Despite the extraneous content, Lego Dimensions is a hit. I haven't laughed this much playing a video game in a long time. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next, and my wife even sat in to watch the story unfold in crazy ways.

Oddly enough, you aren’t able to decorate a home of your own. You have to live vicariously through your clients as you apparently live out of a car. Happy Home Designer may be fun for people who are ravenous over home design, but without the additional Animal Crossing elements, I never felt like I was putting down any serious roots or working toward a larger purpose.

The Taken King ultimately is what the players – and probably even Bungie – always wanted Destiny game to be. The improvements to the user interface and quest system alone make the game so much more playable, but they quickly fade to the background once you dig into the content.

You couldn’t pick a better time to try Destiny if you haven’t yet. The Taken King is a testament to Bungie’s craftsmanship and its ability to listen to the feedback from the players who both loved and hated year one. The studio has given us a game that truly is legend.

Disgaea 5 serves up a hearty helping of enjoyable tactical RPG combat, and lives up to the expectations established by its forerunners in the series.

It's fun and lighthearted and sure to make fans smile, but Dancing All Night isn't anything special; it's just an average rhythm game that's begging for a better interface and more song variety.

FIFA 16 isn't going to blow you away with any single feature. Instead, it falls back on its strong gameplay to provide a fresh experience.

FIFA 16 isn't going to blow you away with any single feature. Instead, it falls back on its strong gameplay to provide a fresh experience.

Soma’s impressively realized underwater ordeal challenges even the coldest robot-slayers to consider a world where making such snap moral decisions is anything but automatic.

In the face of stiff toys-to-life competition, Vicarious Visions and Activision took a chance on a different style of play for this annual series, and it didn’t pay off. Here’s hoping the series gets back to the basics, or finds a fun new way to put the characters' personalities and talents front and center and not hidden behind a vehicle’s hull.

PES 2016 is about more than just a few additions for the year. It ushers in a new era for the franchise that needs to be experienced.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is hard, but in an intense way that makes you fear death with sweaty palms. It’s not frustrating – it’s a well-balanced challenge.

With improvements in nearly every area, NHL 16 is a positive stride in the right direction for the franchise, but like a defensive-oriented team adopting trap tactics, the series plays it safe and lacks any game-breaking quality.

Like a third-line grinder, NHL 16 does most of the little things right. The improved on-ice play make this a hockey game a viable option for puckheads, but the lack of mode depth and standout features ultimately keeps this year’s installment from earning more ice time.

We've seen the career mode change from iteration to iteration, with the developer unable to define where it wants to go and therefore build upon a foundation in successive years. Turn 10 talks about its passion for cars, and that's evident on the track, but players have to feel it elsewhere, too.

I’m glad to see the adventure on the big screen, but the console experience feels less personal, and the journey loses a little bit in the transition. That said, Tearaway Unfolded is still a great game for families or anyone else who’s looking for an uplifting change of pace.

If you’ve been waiting to jump into the digital card game craze, now’s a great time.

Super Mario Maker is simple without being shallow and dense without being overwhelming. Its capabilities are limited compared to other creation games (you can only make platformer levels) but I never felt like I hit a wall in terms of creativity, and was consistently surprised by the work of others.

At the end of the day, Max overtook some bases, ran a couple hundred cars off the road, met some forgettable characters, and buried his fist into the sunburnt skin of the villainous locals. Was it worth the effort? That ultimately depends on how much fun you had in performing these basic, repetitious open-world activities.

Was it worth the effort? That ultimately depends on how much fun you had in performing these basic, repetitious open-world activities.

If you’re looking for something a little different in the mobile space, I can’t recommend this game enough. Just be warned: The puzzle difficulty is designed to mess with your mind and push you to think outside of the box…or boot up YouTube to watch someone else solve it.

With the assistance of Sumo Digital and Ninja Theory, the racing and combat are vastly improved. A strong emphasis is placed on variety; hopefully signaling an end to scenarios like seemingly endless waves of frost giants.

Ultra Despair Girls would be easier to bear if it were just an incidental side story that fans could ignore. Unfortunately, it is important to understanding the world of Danganronpa, but the gameplay and dialogue make you suffer every step of the way.

New and old players alike should feel no hesitation about seeing this as the definitive way to play the opening story of the Gears epic. The new edition doesn’t remake the cog, but it certainly makes it shiny again.

Changing Madden's modes isn't the priority this year, but you shouldn't skip this year's game. After years of fitful progress, Madden 16 finally puts its gameplay pieces together and delivers a truly dynamic on-the-field experience.

Madden 16's gameplay is a great step forward for the series, but the progress of the game modes is less definitive.

The script kept me entertained and feeling like my decisions mattered throughout my 10-hour playthrough. Thanks to some good twists, a few fake-outs, and limitless jump scares, Until Dawn would make a solid horror film. As a piece of interactive fiction, however, it's a remarkable experience that horror fans shouldn't miss.

A series can’t survive this long without evolving, and The Phantom Pain is a testament to the importance of taking risks. An open world, a customizable base, a variable mission structure – these are not traditional aspects of Metal Gear, but they are what makes The Phantom Pain such an exceptional game.