If you can stomach the rhyming, you’ll find Aurora an engaging heroine with a worthy cause who can slog her way through even the most intense RPG battles.

As a game, Cave Story 3D represents another strong entry in the Nintendo 3DS's software lineup this holiday season and is more than deserving of your trade-in credit or gift cards post-Christmas holiday. As an opportunity to revisit the indie-darling Cave Story, though, it feels more like a George-Lucas-esque grab at cash than a true remake or redesign.

If you've already been playing Mojang's baby for years, though, there's nothing new here. Stick to your establishment. And it should be obvious, but if you've tried Minecraft and didn't like it, Xbox 360 Edition won't make a fan out of you.

It really is the best Lego and best Marvel game that I've played—an excellent ride.

For fans of Dead Space who also own a Wii, Dead Space: Extraction is an absolute must. For everyone else, Extraction is a highlight of the Wii’s exceptionally small 'M'-rated library.

All in all, Resident Evil Revelations is one of the strongest entries in the series. For perspective, it took me almost two years to finish RE5 because I just wasn't compelled enough to play it. But with Revelations, I couldn't wait to get back to the Queen Zenobia in between play sessions. I'm crossing my fingers that when RE6 descends upon us, it plays a lot more like this one.

The questions are as bizarre as ever, and it reminds me of the good ol' days of trying to wrap my head around questions that all make some sort of twisted sense.

This is free roaming BMX action, complete with dirt tracks, half pipes, empty pools -- just the goods to fulfill any BMXers dream.

For implementing a great new pitching system (that blows every other off the plate), taking risks by omitting several deeply rooted clich&#233;s and basically being the first really <I>new</I> baseball game in at least 2 years, MVP Baseball 2003 deserves your attention.

If you already own the original and Volume 2, it makes sense to expand your horizons and grab this one, too, if only for the cool multiplayer modes.

Still, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask doesn't pretend to be anything else. It's exactly what you expect it to be.

Whether you're playing online or solo in your home village, Monster Hunter exhilarates and excites with the same kind of thrill you'd get from climbing a mountain or conquering a fear you never knew you had. It might not be the prettiest game, but it succeeds in tying your emotions to the action on screen, whether that means dashing your excitement in a narrow defeat or encouraging you to pick a bigger fight after an illustrious victory.

If you've already finished everything that Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel have to offer, or if you have a high-end PC which can take advantage of Steam's frequent sales and promotions, then you can safely pass on The Handsome Collection. However, to new-gen console owner out there, consider purchasing this remastered compilation if you didn't quite finish either game on last-gen consoles and don't want to spend too much time downloading all of the packs and add-ons to catch up.

It's addictive, and the gameplay is so fluid and crisp you'll want to keep playing.

Has enough class to disguise the numbers game of golf, and clears enough distance left by its predecessor for an easy lay-up for next year's installment.

As far as adding anything new and of value, Madden NFL 18 is mostly devoid, and for that reason it’s also difficult to recommend when you have just a one-year-old predecessor that will offer the same core experience for half the money.

Tekken will always have a place among today's fighting games, but it will always be its own place, and Tekken 7 is the best embodiment of that mentality. They've made very little effort to conform to what other fighting games have taken for granted, even down to Tekken 7's use of 3D arenas where most fighters conformed to a 2D battlefield years ago. Rather than getting hit by typical fighting game tropes, Tekken 7 was able to sidestep them.

All in all, Runbow is a decent party game that offers some laughs and a nice amount of variety, though it is unfortunately not as accomplished as other similar games.

Improves upon the original through and through. We're happy they got it right.

This is by far the most appealing football game this generation, as EA finally hit the nail on the head. Attack minded, dramatic, and a hell of a lot of fun, this title is the perfect warm-up for the summer's festival.

Who knew that having the frame of my vehicle obscure my view of the racetrack in a corner or that trading the inside lane for the clarity of my headlights during a nighttime race would bring me an enjoyment I've never found in sim racing games before?

With a beautiful game engine and elaborate quest system, the game doesn't disappoint.

Coming it at around seven or eight hours, Peter Jackson's King Kong really does feel like a roller-coaster ride through the film, but once you get off, there's not much of a reason to ride it again other than to unlock some extra art and whatnot.

One hell of a game. There are tons of loot options and load-outs to try in missions that freely allow you to mix and match strategies to your liking. It's a huge amount of fun to bring friends over to your game in order to go for just another gold medal. The extensive stat tracking will have you coming back repeatedly.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair ends on a puzzlingly frustrating note that heightens its most egregious errors that consist of its imperfect controls and stymied progression system. The botched finale doesn’t make those stumbles any more forgivable and mainly just points them out, but that doesn’t undo its positive qualities.

UT3 would have been a stroke of genius ten years ago, but now is just a passable entry into a genre that has exploded since the series was first introduced. Is it good? Sure, but if your multiplayer diet is already given over to consuming much better games, there’s no reason to make the switch.

Sonic CD's overall package is bare-bones, with the option for the original Japanese music and a time trial mode being the only notable additions to the game, but with the tiny price point (only 400 MS points) it's an easy thing to forgive.

While Dyad offers quite a bit of gameplay for $15, it can be seen as a one-trick pony. By the time you've beaten every level, you'll probably be fatigued and bored with its gameplay. What's more, it doesn't have the endless replayability of other arcade games.