I didn't expect to have so much fun with Until Dawn, and the depth with which my choices mattered and affected the final outcome encouraged repeat playthroughs. The visuals can be wonky at times, but in the end Until Dawn succeeds in being a thoughtful use of familiar mechanics, a great achievement in player-driven narrative, and a horror game you shouldn't miss.

If you've been playing along over the past five episodes, you're obviously going to want to know how it ends, and, overall, it ends pretty well.

Ghostbusters is such riotous fun that you'll forgive its short length.

Some blemishes exist, most prominently in the tuning of the encounter rate and how world travel is handled, but genre and series fans will find it easy to like this otherwise well-crafted adventure.

Some strained metaphors and connections aside, the cities of Rapture and Columbia make for strange but comfortable bedfellows in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 2. More importantly, Elizabeth's journey is tense and rewarding on its own terms, and is one that makes Rapture as mysterious as it was the first time you ventured inside.

The excitement of arcade-style supermoves, combined with the deep mechanics of the real sport, makes The Bigs 2 a thrilling baseball game.

The extra bells and whistles that Sonic Rush Adventure add to the formula might not equate to much of an overall improvement, and the game might not have as much impact as its predecessor, but this is still a mighty-fine platformer that is guaranteed to satisfy Sonic fans.

The PlayStation 2 and Xbox version of NCAA Football 08 didn't get many new features this year, but it's still a great game if you don't own NCAA 07.

Unique visuals and clever puzzle design help the philosophical puzzle game The Swapper feel fresh throughout its relatively short life span.

Even after barreling through the campaign in a couple of days, I still couldn't stop myself from going back for more. Ninja Gaiden 4 is a brutal menagerie of excessive blood spray, gratifying weapons, and gloriously stylish action. It banishes the sour memories of Ninja Gaiden 3 and has me pining for more character-action games, serving as a wistful reminder that games like Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, and Bayonetta ruled the roost before the recent proliferation of Souls-likes. Every change is meaningful, adding to the rock-solid foundations and evolving the formula to bring out the very best in its phenomenal combat. If Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance weren't enough, then Ninja Gaiden 4 solidifies 2025 as the year of the ninja.

College Hoops 2K7 is a great pick for anyone still in the market for a college basketball game this late in the season.

While the rest of the team doesn't get the same treatment as Invisigal, they're all enjoyable to interact with, regardless of whether you choose to make choices or not. While the lack of branches in the narrative keeps most choices from feeling substantial enough to warrant careful consideration, the arc of Invisigal's potential redemption, incredible writing, and stellar voice acting make this one of the best superhero dramas I've watched. Plus, the act of dispatching heroes and growing as a leader is a fun interlude between all the choice-making, especially when you can see your improvement reflected in Robert's growth throughout the story. I have my qualms with parts of it, but Dispatch is more than worthy of getting a second season. The writing and world-building behind its story are too good for this to be a one-and-done entry.

You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that this is one of the best adventures of the year, or that the game is continuing to make a good case that this series needs to be recognized as one of the best adventure franchises of all time.

Guitar Hero III ups the ante with increased difficulty and new modes, and though not everything it adds is fantastic, the excellent tracklist and stellar gameplay are sure to keep you hooked.

A wide variety of characters to recruit and hidden treasure abound keeps Denpa Men 2: Beyond the Waves fresh from start to finish.

Madden 19 is an excellent football game that improves on last year's entry in almost every way. There are problems, but there has never been a football game that more authentically represents the NFL than this in terms of presentation, controls, and depth.

So what these games may lack in graphical prowess, they more than make up for in spirit and underlying quality.

No matter how prone to cynicism you may be, you shouldn’t let this surprising gem go unnoticed.

Though Oreshika isn't the first to try and make an old-school RPG feel new or to make customizable characters feel like a family affair--Fire Emblem: Awakening tried something similar on a smaller scale, for example--it does feel like the first to completely bet the farm on that idea and succeed.

Where Iki Island excels, though, is in adding some new dimensions to the rest of Ghost of Tsushima. Its exploration of Jin's backstory and his character bring more depth to the base game's tale that improve it overall, and its beautiful new landscape provides both more of what works about vanilla Ghost and a few good, if slight, tweaks on the formula. Nothing is a drastic departure, but it's a lot more of the good stuff, refreshing Sucker Punch's already solid open-world game and providing some interesting reasons to revisit it.

With its distinctively clean retro stylings and deceptively simple set up, Videoball may blindside you with the pace and depth of its gameplay. It's reminiscent of arcade classics, and is easily one of the best multiplayer experiences of the year.

This is a beautiful, haunting, and memorable game, a worthy follow-up to Limbo. Its puzzles, although rarely difficult, are engaging complements to the story. The real achievement of this game, though, is the way that it crafts its narrative: detailed environments convey the bizarre world that you travel through; introspective moments are filled with minimalist sound design and just the barest touches of music; and the things you must do to complete your journey force you to confront the realities of humanity, freedom, and existence.

It takes everything that was good in "Spyro: Season of Ice" and "Spyro: Season of Flame," adds in a few new puzzles and abilities, and brings all of these aspects together into an adventure that's larger and more pleasing to the senses than either of those previous games.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 embraces the series' past to create a wonderfully technical and supremely satisfying game of football.

While L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files has its flaws, it excels at making you feel and think like a detective in a way that the base game can't. The VR version isn't a replacement for the full game, but it's a great companion that allows you to play the greatest hit moments from Rockstar's noire opus in a welcomed new way.

Renegade Squadron is an improvement over its predecessor in almost every way.

The huge change in player mobility is less of a paradigm shift and more of an overdue retooling for an 11-year-old FPS franchise, especially in a year of mobility-focused shooters. Yet for all its predictability, Advanced Warfare is a deluge of action-film bravado, and it's difficult to not be carried away by its tidal forces.

One of my favorite moments is when Amicia spots another wildflower in a lone trek across the city, nestled among the decay of the rats’ revolting nests. Without her brother around, she picks it up, and places it gingerly in her own hair--a personal reminder to keep trudging on amidst the hardships, and a testament to her growing strength and tenacity. Despite flashes of predictability, moments like these will bring a lump to your throat, as it did mine.