Samurai Gunn revels in its own simplicity.

Smart, occasionally funny, and immediately charming, Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse is easy to recommend based on its strong narrative, memorable characters, and artistic merit. The game is a vibrant return to form for the series, and should easily please the series' and point-and-click adventure game fans alike.

Hearing a sweeping synth-rock melody punctuate a flurry of sword strikes, mace combos, and stalagmites exploding into a shower of loot is a delightful event that you'll experience countless times.

Tiny Brains might look adorable, but its short length and lack of imaginative puzzles will turn your wide grin into a questioning smirk.

When everything goes right, Vector is a fast-paced joyride that earns your attention.

Lots of little annoyances add up to make Darkout less than than the sum of its influences, though they're not enough to ruin the entire experience.

This is a strange and wonderful game, one that's equally comfortable exploring the nuances of human interaction as it is sending you through space on a flying piece of poo. Such experiences are rare in games. Then again, there's nothing commonplace about Doki-Doki Universe.

When Two Brothers works, when it lines up whole scenes that bounce between funny, disturbing, and touching, it shows just how powerful the ideas it's working with are.

Yes, it's nice to have that attention to detail poured into the physics simulation itself, but when the likes of Forza are heaping on the features, it's hard not to feel shortchanged by GT6's lack of vision. Maybe we'll see the makeover the series sorely needs when it inevitably hits the PS4, but until then, Gran Turismo 6 remains a fantastic simulation; it's just not a great game.

But as a game of ideas, The Novelist works. It's not a challenging game, but the choices you have to make are.

It's heaps of fun, totally absorbing, and such a wonderful place to be.

The game's title may not provide justification for exploring the dungeon, but the much bigger I DON'T KNOW here is why anyone would play this game.

Unfortunately, Dead Sky is just masquerading as a survival shooter. Instead, it is a fledgling tower defense game that never grows out of its daydreams of being anything more.

Ultimately, it's the variety of planes and unlockable goodies available for each aircraft that keep you pushing through the more limited, recycled stretches of this airborne assault freebie. There's room to grow here, but World of Warplanes leaves the runway with a sound foundation intact.

Blacklight: Retribution has its fun moments to balance out the frustrating ones. But with a few unpleasant quirks, some missing features, and a borderline draconian pricing model, it's hardly a must-have shooter for kicking off the new wave of current-gen gaming.

The textures, lighting, and color saturation are all slightly worse than on the PlayStation 4 version, but still much better than Xbox 360/PS3. Secondly, though there occasional connectivity issues with the online multiplayer, the majority of our play time was issue-free and full of the immense, chaotic excitement that makes this game shine.

This is a totally flawed game that offers little more than a slow, barely competent combat system and a laughable storyline. And hey, if you're that desperate to experience Fighter Within, get a friend to repeatedly kick you in the shins. It's free, a nearly spot-on representation of the game, and far less painful.

Super Motherload somehow makes alienation feel like a warm embrace.

Luxuria Superbia's unusual premise roused my interest early, but the game's resistance to offering anything new beyond its simple concept hinders it from finding a satisfying rhythm.

For each anomaly, like a poor facial render of a head coach, there's a subtle detail, like a wide receiver who tries to keep both feet in the field during a catch.

Pass protection that depicts an offensive line truly working together is a long-awaited improvement that series fans will love, and there are tangible dividends in learning the running game, provided you invest the time.

It's just a shame that the game forces you to spend so much time bogged down in its clumsy interface, when all you want to do is build a better zoo.

This game covers well-trodden territory, but the way that it tracks your performance and the performance of your friends makes it a fine fit for the Xbox One's launch lineup, and a pleasant way to spend some time.

It's not a perfect party by any means, but some good design considerations, better-than-average variety, and always-enjoyable Mario thematics put Mario Party: Island Tour a few notches above your average video game bash-in-a-box.

Redshirt does manage to successfully poke fun at a lot of social media's worst aspects, and it can be good for some genuine chuckles.

It's not the most immediately appealing of games, due to its uninteresting character lineup, but digging beneath the surface reveals a solid fighter that's fun to learn and play. It's unlikely to replace some of the bigger, more technical, and prettier fighters as your go-to versus game of choice, but it's a pleasant, enjoyable diversion when you need some airy, unfettered fun.

Ryse is all sizzle and no steak, a stunning visage paired with a vapid personality. Everything from the leveling system that's so painfully easy to complete (and so devoid of any impact on the game that it might as well not be there), to the story that does little to flesh out its lead characters beyond puerile notions of revenge is a testament to how little Ryse can back up its gorgeous visuals with anything more than a shallow set of fisticuffs.

FIFA 14 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is a step above it's peers. Whether you're scoring in front of a screaming Kop or eking out an unlikely cup victory, FIFA 14 produces special moments that will live in your memory long after you've put the controller down.