To the Moon's excellent storytelling never veers off course and is one of the best we've experienced this year.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD preserves the best and worst of the 2006 original. Its opening can be tedious, but it’s worth enduring so you can experience such a magical world.

Spot-on Wolfenstein atmosphere combines with gleefully vicious weaponry to serve up a tasty smoothie of good old-fashioned Nazi-frying. It lacks in the new idea department, but it has fun aplenty.

With a focus on the fundamentals and an eye for simulation-style football, Madden NFL 16 maintains the franchise’s upward trajectory. Football fans have a solid title in their hands this season.

It looks good, plays great, offers plenty to do and it's even funny at times - though in a much cruder way than GTA's more sly, subversively socially relevant sense of humor.

ATV Offroad Fury Pro has made a quantum leap over Blazin' Trails. Learning from their mistakes, developer Climax has retooled everything from the controls to the graphics, making Offroad Fury Pro so good that it's a wonder what happened the first time around.

It’s a winner. So go ahead - grab your books and head back to campus.

It's not quite the jaw-dropping in-joke fiesta that "Reality 2.0" was, and it feels a little lighter on the puzzles and conversations than previous episodes, but Sam & Max Episode 6: Bright Side of the Moon is still great in its own right.

By going real with the songs, next-gen with the graphics and online with the gameplay, it leaves the wishlist relatively barren. At the same time, it's not delivering us much new on the gameplay front, and in fact lags a bit in terms of smart strumming mechanics.

If only New Leaf had taken a few bolder steps forward from its predecessors, this would be utterly essential. As is, it’s ‘merely’ one of the finest social games ever made. Get involved, and you’ll be forever bragging to your friends about your latest item. For instance, a tarantula. Bet you haven’t got one of those.

It’s not quite baseball perfection - why the fielding buttons are different in the Career mode versus every other one is beyond us - yet The Show is a rollicking good time.

Regardless of its imperfections, if you're wondering about getting Payday: The Heist, simply ask yourself: did that scene from Heat get my blood pumping? Did those robberies in Point Break make me want to don a president mask and go buckwild on some bank tellers? Your answer will steer you in the right direction.

Amalur does a lot of things better than some of the best out there. The combat is stronger than Skyrim's by a long shot, and the world feels more alive than games like Fable. It tells a good story well, and lays the foundation for a series we hope to see more of in the future, fate be damned.

A charming mess. Yes, the unpolished gameplay can be frustrating and, yes, the storytelling can be silly. But as soon as we drove through the gorgeously stylized Paris – then jumped out of our nitro-fueled racecar to snap a unsuspecting Nazi’s neck – we didn’t care anymore. For us, the good overwhelmed the bad.

If you're into tactical RPGs at all, or want to see the genre done in a more playful manner than Final Fantasy or Fire Emblem, then this is without a doubt one of the deepest, craziest, most time consuming games you could ever play.

We didn't expect a lot from NHL Slapshot, which may explain our delight at what we found. With the right audience, it's a superb hockey game with its own unique charm and "this is all about having fun" vibe. There ain't nothing wrong with that.

With more modes than you can shake a stick at and a rock-solid core basketball engine, it's a superb experience that collegiate hoopsters won't be able to tear themselves away from - even as they shake their fists in rage.

If the developer could have just tightened up a few minor technical issues and injected a little more soul into the proceedings, this might have been Spidey's best game yet. Instead, it’s just a satisfyingly entertaining experience and a big step back in the right direction.

If you never got a chance to play the original, or if it left you wanting more, this definitive edition ought to tide you over until the inevitable sequel hits.

Yakuza's story has the intensity of a page-turner - not surprising, as it was penned by a novelist - and the gameplay backs it up. Kazuma Kiryu's tale is an addictive blend of mystery, suspense and brutal violence.

Its addicting zombie-slaying action, dozens of interesting weapons, and immersive qualities far outweigh its dull story and occasional technical hiccups, the latter of which pale in comparison to those of the original. This outshines its predecessor in almost every conceivable way--and once it sinks its teeth into your time, Riptide is a hard game to put down.

Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue is essential for the faithful, flummoxing for newcomers, and a promising start to the series' life on PS4.

If you’ve got a room full of buddies and a handful of controllers, Sportsfriends is a delightful party game that will have everyone smiling and elbowing each other in the ribs.

Still surprisingly swing-and-miss online, but for long-lasting and moreish solo play, NBA 2K22 is its only competitor in a two-horse championship duel.

Online play adds a bit of longevity to an already full-featured game, especially since you can actually take your personal character online to compete in player matches and ranked games. Puzzle Quest is a fabulous addition to the 360's downloadable game library - a game that successfully crosses genres and does it with a lot of style.

Inventive, challenging, and deliciously dark, Lies of P retains the core structures of similar action RPGs while adding new surprises to the mix. The potential for richer character builds and depth of choice for the player is bolstered by a haunting narrative that, despite the clunk of certain new mechanics, cements the experience as a powerful contender on the Soulslike scene.

For anyone who purchased the game last generation, the hi-def version is definitely worth the worth the price of admission for Medieval Madness alone.

Watch Dogs’ interconnected world is a wonderful, explosive, high-tech playground. Shame the people who inhabit it are so forgettable.