Origins' hours of wonderfully crafted entertainment deserve to be seen, to be played, and to be enjoyed by as wide of an audience as possible. Seek this one out.

If the story had made good on the strength of its initial premise, Far Cry 3 would have been shoo-in for best game of the year. As it stands, it's still the most fun I've had in an open world in ages, a game that plays so well and looks so good, I wish every other piece of it reached the same high bar. But you should play it anyway.

It's a smartly designed open-world game with a ton of stuff to do, and the random acts of hilarity that occur out in the jungle will constantly leave you with unique stories you'll be desperate to tell your friends. If the story had made good on the strength of its initial premise, Far Cry 3 would have been shoo-in for best game of the year.

The story mode has one of the strongest starts I can remember in years.

Everything fans of the series have come to love in past games has been tuned and upgraded, making it feel an awful lot like the definitive off-road racing game.

It's extremely easy to lose hours to Forza Motorsport 3 because it does so much great stuff both on and off the track. If you're at all interested in the reality of racing cars, Forza 3 is amazing from every angle.

This sense of wonder is something that I haven’t felt so strongly since I played A Link to the Past when I was seven years old. Ocarina of Time was able to capture some of that same magic in my teenage years. Now that I’m in my thirties, I don’t think that I expected it to be possible for a game to make me feel like that again.

When it's at its best, LittleBigPlanet offers excitement and the thrill of discovery in ways that no other console game ever has.

It's both a must-own for fans of the genre and a great place for new players to get started.

Mass Effect started with a huge stable of good ideas. Maybe the task of executing on all those ideas was too great for any one development team to accomplish in a single game, but BioWare has really gotten it right the second time around. They took those same ideas and figured out a better way to combine them into a more cohesive, more playable sequel that makes good on every bit of Mass Effect's potential and leaves me staring very grudgingly at the presumable two-year wait until my own Commander Shepard can continue his fight in the next game.

Professor Layton and the Curious Village has a certain warmth to it that makes it easy to love, even when you’re up against a particularly annoying puzzle. Personally, I found this first adventure so strong that I’m already getting antsy just thinking about the next game in this planned trilogy.

In a lot of ways, this is my ideal video game. Becoming one with the controller and the vehicle in a drop-dead-gorgeous setting that essentially never runs out of content? It’s almost perfect, and I think it’s fair to use that word for the craft that is on display in Forza Horizon 6.

Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t know how much more ground could be covered with Kratos as a character. The new Nordic mythology obviously gives Sony Santa Monica plenty of new material to play with, but it’s the new Kratos that’s responsible for the game’s most striking evolution...God of War grew up, and the result is the best entry in the series.

It is an incredible achievement in open world gaming, an intricate machine that disguises its machinery better than just about anything else that's come before. In addition to its lengthy and engrossing campaign, it delivers moments of emergent storytelling more compelling than anything I can ever remember playing. Graphically and aurally, it is top-to-bottom stunning.

Enjoying Hotline Miami doesn't make you a worse person, though you may find yourself wrestling with just why the act of deftly delivered murder is so damn much fun. It is because it's a lovingly crafted game, well-designed and deeply addictive.

The developers at Rockstar Leeds were very smart about which elements of GTA to carry over and which would just drag the final product down. The end result is a game that feels new and fresh, even though it largely relies on the concepts forged in GTA's past.

Far more than just a farming game, this one-man labor of love is filled with seemingly endless content and heart.

For those of us who still deeply love this specific style of real-time strategy and want more of it, this is a must-have add-on.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed is terrific in almost every way, revitalizing a classic but long-dormant game in an exciting way that stands on its own, but also serves as a potent reminder that there's a new retail sequel on the horizon that'll bring all this crazy swinging to 3D environments.

Even if you've grown tired of the seemingly endless cavalcade of dual-joystick shooters that Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved's success spawned on Xbox Live Arcade, the sequel is well-worth its $10 price tag.

Most importantly, it manages to simultaneously feel like a Forza game while also letting in more of what makes racing games fun for all players, rather than staying strictly focused on those of us who want strict simulations of varying realism.

This package makes for an epic and excellent expansion to World of Warcraft, one that will certainly keep longtime players coming back. And the increased accessibility and streamlined nature of World of Warcraft 2008 compared to World of Warcraft 2004 mean that even players who gave up a long time ago will also find plenty of reasons to return to Azeroth.

It's hard to imagine a better Doom game in 2016 than this exhilarating, darkly witty new take on id's classic.

It ticks off every item on a list of things a modern Doom should have, including several items you didn't even know were on the list in the first place. They may not make shooters like this anymore, but the runaway success of this game serves as long overdue proof that they really should.

The smart players will rise to the challenge and feel like they've been appropriately rewarded for their prowess. The campaign gives you a great look at an interesting world, though its abrupt, too-clean ending feels out of place. It's a somewhat disappointing reward for an otherwise exciting adventure that puts a terrific and fun spin on first-person shooting.

The smart players will rise to the challenge and feel like they've been appropriately rewarded for their prowess. The campaign gives you a great look at an interesting world, though its abrupt, too-clean ending feels out of place. It's a somewhat disappointing reward for an otherwise exciting adventure that puts a terrific and fun spin on first-person shooting.

Limbo has a transportive quality that's hard to articulate. It so expertly realizes both its internal gameplay logic and its prevailing aesthetic that it almost creates a sort of reverie as you play, fully removing you from your physical environment and plopping you into this cold, mesmerizing other land. Though you'll find it's a tough place to survive, it might also be one you're in no hurry to leave behind. The game is a masterpiece.

If you're the sort of person who thinks video games are capable of not just entertaining us but also making us think and feel, you owe it to yourself to play Brothers.

The brothers' commitment to their goal and to each other is so strong, the various parts of this game so superbly crafted and woven together, that it's hard not to feel deeply touched when you finally reach the end of the road and see how deftly this game marries its gameplay to its themes in a way few have before.

The technical aspects of Chinatown Wars were impressive on the DS, and the PSP version looks quite a bit sharper and cleaner than the original release.

The resulting journey is so singularly devoted to creating a specific tone and atmosphere that you won't likely be able to stop thinking about it until long after you've seen it through to the end.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is the most fun I've had with an open-world game in a very long time...Whatever your feelings on J. R. R. Tolkien and the Middle-earth milieu, it's hard to imagine any fan of open-world action having anything less than a great time with this game.

The Beatles: Rock Band sets a new standard for how band-focused music games should be executed, one that will be very difficult to match. Beyond all the stylistic flairs and the fan-service touches, this is just an incredibly fun, incredibly accessible bunch of music, with very little filler in its track listing.

HD Remix makes most of those older releases look like cheap cash-ins. It may cost more than most arcade updates available for consoles today, but with the number of important changes being made and its extreme attention to detail, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix sets a new standard for downloadable arcade games... even though I still think Blanka's face doesn't look quite right.

Rhythm Heaven is a great addition to the DS library that's definitely worth checking out if you've ever liked a WarioWare game.

A tiny, beautiful, elegantly designed piece of software that I feel richer for having played.

This is a game where visuals, audio, and mechanics sync up in a way that feels effortlessly organic. I'm sure the work put in to making it that way was anything but effortless, but it paid off. Sound Shapes is a reminder that great, creative things can be done in the music gaming genre.

I really couldn't ask for a better embodiment of everything I've come to enjoy from the series. The constant satisfaction from upgrading creative weaponry, item collection which feels rewarding rather than trivial, and the over-the-top action are all here, and better than they've ever been. With the addition of some interesting puzzles, even more flexibility with your weapons, and a great presentation, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is not only the best game in the series, but one that will certainly stand the test of, well, time.

This is definitely not the game for those frightened of the idea of micromanaging a game to the point where a large portion of it will be spent in a pause screen. However, as the sort of guy that has lovingly played an Infinity Engine game at least once every year for the past decade, I can think of no higher praise for this throwback than to say that Dragon Age: Origins leaves me feeling fairly confident I won't need to dig out the classics for this ritual next year.

Bionic Commando: Rearmed is terrific in almost every way, revitalizing a classic but long-dormant game in an exciting way that stands on its own, but also serves as a potent reminder that there's a new retail sequel on the horizon that'll bring all this crazy swinging to 3D environments.

The only thing that might surprise you about Uncharted 3's relentless roller coaster ride is that it doesn't advance the standards for video game action like its groundbreaking, mind-blowing, superlative-generating predecessor did. But it certainly does match them. There's a slight sense of "been there, done that" in the way this game hews so closely to Uncharted 2's masterful blend of puzzle-solving, parkour, and dizzying action scenes.

Naughty Dog set out with a very specific goal in mind, and in focusing intently on that goal, they blew right past it. Uncharted 2 is a sublime example of how to make a great action game, the result of fantastic execution on every aspect of the game's design and development. It's the best, most memorable game I've played in a long, long time.

This is a full-on experience devoted to all of the different facets of being Batman, from the gadgets that help him along, to striking fear in the hearts of his opponents by carefully lurking in the shadows, to taking challenges head-on with little more than his feet and his fists, to straight-up acting like a detective, hunting around for clues. This all translates into an adventure full of variety, with each different aspect coming in at such a high level of quality that it just keeps impressing you over and over again, right up to its final moments.

The only thing I really wish Pac-Man Championship Edition DX had was just more. More mazes, more modes, more ways for me to subjugate ghosts and rub my high scores in my friends' stupid, stupid faces. It's not that this package feels particularly anemic, it's just that what's here is so damn good, I wish it didn't have to end.

Tetris Effect, from top to bottom, is my favorite iteration of Tetris yet. The music and visuals work together to create a truly unique Tetris experience, that is only enhanced by VR.

This game is most certainly not for everyone--if you can't handle extremely hard games, you're better off marveling at this spectacle from a distance--but those who can stomach the difficult and appreciate the bizarre will take every ounce of punishment Super Meat Boy dishes out and beg for more.

No other game I know of operates with this many moving parts to create such an immense world filled with this much choice in how you engage its excellent, endless fiction. It's one thing when a game offers dozens of hours of gameplay; it's quite another when that gameplay is good enough you'll want to live in its world for that long.

Wii Sports Resort offers more variety and a bit more complexity without alienating that family up the street who only bought a Wii because they love bowling. Unless you're the kind of sullen misanthrope who can only feel at peace when getting headshots with some kind of virtual scope, you'll surely find something about Wii Sports Resort that keeps both you and your non-gaming friends or family coming back for more.

The multiplayer doesn't seem especially deep, though, and consequently I suspect it will lose its luster after a week or two. The good news is the campaign alone is worth playing through two or even three times.

The multiplayer doesn't seem especially deep, though, and consequently I suspect it will lose its luster after a week or two. The good news is the campaign alone is worth playing through two or even three times.

HD Remix makes most of those older releases look like cheap cash-ins. It may cost more than most arcade updates available for consoles today, but with the number of important changes being made and its extreme attention to detail, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix sets a new standard for downloadable arcade games... even though I still think Blanka's face doesn't look quite right.

It’s rare we get a new IP from a big publisher like Capcom these days, especially one with production values like this. It’s a risk when you could just keep pumping out Resident Evil remakes and sequels while making guaranteed money. Well, this risk pays off. Pragmata is exhilarating, emotional, and … some other word that starts with “e.” Engaging? Engaging!

I may have been left pining for more of what I saw from each approach, but there’s no denying that I had an excellent time with Requiem. It’s the most I’ve enjoyed a mainline Resident Evil game in 20 years. As good as 7 and Village were, I have to admit it was nice to go back to some series mainstays rather than continuing along with the narrative detour of the Moldman Chronicles. Grace’s chapters had me holding my breath and running for my life during late night sessions with the game, and the bombast and doofiness of Leon had me laughing out loud. Resident Evil Requiem is an excellent culmination of everything Capcom has learned during 30 years of making this franchise, and it serves as a tantalizing glimpse of what its future may hold.

Longtime Hitman fans will undoubtedly be put off by some of the changes Io has made here, but if you're willing to dig a little deeper, you'll find a game that's as rewarding as any Hitman prior.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories takes some bold, unpredictable risks with this venerated franchise, and the result is a heck of a lot more interesting than yet another survival horror game with motion-assisted aiming might have been.

Despite its early growing pains, Fat Princess manages to walk a pretty straight path between frenzied combat and larger-scale tactics. It's a unique take on team-based multiplayer with a lot of personality and charm--and, with any luck, a lot of staying power on the PlayStation Network.

While Sid Meier has been quoted as saying that this is the Civilization game he always wanted to make, Revolution's got plenty of shortcomings, and the scope of its vision can sometimes outstrip its mechanics. That said, this is a really satisfying strategy game, and though it might be old hat for PC players, there are few experiences quite like it on consoles.

For all it's got going for it, though, Muramasa's problem is that it simply overstays its welcome. This is a good 14-hour game, and the gameplay cannot support that kind of play time. I found myself wishing that the game was about half the length it is, which would've left me satisfied, rather than fully exhausted.

NBA 2K13 is phenomenal, if familiar. Go in with the right expectations, and you'll be enjoying it all season long.

If you don't like Green Day, and you don't want to play their music in a Rock Band game, you're not going to get a whole lot out of Green Day: Rock Band.

While there are clunky bits at the fringes of Red Faction: Guerrilla that give it a handful of frustrating or disappointing moments, the core moments of the game are exciting and well-conceived. Factor in a thrilling multiplayer component and the sheer satisfaction provided by the wholesale destruction of huge structures and you've got more than enough reasons to get your ass to Mars.

The action is solid and the story is interesting enough to make Singularity worth checking out.

You should know that Rocket Riot will eventually wear thin. But its great looks, clever gameplay, and huge roster of unlockable characters give you plenty to do, and the end result is quite a bit better than the game's $10 price tag might initially lead you to believe.

It's short and a bit thin on content, but what's there is pretty, well-produced, and a satisfying if slightly silly curiosity for anyone who remembers the first Resident Evil even a little bit fondly.

Its weird, half-hearted political gestures aside, Vanquish is the kind of video game that reminds you that these are video games. Perhaps more than any quality, video games allow for visceral thrills unfettered by the real-world logistics of physics and general plausibility. Sometimes a game just needs to look cool and make you feel like a space-age badass, and Vanquish accomplishes both with vigor.

There's something about the return to a standard numbering scheme for Guitar Hero 5 that suggests to me that this is, more than anything else, a commodity, a manufactured product, albeit a very attractive and energetic one. Neversoft seems more comfortable and confident than ever with this series it has inherited, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of passion behind the craft.

While you can explain a lot of things about Darksiders by listing off other games that are directly referenced during the adventure, the game doesn't feel like some simple clone. If you like Nintendo's Zelda games and want to see an altered, darker take on its concepts, portions of Darksiders will absolutely blow you away.

The game weaves a powerful narrative web around a core third-person action model that's largely satisfying even when its lack of variety becomes apparent in the later stages of the game. Even a thousand plaid-wearing axemen aren't enough to slow the driving momentum of these uncanny events, or make the game's foreboding forests one iota less unsettling.

Shatter is best-suited to people who have a friends list full of scoreboard fiends. That's what'll bring replay value to a game that's only going to take you a couple of hours to see in its entirety. But even if you're not that type of player, Shatter still has enough style and action in it to be worth checking out.

It would probably benefit from an additional mode or two (which, if the trophy list is to be believed, will be coming in the form of a DLC add-on), but with a $10 price tag and a terrific frame rate, Super Stardust Delta makes for a good, strong opener for the Vita's download-only catalog. If sharp-looking action is your thing, it's certainly worth your time.

The add-on also gives hope for what's possible when blockbuster-driven creators take risks with material. There are missteps in Freedom Cry, more ethical than mechanical, but it hits as often as it misses. That's undeniably an important step forward.

Its weird, half-hearted political gestures aside, Vanquish is the kind of video game that reminds you that these are video games. Perhaps more than any quality, video games allow for visceral thrills unfettered by the real-world logistics of physics and general plausibility. Sometimes a game just needs to look cool and make you feel like a space-age badass, and Vanquish accomplishes both with vigor.

It's unapologetically immature, boner-obsessed, and grotesquely violent. And yet, unlike other unapologetically immature, boner-obsessed, and grotesquely violent games of recent memory, there is no meanness of spirit to Shadows' intentions. Practically every gag in the game seems to come from a place of easygoing silliness, rather than a need for forced edginess.

It's a bit barebones, and the turntable controller feels like it could have been better in a couple of spots. But as the start of something new, DJ Hero provides a very strong foundation that things like additional downloadable content or full-fledged sequels could really build on.

It took me a good five hours to play through, and it wraps up enough story threads to be satisfying, while leaving enough open to keep me eager for Episode Two. If the humor and the combat can retain this level of quality, this could be the start of something great.

But if you've ever had an inkling of interest in Capcom's previous attempts but found them too impenetrable, MvC3 is probably your best bet at finally cracking that code and getting some enjoyment out of all this crossover madness. Just make sure you've got some like-minded, similarly skilled opposition to take on, or else it's going to get messy and decidedly unfun.

It's a much fuller and funnier experience than the first episode.

But if you've ever had an inkling of interest in Capcom's previous attempts but found them too impenetrable, MvC3 is probably your best bet at finally cracking that code and getting some enjoyment out of all this crossover madness. Just make sure you've got some like-minded, similarly skilled opposition to take on, or else it's going to get messy and decidedly unfun.

It's now good enough that you no longer need to make excuses about why you play so much Destiny. Destiny 2 may misstep in a couple of ways its predecessor didn't, but it also shores up its fundamentals so thoroughly that the future for Destiny fans looks bright indeed.

After being really down on Bulletstorm for the first couple of hours, I was pleasantly shocked to see how well it started coming together once I started getting better at using the different weapons and once the story started moving at a faster pace.

It's also one of those games that's so strong in parts that its shortcomings become almost glaring by comparison. As such, the game's barebones story, lackluster AI, and insufficient player trading options are real disappointments that prevent the game from reaching its full potential. But when you're frantically trying to stay alive while getting swarmed by an angry horde of gigantic spiderants, chances are you won't care much about that other stuff.

Don't judge Ninjatown by its cover. It's funny and clever in a way that grown-ups can appreciate, and the increasingly complex strategy is engrossing and challenging enough to keep you coming back right up to the very end.

After being really down on Bulletstorm for the first couple of hours, I was pleasantly shocked to see how well it started coming together once I started getting better at using the different weapons and once the story started moving at a faster pace.

Beyond its categorical success in establishing a vivid picture of the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead's biggest breakthrough is the way it blurs the lines between the often compartmentalized pieces of a modern first-person shooter. It makes for a game that's unlike any other, and while the limited amount of content is admittedly unfortunate, that shouldn't keep you from experiencing this fast-paced, nerve-wracking game.

For what actually could have turned out to be a paid demo, Capcom pretty much hit this one out of the park.

After being really down on Bulletstorm for the first couple of hours, I was pleasantly shocked to see how well it started coming together once I started getting better at using the different weapons and once the story started moving at a faster pace.

Its wild premise is surprisingly well-realized, and its shooting is top-notch. Put simply, it is a game that stacks up as well, if not better than many of the classics it's so clearly inspired by.

It sees Twisted Pixel in top form, capitalizing on its unhinged zeal for inanity that it seems to barely be able to keep in check while deftly handling the challenge of working with the Kinect.

By its very nature of being a sequel, Last Light doesn’t feel as fresh as Metro 2033 did, but there’s still nothing else like it. Few games generate immersion through gameplay and transport you to their world the way Metro does.

Ground Zeroes makes up for its initial brevity with plentiful side content, a gorgeous look, and the most dynamic, satisfying stealth gameplay Metal Gear has seen in some time.

Possibly the most surprising addition are the amount of stealth sequences.

Killzone 2 felt like a landmark event that finally gave the PlayStation 3 a world-class first-person shooter that you couldn't play anywhere else. After two years, Killzone 3 hasn't changed enough to reignite all of those feelings, but it's still a thrilling ride when you're alone and a well-designed multiplayer experience, as well.

Ground Zeroes is a strange product, appearing like such a bad deal initially but then more than making up for it with side content you can't access until later. But it looks gorgeous and plays great. If this game really is indicative of what The Phantom Pain is going to offer, there are some good reasons to anticipate Snake's next full outing.

Did I mention it has the creepiest spiders since Deadly Creatures? By its very nature of being a sequel, Last Light doesn’t feel as fresh as Metro 2033 did, but there’s still nothing else like it.

Tomb Raider might be guilty of trying to do too many things at once, but the relative quality of each one of those individual things is high enough that the whole is still pretty satisfying.

The long list of options available in Injustice 2 means that players of all skill levels should be able to find something exciting to do.

Do you want to play more Call of Duty? I'm guessing the answer is yes, and by all means, Black Ops is worth playing. But for all its ambitious steps to set itself apart from the previous games, it flounders in a few too many of those areas to be a total success.

The fights are fun and flashy, with nice depth for players willing to spend the time learning those nuances. But Injustice 2 also sets a very high bar for content variety in a way that opens up the game to people who might just be fans of DC's heroes and villains, too. If you're open to the idea of a fighting game, you're almost certain to find something worth liking.