Injustice’s greatest strength is that it makes you feel powerful regardless of your skill level. Even when you are struggling to overcome a series of grueling attacks, breaking through that with a well-placed combo or ridiculous supermove brings out the wonder in controlling an iconic hero or villain.

While Dead Island: Riptide serves the zombie genre well, it doesn’t do anything new with it. You’ve killed a million enemies like this before, and the only real differences this time around are aesthetic. The developers at Techland are adamant that Riptide is more of a spin-off than a true sequel, so maybe next time they’ll find some brains for this undead series.

While its story and graphics are uninspired, its sci-fi setting and skill-based combat are a refreshing change from its pointy-eared, min-maxing, level-grinding brethren.

Cut the Rope: Time Travel is the type of time-wasting game that mobile devices excel at.

It’s nice to get back to basics with ShootMania Storm and recall a time when we played for the joy of playing...And while the creation tools offer a potential for unlimited greatness, the truth is that ShootMania is fun today.

Infinite’s biggest issue is that the stiff nonplayer characters really dampen the impact of the social themes. Irrational worked so hard building this world filled with terrible racial imagery, but it’s difficult to feel the effects of that when I can’t relate to the mechanical mannequins that populate Columbia...It’s actually a minor complaint, but it’s very noticeable in a product that is otherwise so exquisitely put together.

Survival Instinct left me feeling empty. It’s less of a story arc and more of a montage of “Here’s what Daryl and Merle did before Season One.” Unfortunately, technical problems and frustrating design decisions prevent its one redeeming feature — the survival gameplay — from reaching its potential.

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is a puzzle-rich wonderland full of irreverent humor and clever level design, but it cannot overcome the 3DS’s limitations. Tilt controls and the lack of a second analog stick really tarnishes an otherwise amazing game.

No one expected the single-player campaign to be a milestone in video game literature, so I can excuse its meandering tone and appreciate it as a window into StarCraft’s development.

Judgment just might be the game that drops Gears of War out of the triple-A tier. It is competently done and no more. The rock-solid gameplay returns intact — virtually identical, in fact — and the Declassified options bump the entertainment value up a few notches, but the epic scope and precision level designs that elevated the franchise beyond its mechanics simply aren’t here.

Children deserve massive, explorable worlds just as much as adults. It’s wonderful that TT Fusion took that concept and made a fully functioning and largely non-violent world without sacrificing action. You won’t miss firing guns or swinging lightsabers in Lego City — not when you’re scouring the landscape for super builds and smashing everything in sight.

It’s a fun, efficient, and rewarding way to play baseball, and it’s the closest most of us will come to achieving our big league dreams.

Ascension isn’t a reinvention of God of War; it’s a refinement. It plays on its strengths – exciting combat, great visuals, and huge levels — even when those strengths might overshadow some of the new things it tries to accomplish (like adding emotional depth to its lead hero).

Dollar Dash isn’t great. It’s sometimes pretty OK but only after you get your head around the obtuse controls and are playing with real humans. It’s probably a bit better with people you know, but that would require your friends to all purchase the game as well.

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.

It’s a joy to see SimCity return in a better form than it has ever been. It is wonderfully complex, but very easy to play. The title is a massive undertaking and it has come together beautifully overall.

Did you miss the part where this is Star Wars Pinball? If you like both of those things, and you have a device capable of playing video games, you really have no excuse not to pick this up.

A number of minor gaffes, an uninspired multiplayer, and a severe drop in tension defuse Tomb Raider somewhat, but nothing stops it from living up to Lara’s legacy.

Crysis 3 is the strongest entry in the franchise. The puzzle-like combat scenarios have never been better with its suite of gameplay options and opportunities while the engaging narrative urges you to see Prophet’s journey through to the end. And if you’re a console owner, you can rest easy knowing that it still looks great on seven-year-old hardware.

A frenetically fun, albeit flawed, experience set in a beloved universe — a sexy, slash-soaked side story worth playing for franchise fans and newcomers alike.

The Gunstacker system offers an impressive variety of ways to throw bits of metal around at incredible speeds, and the enemy and level designs are (mostly) as creative as you’re going to see this year. It’s not too big on plot, but you’ll probably be too busy using ridiculous guns to mow down waves of grotesque enemies to care.

Colonial Marines comes off as too much fan service with few (if any) ideas of its own. It provides a tired narrative with an unsatisfactory conclusion that opens more questions than it attempts to answer.

Sly Cooper: Thieves is Time is a fantastic addition to the series and a great entry point for newcomers. Most of my gripes are minor, but the aggressive load times present the biggest detriment to the game, and the need for a PS Vita might irritate anyone who wants to collect everything these time periods have to offer. The rest is just a few hiccups in history, but they shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the latest chapter in the Cooper story.

Of the new additions, the weapon crafting feature makes it worthwhile to stick around. Even the cooperative mode injects some fresh blood (and sorely missed horror elements) back into the formula. The essential ingredients of what makes a Dead Space game great keeps changing from one iteration to the next, but at least Visceral Games always finds a way to make it enjoyable.

A video game that’s stunning to behold — one that can take players to unexpected emotional places and make them eager to push through the story to see the next brilliant cinematic. And we also get an experience that’s a bit too rooted in old Japanese role-playing traditions.

Antichamber is the film "Cube" sans horror, the threat of death, and poor acting. It's insanely hard and painfully simple, just like any expertly crafted puzzle. Bruce has created one of the finest and most challenging puzzle games I have ever experienced.

For all the great amount of detail put into the experience, the lack of real, permanent consequences and a fully simulated opponent is a huge letdown. Scripted missions just aren't enticing enough to warrant repeated plays.

It's hard and unfair in the campaign, but that keeps it challenging. Beyond the gameplay, it's just nice to look at. The battlefields are crisp, and the characters are interesting and colorful.