Killzone: Shadow Fall is a pretty game, gorgeous even. But the demand for moments to punctuate trailers or demos forced a sacrifice of story that it never quite recovers from. The OWL will find its place in history as one of the few controller-based mechanics to actually entertain, while the time spent in free fall may make players actually consider a plummet-related death.

United Front Games has done a phenomenal job of re-creating the look and feel of the Craftworld while applying its kart racing expertise with imaginative tracks and responsive controls. And the Create mode is nothing short of stunning, even if I don't have the patience for it. Depending on how the community of players respond, it might be the only kart racing game you'll ever need.

Bethesda went the extra mile to tweak existing quests in order to fully integrate the experience, and their effort shows. The constant treks across Skyrim do get a bit old after a while, but the wealth of new powers, information, and intrigue you'll find along the way more than makes up for the long walks.

This is a good installment, but the stutter in combat makes me wonder if it’s as polished as it should be. The game has crashed on me sometimes during Blitz modes in particular, with a lot of players. But overall it held up tremendously well in multiplayer as I fought my way to the first Prestige level and got through it with a 0.84 kill/death ratio. In fact, the more I played the more I enjoyed multiplayer.

It’s good to see Nintendo flexing the strength of its back catalog. NES Remix was a nice start, and NES Remix 2 is an improvement. Plenty of people, including me, love this era of gaming, and this game does a good job of capitalizing on that.

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.

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

Its levels are predictable, the puzzles are obvious, and the four-player co-op adds little besides the literal ability to have four people playing at the same time.

Tri Force Heroes is a lot of fun when you’re playing with friends, but make sure you have two buddies who can dedicate some time. The experience just isn’t as engaging when you’re alone, and you lose a lot of the social elements when you play with strangers over the Internet.

Smoke and Mirrors has plenty to like, but it doesn’t quite live up to its impressive prequel. I miss the first part’s abundance of action sequences, but the dialogue and storytelling are still among the best around. And I would still like to turn off those annoying notifications.

I had a lot of fun playing Strike Vector. It’s a good game held back by frustrating glitches and a lack of polish.

Island-hopping in a fantasy world felt new to me, and this builds upon the already engaging strategy that exits in Warlock.

If you love Destiny, Rise of Iron gives you enough new content to keep you invested and interested Bungie’s online shooter. But for more casual players like me, you won’t find anything here to really excite you. It’s just more. It’s all at the quality you’d expect, but little of it breaks through as exciting, creative, or daring.

Technical issues already dampened its prospects since its debut, and long matchmaking times are only compounding the problem. But with rock solid mechanics and genuinely interesting ideas behind it, 5th Cell's innovative shooter still has a fighting chance of bouncing back.

I wish I could say that Dead Island 2 came out a big winner after such a long development cycle. But it’s not Game of the Year material. It’s not even what I would call a great zombie game — there are many that do story or even gameplay better. But Dead Island 2 is solid. It is competent, and it is fun. If you want some uncomplicated zombie-slaying antics in a beautiful setting, Dead Island 2 will scratch that itch. But I don’t expect anyone to still be talking about it this time next year.

It succeeds most as a tribute to Marvel. Its giant roster offers a great variety of heroes. And while the gameplay is simple, it can still be satisfying with some cool cinematic moments and boss fights that I won’t spoil for you here. I think most people know what they’re going to get with this one: a simple Marvel-themed beat-’em-up game. Just don’t expect anything more than that.

Unfortunately, the weird pricing structure and noticeable depth of features holds back the screaming, rage-filled “Powerthirst” of fighting games from really making a statement. It’s no Street Fighter competitor this time around, but it’s good enough to measure up against the rest.

Artistically, it's uninspired. But mechanically, it's one of the best shooters I've played in years.

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).

Fe stumbles at times, in part because of its sometimes elusive camera. But it’s memorable and beautiful, worthwhile simply for diving into an alien world and letting it carry you away with its sometimes adorable, sometimes breathtaking creatures.

Anarchy Reigns tries to be many things, but what kills it is that it is too often the one thing it never should be: boring.

And while the graphics are better than the games made for prior generations, I believe that Supermassive has to do some major upgrades that eliminate latency, improve the movement, and still reach an even better level of graphics realism. I’m looking forward to more entries in this series. If I think of The Dark Pictures Anthology by itself, I believe this series is getting better with time.

But the reason that I so unreservedly love this take on Game of Thrones is because it also has a great story that acts as a canvas for you to express these characters upon. And like any great story, I’m looking forward to the final chapter with mixed emotions because I don’t want this to end.

Castlevania isn’t brutish — it is a test of your agility and your willingness to overcome nearly impossible odds. Mirror of Fate really wants to dazzle you with clever puzzles and name dropping fan-favorite characters, but it can’t emulate the soul of the series.

Dead Rising 4 is like a digital stress ball. It can be cathartic to let loose and kill thousands of zombies whenever you want, but it doesn’t have much else going for it, even with the charming Christmas setting and a compelling multiplayer mode. If you’re a diehard Dead Rising fan, you might get more out of the story than I did. Like the characters mentioned earlier, the narrative is not very interesting and mostly served as a way to push me to different parts of the map.

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.

It's a cute, easy-to-play, innovative brawler presented with humor and a well-developed sense of fun. It's even more fun played through with a partner or two, and though the vs. multiplayer isn't to my taste, I'm sure many gamers will like it.

When it works, Loadout hooks you in with its deep weapon-crafting system and frantic battles where everyone is trying out their own crazy creations. And to its credit, Edge of Reality has shown incredible resilience in responding to the server problems so quickly. But Loadout isn’t worth playing until it solves them.