With the storytelling of Mass Effect, the fighting system of the Witcher, and environments taken right from Dragon Age and the Elder Scrolls, Bound By Flame is perhaps the least original game ever made.

As a guy whose passion for golf games lies mostly in powering through single-player tours and developing a character’s skills and playing style, Mario Golf: World Tour left me a little unsatisfied.

Gorgeous hand drawn presentation makes its fantastical world and characters feel like paintings come to life, and will likely leave fans of dynamic game art drooling. Ditto for music lovers, who will go ga-ga for the game’s gentle, moving theme and rousing orchestral battle melodies.

I’m not much of a fan of the Hitman games for PC and consoles, but Hitman Go hits all the right notes for a mobile platform.

The company has made the game it promised when it when back and rebuilt FFXIV 1.0.

Trials Fusion, like its predecessors, is a super-charged, neck-breaking blast of a motorbike game, and solidifies the franchise’s status as the Excitebike of our time.

Each location along the way is filled with plenty of side-quests, clever puzzles, and secret locations waiting to be discovered. It adds a good dozen hours or more to the experience, making this fantasy world bursting with things to do almost seem like a much more whimsical kids’ version of an Elder Scrolls game.

I can say, though, is that it feels very similar to the Dynasty Warriors games I remember playing a decade or so ago. I don’t feel like I’ve missed a lot. I’m not blind to the fact that there is an outrageous amount of content here, including a huge array of playable characters, multiple campaigns to work through, and even a camp-building mode that gives some creative purpose to your killing. I suspect the right player could invest scores of hours in this game and still find more to do. But I’m pretty certain that player isn’t me.

Kinect Sports Rivals isn’t quite the revolution in motion-controlled sports gaming that we might have hoped for.

Think of it as a kind of rural Sim City with the difficulty ramped up and no nuclear power plants to lay down. It’s a game that tests your abilities as a pioneer to make it in a world where people need food to survive and if you don’t deliver they’ll die.

Does this game deserve a 10/10 because of its ingenuity, or should it be scored a 7/10 because it lacks modes and variation? Is it a 5/10 because it’s not really a game? Or is it a 0/10 because, really, who would pay good money just to run around as a digital goat? In the end, Coffee Stain Studios delivered what it promised, a ridiculous game featuring goats and explosions.

The good news is that players whose gaming palates DO lean toward slaying nightmarish minions with tongue-twisting weapons are finally getting the game they probably wished Diablo III was to begin with.

Contributing hugely to Towerfall’s pitch-perfect tactile experience is the game’s pixel art visual design – a look that fills your lucky peepers with a sense of wonder rarely felt since those heady SNES days.

Any kid who can play this has the chops to play a Mario game, and I’d be shocked if they ended up preferring this substandard adventure to just about any Mario platformer released on any recent Nintendo system.

Second Son is a blast to play and offers a remarkable open world for a next generation platform...Sucker Punch can save the serious innovation for next time.

If you’ve never played Final Fantasy X before, this is a perfect opportunity. You can see the charms of the old-school JRPG in a modern game package and see why so many people cared so much in the first place.

Indeed, Dark Souls II is pretty much exactly the sort of game it wants to be.

A deeply unnerving yet marvelously moving interactive entertainment.

What really would have brought the game over the top would have been a Robert A. Heinlein-style narrative carrying you through the campaign. Sure, there’s some hints of political corruption within the upper ranks, but like many games it feels throwaway compared to everything else.

Titanfall is perhaps the most accessible competitive multiplayer shooter ever, while still maintaining a fun competitive reward system for skilled players.

Just as I’m reaching the meat of the game, I’ve discovered that the promise of endlessly varied player-made castles isn’t being realized, and that the grind is far more intense than I’d like...I just don’t see myself sticking around.

As immersive and engaging as the second episode is, it still feels a bit like its setting the table for what’s to come in the remaining three episodes of this season...But it’s doing so in tantalizing fashion.

NaissancE is a beautiful game, but without much direction it can feel like a never ending mire of running, jumping, and falling. That being said, is the game worth spending $20 on? Certainly.

The best compliment I can offer the multiplayer of TowerFall is that it makes me wish it had been around when I was 22 and still living with three roommates who would often spend an afternoon delving into hour-long matches of Super Smash Bros. Melee or Mario Kart 64/Double Dash. TowerFall would have made an excellent addition to that rotation.

This game isn’t for the uninitiated. It’s clearly created for fans who think the idea of a pot bellied pig named Fluffy is funny, who can’t look at Barbara Streisand and not think about Mecha-Streisand, and who randomly yell “BEEEEFCAKE!” to their friends every now and then for no reason.

The Azran Legacy really just feels like more of the same.

What’s here is cleverly crafted, well-balanced, and capable of generating moments of authentic mirth.

It’s an early, serious, and unexpected contender for my list of the top 10 games of 2014.