Quick look (video).

In the end, Empire's only blemish is its unresponsive units and pathing. For a game whose greatest thrills result from the specific gambles you make with your troop movements, it's a shame you're sometimes punished when that movement seems out of your control. Even with its flaws, though, the newest Total War is so breathtaking and immersive that it's hard not to recommend to avid strategy fans.

Were it not for the online issues, NBA 2K12 would be the closest thing to a "perfect" video game basketball experience we have yet come to. In fact, it still probably is. This is one of those rare sports games where the offline content nearly made me forget about the online component.

Borderlands 2 is a better game in most of the ways that matter, but some of that is brought down by the familiarity of the experience.

Extreme fastidiousness notwithstanding, it can take around 30 hours to see through the single-player campaign in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, though like Firaxis' Civilization series, there are so many different ways to prioritize the research, engineering, economic, and tactical elements of the game that it almost begs for multiple playthroughs.

It gets its hooks in deep and fast, but the true fun and challenge in Neon White becomes apparent the more you play it.

My recommendation for the PC build has to come with a firmer qualification. Yes, I still really enjoyed my time with Dark Souls 3 on PC. Yes, I’ll probably play through at least one run of NG+. But my enjoyment was seriously impacted by the unpredictable performance and crashing.

Fable II comes packed to the gills with content to keep you busy. While there are definitely some issues with the user interface and the occasional NPC freakout, they are easy to stagger past whilst getting drunk on the world.

Brotherhood lacks that generational leap we saw from Assassin's Creed to Assassin's Creed II, but it more than makes up for that with a full-bodied single-player experience teeming with interesting gameplay additions and a risky multiplayer component.

There is simply far more content by volume in this package than in the original. The core of Left 4 Dead may have lost some of its newness in the last 12 months, but the wealth of additions in this sequel ought to keep you blasting zombies and munching on brains for a good long while.

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.

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.

There is simply far more content by volume in this package than in the original. The core of Left 4 Dead may have lost some of its newness in the last 12 months, but the wealth of additions in this sequel ought to keep you blasting zombies and munching on brains for a good long while.

Titanfall 2 might not fix every issue you had with the previous game (and depending on your tastes, it might introduce one or two new ones), but it's a bigger, bolder game that takes a few chances and comes out better and more distinctive for it. On top of all that, it simply feels great.

On PS4, it runs at least as smooth as Bloodborne did and with much faster load times (with the trade-off of occasionally slow-loading textures.)

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.

Time and expectations have taken a certain toll on Grand Theft Auto IV, but all that aside, the bottom line for The Ballad of Gay Tony is that it's just not as good as the GTAIV experiences that preceded it. It feels like Rockstar has run out of tricks, and it has got its work cut out for it with whatever comes next for Grand Theft Auto.

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.

It's just the right mixture of charm and insanity. Even if you end up letting a collective of Internet sleuths guide you by the hand as you work your way through the game's cubes, anti-cubes, artifacts, and other items, Fez still somehow manages to be worth seeing, if only to marvel at how much weird work went into making what we all thought was just a retro-styled perspective-shifting puzzle game into something decidedly more mind-bending.

In general, playing with other people is pretty much painless, even on PC, which now uses Steamworks across the board instead of that GameSpy nonsense. The PC version of the game is much friendlier overall, and the in-game menus for inventory are easily manipulated with a mouse. Playing the game with a mouse and keyboard feels just fine, but you can still play the PC version with a controller just as easily.

It has its issues, but its the world, the setting, and the story that make Human Revolution great. These aspects of the game are so solid that I happily waded through the game's low points in search of the next hackable terminal or other flavor-filled bit of dialogue or text. That stuff is so strong that, unless you're an extreme stickler for the above-mentioned problems, you'll more than likely be able to look past the game's weak points as well.

L.A. Noire is a bold release, because it defies the expectations not just for the type of game Rockstar usually releases, but also for the type of game that receives this degree of care and proficiency in its execution. The world already has enough open-world action games, but a game which marries that open world to such a methodical style of gameplay, with a budget this big, is a rare thing indeed.

This is a game you really need to play on a big high-def TV with a good, bass-heavy sound system. It's an audiovisual tour de force, with some of the moodiest and most impressive lighting effects on this generation of consoles.

A meaningful and successful reinvention of the core ideas behind Deus Ex with a singular focus on making this dense style of game more accessible.

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.

This game will test your mettle in a way that will make old fans tingle with a sense of unforgiving nostalgia, and will make clear to newcomers just exactly what XCOM is all about.

Jeff, Brad, and Ben jump into Respawn's new free-to-play battle royale game.

Exactly what Battlefield fans most likely wanted: a chaotic, gorgeous multiplayer game with small, but important tweaks to what already worked in past games. That it includes a short, somewhat mediocre solo campaign and some hit-or-miss co-op action does not detract from the fact that, online, this is the best Battlefield game yet. The PC version's online matchmaking tools are way ahead of the curve and a good example of how to do social networking in video games the right way.