While it’s got some irritating rough patches, Dead Island: Riptide’s 15-hour campaign still manages to be a lot more fun than it has any right to be.

Celebrity cameos by Ray Liotta, Michael Madsen, Chazz Palminteri, and Joe Pantoliano are fun perks, but what really stands out is how expansive and enthralling this hour-or-so mission is.

We see Defiance’s potential in the little interactions and grand moments alike, and while our first impression has been rougher than hoped, we’ll be back in six months or a year to see how the concept has been expanded and refined. It’s just unlikely that we’ll spend much of the meantime watching Defiance struggle through its growing pains.

Besides delivering the roots-respecting experience seasoned demon-slayers demanded, it’s brimming with enough replayability (via Chapter and Tests of Valor challenges, competitive Clan Battles, co-op Ninja Trials, and all of Ninja Gaiden 3’s DLC) to keep players butchering away long after the blood’s dried in the main campaign.

Injustice is fast, destructive, and extremely accessible without sacrificing its hardcore edge, and its slick visuals and nonstop craziness put it in a class by itself. This fighter is DC and NetherRealm at their finest, and while certain aspects (like Super Moves) wear thin, there’s enough great content here to keep fans busy for months.

XBLA’s Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons pulls the beating heart out of Technōs’ 1988 coin-op Double Dragon II: The Revenge and stomps on it until it barely resembles the sequel we once loved.

You'll ace every event in a handful of hours without much difficulty, and only the truly obsessive will pocket every collectible. But just ten bucks buys at least a few afternoons of enjoyable airborne antics.

All three tables look gorgeous, and all the familiar dialogue clips and sounds are a treat, too. Star Wars Pinball never up-ends the formula quite as much as Avengers Chronicles’ selectable balls and upside-down table did, but silverball and sci-fi buffs will adore it nonetheless.

Between the remarkably replayable eight-hour campaign and competitive multiplayer, BattleBlock Theater already offers an exceptional value for your $15. But the cherry on top is a level editor that allows anyone to create, decorate, and upload their own collections of linked levels, complete with secret areas.

Storywise, The Betrayal is a shade sillier than The Infamy, and a few moments in its missions are strange to the point of absurdity... If you’re invested in its alternate-universe narrative, though, The Betrayal is an important piece of the puzzle, and its ending hints at something potentially amazing for the final chapter.

What sets Terraria apart from its obvious inspiration is more than just 2D design; it’s the action-centric tone that emerges the more you dig around and buddy up with pals, especially online ones who have cultivated their own worlds and arsenals (though local split-screen multiplayer is included).

Even if you couldn't care less how efficiently you put hundreds of drug-dealing scumbags to rest, you may well be surprised by how enjoyable a bit of this disposable ultraviolence can be.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 doesn’t deliver the presentational kick in the pants that the series still needs, but the Legends of the Majors mode serves as a superb centerpiece to perhaps the most expansive entry to date.

It’s a generic zombie story to a Z, and not helped by horrible visuals that awkwardly recycle character models and stages. Together, these elements make the game feel like a reanimated corpse.

As fun as its combat is, BioShock Infinite’s real strengths are its weirdly lovable characters, its richly realized world, and its story, which stays addictively convoluted from its eerie intro to its lengthy, jaw-dropping ending. It may not always be quite as inventive as the original BioShock, but it’s just as — if not more — unforgettable.

Just entertaining enough to buy when it’s accumulating dust in the bargain bin. But for a richer sniper experience with more gruesome kill shots, last year’s Sniper Elite V2 is a better bet.

From the initial menu screen, it’s clear that little has changed over the course of a year beyond pasting in David Price as the cover star. The interface is essentially identical, the play modes are unchanged in execution, and the on-field action is precisely where it was last season. Even the Achievements are carbon-copied.

The joy of exploration occasionally tips over into frustration, as when untouchable background scenery seems to offer a safe place to land, or during an infuriating and unnecessarily time-consuming final boss fight. But for the most part, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is a charming adventure and a reasonable value.

Its engrossing multiplayer modes make Judgment easy to recommend, even if we found its main story campaign weaker than its predecessors’.

Even with all these enticing extras, we wouldn’t recommend buying the Arcade Cabinet games in one of five available three-packs (most of which are $10); that’s too much money given that almost every three-fer includes a mediocre game.

It feels truly unlike any other location on the map, allowing you the opportunity to speed through terminals and vault up to the rooftops of the flashy, modern structure — but that’s only the half of it.

As an extension of Dead Space 3’s story, it’s ultimately a bit pointless — especially with its cliffhanger ending, which effectively deprives you of the closure the main game (minus its end-credits tease) delivered. Unless you’re a hardcore fan or franchise completist, we’d suggest saving your $10 and replaying Dead Space 3 instead.

The worst, most persistent problem is the ridiculous and unalterable helicopter-style chase view, which lazily swoops from side to side as you tear through each turn.

This package is great for old and new players alike. It’s just hard to shake the feeling that it could’ve been a smidge more monstrous.

It’s these sneaky moments of sweetness across Citadel’s five-hour journey that make it a pricey but wholly affecting excuse to linger just a little longer under Mass Effect’s spell.

An annoying feature that requires you to “buy” unlocked events with earned points adds unwelcome repetition, and 12-person multiplayer only means sharing the pain with others. Steer clear.

If you can get some pals together, have a stable connection, and don’t mind interrupting your game for a level-up session, you’ll have some fun here, but Battle Grounds still falls short of being the sleeper hit it could have been.

These bloodless battles just aren’t very exciting; they’re more likely to elicit yawns than trash-talk. Dollar Dash might briefly amuse younger gamers, but everyone else will feel robbed.