StarCraft 2 didn't change the formula because it didn't need to. This isn't just a fresh coat of paint on StarCraft, it is StarCraft, right down to its pixelated bones. It's proof that games don't have to be disposable, that some games are so creative and balanced and fun that they don't go out of style or disappear over the years. Some games, it turns out, really are timeless.

Yes, it's an incredible platformer, categorically and exponentially improved over its predecessor, but there's a much larger picture that might take you a few evenings of madcap, freeform architecture to discover. LittleBigPlanet 2 isn't just a great platformer, it's a veritable celebration of creativity.

With the exception of food, water and, if necessary, important medications, I can't think of anything more worthy of spending $15 on this week. This is a high point for comedy in games, built on a solid foundation of time-tested gameplay and bacon that everyone should experience.

It seems like people are always in need of DS puzzle game recommendations. From now on, whenever someone asks me to suggest one for a family member or a plane trip or something, I'm going to lead with Picross 3D.

Bayonetta 2 is the perfect action game. It oozes style and boasts gameplay that's both refined and lacking in excess. The combat is so purely entertaining that it's easy to lose yourself in the almost-zen flow of dodging, countering and kicking enemies to death.

But if you have a willing friend, and don't have a history of heart disease, this is a journey worth taking.

Easily the best game the franchise has produced. Engaging for pros and newcomers alike, packing tons of content and wrapped in a gorgeous presentation, it's not just a show of love for fans of the series, but a game likely to make many more.

I don't want to be misconstrued as generic or uninspired when I say that Journey is an awesome game. In the most classical, archaic sense of the word, Journey is a beautiful, evocative and unequivocally transcendental experience.

Skulls of the Shogun encapsulates whatever essence puts Castle Crashers at the top of the XBLA charts year after year, and does so without infringing on that game's intellectual property or overall vibe.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning presents a world that is immaculately crafted and beautiful, yet still simple and accessible. Every corner reveals a person in need, a treasure to collect, a secret to uncover, a battle to wage. I don't know how much more time I'll spend in Amalur (dozens of hours? hundreds?), but I plan on savoring every minute.

I'm absolutely in love with SMG2. It's a near-perfect mix of superb controls, unequaled level design and pure creative genius. Simply, it'll never fail to put you in a good mood. You can't ask for more from a game than that.

A perfect handheld Zelda experience, offering the classic gameplay you cherish at a snappier pace. Link's new 2D ability, combined with the nonlinear progression, provide a flexibility that makes exploring the land – both Hy and Lo – exciting all over again.

It's rare for a game to forge a connection so strong, and even rarer for you to become the connective tissue.

Put simply, Super Mario 3D World is stunning. Its world is beautiful, its design is impeccable, and its fun is infectious. I'm running out of superlatives here, so let me finish where I started: Go play it.

Ultimately, Alan Wake is driven -- as is any good story -- by the impulse to see what happens next. It offers up a believable world, characters worth caring about, enjoyable combat and a narrative I wanted to follow.

With all the chaff you have to swipe through on the Kinect, you can forget just how good it feels when something just works. That's exactly what The Gunstringer does: It works, and in a smart, slick way that feels simultaneously natural and fresh.

This is not a game to relax with after a long day at work. This is a game to play if you want to get so amped up you start typing in CAPITAL LETTERS.

A charming cast of characters that interact constantly, a uniquely designed and fascinating setting, forward-thinking gameplay systems that combine the best of East and West, and the exhilarating feeling that comes from taking part in an adventure that feels truly epic.

MLB 13: The Show can be tailored to emphasize whatever you like most about baseball. If you're a statistician, there are countless graphs and plenty of data to mine. Sluggers can swing to their hearts' content, laying the burden of pitching entirely on the CPU – or vice versa. However you want to play, whatever you want to play – it's all been accounted for with exceptional care.

This is the deepest, lovliest world ever created for a single player to explore, and one that no one should deny themselves. This is a game about following Emerson's advice, leaving the trail and finding that the most powerful force on Earth or Tamriel isn't fire or sword, but the ever-insistent desire to know what lies beyond.

Some players may be hung up by its brevity, but if its extension would have depreciated how breathtaking the rest of the game is, I don't think I'd have it any other way.

Undoubtedly the finest game crafted by Irrational Games, BioShock Infinite is one of the best told stories of this generation. It simply cannot be missed.

Blacklist's multiple methods of enemy engagement brings Ubisoft's grizzled veteran spy to an outstanding new frontier, giving players the best game in the franchise's history.

The Last of Us is not a cheerful story, but it's a damned good one.

The inclusion of surprisingly awesome Kinect features and extra in-game rewards offers new reasons to play and builds upon last year's solid foundation. Finally, the complete dribbling mechanics and First Touch Control dive into the gameplay equivalent of the "uncanny valley," offering an unrivaled sense of realism and unparalleled excitement.

Through and through, Peace Walker is easily the best game on Sony's handheld, and walks all over some of great console games I've played, too.

What would have otherwise been a competent sandbox game with solid combat mechanics and an interesting twist on a known fantasy world is elevated by the Nemesis System. Shadow of Mordor is the strategic person's action game.

On one side, it represents a powerful elegy, a close to a series that has done much to define this console generation. It's a melancholy thing, seeing a solid conclusion for characters that a lot of us liked despite ourselves, that make themselves even more understood in the end. But Gears of War 3 does it with respect and grace, and even subtlety, for a fantastic experience from start to finish. And it bestows a postscript of one of the most full featured, fun, and polished multiplayer experiences I've ever played.

It's a gorgeous game on an epic scale. Rich in character and story, it creates a fantasy world with plausible social rules you can get lost in. It makes you feel that you aren't just exploring a new world, but helping shape it at various levels of society. Inquisition sets the bar for what a blockbuster RPG should be.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit may have been a late entrant into the race, but it both grabs the checkered flag for this year and may set a land speed record for this entire class of racer.

A game made great by an enormous amount of love and attention to detail. It's a worthy sequel to one of the most beloved fighting games of all time, brought to a current-gen level. Expect this one to be in heavy rotation among fans of fighting games for a long time coming.

The developer launches the best kind of protest, which is to wave an impressive, throbbing shooter in your face. Trust me, you want this.

At its core, Diablo 3 is a series of combat encounters and, when you realize just how carefully it's put together, Blizzard's expertise is staggering.

For a game so very, very large, it delivers everything in an easy to understand package no matter what route you take to playing it. The core Civilization experience is still there, but it's like an efficiency expert came in and streamlined everything that had gotten clunky with the series. It's a "friendly" strategy game.

Video games -- not just rhythm games, but all video games -- rarely show this much ambition. Even more rare are occasions where developers manage to fulfill the impossibly lofty goals they set before themselves. Rock Band 3 manages both with ease, backing up brilliant ideas with flawless execution.

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit may have been a late entrant into the race, but it both grabs the checkered flag for this year and may set a land speed record for this entire class of racer.

Ridiculous Fishing's art, by Greg Wohlwend, is unlike anything I've seen on any platform, an intricate arrangement of creatures, backdrops made entirely of 45-degree angles. Any screenshot you take of this game would make an amazing wallpaper – quite an achievement for a game about a guy sitting alone in a boat.

It's this bouncing between serious tone and irreverence that makes The Stanley Parable so special. You never know what to expect and the thrill of discovering something new is reinforced by great narration and often capricious events. But more than anything, it's this choice at the center of it all that makes The Stanley Parable a game about self-discovery.

ODST could have been a clever little shimmy, but it came out a misstep. Reach brings us right back into the dance that hooked us nine years ago, introduces some cool new steps, and leaves us twirling in enchantment as Bungie graciously bows out. Just keep twirling, Spartan.

Festival of Blood is campy, vampy fun and an absolute steal for $10. Best part: you don't even need Infamous or Infamous 2 to play it. Happy Halloween.

I haven't smiled as much while playing a game since my first multiplayer run of LittleBigPlanet, and even then I was only smiling because I was terrible and enjoyed frustrating my friends as they ran gracefully through the levels. Fez is comparable to Braid or Limbo in terms of recent indie platformers, but it is infinitely more heartwarming than Braid and less terrifying than Limbo...There's a lot to be said for a game that can make a grown woman squeal with glee dozens of times in a playthrough.

The tale is twisted and terrifying, heart-wrenching yet timeless, much like the infinite, undead existences of the series' antagonists. If stronger emotions have been wrenched from your gut while visiting an art gallery, I'd love to hear about it.

It turns fetching a bottle into just as heroic an effort as preventing a hitman from reaching his target. And I don't think I've had a better time doing either elsewhere.

Dark, disturbing, yet eerily beautiful, Limbo is a world that deserves to be explored.

The bottom line is that regardless of whether we're talking about character appearance, weapons, special abilities or buffs, Sunset Overdrive piles the number of options you can choose from sky-high. No matter who you choose to be, what weapons you equip, what playstyle you choose, or how you deck out your secondary abilities, everything feels valid and worthwhile.

Every nuance is positively dripping with goofy, heart-swelling joy.

Stuffed with new mechanics, meticulous level design and what I believe (with some confidence) to be the best ending of all time, Ms. 'Splosion Man excels over its predecessor in every way.

Every single thing in Saints Row 4 is worth doing, which is a huge accomplishment on its own, but its story missions in particular are inventive, hilariously unexpected examples of truly inspired game design.

This is awesome stuff. I couldn't recommend it more highly, especially at 10 bucks, and I'm sure you'll be telling everyone you know the same after you clear the first stage (if not sooner).

It sends you digging into the trenches of World War 1, but knows that leaving you to wallow in the mud and blood forever does not grant it emotional maturity. For every dour moment in Valiant Hearts, for every uphill struggle, there is a moment of warmth, of return, and reunion between old friends.

It's the kind of deep, well-thought-out combat system that puts most console sword fighting to shame, and it's still only part of what makes this one of the easiest recommendations I'll make all year. You might find games that are a more perfect fit for the platform, but in terms of recreating a console-level experience on the iPhone, you simply will not do better than Infinity Blade.

In short, every addition RedLynx has made to Evolution serves to bolster the offerings of Trials HD, while continuing to highlight the game's base: a fantastic physics engine that drives a flow that is simultaneously simple, addictive and frantic. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another nine years of mastering Trials Evolution ahead of me.

With the exception of food, water and, if necessary, important medications, I can't think of anything more worthy of spending $15 on this week. This is a high point for comedy in games, built on a solid foundation of time-tested gameplay and bacon that everyone should experience.

I'm giving Torchlight 2 a half-star less. The game makes some minor missteps in design, and I don't think the pacing or the scope matches up to that of Diablo 3...Those complaints aside, Runic has made a phenomenal game here, and fans of the original will be overjoyed to find that most of what they loved is still here, with lots more of it.

If you were ever excited about the premise, this is the pure, near-flawless expression of it. And now that we've seen that 5th Cell can back up astounding innovation with great design, I can't wait to see what will spring from its notepad next.

Teleglitch is a harsh mistress, but the cruelest lessons are often the ones that truly stick with us.

A diligent approach to ensuring that no two encounters are the same keeps it from ever feeling stagnant or like a waste of your time. You're always moving, constantly pushing through the next enemy stronghold, never sure of what you'll face, and it's always harrowing.

It's not tied to a film, but think of this as more of a Bond adventure when he's on vacation; a fun, action-packed ride, but not necessarily cool or clever enough to warrant a cinematic adventure.

The Wolf Among Us has been consistently excellent from start to finish, and its final chapter, Cry Wolf, is the well-told end of this well-told story.

Rocksteady has made the greatest Batman game ever crafted, and they've done that before. But breathing life into a staggeringly beautiful world; one which hums not only with opportunity, but ambition? That's a new trick altogether.

At $10, Gunpoint is a proudly lean product, and its clever blend of stealth, puzzles and film noir humor is worth exploring, though you may want to avoid enhancing your real-life spy skills by following Conway's lead. Unless consistently hurling yourself through windows is already a hobby.

Though it occasionally feels grindy, each new area is a refreshing challenge, and the ease with which you can mix up your party prevents your trips through the dungeons from ever getting stale.

The fact remains that XCOM: Enemy Unknown is an exemplary turn-based strategy game. Firaxis has deftly blended management, tactics and the sort of gut-level, throaty encounters usually reserved for fast-paced action games.

The post game has been tweaked to be more responsive and allow for more subtle movements over last year's effort, and an improved shot stick means players have more options when trying to put the ball in the net. Last second fakes and finger rolls rule the day and are easily accomplished with a little practice.

Super Meat Boy comes down to personal skill, which might be the only reason I didn't fling the controller through the window. In other words, if you fail, it's your fault. If the levels weren't well-designed, or if the controls were off even by the slightest bit, Super Meat Boy would be an entirely different experience. As it stands, it's one of the best platformers I've ever played.

At five bucks, it's an easy recommendation for anyone even remotely interested in role-playing games.

While previous Infamous games were often frustrating during their later campaign missions, Second Son maintains a steady growth in difficulty throughout, allowing players to rise to the challenge by progressing through its skill tree at their own pace.

This community engagement is not only smart from a marketing and outreach perspective, but it's what gives Don't Starve its depth: All of these features bundled into a survival game with streamlined, robust mechanics and infinite ways to die.

Its visual and aural splendor lies a simple, stimulating experience that's difficult to put down. Dyad manages to create a beautiful synthesis of music, visual design and gameplay mechanics, and it does so without missing a beat.

As a solo game, Battlefield 3 on consoles is even less the sum of its parts than the PC version, due to compromised visuals and a legion of technical issues, some of which might stand in the way of actually finishing the game. When Battlefield 3 does its damnedest to go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty are the times it stumbles the hardest. But when DICE is doing what it's always done best, Battlefield 3 is a uniquely mesmerizing multiplayer game with a seemingly endless number of ways to feel like a success.

Though Mark of the Ninja's informative design makes it easy to obtain that perfect stealth run, there's still a healthy amount of fear throughout.

As a solo game, Battlefield 3 on consoles is even less the sum of its parts than the PC version, due to compromised visuals and a legion of technical issues, some of which might stand in the way of actually finishing the game. When Battlefield 3 does its damnedest to go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty are the times it stumbles the hardest. But when DICE is doing what it's always done best, Battlefield 3 is a uniquely mesmerizing multiplayer game with a seemingly endless number of ways to feel like a success.

The gravity-shifting sections spliced into existing and new tracks feel like a natural extension of the series rather than a gameplay-changing revelation, but it's a strong compliment to an already enjoyable experience. The social features are surprisingly solid and may even outlive the total course selection, but it helps that the new tracks feel as worthy of a revisit as the series' standouts.

Magic 2014 is the jewel in the Stainless Games crown, and a shining example of the rewards of iterative development.

The truest adaptation of the sport available.

Metro: Last Light does belong in the company of Half-Life, though. It's an unusual, meticulously detailed shooter inextricable from its environment – making its refuge in the railways of Moscow all the more apt. The survival and shooting aspects engage with what is considered valuable in the world, and both leave ample room for moments of solace, exploration and concise violence.

Sports Champions is a great pack-in for Move and well worth buying on its own if you go the a la carte route with the hardware. You'll spend a good chunk of each day playing it and hoping for a sequel.

The pacing of Tumble is intentionally slow -- I had many moments, on the edge of my seat, trying to slide a block into place with the slightest movements so as not to topple the rest of the structure -- but if you've got the patience, you'll be rewarded time and time again.

Though it hews closely to the traditional ratio of exploration and critter killing, Tales of Xillia has more than enough unusual and refreshing elements to keep pushing you forward.

The best additions this year are bits of the unexpected, something almost never achieved in sports video games. FIFA 12 delivers enough of those flashes of brilliance to feel a little less like a game, and more like a true soccer simulator.

DMC does action extraordinarily well and manages to make Dante look like the epitome of cool with every move, and it's wonderful to see this feat in motion. Over and over and over again.

It sets a new standard for modern remakes of past-generation titles, proving that there's absolutely nothing wrong with a publisher capitalizing on gamers' nostalgia, so long as they can find a developer who loves the source material just as much as -- if not more than -- we do.

I spent around 10 lovely hours exploring the intricately detailed, painfully cute Patch Land in co-op, and came away feeling, well, lovely. Kirby's Epic Yarn makes a convincing case for the idea that we don't have to be challenged every single time we play a video game. Occasionally, it's enough to be happy.

Smash is an intelligent, creative, blissful continuation of the "Who's better?" character debate, and I look forward to changing my answer as I reconfigure Smash's roster and find new favorite ways to send Donkey Kong into the stratosphere.

Parody's a thorny thing, tricky to execute and often limited in appeal. It's to Ubisoft Montreal's credit that Blood Dragon broadens the appeal of its source, thanks to a hilarious, accessible dollop of nostalgia, coated in the mechanics that made Far Cry 3 great. This easily could've been a great idea greenlit into something terrible. We do love it when a plan comes together.

Episode 2 ends on a note that highlights the detail and thought behind its mechanics... (Potential spoiler omitted.) It's presented in a terribly disturbing manner, of course, but that's part of what makes it so wonderful.

For a few hours peering into my laptop screen, Telltale managed to make me feel eight years old again. It may not be time travel, but it could be the closest you can get without a flux capacitor.

With the release of Shift 2 Unleashed, the Need For Speed franchise now holds the distinction of representing the best of arcade-style and simulation racing on consoles. It's an evolution of the original -- not a revolution, but still markedly improved across the board -- and a worthy sequel, easy recommendation for those who enjoyed the first game and great entry point to "real" racing in general.

At first, I wasn't sure that Metroid: Other M would be a proper Metroid game or even a fun one, but as its action intensified over the course of the adventure, it didn't take me long to dismiss the second concern. As for whether or not it's Metroid ... I finished the game with a 45-percent completion rate, and I'm currently going back through the map looking for hidden Energy and Missile Tanks. You tell me.

An exciting, shocking and mammoth adventure through the ghostly, unvarnished segments of space – and you do, thankfully, get to spend some more time flying. There aren't many games that can match the elegiac, liberating movements of Isaac Clarke in nullified gravity, or his vengeful, squishy stomps of victory...Huh, maybe I enjoyed more of Dead Space 3 than I thought.

The streamlined reward system illustrates the true brilliance behind Orcs Must Die! 2: an extreme level of player accommodation.

It's thrilling, it's satisfying, it's occasionally terrifying, and it's a completely unique take on multiplayer.

Awesomenauts does more than simply adapt a successful formula, it does so with humor and panache. It has taken a genre typically dripping with grim fantasy and turned it playfully on its ear. Even without the delightful presentation, the simple fact that developer Ronimo Games has effectively fused a MOBA with the trappings of a 2D action title is laudable on its own. Give it your money, and it will give you its love. You can probably hang on to your cheese though.

"Faith" is the perfect beginning to a new adventure from Telltale, effortlessly pulling you in and making you invested in protecting these curious creatures from our storybooks.

Sine Mora's unique time mechanic serves a dual purpose. It gives less dedicated players a chance to enjoy one of the industry's more vibrant genres while simultaneously giving hardcore players a new spin on an age-old formula. I heartily recommend it to either group without delay.

The care and attention that went into this year's installment is obvious, and it's overall a fantastic product boasting several improvements over its previous incarnations. Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 is the benchmark in the franchise and easily recommended to new and veteran Magic: The Gathering players alike.

MLB 12: The Show is an excellent experience that honors and respects one of America's oldest institutions.

An exquisitely polished game with few flaws.