-up punishment without much substance.

I would love to see more experiments like Skyrim VR and Resident Evil 7 in virtual reality, where fully featured games get ported to this still-young medium. This port is rough, but I’m still hopeful that there is a game out there that works both ways. For now, if you want to revisit Skyrim, your best bet is to boot up one of the editions you already own or grab it on Switch.

Holding true to its heritage, Monster Rancher 4 is a wildly addictive game that is capable of sucking away your life in no time flat. [Dec 2003, p.145]

It's not nearly as good as "GTA," but entertaining nonetheless. [Dec 2003, p.134]

The environments are graphically tedious, the targeting system is downright baffling, and unless you have a USB keyboard, you'll spend so much time navigating the cursor around to enter text, you'll think you should be getting experience points for it. [Feb 2004, p.103]

Everything about this title makes the previous installments seem archaic in comparison. [Nov 2001, p.100]

If Harmonix’s latest project at times fails to find footing as a traditional game, it makes up for it by invoking a novel experience of discovery, creation, and involvement with music.

The 360 version of the game is identical to the PC incarnation, but the control blows. [Dec 2008, p.113]

Nintendo’s goals with this game appear more modest, and they are largely accomplished. If better controls for an eight-year old game meet your equally modest goals, you should find little that disappoints.

LEGO Harry Potter 5-7 is a charming farewell to the series. As with a lot of Traveller's Tales' games, you won't see a whole lot of crazy gameplay innovations or surprises, but it's reliably entertaining and appropriate for a wide range of gamers, Potterphiles or not.

Downstream Panic’s Lemmings-esque gameplay is hard to resist.

If your GBA hole needs plugging, this is a good choice. [Nov 2005, p.182]

The nature of the franchise itself makes Heroes VI an excellent title for gamers who don't typically spend much time in the strategy genre, and if Black Hole and Ubisoft can entice an old hand like me to stick around as well, I consider it a success.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare features a compelling single-player experience with plenty of optional missions for those looking for more, and robust multiplayer modes for players of every style, whether you’re leading the scoreboards in kill confirmed or goofing around with friends taking on an alien invader in an over-the-top amusement park.

Soul Sacrifice has some shining components, and should hold its head high. The depth of weapon customization, strategic layer of combat, and robust multiplayer offerings kept me invested and having fun – even in the face of frustration.

The city’s sections felt too similar to each other. I admit, I don’t have all the answers on making a perfect open-world racing title, but Carbon falls short in this area. Don’t worry though, the speed in this game is enough to outrun such criticisms.

Though everything is very well-done, it's difficult to shake the feeling that I've been playing this game since "Diablo" came out on PC in 1997. [March 2005, p.124]

The XCOM series is well-known for its intricate turn-based action. Chimera Squad augments those systems with a few clever ideas, but some of the new systems don't play well with XCOM's existing foundation. The interwoven turn order and removal of permadeath are fun experiments, but they ultimately weaken XCOM's delicately balanced action. Chimera Squad is a neat standalone project, but it doesn’t stand as tall as the rest of the series.

[Crimson Desert is] a beautiful, exploration-rich open-world game that’s a clear technological achievement, hampered by a cornucopia of little frustrations and a stark lack of narrative depth.

Even with some unpolished technical aspects, the way the story unfolds is innovative and engaging, and the number of ways around every problem is impressive. [Sept 2004, p.106]

Endless Space is far from a disaster despite its bad AI and unfortunate micromanagement issues, with excellent online play making it one of the better multiplayer turn-based strategy games around. My decade-and-a-half wait for the space empire savior continues, though.

Costume Quest is cute and funny, so it may look like a good game for kids. Let me assure you: After completing the adventure (which took me about five hours), I can't recommend Costume Quest to gamers of any age.

The story's ending does not land. While it's logically sound, it doesn't register with its intended gravity. I'm not sure how you'd figure out its finer points on your own; as a detective, it feels like you've been taken off the case, and are instead reading how some other detective figured it out via the case file after the fact. It also works from without rather than from within because it relies on sentiments for a character that I didn't feel.

I am having a blast playing this game with my daughter, and it’s just nice to see a game that doesn’t make you stress in any way. Just sit back, relax, and watch the fields grow.

While the campaign suffers from a lack of variety, the shooting mechanics are solid. Zombie Army 4's action is fun and over-the-top, but slaughtering the undead shouldn't feel this routine.