As a budget Steam release, Outlast offers some cheap thrills for fans of the survival horror genre. Unfortunately its underwhelming visuals, combined with Red Barrel Games’ over-reliance on jump-scares ahead of more psychological frights, made my experience with it feel similar to walking through a haunted house: It’s scary, but not in a very clever way.

Though Foul Play can become repetitive and the story would have been bettered by voice-acting, its stylized gameplay is entertaining, memorable, and conceptually well-designed for a 1200 MSP title. Its ability to juggle all of its concepts into a cohesive beat-'em-up that lasts at least full weekend is to the credit of the indie developer Mediatonic. I take my hat off, good sir.

One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 could have been a cheap cash-in of a sequel, not far from the assumption one would make of a re-skinned promotional product, but it's actually better than the majority of titles in the main Dynasty Warriors series.

As it stands now, A Realm Reborn vastly improves on its predecessor and delivers a wonderful fantasy world to spend countless hours in. It has its fair share of flaws, especially in regard to the quest structure, but I imagine fans of the genre will enjoy their time with the game regardless.

Where Puppeteer stumbles, the player's hands can catch its fall. As a child, you might find puppet shows at least mildly entertaining and at the very least something to zone out on before naptime. To me, the prospect of playing the puppet yourself was always more enticing. Even in Kutaro's world that rings true.

Killzone: Mercenary is still an enjoyable game, though the story and some gameplay elements are derivative. It's a beautiful port of the series, with the highest graphic fidelity of any game I've yet seen on the PS Vita. The multiplayer, especially, is fantastic, and adds a new layer to the game with the VAN-Guard.

Out of the Shadows is yet another bad Ninja Turtles game. Between the game's loud and ugly UI and the glitches, bugs, and general sloppiness, there's only enough hope for the good intentions to improve next time.

Complaints aside, Total War: Rome II offers an insane amount of value for your money that is hard to ignore if you’re a fan of the genre. The campaign offers a lot of depth for those so-minded, and battles are a graphically frenzied treat.

Gone Home will make you question everything, including how you react to certain key events within the game world. It was a lot like the feeling I get from watching a really amazing episode of The Twilight Zone, where the eerie story serves a greater purpose than just scaring the crap out of you. There's a message behind the mystery of the house on Arbor Hill that may reveal as much about you as it does about Kaitlin's missing family.

Strictly as a platformer based on fun and timing, Rayman Legends is as good as it gets and can hold up to any Nintendo-published game on the Wii U (not that there are all that many). But taking into consideration the variety, polish, and subtle charm, Rayman has Mario by the coin purse. It’s a nearly flawless game you don’t want to miss—especially if you own a Wii U.

There's no reason for any RPG fan to miss this one.

Solid, a football title that can and will be enjoyed. The progression from year to year is small, but how we look back in five years is what makes the difference.

Blacklist returns Splinter Cell to flagship franchise status, no matter how crowded Ubisoft's portfolio has gotten during Sam's shore leave.

Disney Infinity is an amazing game with faults which lie most often in the playsets themselves and some of the poor vehicle controls and inconsistent player training, which feel a bit like the growing pains that we saw in early sandbox games. That said, Avalanche Software has created a game that doesn't just let you play in the Disney sandbox, but gives you the bucket and trowel to build your own castle in it.

By the time I finished DuckTales Remastered, I felt like I had both a pleasant and hollow experience.

Divekick is a crazy idea that just so happens to work well for a short while, but wears out its charm long before you get your money’s worth out of the content. Unless you plan on playing locally on the couch with some buddies that are as like-minded as you and the developers are, the $9.99 asking price would be better spent elsewhere.

Charlie Murder represents a studio heading in the right direction, but it still feels like painting by numbers.

You know that feeling when you pull away from the last page and feel as though you've experienced something nobody else has? If you're paying attention, that will happen with Brothers. Sure, it doesn't take long to complete the whole experience and see everything there is to see, but the story is told in such a way that it takes just as long as it needs, taken directly out of Portal's script-writing playbook. On that same note, this too is an experience people should be touting as a beautiful demonstration of video games as art.

Exato Game Studios are so brazen about Guncraft’s influences that you could initially be forgiven for thinking that it is yet another Minecraft clone, trying to ride on the coattails of Mojang’s success while bringing very little to the table itself. However, I was happy to discover that Guncraft is much more than that, and it deserves to have far more people playing it than it currently has.

If Grand Theft Auto is drama, then Saints Row is comedy. Both have similar sandbox designs, but their aesthetics are wildly apart. Yet just like drama versus comedy, the former is lauded as superior and the latter is seen somehow negatively as a farce. Those people don't know what they're missing. Saints Row IV is exaggerated fun in the loudest, proudest, awesomest, most fu.kingest way possible.

For 800 MSP ($10.00), The Brigmore Bitches Witches is an adequate addition to the Dishonored universe. I think showing the parallel storyline of Daud has been a great addition. If you have been on the fence about picking up the DLC for this series, I can assure you that the collective price of 1600 MSP ($20.00) is well worth the content you get from Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches.

Payday 2's presentation feels plastic, but the rest feels exhilarating and livened by the presence of human players you have to rely on.

Beatbuddy feels well worth the $15 sticker price on Steam for Mac, PC, and Linux. While sometimes it feels like its musical ambitions are inhibited by the game design, it's still a strong game in its own right and it's fun to see how the musical elements and enemies combine together as gameplay features.

The game will appeal to small children, its target audience, and may provide an enjoyable multiplayer experience with parents who want to help their kids achieve the game's goals. However, for a game that had the potential to be a fun racer (consider the flying sections of Sega's karting game, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed), it's bland and feels like it was thrown together to meet the release date.

Fans of the series will find more to love than the rest, but Paper Mario 3D allows players of all levels to get to the point a lot faster. Though Dream Team has one of the better 3D effects, in both 2D and 3D gameplay, you're more likely to shut your eyes than cross them. There are hours of entertainment for patient players willing to read and giggle at silly accents, but I'd rather explore Bowser's dreams instead.

The sheer lack of variety, despite two stages never being the same ever thanks to the brilliantly designed, random level-generating engine that Pwnee Studios has designed, leaves Cloudberry Kingdom feeling thin on content.

Vita owners and old-school fans of beat'-em-up classics owe it to themselves to top their collection off with Dragon's Crown.

With Wii U gamers hungry for software, Pikmin 3 offers an interstellar feast.