It’s pretty simple: If you enjoyed Wolfenstein: The New Order you’ll like Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, too.

Act 1 was just an appetizer. Act 2 is the meaty main course that defines Broken Age — and not just because it finishes the story. It’s where Double Fine let loose and went crazy with the puzzles (and the complex train of thought you need to solve them).

Crypt of the NecroDancer has reminded me how creative, original, and fun video games can be. I’ve switched it off at 2 a.m. more than once this week, forcing myself to break from a dangerously addictive “one more go” loop as I tried in vain to beat the damn thing.

In other ways, I really can’t find an enjoyable groove in the fighting system itself, which is the most important part of the experience. I’ll admit that it’s partially my fault. I like my mind games to have certain things going on, which maybe isn’t compatible with Mortal Kombat X. But part of the blame is definitely on NetherRealm Studios, with strange system decisions and move animations that are implemented poorly.

A disappointing outing from a developer that has made some of Nintendo’s most exquisite games.

Smove has a solid foundation, but whether or not you stick with it depends on how much you care about beating high scores. If you don’t, you’ll have little to complain about here, but even less to keep you playing.

Amazingly, neither source franchise feels compromised in this union. And while it’s easy to point out where the game’s many influences stem from, the greater game feels unique. This spinoff is good enough that it should be a new franchise going forward.

It’s weird when you feel so unenthusiastic about a game that you know is “good.” This used to be a series that I would never miss. These days, I’d probably take a long break from The Show if I could.

Axiom Verge uses Metroid’s building blocks to create a fantastic adventure that can stretch for hours if you want it to … though maybe not always in a good way. I’m not a big fan of the genre, but even I started getting obsessive over my map and item completion rates.

Record Keeper isn’t offensive. It can sometimes be a little fun. But it’s not incredibly engaging.

Bloodborne is the system seller for all dedicated gamers that don’t already own a PS4.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D is one of the biggest and best games available for any handheld game system, and it still stands as one of the best role-playing games in recent years, handheld or otherwise.

This is probably the weakest episode yet, but only because of those very minor problems in the first section of the game. Don’t take that as some kind of damning criticism because this is still a very good time. I’m still riveted.

It’s just so easy to pick up and get lost in for a few hours at a time. You can credit Techland for that success because it picked a few ideas and really got them right.

Rebusmind deserves a lot of credit for the attention to detail in SwapQuest. It’s full of neat little touches and moments that’ll make you smile and want to keep on playing.

The trademark Borderlands humor and Telltale story prowess are missing from Atlas Mugged, which forces players to spend the whole game preparing to do something instead of just doing it.

This is the 10th Battlefield game, and at this stage in the franchise’s history, it isn’t easy to come up with fresh takes. Visceral Games has done that.

Bringing such an interesting, varied, and challenging game to consoles was a great move by Square Enix for the franchise. It’s more Final Fantasy than any recent Final Fantasy game.

Nintendo has forced itself to find ways to change this series over its many sequels, but it’s actually at a worst place than it started off. The Bowser Party mode at least does some interesting things with the Wii U GamePad, but it still isn’t as fun as a regular 20-turn game on the original Mario Party.

While the industry seems to have moved on from both the PlayStation 3 and traditional role-playing games, Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea is good enough to bring players back.

I loved every second of Ori and the Blind Forest. It’s as fun as it is pretty, which is an incredible achievement when its one of the most gorgeous games I’ve ever seen.

Helldivers is a fun romp through a tedious space system...The rapid co-op action makes for a great way to kill a few hours with your friends, but continued travels expose repetitive maps.

I’m blown away by how well thought out the base design in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is.

Basically, if you were a fan of Canvas Curse, there’s no reason to think you won’t enjoy this sequel. A little bit of the uniqueness is gone, but this is still a fun twist on the traditional sidescroller.

The Order is thrilling and frustrating. I should make it very clear that I did enjoy my time with it. I didn’t want to put the controller down because Ready at Dawn did such an exquisite job of doling out the action. And that, combined with its decent concept, story, and gameplay, would’ve been enough a long time ago. But in 2015 it left me feeling discontent. Is this what I bought a PlayStation 4 to play? Is this what Sony is passing off as a bold new experience? A different shade of Resident Evil 4?

Redux: Dark Matters is not an exemplary shoot-em-up, but it is a rather a safe and well-executed one where fans of the genre can get an immediate sense of its influences.

Creative Assembly has been very ambitious with Total War: Attila, and the game is a lot more compelling than its predecessor. It feels more balanced. The A.I. is smarter, but a human general can still beat it. But the unrelenting weight of a collapsing empire pushes a human ruler to the limit.

It doesn’t offer enough yet, and what content options it does have is cloaked behind a clunky menu that doesn’t permit players to hop into its varying modes. Evolve had a beautiful start, but now it’s time to add to it. We need a queue for players that want to play one round of the nest, rescue or defend modes. We need more character choices, maps and play modes.

A dynamic, fun, and challenging experience in a unique setting. The simple presentation belies the complexity and variety of gameplay. Gamers looking for a cerebral puzzler with a high replay value would be well-advised to check it out. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable prison experience.

Monster Hunter 4 has a great game full of options, activities, and a vast world to explore and immerse yourself in living somewhere deep inside of it. And it will even show you these things. But its questionable design and control decisions suck all the fun out of it and make you feel every second of your time in the untamed wild.

Grow Home is a better experiment than a game.

Majora’s Mask is an odd one, but it’s a legendary game from Nintendo’s library, and one that deserves a rerelease. With its graphical improvements and system enhancements, one of the best Zelda games is even better this time around — and that’s really saying something.

I really like Game of Thrones on HBO, but I’m enamored with this game. Something about having ownership of character decisions in a fantasy story that lives up to the legend of George R.R. Martin is incredible.

Painfully slow to play, out of tune and obnoxious when it came to handling Kyle’s character(s), and grating to listen to when people weren’t talking, it took what could have been a delightful story and stretched it on a rack, set it on fire, and forced me to randomly talk with four people before grabbing the bucket of water I could clearly see on the counter to try to help put it out.

Chapter 1 of this five-part series is off to a promising, if timid, start. It presents a lot of ideas and mechanics just to show you what you’ll be doing later, but it’s pretty clear that the really interesting bits are yet to come.

Grim Fandango is still one of the best stories any one has ever told in a game. If you’ve never played the original, the convenience of a multiplatform release (and the better control options) really should push you to finally try this classic.

The glaucoma-inducing choice of interface and the stretching of space and gameplay time beyond the point of breaking make this a hard game to broadly recommend. This would have been one hell of a 6-hour jaunt, but at upward of 20 hours for a basic playthrough, the amount of fluff is suffocating.

Gat Out of Hell can stand on its own. Yes, it is undercooked, and it has problems, but the core mechanics and gameplay still work.

It still manages to be deep and suspenseful some two decades later, which is a testament to how skillfully crafted the original was. By keeping true to its roots, Resident Evil HD Remaster manages to strip away all of the superfluous additions we’ve seen piled on over the years, leaving only survival horror in its purest form.

Elite: Dangerous is unforgiving, obfuscating, and occasionally dull, but it’s always immersive and beautiful. It offers an incredible universe to explore that, despite occasional graphical repetition, offers the tantalising possibility of wonders yet unseen at the end of each new hyperspace jump.

It wasn’t terrible. Maybe I will play it again. And maybe I will wake up in a cold sweat after dreams of masochistic racing missions.

Other than some really frustrating quirks, Sneaky Sneaky is a cute and challenging game that gives you plenty of options in how to survive its obstacles. Just stop walking in front of those damned guards, Sneaky.

You’ve got to be in the mood for Talos. It’s demanding of your time and attention, especially if you’re the type that wants to finish most things you start. And you’ve got to have a love affair with words...But if that describes you … this game can be magical. The result is a little melancholy, a little melodramatic, but one of the better puzzle game presentations I’ve ever played.

Know that the single-player components of Halo: The Master Chief Collection are excellent and well worth the purchase; however, if you intend to spend months tearing through multiplayer, reliving glory days or forging new conquests in sci-fi shooter perfection, you’re going to be sorely disappointed right now.

It’s most compelling as a one-and-done. If you have a difficult time grasping the concept of abstract narrative in pinball, it will be a fantastic eye-opener. Taken any further than that, expecting the replay of almost every other pinball option out there, and it disappoints.

The choices I’ve made are sticking with me way more than any scene that HBO has aired.

Like Donkey Kong ’94, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a fun experience distilled down into digestible chunks.

If you already tried the 1.5 HD Remix and couldn’t get into the series, I doubt this will change your mind. But for Kingdom Hearts fans, this is a great package.

Questionable game design choices and some irritating bugs just overpowered the storytelling for me.

Assuming you can get in, this is definitely one of World of Warcraft’s better expansions.

If you’re an experienced AC player, here’s my advice: Rogue feels like a good expansion, and it’s worth seeing Shay’s role in the ongoing drama. But because it’s so similar to Black Flag, I think you’re better off waiting for a price drop.

Zero Sum stands tall as the ultimate point-and-click science project: combine the beloved Borderlands lore and setting with the shining vision of an artistic studio, crank up the heat, and enjoy...If you are a fan of Borderlands, you will love it. If you are a fan of Telltale Games’ previous franchises, you will love it. If you have a pulse and aren’t easily offended, you will love it.

Judging by its content alone, LittleBigPlanet 3 is easily the greatest value for your money this year. But beyond that, it’s a fun, deep, and endlessly charming experience that has plenty of ways to entertain and amuse you. This is the PlayStation 4’s first must-buy title.

The Wii U version is a fantastic addition to the series. The new modes are great, but the excellent mechanics and huge, varied roster make it potentially the best entry in the franchise yet.

It’s not quite Persona 5, but it’s still a meaty (down, Chie) role-playing experience.

Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are worthy updates of classic games from the Pokemon pet battle series. They add modern graphics and sound, the gameplay updates of the previous few installments, and the new evolutions without ruining the nostalgia of the original Sapphire and Ruby titles.

Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are worthy updates of classic games from the Pokemon pet battle series. They add modern graphics and sound, the gameplay updates of the previous few installments, and the new evolutions without ruining the nostalgia of the original Sapphire and Ruby titles.

WWE 2K15′s greatest addition is the MyCareer mode. It finally gives us a way to play out our WWE fantasies with our self-made superstars. The new character models are also a nice touch, but they’re offset by the loss of customization options.

Far Cry 4 is the furthest thing from a mere upgrade. As developers struggle to decide how much a sequel should be similar or different from its predecessor, Ubisoft shows immense skill in finding a happy medium in Far Cry 4.

This War of Mine makes the most of its clean, attractive graphics, its moody ambient soundtrack, and the intense, emotional nature of its gameplay. You’ll care about your refugees, and you’ll want to work hard to keep them healthy, fed, alive, and well. Unfortunately, This War of Mine doesn’t make it easy.

I was not expecting to love Unity, but I do. Ubisoft nailed the big assassination missions and everything in between.

Inquisition is a Schrodinger’s Goldilocks kind of a game: too big and just right at the same time...The main campaign is more interested in telling you how great you are than letting you prove it, and combat feels designed for a game half this size. It’s not a far fall from grace, by any means, but it’s noticeable — and occasionally grating — in such a long experience. But if you have been working for the Inquisition for that long, hopefully by then you will be too busy discovering and exploring to care that much.

It delivers with its story, great acting, dialogue, the realistic facial animations, cool weapons of the future, and the welcome change in pacing from combat missions to stealth missions. I welcome the idea of using great actors like Spacey in a big-budget game, and I look forward to future versions of the game that marry Hollywood blockbuster actors with the blockbuster-style game play.

The look, feel, and sound won me over. Forgiving the mission structure and forgetting the tower-defense junk, this is pretty much what I would expect from an action shooter for this console generation.

It’s got its problems. But it’s a game that will have you staying up late at night, itching to complete just one more turn.

While it won’t have the party appeal that comes with instruments, it’s a more intuitive, beautiful, and creative experience.

The narrative is a bunch of clichés that had me checking my phone and skipping cutscenes. It’s not all bad. The characters are mostly interesting, and the presentation is well done. I also like that it takes place Christmas time. But that stuff isn’t enough to make up for another lackluster gaming story. It’s a bummer because Bayonetta is so cool, and she deserves the chance to shine in something better.

The action and the feeling of many right paths make Styx truly engrossing for hardcore stealth fans, at a bargain price. Be ready to save often and die a lot — with a smile on your face.

The parts that are exceedingly well-polished (gorgeous cars, skill-based driving) make those that trip up (ugly A.I.) all the more disappointing. It sets a high bar for the inevitable competitors to follow, but like an inexperienced driver on a hot lap in a solo challenge, it’s sloppy in the turns.

Beyond tools, save points, and modest firearms, you absolutely cannot underestimate the importance of Alien: Isolation’s sound. Just like the art direction, the music offers the same kind of fan-pleasing connective tissue to Ridley Scott’s film.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax does everything a good fighting game sequel should. It adds new characters, modes, and other changes that improve the experience. The story is a bit long, but it features plenty of fan-service for devoted followers of the series.

You can never tell how great a fighting game will really be until the public has time to master it, but Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS has everything it needs to finally get the competitive community to move on from Melee. The new characters are excellent, and the gameplay is smooth, fast, and exciting.

I think Shadow of Mordor deserves a huge audience. I like it bordering on loving it. Had Monolith tightened up a few things, I’d probably love it bordering on considering it one of the best games of the year.

It doesn’t pander to the player like a child, taking a long time to reach a modicum of difficulty. It’s under the impression that we’re here for a challenge and provides just that for us. Fairly, that is, so that the only one to blame for our violent rage quits are ourselves.

The gritty world and its many pitfalls create a realistic post-apocalyptic experience where every choice can mean the life or death of any or all of your friends and enemies. The responsive combat system and environment test the limits of video game problem solving, and the size of Wasteland 2’s quest bank allows for countless hours of enjoyment.

Horizon 2 doesn’t just use the Kinect well. It also is one of the best games for the Xbox One controller, and it’s all about those force feedback-capable triggers.

This one has the potential to have some staying power in your living room, as long you don’t mind coughing up some money to feed the beast.

Hyrule Warriors has little in common with a traditional Zelda game. You don’t solve any puzzles, you don’t explore any dungeons, and you certainly don’t break into anyone’s house and destroy all of their pottery. Still, it definitely works as a spin-off that focuses almost entirely on action.

Right now, it’s a rock-solid shooter with no underlying purpose … or soul. Destiny is a ship floating in space without a place to go.

Golem Arcana bills itself as a “digitally enhanced miniatures war game,” and it certainly excels at what it sets out to do.

For me, the experience was like taking your car to the shop. When you get it back, it’s shining, detailed, and purring: They’ve traded your Ford Focus for a Ford GT. Hooray! But then you get in and notice it’s a stick shift, with manual brakes and steering, no stereo, no A/C, and wait, where are the doors?

If you’re looking for a good game to play on the PlayStation 4 or the Vita, Velocity 2X is a fantastic choice, with its crisp, bright visuals and energetic soundtrack (I never got sick of it once). Just keep in mind that outer space can be an unfriendly place, and if you’re a sucker for story, you’ve got a lot of playing ahead of you if you want to finish all 50 levels.

No Going Back is a quality episode, yet it fails to be as memorable as Season One’s ending, despite some intense and heartbreaking moments.

The game’s high production values add charm and character to the experience. The compelling storyline and animation make up for dialogue that might linger a little too long and puzzles that might speed by a little too quickly.

Counterspy successfully gives you the feeling of being a powerful and deadly third wheel in a Spy vs. Spy game of one-upmanship. Moving to and removing your target of choice amounts to the most gratifying stealth since 2012’s Mark of the Ninja. But the problems start flying as soon as the bullets do.

You should definitely try Hohokum if only to understand how weird and hard to describe it is. But not everyone will appreciate its laid-back attitude and guidance allergy. It’s certainly a beautiful and unique title, and I enjoyed playing it, but bring along some extra patience just in case.

Sacred 3 is a fair hack-‘n’-slasher. It runs well, and if you’re into such games, I bet you’ll have some fun. But it doesn’t carry on its heritage as one of the most unsung action-RPGs franchises, and if you come into it with those expectations, you will only find disappointment.

It remains a solid adventure today despite the late-game efforts of one of the worst system-based game mechanics of this or any other year. The afternoon of graph diving it takes to beat Metrico is all that’s needed to forever see a small silhouette jumping to and fro on all of the financial documents in your future.

Modern Combat 5: Blackout is at its best when it’s not trying to replicate the FPS experience from consoles and PC. The touch screen doesn’t give you the type of responsiveness you need for a game like this. The only reason it works for the linear campaign and quick-fire Spec Ops challenges is because of player-friendly options that make up for all the sluggishness.

This is the digital Magic game that fans have been wanting since 2009; it’s the pinnacle of the series in function, and it’s a welcome new direction.

Like many penultimate television episodes, Episode 4: Amid the Ruins serves to set up the series’ finale by applying pressure to The Walking Dead’s characters and upping the stakes. Clementine’s group has never been more desperate.

Cry Wolf ends Telltale’s Fables series on a memorable and effective note, taking everything that has worked in the series so far and amplifying it to its most spectacular.

Old school gamers will love Shovel Knight’s retro sensibilities, but they’ll also appreciate its modern touches.

I’ve never been much of a history buff, but maybe I would be if more games like Valiant Hearts: The Great War existed. Between the artistic backdrops and the soldierly tasks you commit, both right and wrong, Ubisoft Montpellier retells the events of World War I in amazing detail. Yet, the story is always about the people on the frontlines and what they endured, not the politics.

The career mode and realistic gameplay will gain the love of diehard UFC fans and hardcore sports gamers...However, the complicated controls and unpredictable striking mechanics will frustrate and confuse everyone else. There are also a number of bugs that need to be fixed.

Tomodachi Life reminds me what I love about Nintendo. Another developer might try an experience like this on iOS or Android, but it’s unlikely they would leave it unsullied by in-game purchases. I also doubt that many other studios could nail the effortless humor that makes this so refreshing to play.

Pushmo World is a fun puzzle game, even if its presentation will make you feel like a preschooler. Still, the easy-to-use level editor really helps make it an easier recommendation to anyone looking for an interesting little addition to their Wii U library.

War Thunder surprised me. I am not very good at it, but I still have a lot of fun playing it. Because it is a free-to-play game, some players will download it on a whim and quit 20 minutes in due to the poor controls. Those that brave the steep learning curve will be rewarded with a realistic combat simulator that could be truly great one day.