Overall, Broken Age is a fine game.

In short, Mortal Kombat X brings the series to a whole new level.

The driving portion of the game is not as sharp or nuanced as the latest Need for Speed from Criterion. The gunfighting isn’t as crisp or thrilling as nearly any FPS you’d care to mention. There are games that are better at recreating the mechanics of pulling off heists. Yet somehow Rockstar has taken all of these ingots of lead and spun them into gaming gold.

The lack of fast travel is the game’s lone big flaw. The graphics, audio, and control work marvelously – anyone who grew up with Metroid should give Axiom Verge a shot.

I wish there was more to say about Rogue, but there really isn’t. For better or worse, Ubisoft has turned Assassin’s Creed into a fairly predictable series. Rogue is very much a standalone AC 4 expansion.

77,000 people wanted to relive their glory days of Baldur’s Gate and paid for the luxury of doing so. The result I think is a remarkable recreation of that flavor of gaming.

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is a great bundle. It’s rare that we get a collection that offers such a gargantuan amount of content, so it’s in our best interest to support them when we do. If the goal was to give fans something to keep them busy up until the minute Borderlands 3 arrives, this collection accomplishes that.

Ori and the Blind Forest is a must-own for anyone who loves Metroidvania games.

Revelations 2 isn’t quite a return to form for the series or anything quite so dramatic, but it’s an example of doing more with less.

Tales from the Borderlands is a fun interactive movie, but it could do with a little more player input and less linearity.

There are lots of things Starships does poorly, but at least as far as I’m concerned the lack of meaningful tech tree and shallow starship construction really don’t suffice in a game that, after all, has Starships in the title.

The Awakened Fate Ultimatum is an absolute must-buy for anyone who enjoys dungeon-crawlers.

DmC was one of the best action games of the last generation, and it’s remained fantastic two years later. It’s a better overall value now than it was then thanks to the addition of the DLC campaign and is still a must-play game.

No one enjoys when a game fails this spectacularly, especially when so many people would love to play a pirate RPG.

I’m happy that Iridium Studios continues to try new and unusual things, and I’ll even say that when the audio interface actually worked for me, it made the missions feel much more involving (perhaps because it made them feel more like multiplayer missions). But the game was far too short and far too broken for me to recommend it.

Visually, this is a massive disappointment given what the Xbox One is capable of.

Last Round is the absolute best version of Dead or Alive 5 to own, with a caveat. The odd pricing model hurts it, as does the overabundance of DLC, but at its core, has the smoothest gameplay of anything out there now and delivers the goods online more often than not.

Beyond pulling some of the control features of Homeworld 2 back into Homeworld 1, the gameplay of the remastered versions is as near as I can tell identical to the earlier ones.

But overall, The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is a nice adventure. It’s friendly and it’s colorful and its puzzles are of moderate difficulty.

It’s a top-notch game and one that furthers the Vita’s library of exclusives, while also making the PlayStation TV a good buy since it’s compatible with that device as well and SRPGs are generally a bit easier to play on a larger screen.

The game is not without faults – it’s very linear, leans a little too much on quick-time events, and gameplay is merely average – but the experience is elevated by excellent storytelling, compelling characters, stunning graphics and art design, and sublime sound design.

Evolve isn’t perfect, but it is fun. I haven’t decided if it has enough content to justify its full retail price tag, so it’ll be interesting to see how long the community sticks with it.

Under Night may have a weird title and an even odder series of subtitles, but it’s a damn fine fighting game that seems destined to be hailed as a sleeper hit in a few years. If you want to beat that trend, buy it now either physically or digitally and experience one of the finest 2D fighters on a system chock-full of them.

The main thing going against this title is that it lacks any kind of satisfying conclusion to all of its mayhem, and isn’t close to being fleshed out enough for most players to care.

So whether you’ve played the original Grim Fandango or not, the remastered edition is a worthwhile purchase, especially at its $15 price tag.

It’s an old story, when it comes to games like this one. Dying Light is great when you’re free-running across the city, avoiding zombies and exploring its detailed world. Whenever it tries to change up the formula, it takes an immediate head-first dive into frustration.

Anyone with an affinity for RPGs and a love for the bizarre should check out Criminal Girls: Invite Only.

It lacks that final polish games like Starcraft have received where each unit and race has been weighed against every other in terms of cost and utility. Nonetheless, it is a nicely crafted and presented RTS which leans towards the old-school mold.

Citizens of Earth is a must-have for anyone who loved Earthbound either in its heyday or has had a chance to play it with the Wii U re-release.

Blackguards 2 is in many ways a game that compares more closely to XCOM than other RPGs.

$20 is about the perfect price point for something like this. Don’t read spoilers, don’t use strategy guides, turn out the lights, and let yourself focus on the game for a while. Put away the cynicism. Yeah, in the cold light of day, Resident Evil is pretty silly, but if you let yourself react to it on its level, it’s frightening in all the right ways.

To me, Waterborne felt more like a $10 DLC than a $20 expansion pack.

By any means necessary, experience the fps thrill that is Far Cry 4.

Even with some minor flaws, Guilty Gear Xrd SIGN is the best entry in the series to date.

Overall, while I found This War of Mine to be an intriguing and novel game, I didn’t really enjoy it. It is downbeat and somber to a fault, especially if things start deteriorating and you have to watch your civilians get ground down into nothing.

The worst thing I can say about the first episode of Tales is that the opening section, as noted above, drags on a bit. It’s an irritatingly long time before you actually do anything, and it’s way more interactive movie than game.

The saddest thing is that The Crew isn’t bad, it just underwhelms to such a degree that it’s impossible to recommend right now. If the UI gets a bit of an overhaul and there’s some tweaking done to make it more user-friendly, then that could change.

Look, Assassin’s Creed Unity isn’t a bad game, it’s just not up to the standards of the franchise. It needed more development time – more time to optimize the experience and to get its systems to work smartly.

I really can’t recommend this game, and for someone as obsessed with horror and zombies as I am, that’s really saying something.

If you’ve played Telltale’s other games, then Game of Thrones is about what you should expect.

Inquisition is a good game that suffers from a lack of editorial judgment and polish.

Overall, LittleBigPlanet 3 is more of the same, but it mixes things up more then LBP 2 did thanks to the additional characters.

It’s not deserving of some of the vitriol it’s received as it’s not the worst game ever, but it’s just so painfully average in so many ways that it may actually be worse by not being a worse game.

Anyone who has loved prior entries will fall in love with this, and if you’re a lapsed fan, you’ll be reminded of why you loved the series.

So if you’re a fan of adventure games and you don’t mind some adult content (including profanity and grisly murders), then the 20th Anniversary Edition is certainly a game you should consider purchasing.

Beyond some small quibbles, this is the game I had been hoping CoH2 would be. You kids and your lightening reflexes can have your Starcraft with your Zerg rushes. I’ve got some Nazi pummeling to plan.

Yuke’s seemingly wanted to reinvent the wheel, and instead of getting a round one that moves you along smoothly, you get a blocky wheel that may move you forward, but will result in a much bumpier ride than needed.

While not everything about the Anniversary versions is better, the overall look of Halo 1 and 2 has never been more impressive. It feels like you can finally see the worlds you were meant to see then, but that technology couldn’t properly display.

If the regular Call of Duty formula has worn thin for you over the past couple of years, I strongly recommend giving Advanced Warfare a shot. The dramatic increase in speed makes it far more fun, and while I don’t think the parts gel as well as Titanfall, there is a lot more do to here. If nothing else, it’s worth a rental just to check out the campaign and see what multiplayer has to offer.

For the hardcore gamer who likes a scary challenge, this trip down the rabbit hole will feel like home. For everyone else, it may feel more like a session of electro-shock treatment.

Sunset Overdrive’s blend of shooting, grinding, parkour, fetch quests, and tower defense makes for a complicated soup, but it still delivers a satisfying meal at the end of the day.

Civilization: Beyond Earth is a game that grew on me. I started skeptical, fearing it would simply be a gussied-up Civ 5 mod. But I’m now convinced it’s a damn fine game in its own right.

If you’re a fan of Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror film, it’s an experience you absolutely must try.

It’s not without its flaws – the story could have been better focused and the campaign missions less repetitive – but Shadow of Mordor is easily the best video game set in The Lord of the Rings universe to date.

The result is a game that I think will appeal to little more than the Borderlands diehards.

If you don’t have PS+, then definitely wait for it to hit $20 or so since this is going to be a love it or hate it kind of experience.

As long as you don’t mind that the game doesn’t really have a campaign and instead relies on skirmishes, then it can provide you with a worthwhile gaming experience. I’d just recommend that you wait for the price to drop down to well under the $50 mark where it is now.

The storyline is too goofy to take seriously, with a cast that you can get behind on a surface level, but aren’t fleshed out enough to really hook you for a significant length of time. Still, the battle system is really fun to use and is so exciting that it’s worth playing through the game just to keep using it.

Destiny is an excellent FPS that falls short of expectations for a variety of reasons.

Fans of Sherlock Holmes as he was originally portrayed will find this game as delightful as a Blue Carbuncle stuck in the crop of their Christmas goose.

This isn’t quite as polished as something from Capcom or SNK Playmore, but it’s still a really fun fighter that fans of the genre will enjoy.

Forza Horizon 2 takes everything that made the original game great, includes it here without removing anything and then adds some new stuff to boot.

It’s a little buggy, and a little bland on the eyes (I bought a new 30” 1900×1200 monitor for what exactly?), but it is funny as hell if your humor runs blackly, and is absolutely packed with stuff.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy The Walking Dead: Season Two as much as I did the first season. The game still works well and has high production values, but the storyline doesn’t make as much sense, especially when everybody — including the zombies — can’t tell the difference between your eleven-year-old character and an adult.

But even if the spell creation had been perfect and as pretty as much of the graphics are, the adventure is just too scripted and too predictably paced, and the combat is too backpeddally to recommend highly.

In that sense, it came out at the absolutely perfect time because there’s nothing else like this on the platform, and at $20, this a must-own if you’re a PS4 owner with a child or if you’ve got fond memories of the N64-era 3D platformers that Rare put out many years ago.

Overall, I was a little disappointed that Telltale Games couldn’t come up with more puzzles for The Wolf Among Us, but otherwise everything about the game is first-rate.

For every reason I play RPGs (big decisions, interesting characters, fun gameplay, immersive exploration), Risen 3 hits every sweet spot.

They created an amazing combat system, they designed a respectably interesting and diverse world to explore, they packed said world full of quests, they created a hierarchical spell and item system, and they wrote a ton of dialogue. But like a jigsaw puzzle that’s created one piece at a time, when all of the pieces are finished, not all of the edges line up correctly.

It’s kind of hard to recommend this as a $60 purchase, but if you loved either GRID game before, you’ll enjoy GRID Autosport – just be prepared for a visual shock to the senses when you see how bland the menus look.

Valiant Hearts’s low barrier of entry difficulty-wise makes it a perfect gateway game for those who don’t usually enjoy the genre. While the puzzles are simplistic, they’re also fun to solve and never get in the way of the interesting storyline going on.

MLB 14: The Show on the PlayStation 4 is about the looks. This is the same franchise as you know it with a next-gen coat of paint, and it looks incredible. Thankfully, it still plays wonderfully too, in large part to the same slick controls and gameplay features we’ve come to know and love.

I really liked the look, the atmosphere, and the story behind Murdered: Soul Suspect, but I really hated the interface and the game elements.

Much like EA MMA before it, this feels like a solid foundation for a better game to be built upon down the line.

Wolfenstein: The New Order is an electric veg-o-matic of FPS gaming bits and pieces set thrown into the hopper and set for puree. It lacks some stuff that we’re sort of gotten used to seeing in our FPS games these days and adds, a thousand collectable widgets aside, not much that we haven’t seen elsewhere before.

Anyone who loved Bastion is going to adore Transistor. The storyline is far more compelling and the combat feels like a natural extension of it. Transistor gives you faster and slower-paced ways to play, and that means it’s going to have a broader appeal.

If you have played the other Tropico games, and if the similarities haven’t bothered you yet, then there isn’t any reason not to give Tropico 5 a whirl as well.

If you’re an Elder Scrolls fan who has always wanted to play one of these games in co-op, this is the next best thing, at least for the time being. However, if you’re looking for Skyrim: The MMO, this will likely disappoint.

Overall, I found Tesla Effect to be entertaining enough to recommend. It’s just good goofy fun, and the writing and the acting help to carry it along and make up for the so-so puzzles and environments.

LEGO The Hobbit is ultimately par for the course.

As it is, it’s a budget title that rises slightly above the rest.

For those who are interested, I found the fastest way to get through Daylight (and believe me that you want Daylight over as quickly as possible) is to light a flare and simply run through the levels.

Overall, I find JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure very hard to recommend for most people. If you’re buying it because you loved the Capcom classic and don’t really like the license, then avoid this game.

If you loved the original ASM, or just want to see the story unfold, then give it a rental – it shouldn’t take more than about ten hours to beat, and you can halve that easily if you don’t mind putting up with a goon squad coming after you between missions.

Games are simply developer-created hoops that we pay to jump through. In the case of Dark Souls 2, it’s not exactly fun to do the jumping, but rather “rewarding”. What are you rewarded with? An emotion, a rush.

If you’ve been impressed by just the visual style, you’ll be glad to know that it’s worth buying for that at first, and then turns into an RPG you won’t be able to turn away from.

For the most part, 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil plays just like FIFA 14.

The Serpent’s Curse might be a little bit like the recent Veromica Mars movie, where if you’re a fan of the series then you might be happy enough just seeing what George and Nico are up to. But for everybody else, there isn’t much to get excited about, and there are probably better options out there for your gaming time and money.

Despite my nitpicks with combat and balance, Age of Wonders 3 is a solid title.

Kinect Sports Rivals is a good game. The controls have their issues, but in my time with the game, as long as you perform the motions in front of the camera in the way the game instructs you to, there are very few hiccups with motion detection and how your character responds on-screen.

In theory, Trials Fusion should be the biggest and best entry yet. Between more development time and it being on next-gen systems, it should feel definitive. However, while it’s very good, it doesn’t raise the bar for the series like Evolution did.

Overall, Moebius: Empire Rising is an interesting game.

Ground Zeroes is a tough recommendation. Yes, it contains all of the Metal Gear Solid goodness fans are hoping for, but clocking in at a total of three hours of gameplay (including the side missions) for the $29.99 price tag feels like a developer being presumptuous and arrogant, almost daring a fan to refuse.

It’s got some rough edges visually, but also has some striking shots that will dazzle thanks to impressive lighting effects and features the same kind of music that made the other Arkham games so atmospheric.

One new character, one new act, and some engine tweaks – that’s what Reaper of Souls brings to the party.

Casual fans would get the most out of a rental, while die-hards will definitely be able to get their money’s worth out of the game at full price.

It may not be for everyone, but for those that enjoy that kind of thing, and enjoyed past games, you’ll get your money’s worth out of Chrono Phantasma.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z isn’t the best NG game on the market, but I honestly enjoyed it a lot even with its flaws.