It’s the third game in the thirteenth of a series dating back to 1987, yet it’s also one of the most successfully inventive games I’ve ever played. It puts you in control of everything, which is a total inverse of Final Fantasy’s traditional position.

Aside from a story that is sometimes too silly and a difficulty too unforgiving, there's not a lot to complain about in Driver: San Francisco. There are certainly a lot of things to love. The gorgeous graphics and entertaining gameplay definitely make the game a thrill ride.

While many find the God of War series to be repetitive in its formula, it continues to deliver a refreshing take that satisfies the core fan base. And though the campaign is shorter and the number of epic boss fights leaves you wanting more, this is the most human we have ever seen Kratos and the story compels you to him unlike ever before.

Dragon’s Crown is going to be the next great multiplayer action RPG. It has all the ingredients to be a fantastic game: in-depth gameplay, tons of customization, superb multiplayer integration, and countless hours of replayability. That’s not even mentioning the game’s stunning one of a kind art style.

Improves universally over the original, and also manages to be the best looking PC game at the same time. If you're a fan of meaty RPGs or if you've been desperate to stretch your computer's technical legs, you need to play The Witcher 2.

By removing peripheral complexities, Hybrid focuses completely on what makes, or should make cover-based shooters fun. It reminds me a lot of NBA Jam - not in the sense that you'll pull of crazy tomahawk dunks as a futuristic mech soldier, but in that it creates basic, tight, and rewarding experiences by focusing on a few core gameplay mechanics.

Sonic CD is Sonic at his finest: fast, fun, and challenging. The past and future versions of each stage coupled with collecting every Time Stone means a good deal of replay value in a small package. Decent controls and a good soundtrack make the game an overall solid package.

The reliance on story as a driving part of the experience, the cruel difficulty, and many similarities to the first game might put some fans off. But engaging combat, addictive demon collecting, and gameplay that can only be rivaled by the first entry make Devil Survivor 2 a worthy title in the Shin Megami Tensei series.

What other game on the market today is like the Wonderful 101? None.

WipEout's core experience – fast races, awesome music, and incredible graphics – are better than they've ever been in WipEout 2048. However, the game's more experimental features like motion controls and touch interface fall flat.

Ultimately, I was left with two of the three things I expect from a BioWare game - fantastic story and brilliant characters.

Black Forest Games revitalized its series by staying true to the game’s origins while still moving past its blatant clone gimmicks.

With homebuilding, a rival monster summoner, and the justifiably angry villagers, Haunted Hollow offers the kind of multitasking stimulation that is worthy of the attention of real time strategy fans. Granted, the multiplayer is asynchronous, but that makes the game equally welcoming to newcomers of strategy games.

It's a fine introduction to strategy games for those intimidated of the genre, even if it has its challenges along the way.

400 Days is not the emotional rollercoaster that was Season One, but it will still leave that bitter taste you get from the horrific consequences of your chosen decisions. Though the entire experience will take you less than two hours, for $4.99 it’s a good way to hold you over until we see Clementine again.

The robust feature sets and game modes help the replay value of this title as the season wears on.

The story is forgettable but the puzzles paired with the ability to control gravity make for addictive gameplay.

A fantastic road trip through hell, but be aware of what that means. You see some crazy sights, meet some insane characters, and have a lot of fun, but once the trip is over, it's over.

Overall Pokemon Black/White is still a great RPG that offers up the same addictive gameplay you've come to love, but don't expect anything new to entice you to catch 'em all again.

A greatly enjoyable game that fans of both series' will find a lot to love. Though it's short and strays away a bit from traditional Mega Man games, Street Fighter x Mega Man is a great play that you honestly have little reason not to experience.

Tokyo Jungle has the addicting gameplay to complement this rare animal takeover premise.

Prototype wasn't a bad experience, but Prototype 2 builds on that framework, and provides a much richer gameplay experience. You might not replay this several times, but the main storyline provides about 12 to 15 hours of enjoyment, and the completetists out there will continue leveling Heller up long after the game is over.

NHL 13 is not a bad game, don't get that idea. It's really fun when it isn't bending you over a barrel and cheating its way to victory.

While we could have done without the non-linear storytelling, it wasn’t hard to keep tabs on the scattered episodes of Jodie’s life. Beyond: Two Souls is certainly an overall advancement on the mechanics of Heavy Rain, just don’t expect it to be David Cage’s magnum opus… that’s still to come.

For longtime fans of the DiRT games, especially those who appreciate its realistic approach to rally racing, Showdown is an abomination, an overly simple sell-out, or a bad joke of a spin-off... But for fans of off-road racing games who want something more forgiving than DiRT but still somewhat rooted in reality, or someone wishing Forza Motorsport 4 had some off-road races and a demolition derby or two, Showdown is anything but a bumpy ride.

One of the most delightful games I've ever played, and the price is decent for the amount of content. For gamers interested in music or gaming oddities, this game is a must-buy, though it's a harder recommendation for a self-professed hardcore gamer that hasn't powered up his Wii in years.

This is the framework for a feature-packed, capable shooter, but it falls over with some questionable AI and occasionally clunky cover-based controls – twitchy aiming and sometimes disobedient snap-out-of-cover mechanics from 'AAA' games such as Gears of War or Metal Gear Solid.

If you're tired of repackaged or remade franchise games for the Vita, do yourself a favor and go to hell. Army Corps of Hell is blasphenomenal.

Borderlands Legends is a standalone game that is neither a gimmicky socially connected tie-in with Borderlands 2, nor is it an ambitious attempt at a port of the console games. It does hit all the Borderlands notes from the art style to the weapon variety to the abilities, just with a stripped down design.

Child of Eden provides two hours of mind-blowing originality and intense shoot 'em up gameplay that can be experienced many times… provided you can enjoy a game that way. It's not a long journey, but a moment of awesome to be experienced again and again.

As a downloadable title, Voltron offers a surprising amount to enjoy. I never thought I'd like this game as much as I do-but it's difficult to overlook the main flaws of unbalanced difficulty, a lack of levels (there are only about a dozen) and only three chances to play as Voltron.

Although short, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a fun, exciting, and story-driven game. The way in which Silas recants his tales, the rewarding leveling system, the variety of locations and situations you play through, and the superb voice acting make the game memorable and worthwhile.

The Wolf Among Us is a fantastic narrative adventure equal to its Walking Dead predecessor.

Rune Factory 4 certainly isn’t a game for everyone. The intended audience is rather niche, but if you’ve enjoyed past games in the franchise or are looking for a solid RPG to hold your attention for several days you can rest assured your time with Rune Factory 4 will be well spent.

Karateka is a perfect for for anyone that played the original as well as those that appreciate more daring and unique games.

A substantive package for a $10 download. The new additions to the core mechanics make for a diverse and enjoyable experience.

Even when the experience turns alien in the run-in to the conclusion it's visually impressive at the very least.

If you're looking for a game that will suck you in with a compelling narrative and deep, strategic gameplay, look elsewhere. But if you're a fan of dumb, loud, addictive fun, you could do a lot worse than Twisted Metal.

LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 does a fantastic job of capturing the essence of the movie franchise and juxtaposing it with all things LEGO. The light difficulty might be off-putting for seasoned gamers, but it is perfect for family gaming and younger players.

Make no mistake, this is a game for gamers: furious button mashing, intense competition, and destruction on a scale that only Platinum Games seems to understand.

The heart that went into developing Guacamelee! is evident in its execution and reverence to other works.

Reaper of Souls offers a suitably complete, if uninspiring, revisit to this dark, desolate world. It’s darkly beautiful (one day I’d like to walk through these towns as they were originally created and admire the beauty, not the desolation), superbly crafted (as we expect from Blizzard), and fittingly familiar.

The four or five challenges that click are easily worth the DLC's reasonable price. However, this DLC feels similar to the time trials in Mirror's Edge. Even though it's quality content it simply may not be what you want or expect. However, at such a price, I encourage you to jump in and find out for yourself.

Cumbersome controls hamper what would otherwise be a resoundingly memorable adventure. At just five dollars The Binding of Isaac is a great indie title that offers up a ton of replay value and gruesome fun.

Long Road Ahead is still fantastic, and it sets up the conclusion to this series nicely. Buying and playing this episode is a no-brainer (no pun intended).

No doubt, Dead Space 3 stumbles—pretty hard—in some spots. But it also feels like this is Visceral honing its craft. The combat and pacing are the best they have ever been and some choices invest you in the experience, even if it’s a bummer the story doesn’t hold up.

While the Wii U version doesn't do anything that's detrimental to the overall experience it also does little to improve it in any meaningful way.

Reckoning is amusingly playable. Fundamentally simple its combat is colorful and effective and consistently makes you feel like the real star of this show.

Interesting puzzles, HD graphics, and a great soundtrack make for a one-of-a-kind puzzle experience. Tight controls keep things from being overly frustrating and a couple of extra modes add variety to the mix.

By resembling both a shooter and real-time version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified isn’t the easiest game to grasp. Yet, if you tough it out through the game’s initial hours, there’s a lot gratification to be found in AI team management.

Fans of the original rejoice; it’s everything you’d want in a resurrection. Newcomers should exercise more caution. ROTT is a fantastic game with unrestrained charm, but it comes with a little more fire than modern games will have prepared you to expect.

The addictive core gameplay of hunting, gathering, and building is intact, with streamlined crafting and multiplayer that make the console version unique. It's definitely not a game for people with short attention spans or addictions to hyper-violence.

Vigil nailed the Zelda formula in Darksiders 1. In attempting to evolve that in this sequel, the team stumbles a bit. It's like they wanted to keep Darksiders 2 mechanically consistent without drawing such overt references to their source material. Some story and technical blemishes crop up from this process but they don't distract from the great dungeon design and combat. Darksiders 2 is a great game, with still considerable room for improvement.

If you've found yourself underwhelmed by the lack of grandeur in other wrestling games, WWE All Stars is where you belong. Like NBA Jam, the game will not send you into another world for hours at a time or offer a profound single-player experience. It will, however, let you toss your friend twenty feet in the air and then stomp on his balls.

The way the action slows down to zoom in on a brutal kick is reminiscent of how similar camera tricks worked for Street Fighter IV. This enhances Asura's Wrath greatly and turns a game that might've been a generic brawler into a positively memorable one.

It's both cohesive and inviting, mechanically and aesthetically. And if you're interested in a game with elaborate and interesting puzzles, you're not likely to find something better this side of Portal.

And while some nagging design annoyances and control issues permeate the game, its incredible, whacked-out art style does a lot to carry the experience.

A few technical hiccups here and there, a super-short campaign, and an almost nonexistent story weren't enough to hinder my enjoyment of Hard Reset.

Crashmo is a really good game, but I didn't like it quite as much as Pushmo. I'm not sure if the reason for that lies within me, or the game itself, but I felt far less compelled to go back to each puzzle this time around...But Crashmo is still a hell of a puzzle game, and if you're more inspired than intimidated by a challenge, I can see no reason why you shouldn't snap this game up now.

Fun action shooting for fun-loving action shooter fans. If you count yourself in that number, you'll likely have a blast. If you expect meat or real depth, you probably haven't listened this far.

Delivers a fast-paced, accessible game that is both rewarding and beautiful. The problem is that it doesn't offer much variety in its gameplay modes.

The inclusion of a fully voiced cast and the open-world setting of Gotham make this one of the most ambitious games in the LEGO series to date. If you only play one Batman game that comes out this year, it should definitely be LEGO Batman 2.

Worms Revolution is more Worms, but it's more Worms with a few quirky twists. Though the water looks like jelly, it adds some never-before-possible mechanics into the world of Worms that make you ponder your plan of attack more thoughtfully.

It’s been almost a year since Gears of War: Judgment, and Garden Warfare took little time to renew my fondness for last-stand style missions. Yet more than anything, PopCap managed to successfully reinterpret their flagship franchise without losing sight of what made the series’ characters so memorable.

Orcs is not a game for everyone, but you should absolutely give it a look if you're interested in ambitious design or interesting worlds.

It's got some nice simple puzzle sequences, some shootouts, and a truck full of drama. Let's just hope the final chapter doesn't take forever to come out.

There are minor issues with the game, notably the exclusion of public matchmaking, but they can be looked past when the game hits its prime and you're murdering thousands of pointy-toothed orcs.

The game definitely has a bigger roster, badder presentation, and better gameplay. The new controls are easy to pick up and fun to play.

There's a lot of reverence and respect shown for this game here. As a value proposition it may not make a lot of sense and in more ways than one the campaign shows its age, but for hardcore Halo fans, those factors really shouldn't matter.

Despite these problems, though, Liberation brings a hugely engaging and interesting gameplay mechanic to the series, one that's informed by the character herself. For that reason alone, it's impossible for me not to recommend this game.

The fun gameplay coupled with an incredible amount of replayability should keep this cartridge in your handheld for months.

Its vibrant and original art is slick and well animated, its excessive gore and cliche-action-movie-style cutscenes are funny and satisfying in equal measures, and its fast, challenging gameplay is suitably visceral and deeply satisfying. But it's way too short, and the lack of campaign co-op is an epic disappointment, especially considering its presence in the first game.

A fun game that is over all too quickly. The Mega Quest single-player game can get repetitive but offers up some good puzzle platforming action, and the multiplayer options will be a sure hit with your friends. Online gameplay and leaderboards add replayability to the game, but the cutesy art style might sway potential players away.

Career mode and online play offer up what you'd expect from a tennis game, albeit an uninspired experience that doesn't distinguish itself from its competitors. The game is helped by two unique and effective control schemes that offer up a completely new way to play.

A good example of what a remake should be: an enhanced version of a previously non-released game incorporating the best elements from past games in the series.

Even though Neverwinter doesn’t challenge MMO norms in terms of content structure, it delivers retail-quality gameplay, endless expandability with user-generated content, and a fantastic twist on crafting that had me obsessively checking my crafting queue for hours. With a pricetag of free, all you have to lose is your time, and I can imagine about a hundred worse ways to spend your evening than playing Neverwinter.

Warp implements fun new mechanics that haven't been fully embraced in a genre that just doesn't see much innovation. It's a brief, well-paced adventure that makes you actively use your brain along the way.

A ton of fun, but if you're the kind of gamer who craves action, excitement, and a plot to keep you coming back for more, this isn't for you. Rather, this was made for gamers with kids around the house, or players who have a living room that frequently hosts friend-filled parties.

Conceptually, the Yakuza series might appear to have "jumped the shark," but Sega has designed the game well enough and with such enthusiasm that you can't help but be impressed.

While Strider could have benefited from a more concise overworld design, its lengthiness does give the game a “slow burn” appeal, something you don’t usually associate with Metroidvania-style games, let alone 2D side scrollers.

With this shift to an open world style, and storyline-driven progression, Forza has drifted into an area that the franchise probably requires, but isn't expertly realized.

This DLC is a must-buy for anyone that played and enjoyed Serious Sam 3: BFE. While the Egyptian setting is worn threadbare at this point, content exhaustion is mitigated with clever map design. It would be nice to see new environments, but this is a great booster pack of content until that day comes.

The retro gameplay is an ironic breath of fresh air for the genre. A high challenge and rewarding leveling system makes each enemy kill worthwhile and addictive. Solving puzzles is just as satisfying as slaying ogres, but sometimes the difficulty can get the better of you with a particularly hard puzzle of fight.

It no doubt has several minor flaws, but is otherwise a fun sequel that clearly understands the weaknesses of the original and addresses them all.

For those that haven't played the game before, then Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection is a fantastic package that contains one of the greatest RPGs to grace the Super Nintendo and its two not-as-great sequels.

A tight, well-made package. Playing this game makes you feel like a badass and a finely-honed killing instrument. If you've ever waved around an electric saw, cackling with power, this is a game you need to play.

A touching account of two young girls struggling to make sense of a world stripped of its humanity, and it is a tale worth exploring. Nevertheless there are moments the gameplay feels disjointed from the narrative, potentially pitting the overlapping stories at odds with one another. Admittedly, it’s wonderful to spend more time with Ellie, especially before her involvement with the Fireflies.

It's got a great art style and an interesting enough gameplay hook. But don't let it fool you into thinking it's all about platforming and world turning. It's not. It's a game about taking in information and using it in ways you never would have expected.

Truly an original offering: it's got all the requirements of a solid class-based shooter, it injects some story into the mix, and it forces you to work together with your teammates, be they AI or human, to win.

In an age where any game can be explained in half a sentence, Rock of Ages is a refreshing rarity. It not only attempts fantastic originality but succeeds in that attempt more than it fails. If you appreciate originality, you owe yourself some time with Rock of Ages.

A fun, charming game that is befitting of the series' unique sense of gameplay. While an unfortunate amount of backtracking and a lackluster story halt the game from being flawless, these are just minor grievances in an otherwise fantastic game.

With open battlefields, near-future toys, and fast pacing, Homefront's multiplayer is the real reason to purchase this game. It may not explode with content, but what it does, it does well.

In PES 2013 there's a distinct realism to the flow of the game, how players move, how they receive the ball, how they pass, and how they look for space. It still lacks polish in both execution on the field, and particularly execution in the menus and management to make a serious run at FIFA's crown, but PES 2013 will absolutely wow soccer purists on-the-field, and if that's important enough to you, then this is the pick in the 2013 virtual soccer stakes.

If you look at The Simpsons Arcade Game from today's standards then the game is pretty terrible, with overly simple controls, rough graphics, and a very short campaign. But looking at the game through the eyes of a fan of the original cabinet from 1991 the game fares much better. It has what you'd expect a game based on The Simpsons to have: similar animation, fun gameplay, and entertaining multiplayer.

I can’t get past the fact that there is so much to do in Watch Dogs it almost feels like too much. Literally, you could spend 100 hours in varied missions that, while they eventually become a little repetitive, are backed by effective AI that makes each encounter sufficiently unique. The voyeurism of invading citizens’ personal space is truly compelling, even if the main story arc is relatively straightforward.

CastleStorm is a great idea that just doesn’t click.

A fantastic collection of three of the earliest Kingdom Hearts games and stories. There isn’t a mountain of must-play new material here, but the updated visuals, bonus content, adjustable difficulty, and trophy support for all three games should make a repeat playthrough of the games as satisfying as the first.

All in all, Omega feels like a dumb action movie within the Mass Effect universe - gorgeous and exciting, but empty and implausible at the same time.