The first time you're taken out by a Sunflower's devastating laser, only to watch it skip away into a hail of peas and flaming footballs – and you find yourself laughing instead of pouting – you'll be hooked.

I'd rather have a short game that gets fart jokes right than a long one full of hot air.

Thankfully, even when the blades are dull, the writing is sharp. Even so, many jokes are of the family-friendly sitcom variety, and play off of RPG tropes. If you've never laughed at the convoluted plots, overdramatic heroes or NPC behavior seen so often in the role-playing genre, this weapon may not be for you.

Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy feels like as good a way to sign off as could be expected.

Thankfully, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 almost always rises above its annoyances. There's plenty to see and do, from its magnificent moonlit views to its sensational bosses (infuriating stealth boss excepted).

Thief is best when it sticks to the involving, slow-paced stealth that made its ancestor such a tense affair. In its subtle moments, Eidos Montreal gives your creeping a sense of closeness and texture, in a game where you almost always have your nose pressed against things.

A solid hunting adventure, but hardly a departure from the monster hunting genre.

Every bit as fun as Earth Defense Force 2017 was, and it's a great improvement over Insect Armageddon. Though its rehashed content disappoints initially, EDF 2025 emerges as the best in the series in its latter half, delivering freakish new enemies, over-the-top weaponry and a solid and expansive multiplayer experience.

It would have been nice had Strider been a more difficult experience, but it more than makes up for its lack of arcade-style challenge with a rewarding focus on exploration. Long-forgotten franchises are rarely resurrected as successfully as Strider.

At this point, there's not much written here that couldn't have been repurposed from a review of 2010's Donkey Kong Country Returns – and that's both the problem and the recommendation.

Though it plays it safe in terms of mechanics, TxK is challenging and thrilling throughout. It's a treat for anyone who enjoyed any previous version of Tempest, and it's especially worthwhile if you missed out on Tempest 2000.

Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 had some serious missteps, but Lightning Returns ends on a strong note by sticking to what really matters: great combat and a story you want to see through. No gimmicks, no tricks, no convoluted treks through time, no cliffhangers, no tunnels – just one last trip around the world with a pink-haired heroine, and then a fond farewell.

There's little power to the bland gameplay or awkward, convoluted story. Laika is a tragic figure whose real-life fate is depressing, but the Laika of The Sun at Night doesn't make me feel anything at all.

As bleak as "Smoke and Mirrors" is, it makes you want to help these characters, to give them something besides another day of nothing but despair and heartache. Things in Fabletown will almost surely get darker before they get better, but "Smoke and Mirrors" guarantees we're in this for the long haul.

The Banner Saga is a human story told with inhuman flair, and that somehow makes it all the more relatable. Even the fights themselves have grown on me – they're just tough enough to provide a challenge on normal difficulty, but not so unforgiving that I feel like giving up.

Not unlike a cartoon, Octodad: Dadliest Catch shines brightest when it allows you to revel in the insanity of its premise, but every running joke has a limited shelf life, even when the gag is this good. If you can forgive that, and the sometimes incongruous challenges, Octodad's charm may just win you over.

My major bugbear with Bravely Default is it drags on by the end. Not because of length, but rather because the story forces the game to retrace its steps in a way that's not as clever as it thinks it is, or at least not clever enough.

The lack of challenge and a dearth of branching dialogue (sorry – these dialogue trees resemble bamboo shafts) disappoint, yes, but Broken Age always elicits a smile and a desire to continue.

If your goal is simply to be more active, of if you're just starting to dabble in dedicated personal fitness, Wii Fit U will probably fit the bill. If you're willing to put in the legwork to create a regular regimen and stick with it, you can definitely get a good workout. Anyone seeking detailed fitness guidance and structure should look elsewhere.

It's my new favorite installment in the series, and it offers a great example of how to update old-fashioned RPG mechanics for the present day.

In spite of its minor faults, OlliOlli is fun to play. It eases you along at a very careful pace, doling out chains of more complex gaps and trick requirements as you advance through levels. I suggest you give OlliOlli a chance, because for every ten failed attempts, you'll find one gained success – and, best of all, you'll feel like you earned it.

It's a noble and sweet idea, held back by monotonous grinding and technical issues. And by "technical issues" I mean "the camera."

It's a hard-won thrill, and one errant bullet or second of distraction is enough to undo it all. If you can accept that challenge, if you can pick yourself up and start all over again whenever you fail, you will lose hours to Risk of Rain. Whether you mean to or not.

As if getting excited for the involved games wasn't difficult enough, NES Remix's ideas for challenges are repetitive and widely underwhelming. The arbitrary goals friends assign each other for games they've mastered are better than all but NES Remix's few fleeting moments of greatness, and that's genuinely disappointing when considering Nintendo's usual brilliance at reworking its history in enjoyable ways.

The action sequences in the premiere episode are well-paced and fraught with tension. They're streamlined from the first season's experiments, offering a mix of timed clicks, button mashes and swipes, alongside a frantic search for the right weapon in the surrounding area.

Doki-Doki Universe isn't for everyone. It doesn't challenge your reflexes, and adventure game purists will likely turn up their noses at the simplistic and easily-solved puzzles.

There are more cars, granted, and the feeling of speed and tinkering with vehicles is as good as ever, but that's to be expected given how little has changed. Don't get me wrong, Gran Turismo was already the top of the heap when it comes to hardcore console racing simulations – the additions presented in Gran Turismo 6 just push the top of that heap a few feet higher.

Peggle 2 remains a foregone conclusion for existing Pegglers and puzzle fans alike, even if it doesn't quite live up to the addiction that destroyed everyone's work ethic back in 2007.