Sword of the Stars: The Pit — Mind Games is incredibly difficult — sometimes unfairly so — but along with that comes fun.

Attack of the Friday Monsters is a perfect bite-sized chunk of story-based gaming, and will easily blow past any cynical defenses to take up a warm and fuzzy place in your heart.

This is one of the most satisfying and complete tactical roleplaying experiences to come out of 2013 and realistically the last few years.

Dynasty Warriors 8 is a shockingly great game that offers an incredible amount of value in bringing a dramatized piece of history to the masses in very creative ways.

Whether you play with the keyboard/mouse setup or use a 360 pad, you’ll get solid controls. It’s a challenging, but rewarding game and its surreal audio/visual combination will be stuck in your head for quite some time.

Mamorukun Curse! is an exciting, frenetic time, especially for those waiting for localization of the popular Japanese shooter. It’s a hefty price tag to be sure, but it serves up hours of challenging fun and plenty of unlockables for those skilled enough to look for even more to do after the game has been completed. If you’re looking for a new shooter to add to your collection, you could do far worse than this.

It saddens me to say that there really isn’t anything redeemable about R.I.P.D.. It’s boring, repetitive, and there really isn’t any circumstance I can think of that would make me recommend it to anyone. I could prolong this depressing review by talking about some of the game’s smaller features, but it would all be for nothing, as they are really just more garbage thrown onto the pile. And I’d much rather rid myself of R.I.P.D. by playing a better game.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Brave New World and would recommend it to anybody either currently playing Civ V or who’d like to play it again.

As a whole, Face Noir is a forgettable disappointment. Nothing stands out or inspires discussion other than its inherent blandness. With boring dialogue that drags on too long, bad facial animations and frustrating gameplay, even the most committed adventure game players will have a hard time staying involved. There’s potential for something interesting here, but Face Noir simply isn’t worth your time to play.

To be fair, however, Humans Must Answer is a good example of a specific sub-genre of shooter, but it’s just not one that happens to be much fun.

Those simply looking for a solid game of collegiate football should ignore all that, however, as NCAA Football 14 offers the same quality the series has been known for this generation with some great tweaks and implementations added. Madden 25 will likely take the crown for the best game of football this year, but those who make NCAA Football a yearly tradition have no reason not to add this solid addition to their collection.

Only try out Time and Eternity when someone offers you money in exchange for playing it, or if you want to see what happens when a development studio doesn’t do any kind of QA testing. For no other reason should you waste your time playing it.

Rogue Legacy is pure action platforming addiction, endlessly playable and fun from its low level beginning to high-powered end.

Shin Megami Tensei IV manages to meet its hype in some respects and fall short of it in others. Its combat is stronger than ever, adding in components that are deep, unique and reward the strategically-inclined, while the character customization options will excite those who like to build their ideal fighter.

There’s certainly worse driving games on the platform, but it’s hard to find a reason why anybody would want to play this revival of a dormant series that was mediocre to begin with and is even weaker over a decade later.

Had there been some polish in some of the controls, an added depth to the story mode and more matchmaking online, Scourge: Outbreak would have been one of the biggest downloadable surprises this year. Still, for around $10, it’s worth playing — especially with friends.

The RPG elements and distinct visual style do present some life, but don’t go in expecting this to be a mechanically sound game.

It’s no doubt a value, and if you need your fix of The Walking Dead, then this will certainly tide you over until the second season, but don’t expect a consistent plot full of meaningful and difficult choices.

Bugs vs Tanks! is a great B-Movie idea in search of a game to do it justice, but this just isn’t it.

As a whole, Pro Cycling Manager suffers from too many elements that are closed to the player unless they’re dedicated to uncovering the confusing interface. Indeed, the game can’t be recommended to those not willing to spend hours trying to come to grips with the huge amount of detail within it. That said, those who put plenty of hours into the game will be rewarded with an addictive and satisfying experience that is well worth working past the flawed and mind-numbingly difficult opening that most players are sure to have.

Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded is just like the original, but bigger, longer, harder and the perfect vehicle for Larry’s second coming.

As such, anybody who has even one of the titles would be advised to avoid the collection and purchase the games individually instead. Still, those who missed the original releases, don’t have access to PSN or love holding as close to a physical version as these games will ever get will find a lot to love.

Unfortunately, at $15, it’s hard to recommend even if you’re a PS3-only player since Urban Trial Freestyle does the same thing as this, but better.

A failed project that should have been scrapped, Ride to Hell: Retribution represents and includes everything bad about video games.

Deadpool gives what his fans want, but exciting gameplay moments are too few and far between. It’s a great shame that the rest of the game isn’t up to snuff with the character performances as the industry needs more comical stories such as this.

Project X Zone is an outstanding blend of action RPGs, SRPGs, and even fighting games that tries many things and manages to do them well.

Thus, if you haven’t had the pleasure of playing Muramasa before, and you have a Vita, Rebirth is wholeheartedly worth playing. It’s breathtakingly beautiful in all aspects — from its combat to graphics to soundtrack to the sword forging mechanic, this is just an immensely enjoyable game, even in spite of its repetitious combat and under-emphasized story.

Fireburst is mediocre at best, playable whenever you have friends over, but not necessarily a first choice in anyone’s library. With the lack of any real story or campaign mode and busted online features, there are games that do a lot better than this offensive, boring and buggy arcade racer.