Each individual piece of the game has been crafted with the knowledge that, should the (imperfect) humans controlling the action play their part properly, the systems are in place to make every hunt look, sound, and feel hugely exciting.

What remains to be seen is whether there is such thing as a redemptive arc in Game of Thrones, or if feebly limping out of a string of unfair compromises is truly as “good” of an ending as Westeros has to offer.

Without such a narrative, Dying Light devolves into almost pure gore. It’s not that the game is inordinately bloody or hard to stomach; it’s that it presents itself like a sadistic RPG, where the main goal isn’t to find the aforementioned file for the GRE, but rather gain as much strength, agility, and weapon modifications as you can so that your zombie skirmishes become more and more ludicrous the deeper you get into the game.

The translation from urn to game is nearly flawless.

Although it suffers from the dated standards of structure and action—acting more as an imitation of what we might remember of the SNES-era than a succession—Citizens of Earth flourishes when it embraces its own silliness.

Although it suffers from the dated standards of structure and action—acting more as an imitation of what we might remember of the SNES-era than a succession—Citizens of Earth flourishes when it embraces its own silliness.

Without that humor, the story would have no buoyancy. It would sink beneath its heaviness.

It confounds me with slips of the tongue and leaves me wondering if what I’ve seen are the hidden gems of something like an X-Files or Fringe—shows whose truly great episodes are not self-contained but instead have effects that permeate and bleed through.

The wonderful thing about Mayday! Deep Space is that true horror can really only exist in the mind of the player.

Guilty Gear has always been (and still is) a pretty-looking, niche series. Xrd expounds upon that tendency, eschewing nostalgia in favor of profound iteration that will likely only register to the niche-loyal.

Lisa has a way of allowing you to revel in a joyfulness of pain—a place and feeling where all the agony and loneliness becomes an idiotic caricature of life.

It’s a well-read and high-reaching story and discourse on the nature of existence, but it’s not just in the backseat to a seemingly disparate puzzle game.

The latest from Dejobaan therefore seems like a stepping stone, a strong premise and peaceful beginning with little longevity and little to do outside the foundation of the game. You have to wonder if there will be more to write in the future.

However inflated its stakes, however serious or seriously unserious it may want to be taken, whatever its successes and failures as adventure, tragedy or tragicomedy, Far Cry 4’s primary storyline is itself incidental.

In its best moments, The Old City: Leviathan toggles seamlessly between enchanting dreams and dark realities, tragic memories and tragic futures, and deeply touching realizations on what is actually happening. But they’re all never really meant for the player; they’re meant for the protagonist.

The repetition of tasks, activities and missions is presented to the player as the lone way to achieve rewards, and yet within the constructed system of randomness and uncertainty that the game offers, these rewards are never certain. This is how it presents the enterprise of self-improvement as content in itself.

WWE 2k15 certainly propagates that fantasy, but along the way, it also stumbles into a repetitive pattern that, completely by accident, reveals a harsher and poignant truth about what professional wrestling, and being a sports entertainment performer, really is: it’s a job, just like any other job.

And so it’s a strange mix. Lumino City is a real world filled with relationships as thin as its papercraft inhabitants. Whether intentional or not, it seems to be the focus, given that there’s not much in the way of “adventure” in this point-and-click adventure.

Never Alone remains graceful. Its most depressing moment reminds us that if a small girl can survive the harshest of conditions and the meanest of fates, so can we. Life goes on; the spirits never leave us.

It’s clear it likes pinball as much as it likes role-playing games, because the whole game is one big love letter to both, the things mashed together into some odd blender without reason or deeper purpose.

Rogue paints the picture of an arbitrary war drawing arbitrary lines.

By the pound, what Captain Toad offers most is interactive charm.

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

In a game about big-picture, important ideas of societal problems, a lot of the choices feel not-so-important.

Considered in this way, Pokémon looks kind of like a Le Corbusier chair: everything in its right place, nothing without purpose, all parts contributing toward a clear, singular end. Then again, also like a Le Corbusier chair, it's a lot more comfortable in theory than in practice.

11 bit Studios’ greatest success with This War of Mine, it turns out, is in creating a videogame that is profoundly unpleasant to experience.

Here, then, is another sign that Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is self-aware: It knows the difference between those who win and those who get in the winner’s way, and that one is no better or worse than the other.

Nevertheless, these new elements have been seamlessly integrated into the recognizable LittleBigPlanet foundation, and as a consequence never feel like the source of drastic change. What they offer instead is rejuvenation: a jolt of exhilaration—of imagination—from a series whose novelty had perhaps begun to wane.