The lack of half-naked men aside, it's impossible not to see what a superior, rewarding effort Dragon's Crown turned out to be—it looks great, it feels great, it's smart and deep, and it utterly revitalizes a genre that went stale years ago. Without overstating the case, this game is a must-play tour-de-force that surprised the hell out of me, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Although I've spent more time in this review on the rough spots of The Walking Dead: 400 Days than I did on what was right, it's still refreshing to play a title that puts its focus on something besides large-scale slaughter, and Telltale's take on The Walking Dead remains one of the most compelling intellectual properties in gaming today. If my biggest criticism of 400 Days is that there wasn't enough of it, that can only be seen as a good thing.

The Call of Juarez series has had its ups and downs over the years, but Gunslinger stands proud—not only against its own checkered past, but against the FPS genre as a whole. It may not be a subtle or particularly nuanced experience, but it's certainly a cracking good time delivered with a style and confidence that's rarely seen in a full-priced title, let alone a $15 download.

The core idea of a balancing a strategy game with limited player control is intriguing, but I found the execution of that idea, and the representations it used, unsatisfying. Arcen has made an ongoing and admirable effort to keep tweaking the game (although some patches have rolled out insufficiently tested), but I'm just not sure that anything they can do will address the essential dullness of its opening and closing phases.

It may not look fantastic and certain mechanics shouldn't have been resurrected along with the rest of the game, but Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded succeeds at being a brief bit of naughty fun—and since it never aimed any higher, that definitely counts as a win.

The Oracle continues Cognition's pattern of uneven episodes. It cleverly uses Erica's powers to get around a major storytelling problem, and in that respect it's a great success. On the other hand, the tight quarters and indifferent puzzles make the game less interesting to play than its predecessors, while the dumb, unpleasant characters make it a less enjoyable story.

The developers had a full year to get this game ready for consoles and bring it up to the level of current RE titles. Instead of doing that, they shifted the graphics from 3D to HD. What a waste.

Although I badly want to like The Denpa Men 2: Beyond the Waves more than I do, the honest truth is that it's a hell of a lot of work for a game that's basically nothing but grinding through dungeons. If the difficulty and frequency of encounters were just a bit lower, the insanely high cute factor would be able to carry the experience and I probably would have powered through. Instead, it's way, way too much effort for too little return—my patience and stamina wore out long before the credits rolled.

While the launch price of $8 feels a dollar or two too high, I definitely enjoyed the game (when I wasn't stuck) and felt satisfied when it was over. I would recommend it to players interested in the genre, and especially to those who prefer puzzles with a foothold in actual logic. Players interested in elegant, small-scale design might also learn a thing or two from this tasteful interstellar jaunt, as well.

Remember Me gets off on the right foot with an impressive opening and a rare female protagonist, but the overall experience of both gameplay and storytelling is too heavily guided and lacking in depth.

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner—Soul Hackers certainly looks and feels like an RPG from a different era—but for me, that's part of the charm. Gamers expecting something along the lines of Persona 4 will need to lower their expectations a bit, because it's almost two decades old.

Receiver has a neat idea at its core, but that didn't translate into an interesting game.

I'd say that the kind of story that The Last of Us wants to tell can't be done in a mainstream video game, but I Am Alive and the Metro series manage just fine. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it can't be done in the kind of game that's expected to sell three million copies.

For anyone even remotely interested in what might be like to survive the zombie apocalypse, State of Decay is an absolute must-play.

It's no epic, but The Swapper is a satisfying morsel of a game, well worth playing.

As an action-role-playing game, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing does not disappoint, especially for anyone starved for more of this particular sub-genre.

In a way, that latter ending fits Mars: War Logs best. It's a competently executed brawler-style RPG, with a political story at its core that actually has some potential. Irrelevant mechanics and sidequests get in the way of the game's best aspects, however, and Mars: War Logs never manages to focus on what's important.

It's too bad that this is the only way an English version of Deadly Premonition is available on the PS3, since it absolutely should not be played.

Anyone with an aversion to cute will likely vomit themselves inside out before they've cleared the intro movie, puking their way into a catatonic state with inhuman haste, but for everyone there's a lot to love in Atelier Totori. It's huge, it's charming and it's just a shame that its strict, poorly defined timeline rubs some of its sheen off. That aside, it's almost ludicrously absorbing, beautiful to bask in, and a joy to play.

In the end, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is a boring, meatheaded slog through about ten or so hours of predictable situations and sub par dialogue, and if someone told me that the development team had simply been handed a bit of cardboard with the words "sink this series" emblazoned across it as a design document, I'd believe it without hesitation.

Aside from that though, the original Dragon's Dogma was one of the better role-playing games to come along in quite some time when it originally debuted last year. Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen is the very same game, only better, stuffed with even more content, and cheaper to boot. Now's a perfect time to dive in for new players, and those who've beaten it already will find a nice new challenge in Bitterblack Isle alongside some additional goodies for carrying over their save as a loyalty bonus. It's a game that keeps on giving, only with a bit less Dangan.

I may not know what other MMOs offer, but something that feels like a single-player game where other people just happen to show up is just about the best possible thing I can imagine. Coming from this perspective, Defiance delivers.

As it is, it's a damn fine game and definitely worth playing in spite of the stumbles that keep it from reaching its full potential.

It may be designed for last-generation hardware, but it makes an excellent case for small-scale design and proves that great experiences can be had without any need for cutting-edge technology or million-dollar budgets.

It's tough to recommend Sacred Citadel when there are so many superior side scrolling fighters already on the market.

In fact, this is such a solid package that I don't have any outright criticisms, although it would have been nice if they'd thrown in the original Darkstalkers for completion's sake.

There isn't enough depth to the main game to attract anyone with a yen for crime management games, and while I did enjoy the combat, there's not enough of it to justify the game's purchase as a turn-based-strategy title.

Although there are some interesting ideas here and the Vita could benefit from a title like Soul Sacrifice, everything rides on how good the core game is, and to me, it just doesn't hold up.