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.

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.

It would have been nice to stretch the brain-box a bit with crazier modes or challenges, and the inclusion of a level editor certainly wouldn't have hurt, but at 10 dollars, Peggle is a welcome addition to my procrastination repertoire.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is familiar but also really refreshing. It's not a short game (I spent around 30 hours with it), but the storytelling still feels concise and efficient. The combat has some nice options that make encounters fun, even when you're just stacking up stealth kills from the relative safety of a bush. And the presentation end of the game holds up its end of things with a solid soundtrack, great voice acting, and a cohesive design that makes all its disparate parts fit together. All in all, it's a great game, it's Guerrilla's strongest release to date.

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.

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

Quick Look

The team at Criterion took a big chance and it’s paid off very well. The game revamps the stock formula in major ways without losing most of the high-speed racing flavor that you hope to see from something with Burnout in the title.

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.

At some point, I just want the games to work reliably. Fallout 4 follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, which is to say that it's a large, sprawling world filled with so many different quests and locations that most players will miss entire subplots as they scavenge their way from one side of the world to the other. That's also to say that it's occasionally kind of broken, from performance issues specific to the console versions to scripting glitches that might just prevent you from progressing to the same sort of "physics gone wild" moments that make for killer animated gifs and such.

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

Shadow Complex is an incredibly well-made game that finally grabs the "Metroidvania" subgenre and drags it into the modern era instead of relegating it to a land of remakes or portable games.

Still one of the best first-person shooters of the year...But the whole thing feels old at this point. The new tricks feel more like a distraction designed to make you forget how revolutionary Call of Duty 4 was. I will certainly buy and play a copy of Modern Warfare 3, but there's nothing here that makes me want to shut off the rest of the world and obsess over it anymore. It makes you wonder if the franchise's best days are truly behind it.

An excellent game, and one worthy of your attention. Dishonored's greatest contribution to the genre games like Deus Ex helped establish will be best appreciated by those who've been with it from the start, but Arkane has made a game rooted in manipulating artificial intelligence that plays just as well to the guy or gal who wants to shoot stuff. That's impressive.

It largely does what it needs to do, what you would want it to do, and does so with just enough distinction to make it stand out among the many other sequels in this series.

Super Mario Maker lets you make your own Super Mario Bros. levels and if that isn't enough for you then you're probably beyond help anyway.

Returning to Rapture--even a different part of the city--is naturally going to be less impressive. But the smart additions on the gameplay side make BioShock 2 rewarding in a different way, while those who want to know more about Andrew Ryan's underwater city will find just enough to make the return trip worthwhile.

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.

If you appreciate the way Battlefield has done this kind of open, spacious warfare in the past, you're going to love it. Fans of the previous game's campaign mode, however, will probably feel a little disappointed.

Some may knock Left Behind for its relative brevity, at two to three hours, but this is one of those clear cases of quality over quantity, and I for one appreciate an add-on that imparts a lot of narrative value to a game like this without overstaying its welcome. It's delightfully ironic that the one game which really didn't need any DLC has received one of the best pieces of DLC in recent memory.

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.

It may not reach the sublime heights of its predecessor, but Doom Eternal is bursting at the seams with hellacious action.

There are definitely moments where you can feel its age, and there's the distinct possibility that you remember The Secret of Monkey Island being funnier than it is, but this Special Edition is still a terrific way for both fans of the old point-and-click adventure games to revisit a classic, and for newcomers to get acquainted with it.

Shovel Knight is an exceptionally well-made action platformer, one worthy of being celebrated far beyond the nostalgic foundation it's built upon. Shovel Knight won't be the last old school game made in the modern age, but it's unlikely many others will be as much fun.

Now those very same visuals, and that very same campaign has been placed on a PlayStation Vita cart, and it's actually shocking how well it's fared in translation.

If you appreciate the way Battlefield has done this kind of open, spacious warfare in the past, you're going to love it. Fans of the previous game's campaign mode, however, will probably feel a little disappointed.

Firaxis delivers a fantastic sequel in many regards, but a large assortment of technical issues plague the overall experience.

Come for the beautiful art, stay because you smashed all your controllers.