If you're one of those car nuts I mentioned earlier, here's your game. Have fun, we'll see you in a year when you finally leave the house. If you're not in that group -- you like, even love racing games, but care less about tuning and more about the thrill of the race -- GT5 is like walking in on a group of physicists discussing string theory and asking who wants to go toss around a ball for a bit. You're looking to have fun; they're only interested in studying the math behind how it bounces.

Whether you have or haven't played Abe's Oddysee, you haven't played New N Tasty. This HD remake is more than a simple reskin of nostalgia, and offers a compelling adventure with contemporary design that will satisfy most anyone's puzzle-platformer appetite.

FIFA 13 took larger strides than this year's offering, but even with only minor improvements and changes, FIFA 14 remains an excellent soccer sim.

There's a sense of wonder again, of exploration and discovery. I'm not quite prepared to say New Super Mario Bros. U fully recaptures the spark of Mario's 2D heyday, but it's an impressive step in the right direction.

If you can look past some of the more awkward elements – especially if you can do so with a couple of friends – there is definitely some meat to be found in Trine 2. You'll just have to crack a lot of shells to find it.

A delicious blend that masks its less welcoming ingredients with the grace of Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Its innovative, genre bending mechanics, forgiving design, brisk pace, and lovely setting more than compensate for the occasional unlucky circumstance or superfluous battle.

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.

Even as a one-off experience, though, Leo's Fortune is an excellent platformer. The thumb-sliding controls fit tablet play perfectly, and the clever, gorgeous design is evident throughout. It's neither lengthy nor terribly challenging, but these complaints are outweighed by the joy of sliding through each beautiful level.

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.

At the end of six hours, I was feeling as rough as Sam's voice from the challenge, but also coursing with adrenaline -- and a profound desire to walk around high-fiving everyone in sight. Vanquish is a supremely fun and polished action game that makes even Gears of War look like a leisurely stroll, and you simply must not miss it.

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.

I already know reactions to this game will be polarized, and it basically comes down to whether people can get used to those (again, admittedly) uncomfortable controls... But I can't help but be glad I stuck it out through the overlong adjustment period. The upbeat, funny, deep action game that comes after is totally worth the investment.

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.

Darksiders 2 is a series of peaks and valleys, but you spend more time at the top than you do in the pits below. More importantly, you spend even more time climbing and descending, claiming treasures and delving into the most dangerous parts of the world.

It's not the prettiest thing you'll ever pop into your 3DS, and the story isn't the series' strongest, but SMT4 will demand your full attention every step of the way.

Beyond its present-day feature set, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is a vibrant historical adventure, drawn from bold characters and edge-of-your-seat sailing. It's not the proper return to form for the series, but it is a concerted acknowledgement of what that form is today, and what works for the monster of gameplay systems, stealth, ships and oceans that lurks underneath.

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.

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.

So long as it's consumed in an environment where all you're doing is playing offline, like at an arcade or in someone's living room, Street Fighter X Tekken's excellent engine is enough to carry the game. Delve any deeper, however, and that excellence serves only to highlight each tragic decision that frames it. Capcom has spent countless hours meticulously crafting the gaming equivalent of a Ferrari 458's V8 engine, only to shove it under the hood of a 1987 Chevy Caprice on cinderblocks.

Luckily, Madden NFL 11, with Locomotion, the improved audible system and coordinators feeding me tips, has taken a considerable step forward in the accessibility and polish of its on-the-field action. Or to put it in the common tongue: Though it's in constant danger of going wide, Madden still gets it through the uprights.

Multiplayer is king in Black Ops 2, offering plenty of in-game and inherent rewards for its ravenous online community. It's paired with a lackluster story that fails the ambition shown by the branching campaign, reflecting the overall game's forward-thinking but imperfectly executed ideas.

I am in love with this engine, true, and I probably spent as much time finding combos in Training Mode as I did finishing Story Mode, but it was Story Mode that got me honestly choked up.

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.

Like the combat, the story starts off strongly, intertwining threads about Red's past, the history of the Camerata and the true purpose of the Transistor, but it doesn't come together in a satisfying way.

My time playing Lumines has been the only time in the last week during which I wasn't panicking. I come out of a 45-minute session feeling rested and kind of euphoric. How's that for an endorsement?

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

Resistance 3 isn't just a great game full of marked, inspired improvements over its predecessor -- it's a declaration of intent to become the new heir apparent to the sci-fi shooter throne.

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