What’s endearing about Chroma Squad is that it captures how silly it all was: an absurd, slapstick plot with actual, devastating conclusions if evil ever managed to succeed.

While Moon Hunters may not be the perfect game, it nobly aims for the stars, and for that alone it is memorable.

The game’s insistence on minimalism gives it an elegance but, conversely, it also gets in the way.

Its limited combat options and often obtuse puzzle solving, alongside the sheer endurance required to survive boss fights long enough to end them, add up to a system that doesn't point to any elaborate moral insight. It simply points to itself.

Ultimately, though, Near Death has nothing to say beyond the struggle to navigate the harshest environment on Earth.

Mario Party 10 is the purest embodiment of an actual board game yet seen in the series.

The translation from urn to game is nearly flawless.

The interplay of Dungeon Master and player is controlled chaos, thrilling in its unpredictability, while the outcome of Guild of Dungeoneering is a foregone conclusion: I will throw a neverending horde of adventurers at a dungeon until I complete it or get bored and wander away.

When I finished, I didn’t expect Daylight to stick with me as much as it did. The story did very little new; the levels weren’t novel; the ghosts were ones I’d seen before. But when I closed my eyes that night, all I could see was that Shadow at the end of the hallway, watching me.

Revives the visual style of a cartoon aimed at ten-year-olds.

Bigby Wolf is a surrogate parent for Fabletown, but the stakes are lowered.

Arkham Knight is distressingly inorganic. Continuing the predictable trend the franchise, the game learns the wrong lessons from its predecessors.

Without compelling characters or inventive story missions, all that’s left to keep the audience entertained is destruction, repeated ad nauseum. There’s value in the small-scale satisfaction each explosion creates, but an empty feeling lingers after every plume of smoke has cleared.

You’d hope that, once you’ve figured out Beglitched’s puzzle system it would start to gain momentum. In fact, what happens is it starts to feel a little repetitive.

As an allegory of healing, Spirits of Spring takes on the difficult task of cleaning an open wound, and trusts that each player will be able to trace the edges on their own.

Far Cry Primal is basically everything I just described, without a whole lot of irony. Which is to say it often feels enormously, almost amazingly stupid.

Mafia III is a game that’s held back by its conventional anchors. It wants to be game about the South but remains content to use its setting rarely as little more than a local color curiosity. It proposes a radical representation of race but falls prey to the conventional chores of open-world banality. Though it initially seems eager to “Tell about the South,” Mafia III does not have the patience or interest to do so. Its violence and exploitation-style racial politics, however, make the trip to New Bordeaux worth effort—as long as the person heading down South isn’t looking for anything more than a sightseeing tour.

The game retains the Scooby-Doo vibe that was so charming about the original.

Unity’s metanarrative turns something specific into something simple, general, a clean way to experience a false history devoid of any attempt to explore what made the era so significant.

Between those shooting star moments, too much of Odyssey weakens under the pile. It’s many things at once with new ideas; this is the both the kindest and most damning thing to be said about it.

I’m a big Game of Thrones fan, but Telltale’s game series is, unfortunately, inessential material.

Imagine a self-filling pinata. Imagine a hundred of them. Imagine them lumbering at you, wielding swords.

PES 2016 stumbles under the weight of all its divergent modes and duties

The game is most frightening when it is you, the house, and whatever is in it. It feels a little like the game Gone Home’s opening hinted at, but actually inhabited by evil.

Pneuma is an absolutely unsuitable receptacle for questions of spirit or life.

My problem with Mario Golf games, then, is really a kind of strength; the core game is so competent that a hitting a solid drive down the fairway feels sweet enough.

In large part, the ultimate success of The Wolf Among Us rests on how well Telltale handles Episode 5.

The most flattering description I can offer Mother Russia Bleeds is that of an enjoyably formulaic brawler, but the ferocity of its execution was refined enough to get lodged in my head. I can’t quite work it out: it exists like a ringing in my ears that has no obvious source. Or, rather, it’s a third-gen VHS copy of its influences, a quavery deja vu of a violent brawler both familiar and unsettling.