While the lack of multiplayer is disappointing, it features more than enough loadout options to add variety that it warrants repeat playthroughs.

It's not quite a keeper, but it's an improvement over the original.

Although this genre's been done to death, Harold's inspired levels, imaginative mechanics, eye-popping presentation, endless charm, and steep challenge separate it from the pack. It's only that latter element that crosses the line, sometimes making Harold more frustrating than fun.

VoidExpanse is toothless in general, lacking the mystery and suspense that could have propelled it through the universe.

Are you looking for a journey into the digital unknown that won't break the bank? If so, then is the one that you should embark upon.

Chronicles' passive pacing is a shame, because the pieces, combat notwithstanding, are mostly strong. Furthermore, the exquisite environments craft a setting that makes me eager to see the two upcoming sequels--Chronicles: India, and Chronicles: Russia--in action.

Chronicles rests on being pretty, adding new mechanics over time but flattening the pace and allowing exploits and glitches to suck out the rising tension.

I am left puzzled by The Charnel House Trilogy, not because I don't understand it, but because its mishmash of themes and tones can't find a way to coexist.

Despite some nagging issues, Slow Down, Bull is charming, with plenty of good messages to share for the whole family.

A great roster with a wide range of diverse fighting styles and variations gives you plenty to play around with, and the new fighting mechanics add the right amount of depth to nudge Mortal Kombat X ever higher on the list of respectable fighting games.

Although you can't escape it, Mortal Kombat X's violence doesn't come at the cost of great gameplay design; it's either your punishment for failure, or your reward for mastering the art of kombat.

Even a solid game needs some spice, and We Are Doomed never gives you much. You will certainly notice how good it feels to play the game, and the presentation is top notch, but it never really gives you a reason to care.

Luckily, before work comes joy, and in the few hours that Titan Souls maintains your interest, you prove that you--and the diminutive hero that you play--can change the world with incredible patience, and a single arrow.

Slender Man and his several proxies are cold and uncaring. They have no clear motive other than your defilement, and they are omnipotent.

I'm not quite as warm to it as I was before, but it's an eerie experience that's seeped into my real life.

The game is friendlier for newer players than some of its in-genre siblings, however. While League of Legends keeps rune slots locked until certain account levels, Infinite Crisis gives characters completed Augment/Mod kits they can use even at level 1.

It is great in bursts, and when you have friends playing with you, Paperbound glows with energy. But the lack of online or additional content takes its toll.

It's a hard-won love that Dark Souls II has you earn, a love that took a second, enhanced port to truly find. It is a demanding and seemingly interminable game that puts up its most beautiful and its most evil machinations right at the outset.

The exultation of hard-earned victory here, of saying “What's next” with all the fear, fascination, and excitement of any good, bloody fight, has more joys than most, and even though the game is won, I find myself itching to go back...Dark Souls II, in its final form, is just my tempo.

The world of Dark Souls II has a way of digital life that involves sacrifice, hard decisions about the distribution of power, and the fact that seeking more has an iron price.

Bastion holds up remarkably well four years later, even as the acclaimed games of the latter day tend to lose their luster once the initial novelty wears off. At its best, this re-release proves that Bastion is worthy of its name. It's a bastion of good game design and innovative narration, and I suspect that another four years from now, it will hold up just as well.

It is not changing the future, but it is repackaging the past in a way that deserves praise while falling into a few old traps--and creating a few of its own--along the way.

This slow-and-steady approach to game design makes each iteration of the game comfortable, but it also makes for fantastic baseball sims that you can always count on, and that are always improving in subtle ways. In gaming, in baseball, and in life, that’s rare and valuable, even if it does make for a predictable rite of spring.

The narrative thread is just strong enough to remain interesting, but it takes a back seat to the loot-soaked foundation that works so well.

Dyscourse has charm and personality to spare, and though you can peel back the layers of its systems if you spend enough time replaying it, few games make your choices feel as meaningful and impactful as this one does.

There is a real velocity to Three Fourths Home. It sneaks up on you, quietly at first, before suddenly becoming overwhelming. Its closest analogs aren't other games, but works like John Darnielle's novel Wolf in White Van or the haunting music of lo-fi artist Mount Eerie--art that rumbles and groans and then springs into action.

Sunless Sea is an ambitious work that attempts to capture the sheer kinetic thrill of discovery in a bottle without the inevitable entropy of player completion depleting it, and falls well short. The promise of lengthened replayability only makes the methodical pace a joyless grind at times.

Its fantasy world is undercut by bland artistic direction and a lack of conviction.