While we're happy overall with Madden 12, and it's a notch better than last season's game, it remains a far-from-perfect experience. Those of us that plan on spending a hundred hours or more playing online franchise and community games will surely compile an enormous laundry list of issues – but in the end, we'll still play all those games. Even so, we're left wanting much more than we're getting from EA's venerable football series.

The bottom line is that Band Hero is going to be an awesome game to those who happen to fall neatly within its target demographic.

You might be surprised just how easy and addictive this board game can be.

A solid console adaptation of an intricate and rewarding competitive experience, but not without rough edges.

Switchball is one of the finer, original Live Arcade titles to grace the service in a while, and is undeniably addicting. Even if you plan to play for just a few minutes at a time, you'll find yourself losing hours to the creative puzzles and intuitive game play.

Virtua Tennis 4 is a gorgeous, deep title that makes us happy to have our Vita – even if we have to deal with strangers watching us over our shoulders. It's a small price to play for a heck of a game.

Rest assured, Diablo 3 on consoles is the same experience PC fans enjoyed, tweaked just enough to make the difference between the two meaningful.

The biggest on-field addition is the Weapons feature, a nifty little option that makes it easy to spot mismatches and exploit or avoid them.

Act One of Broken Age starts off strong, with an incredibly well-written storyline that props up some occasionally weak puzzle work. Let's hope Double Fine can follow through with Act Two when it arrives later this year.

We can't blame you for being hesitant, but the odds are pretty low that you have even half of these that will play on a current system. While every game isn't a winner, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection is the best you can do, outside of Japan anyway. At least until the next, even more Ultimate Collection.

OFF is a cult classic RPG thanks to its surreal world, strange cast of characters, and bizarre enemies. Inspiring Undertale and many other indie genre icons, OFF manages to still feel like a titan, and incredibly digestible thanks to its tight design and bite-size zones. Revised combat is a huge plus, making every scrap pack plenty of impact in this definitive release.

The world of LocoRoco is uniquely beautiful, aggressively charming and a lot of fun to explore, and it keeps its load times short. If you've ever wanted a reason to hug your PSP, now's your chance.

The Outer Worlds marks Obsidian operating at the top of its game, and a strong foundation for a new franchise that seems destined for greatness.

While it may not be the best pure basketball game you’ll ever play, it’s definitely tons of fun on many different levels. It’s also our favorite PSP hoops game of the season, which, considering how good they all are, is really saying something.

It manages to provide an incredibly compelling experience by consistently setting an intense mood, forgiving player errors and providing numerous options for accomplishing your fiendish goals.

This is a specific kind of game for a specific type of gamer - the RPG masochist. But those people are going to love this thing.

While it eventually hits near-unplayable levels of insane difficulty, Killzone: Liberation stays fun enough to keep you playing no matter how frustrated you get.

With amusing unlockable bonuses and three (and a half) solid, good-looking games, you'll get plenty of mileage out of this one if you have the bare minimum one like-minded friend who makes playing fighting games worthwhile.

Certainly not a bad Halo game, but one that succeeds despite its innovations, not because of them. With multiplayer the high point, Halo 5 is worthwhile, if not always truly convincing.

We're hoping people do discover what a gem Nail'd is, because with a bustling online community the multiplayer could become addictive despite the game setup issues. Even so, the game is a wonderfully unique racer that really stands out even based solely on its single-player component.

There’s not much of a single-player mode beyond the typical arcade, survival, and a weird story mode that doesn’t follow any Bleach plotline we’ve ever read. But the online multiplayer performs remarkably well, and makes up for it beautifully.

A spectacular throwback to the era when wrestling games were must-own. Add live – or even quarterly – updates to 2K20 and it’ll be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

The control mechanics feel more like the real thing than anything on a console that's come before and the presentation, while over-the-top, is just the kind of thing people look for on a Nintendo system.

This is no worthy exploration of man's cruelty to the natural world, and I suspect marine biologists would have something to say about much of the science, but it's the perfect distraction from a world gone mad, and weirdly therapeutic. When you're not filling the water with blood or launching an innocent human into the air with a flick of your tail, the waters are a pretty playground, and there's always mischief to be made in the resorts, water parks, and marinas. Just don't dob me into the killer whale I sponsored when I was 12.

The story is tightly linear, so it's hard to make your character's tale your own.

Delivers all the goods where it counts most. It’s hard as hell, but won’t frustrate you to the point of despair. Its sense of humor is still charming - even though we wanted more of it - and it looks great to boot.

The prototypical extraction shooter, Escape from Tarkov is a shooter I've been playing for the past decade and will be playing for years more. Sublime firefights and just-complicated-enough mechanics make this a great game to lose yourself in, but the immersion only lasts until you need to check the Wiki, which is constantly when you're just starting out.

Funny, colorful, and full of personality, The Lego Movie Videogame not only successfully builds from its source material but is also a great example of why Lego games are so much fun to play.

An agreeable adventure that's transformed into something special by its enchanting aesthetic.

Even though a few aspects of Warhammer: Mark of Chaos aren't all that they could be, it nicely distills all of the best characteristics of the tabletop game. It's as close as you're going to get to the real thing without spending a fortune on miniatures.

The system of building up your shadows' powers is also irresistible. But the game does lag in pacing when it comes to exploration and battle; a touch more evolution might have launched this from extremely good to indispensable.

Outside of marveling at the graphics in some select stages and bouncing around with four friends on your HDTV, how much longevity does NSMB U have? A good deal, thanks mostly to the dozens of minigames designed to appeal to the more skilled Mario players out there.

You won't find an epic amount of unique content here (perhaps throwing the full price tag into question for some), but while it lasts, Speed Racer: The Videogame is a thrilling, futuristic race experience that succeeds with stylish visuals, incredible speed, and addictive combat.

Don’t make this the third time you passed on Disgaea. NIS is running out of systems to port to.

Not only has the game been retooled with the Live audience in mind, but it's still a challenging, rewarding way to pound out your frustrations after a brutal day in the real world.

Although this is essentially more of the same with a couple new elements, it’s executed well. The photorealistic graphics, edgy atmosphere, and riotous gunplay mix masterfully to create phantasmagoric art.

The game is challenging, visually stunning and is truly a unique experience not found anywhere else. Although you can use the controller, playing with the Move and its use of vibration makes the PS3 version of the game truly a unique experience.

The beautiful settings, excellent puzzles and killer boss battles easily make up for the game's few shortcomings. If you can get past the cover, you'll find an adventure worth taking – one that might just be the sleeper hit of the year.

Though players looking for straightforward, hardcore racing might be let down by TDU 's laid back attitude, the instant online world and impressive attention to detail make this tropical driving game unique and enjoyable.

While it's got a couple of nagging problems - the animation quality drops when there's too much action going on, for one - it's pretty clear that Battlelines is one of the better early PS3 titles.

The purist, PC-RPG crowd will hate it for "dumbing down" one of the last remaining hardcore RPGs, while the console clan will love it for making a fantastic series more accessible. Everyone should cotton to the clever, twisty story and fully fledged characters.

Kingdom Hearts 3D doesn't revolutionize the franchise, and some of its experimental mechanics might not cater to your tastes. But despite any flaws it might possess, Dream Drop Distance still delivers splendidly in terms of unabashed fan service, and the kid in you will be ever gleeful tagging along with Sora and Riku for the ride.

2K10 doesn’t match The Show’s amazing visuals and hyper-smooth gameplay, but it does offer a slightly more fan-friendly approach and a lot of charm. We can see the day when it can match The Show pitch for pitch.

Don’t be turned off by the difficult controls right away. Once you get used to the steering and can take the corners, FlatOut 2 is an awesome racer with enough destruction and mayhem to last you awhile.

Borderlands 4 extracts the essence of a finale shootout and spins it across an entire game, with a staggering amount of guns allowing for pure carnage. While the game's story and tone fall far from those heights, at times it simply doesn't matter as much as shooting six robots out of the sky with an electrified explosive gun.

It's a tough act to pull off, but The WarChiefs manages to walk that fine line between familiarity and new material quite well. Age of Empires III veterans are going to love it.

It’s not so much that it tries to scare you with monsters, blood, or gore that makes the experience so powerful as it is how the game mentally plays with your senses and emotions. Even if you don’t think you’re easily scared, try playing Outlast alone in the dark with headphones on. This intense rollercoaster ride will keep you on the edge of your seat and make you jump out of it a few times too.

Both a great remaster and an enjoyable ‘new’ game in its own right that takes you on a journey in a way few things can.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is a lush, vibrant re-imagining of the DKC franchise, but a barrage of cheap deaths, uneven difficulty and iffy motion controls keep it from matching Retro Studios' previous amazing work with Metroid.

The purist, PC-RPG crowd will hate it for "dumbing down" one of the last remaining hardcore RPGs, while the console clan will love it for making a fantastic series more accessible. Everyone should cotton to the clever, twisty story and fully fledged characters.

System seller? Not quite. Fun, simple flight game that handles great and conveys a fantastic sense of speed and height? Absolutely.

You’ll find all the standard deathmatch and team options available alongside a few unique modes.

Despite the re-hashed ideas, there are more than enough unique tweaks to the formula to warrant giving Gyromancer a spin.

A beautiful recreation of Star Wars, and a solid if simple shooter. This is a game you'll love intensely albeit for a short space of time.

If you think that repeating the same 10-second phrase of a song dozens of times until you master it is fun and rewarding on its own, then Rocksmith 2014 is an excellent way to enhance that experience; and its suite of tutorials, minigames, and other distractions will go a long way towards keeping you interested.

Invincible VS brings the hyper-violent aesthetic of the source material to an exciting, easy-to-learn fighting game, with a healthy roster of playable characters and a decent amount of game modes. While the story falls short of Invincible's peak, and some actors from the show don't feature, it's still a must-play for Invincible fans.

Unless you're still knee-deep in last year's game and can't spare the forty bucks, picking it up is a no-brainer. You won't find a better portable pigskin experience anywhere else.

Nintendo's threequel has flashes of brilliance everywhere.

It simply looks and plays better than any baseball game ever has. That doesn’t hide the fact that the game also fails to innovate off the field in any material way. While that’s not a fatal flaw, there will come a time in the near future when its fans will demand new and interesting ways to enjoy its beauty.

It’s addressed our biggest complaints from last season and added plenty of worthy material, staking its claim as a top-tier handheld NBA sim.

Though Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 doesn't offer anything approaching a revolution in golfing, whether you play your way to the ranked online leaderboards, or just hammer it out with a buddy on the same system, it's truly a pleasure from start to finish.

Mad Max might be formed from familiar parts of other games, but the car-wrecking, skull-cracking chaos it creates is a rewarding and expansive adventure.

Sekiro has the best swordfights in any video game. It leans too heavily on its mediocre stealth, but its satisfying combat will keep you going through hundreds of brutal deaths.

It's not that the story is bad; it's just that the surgeries are so addictive that you’ll be anxious to scrub back in to the O.R. and pick up your scalpel/stylus.

Metal gear Solid: Peace Walker is huge, diverse and beautiful. Sadly, some awful boss fights and simplified stealth means it's not quite essential.

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy tells an utterly memorable story, with brilliant takes on the Guardians themselves, even if the gameplay could be more adventurous at times.

If you're new to Hotline Miami, and you want to play on handheld, you should definitely check the game out on Vita. If you have a PC, though, that remains the best way to play the game on a big screen, as the controls work better with a mouse and keyboard.

So what if Carbon isn't redefining the street racing genre - really, at this point, what could? It hits a sweet spot of intensity, danger, and style.

The heart and soul of NBA 2K7 lies in the NBA buildings across the country and the hands of the best players in the world. This year, there's no finer hoops experience to be had on the 360.

Battlefield's tried and tested multiplayer feels wonderfully at home in the WW1 setting, and the solo campaign tells interesting - if historically lightweight - stories.

Antichamber finds strength in its simplicity. Its puzzles aren't convoluted, the solutions are usually always staring you in the face, and yet still the game is challenging. Not everyone will appreciate the game's minimalist elegance, but Alexander Bruce’s approach to game design can't be labeled as anything but clever.

A successful sequel that both reboots and redeems the wayward series, though it's not a flawless victory. Character balance, inconsistent detection and a stingy coin reward system drag down an otherwise bloody good time.

Transistor's clever combat and incredible customization makes for an intensely fun strategy game, but the world and story leave much to be desired. Come for the art and wonderful soundtrack, stay for the ability to freeze time and slash up robots.

Guacamelee 2 is another champion-grade Metroidvania, provided you can handle some corny humor and retreading of old mechanics.

Succeeds in retaining the raw fun that made the original game great while amping up the excitement and variety. Casual players will enjoy the action-packed scenes while the hardcore crowd will relish the challenge of gathering all 30 pro-medals and sharing their custom level creations online.

Shot-for-shot this is the same game console players had in January - a fantastic, hard as hell shooter that'll knock your eyes out of your head. But with no new content at all and a lack of the ultra-cool bonus multiplayer maps, we've got to dock it a bit.

A chaotically silly party game that’s spliced its DNA with a dungeon crawler and a twin-stick shooter.

While it looks superb and is welcome in situations when your significant other wins the rights to the TV, the split-second reactions needed in the packed-to-the-gills streets on the small screen will have you pining to get the action back on the big one.

A successful sequel that both reboots and redeems the wayward series, though it's not a flawless victory. Character balance, inconsistent detection and a stingy coin reward system drag down an otherwise bloody good time.

If you're any sort of fan of 2D games and crazy-ass violence, you owe yourself a crack at this one.

It's a well-made game that you can try again and again with numerous heroes and their plethora of powers. If you're a comic-book fan, this is probably the most satisfying videogame ever made for you.

We had trouble getting enough planes into the air, though when we did, the mode shone out as one of the better additions to this otherwise serviceable flyer.

Like ZEN Studios' previous offerings, Zen Pinball 3D reproduces the best aspects of pinball beautifully, and the 3D truly adds to the enjoyment and gets you that much closer to feeling like you're playing real pinball.

If Costume Quest was a full-retail game, we'd recommend it with a few caveats. But seeing as its fifteen bucks, fans of RPGs/Halloween/Neglecting their children should pick it up without hesitation.

The real pay-off of Marble Blast Ultra is in the swear-inspiring multiplayer.

The only possible "don’t-buy" concern in Missile Command is that, like fellow old-school, arcade quarter munchers "Robotron" and "Defender", it’s relentlessly, almost brutally difficult...You will find some nice multiplayer action though, and at five bucks, this is a no-brainer.

Assassin's Creed Shadows thrives on boldness. Its dual protagonists improve on the series' stealth-driven roots and modern RPG leanings, though they're let down by a vague story that fails to make full use of either character.

If Costume Quest was a full-retail game, we'd recommend it with a few caveats. But seeing as its fifteen bucks, fans of RPGs/Halloween/Neglecting their children should pick it up without hesitation.

If you've already played Stacking and you're on the fence about getting The Lost Hobo King, all you really need to know is that it's about the size of a Stacking level and the quality is as good as anything in the main game. Whether or not you want to shell out $5 for that is ultimately a personal decision.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 is a delightful skateboarding title that series fans can't afford to miss out on. It brings welcome visual updates to classic maps, and the level creator brings plenty of new challenges. While the product placement and lack of evolution from the previous entry scuffs the overall experience, there's still a lot more ups than downs.

Genesis Rising, with its intriguing twist on the RTS genre, dares you to choose a side, and be counted.

A new coat of paint, a ton of actionable analytic data, solid improvement in the trenches, and the extension of two popular modes makes Madden NFL 15 a winner.

Madden’s detractors often, and incorrectly, refer to its annual release as a “roster update.” Madden NFL 25 is anything but; it’s better than last season’s solid effort, and when compared to releases from two and three years ago is light years ahead in terms of on-field quality and off-field activities.

For us it was a slow burn; the more we understood, the more fun we had. Once you start getting past the learning curve you'll find yourself more and more absorbed by all the complex little dramas that swirl around your nobles; you'll know you're getting there once you start feeling the urge to fill in other people on your crazy, possibly immoral medieval exploits.

While some of its threads don't always come together as neatly as they should, Fullbright's sophomore effort is a quiet and haunting examination of the ways corporations dehumanize us all.

Like a real-time strategy on a console or a platformer on the PC, Fireteam Bravo 2 bears the burden of being a great game in the wrong medium. Still, as far as first person shooters go, it’s one of the best we’ve seen on the PSP so far and offers an excellent single player campaign with solid multiplayer action to boot.

While not particularly revolutionary, there's a lot to like about Anno 117. If you get your teeth into the game's complexity, you'll find yourself investing a lot of time into spreading Roman ways across your islands and growing your settlements from tiny villages to grand cities.

If this genre has intimidated you in the past, Tabula Rasa is the perfect entry point with its user-friendliness and swift tempo. Calling it a clean slate may be a bit of a stretch, but Richard Garriott has certainly provided gamers with something unique.