Remember Titan Quest? Yeah, that one was pretty good. Well, this is the modern version of that. And then some.

There’s something uniquely thriling about all the crazy futuristic touches in Trials Fusion, with sliding platforms and hoverships and weird purple alloys and force fields. I say that I couldn’t care less about all the customizable constume bits, but I still find myself playing dress up with my motorcyclist. I mean, I paid to unlock those costume bits, so I might as well use them.

Suffice to say if you’re going to virtually pinball on the PC, this is the way to do it.

These are the colorful bursts of superhero nonsense I’ve missed since 2017, splashy and unserious, as intricate as I want it to be, stretching out for as long a grind as I care to ride, brimming with the loot and customization I want in an action RPG, and enough content to make me forget I’ll never again play my leveled up Squirrel Girl. Oh, Marvel/Disney/Nintendo.

DMC Devil May Cry is a best-case scenario for what happens when you take an established series and hand it over to a new developer to let them have a turn.

Jared is concerned that you're not guiding him through appropriately leveled encounters and bosses. Is he supposed to actually fight that dragon by the lake? What about the huge cyclops lumbering out of the forest? Shouldn't there be a word or a number in red? Shouldn't there be a sign?

Close combat, ragdoll explosions, mud, poison gas, and the violence of one of the bloodiest conflicts in history mix with pigeon babysitting. War Pigeons is a good summary of Battlefield 1 in general.

There's no debate whether Mass Effect 3 is a good game. It has good combat, an effective atmosphere, satisfying resolution, and a few great characters. Co-op is surprisingly entertaining. Bioware has finally settled on a good balance of RPG elements, too. It's easy to dismiss most of the nitpicks. It's the best game in the series for all these reasons...Instead, I argue about whether Mass Effect 3 is a great game. I write about it because I deeply care about Bioware as a developer. I want Bioware to strengthen choice and consequence and master character writing so I can consider their games to be classics again. At the very least, I'm no longer left out of this series now that I appreciate the combat and the universe.

The reality-bending and dimension hopping are nicely realized, and the whole idea of having to find gems for a magic glove lends itself well to a pinball table. Here's a great example of how to do obscure lore in a pinball table.

Among the many insights offered in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, it knows that if there’s one thing better than cruising around in a sweet ride blowing stuff up and flying through their explosions, it’s cruising around in a sweet ride blowing stuff up and flying through their explosions while listening to sweet tunes.

This dumb, loud, fast, silly, sexy car porn is eminently gratifying. Well done, Criterion. This is the game I've been waiting for you to make since Burnout.

Bring the Van Morrison with your shotgun and you should be fine.

With the emphasis on fighting, the co-op survival mode is a great way for two players to jump right into the combat, defending piles of supplies from waves of attackers and earning money to buy power-ups. Since it's on a single screen, this is about as perfect a local co-op game as you could ask for.

Did I mention the unique gameplay touches designed into some of the nations? The excellent interface that makes it easy to jump to whatever information I need, whether it’s the size of the Carthaginian navy, the closest source of amber, if there’s a river crossing on the way to the next province, or how good that unit is at besieging fortifications? The scattered tidbits of historical flavor text, especially on each of the buildings? The post-release support, which includes a new diplomacy system currently available in a beta build? And did I mention that I haven’t played a strategy game this unique and absorbing since Victoria and Imperialism before it?

The gameplay appeal of Caladrius Blaze is its variety and progression within each match.

Here I am, essentially piecing together the cure for cancer on a cocktail napkin. For science? For prestige? For quality of life? Don’t be silly. It’s all for money. Call it evil, call it efficient, or call it American. But whatever you do, call it profitable and call it Big Pharma.

The question isn’t “why would you play a game about that?” The question is “why wouldn’t you play a game about that?” If only those people on that bus knew what they were missing.

Too many strategy games mistake detail for design, activity for gameplay. Gladius knows better.

As a single-player game, the AI acquits itself admirably (one of my favorite things about ports of Euro games like this is that purer math lends itself to artificial intelligence). I’m less enamoured of Agricola as a multiplayer game. It works fine, and developer Playdek knows better than to leave you high, dry, and solitaire only. But heck if I can remember what I was going to do when my turn finally rolls around again. This isn’t a knock against the Agricola port so much as a fact of its gameplay.

Assuming that you accept that Resident Evil isn't a game about running backwards and spewing ammo, you'll find here another wonderfully tense shooter.

Enlist for active duty with Arma 3 Apex and be deployed to a brand new warzone. With its distinct geographical features, the South Pacific island archipelago of Tanoa introduces fresh opportunities for all types of combat operations.

Carmageddon: Max Damage is unique, hilarious, a little long in the tooth, and a comedy Charles B. Griffith would be proud to have inspired.

In a game where experience points and stress levels are role-playing elements, not visually presenting your earned experience or a level up screen is a serious omission.

Several times over the last week or so, I’ve considered whether to sit down with Nier, Horizon, Torment, or Gravity Rush 2. It’s a tough decision. They’re worlds you fall into. Each of them is the sort of game you play for several hours at a time. You don’t boot them up lightly. Which one have I chosen? Well, before I commit, how about running a character real quick in Monster Slayers? Oops, I’ve just fallen into a world. A deck-building utopia.

This is one of a few boardgames that I've bought for the tabletop after being introduced to it on the iPad. And unlike the other two (Dominant Species and Small World), this is a game still worth having on the iOS.

It knows. It understands. But not blindly, not slavishly. More than a fan of X-Com, this game is a fan of the tenets of modern game design. It's doing exactly the right thing, in exactly the right ways, at exactly the right time.

Zombie U is the single most promising, enthralling, and unique game on the Wii U and I would definitely say this is the best multiplayer game of the year.

Ironcast exists admirably outside the match-3ing.

Injustice’s traditional one-on-one structure, coupled with its thorough ingame documentation, is a casual player’s dream. We want to play fighting games, too. It’s nice to see a developer recognize that.

Kid Icarus knows enough to be more complicated and rewarding than any simple Rogue Squadron or light gun game. It knows enough to tap into the nearly universal appeal of loot chasing.

Like Anno 1800, it gives you plenty of tools to watch and admire, but unlike Anno 1800, it’s got all the time in the world for watching and admiring. The scenery goes by, the tracks rattle, the whistle blows, the truck’s engine purrs, the boat drifts lazily downriver, the plane banks and dips toward the runway. No one is pushing me to get out and build new plantain farms. There is no opponent AI whose company might get in the way of whatever railroad route I build later. There is no multiplayer. It’s just me and a map of stuff that wants to get somewhere else, waiting patiently for me to build it a way.

This game is crazy Neapolitan through and through, with a sense of mad glee for how frequently and flagrantly it breaks the rules.

I'm guessing the average shmup fan is going to gladly part with the full four dollars.

When the puzzle elements fall away and you’ve established a rapport with the hardware, and perhaps even an affection for its idiosyncrasies, you’re sitting in Dan O’Bannon’s chair. Now you’re Pinback. Now that galloping finger jab — right-left-right-left — actually does something.

Unlike Spelunky, most players will see the end before their hundredth death. Onwards! There are cute monsters to kill.

If your kids/wife/girlfriend/parents can grok a finicky numbers game, this will be right up their alley. But otherwise, this is a videoboardgame for hardcore strategy nerds. Who don't mind playing with Miis.

This is the sort of wheelsport the Need for Speed arcade racers should have been providing all along.

And like a detective in a noir yarn, you can’t help but become part of the central mystery, effecting an outcome you might not have intended. Age of Decadence might run away from you.

The first hour or so are intentionally insufferable. Some of the best horror takes its time establishing what’s normal, because it has to show you what it’s going to break. Without normal, you wouldn’t know what’s weird. Without real, you wouldn’t know what’s surreal. Without victims, you wouldn’t know what’s monstrous. Without the anime dating sim, you wouldn’t know Doki Doki Literature Club.

Arkham Knight’s take on the hero/villain relationship is unique. You can hail it as clever as Fight Club or dismiss it as stupid as midichlorians — you’re at least a little right on either count — but you cannot deny that it’s a compelling variation on the theme, and it works wonders to sustain the story with unique dialogue and narrative opportunities.

If I’m going to play a MOBA, it’s going to be this one.

But part of what I love about any good RTS is figuring out ways to trump any given strategy. The Swords & Soldiers games have small tech trees, but that makes the choices all the more meaningful.

This glee is where Marvel Heroes has enough pull to make up for its various shortcomings. It might take time.

A pretty good game about a malicious gremlin underworld.

It is an elaborate trifle, a AAA time fritterer, a playground with skyhigh production values mired in a bog, a dessert tray without an accompanying meal. It is mostly hollow, almost entirely meaningless, and only accidentally relevant. And I’m having a grand time with it.

If you want a thrill ride, there’s always Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. But if you want an incredibly well written adventure across something approximating a sea, there is no game like Sunless Sea.

Of course, this mix-and-match approach will only be as good as the imagination that goes into its parts. Paradox tried something similar with Stellaris, using a set of opposing attributes. But that game’s spreadsheet-dry sci-fi doesn’t have room for the kind of glee, personality, and interactivity that drives Planetfall. Stellaris is the rasp of pages turning in a ledger. Run your index finger across the paper, along the row and then down the column, find a number that supposedly suggests the high-concept sci-fi in one of those dull classics you felt obligated to read and even more obligated to pretend to like. But Planetfall is a shelf of old sci-fi dime store novels in the back of a tiny bookstore inexplicably still in business. Pick the lurid title that calls out to you best. Pull it out and delight at the splash of imaginative cover art. This is your story for today.

At last, the single-player Netrunner videogame I've been waiting for someone to make!

Pixel Defenders Puzzle can get crazily detailed - in a good way - as you take into account your units' various abilities, the monsters' various abilities, the powerful support monsters that show up, and the complexity of the grid filling up.

What hasn’t been done before is something this accessible, smartly paced, and most importantly, playful.

Legendary Heroes makes Fallen Enchantress the game it’s wanted to be all along.

Eufloria is as unique, languidly haunting, and eminently playable as any of Introversion's brilliant Darwinia games. And now it's also a perfect fit for the iPad.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire don’t have the same groundbreaking feel as X and Y, but the solid combination of new systems with a familiar region shows that sometimes you can go Hoenn again.

Kudos to the developers of Flip Ship for not succumbing to the obvious trend to micropayments. When you buy Flip Ship, you get a self-contained package where high scores are strictly and entirely a matter of how good, lucky, and persistent you are. Put away your nickels, because they aren't any help here. Flip Ship is all about the choices you make.

Its strength is that it’s the polar opposite of so many strategy games that push inevitability in another direction. Thanks partly to dumb AI and your superior resources, you will prevail no matter what, or you will reload or start over until you prevail.

It’s delivering a quick sharp jolt of gore, profanity, and arcade-induced dexterity. It will last maybe two minutes if you’re good. Three or even four if you’re really good or lucky. At which point it doesn’t even ask you if you want to restart. It knows you do. So it just does.

But without a sandbox mode, or challenge scenarios, or Anno 2070’s grindy but gratifying system of scientific advances, 2205 doesn’t have the infinite replayability you get in the best city builders. That’s probably a good thing. The last thing I need is a city builder this good with infinite replayability.

It's the latter-day high-octane car smashing ped mashing antidote to racing games.

So it turns out that Wargame: European Escalation isn't just good. It's also unique.

An open-world waiting for you to conquer it, with varied types of areas offering varied types of gameplay. You don't even have to pay attention to the silly story! You just have to want to take over the map.

It’s all very cheerful, friendly, cute. Fat pharaohs and stubby boars and hopping sarcophagi spitting out midget mummies and some sort of weird Cirque du Soleil gymnasts hanging from ceiling poles shooting fire and dog-headed archers and hordes of hopping toads. Dopey, but self-aware dopey. Polished. Slick. Smart. In other words, not what you’d expect from something with the word “redneck” in the title.

The overall effect is like taking a broom or a flamethrower to the rules, completely undermining the game as designed. Which is something I couldn't be happier to see, because the game as designed is in dire need of undermining. If there's anything that can breathe life into Magic the Gathering, it's a shake-up like planechasing.

It’s splashy and accessible, but intricate and skill-based. It’s alternately frantic and methodical. You can just plow through it mindlessly or you can optimize your character build and hone your favorite gear. You can tweak the difficulty as you go, keep it breezy, or crank it up to 11. Explore the wide-openness or follow the main quest marker to the end. But if you’re into action RPGs, whether you’re a Sacred 2 fanatic or Diablo III weekender or someone in between, Victor Vran is a name worth noting.

Because of its smooth strategic flow, Planets under Attack is one of the best couch strategy games since Risk Factions. But since Planets under Attack is always and only real-time, it's arguably an even better couch game.

Unstoppable Gorg's gloriously goofy, brash, and cheerful presentation is some of the most delicious 50s B-movie sci fi cheese since War of the Monsters on the Playstation 2.

For a wonderfully plucky exercise in territory control, chess-like simplicity, mana management, landscaping, and rampaging bears, A Druid Duel has dropped its gauntlet at your feet.

If I had to pick one thing Space Tyrant does best, it would be pacing. Because this is how a game has to move in order to cook a Marie Callender chicken pot pie in 20 minutes.

Plague Inc even has a sense for the importance of meta-game progression. Pandemic has special traits you unlock for later games, but Plague Inc gives you entirely new "classes" to unlock and play, starting with a hearty bacteria and progressing all the way up to manufactured bioweapons.

The revised naval combat turns battles into more than just bags of hitpoints slamming into each other at sea. At a time when naval power was so important, the added detail is welcome. And that’s pretty much what Heart of Darkness does for Victoria II: a new level of detail to encourage you to get out and see a bit more of the world.

Minor objections about design decisions aside, Black Ops II is another great shooter in a year of great shooters. It's a competent, confident, generous package, true to its core values, but with enough new to carve out its own identity, enough variety to appeal to a wide range of players, and enough content to belong on your shelf for more than just a quick playthrough. This is the way to do a yearly installment without just phoning it in.

Not that they don’t deserve a tip. Am I railing against this game in particular or the financial ecosystem in which it exists? Who can tell anymore? But rest assured that Dead Man’s Draw is a fantastic game only slightly tainted by the lure of filthy microlucre.

If I want to break stuff and collect things, there no way quite so mindlessly obliging as Lego Batman 2.

Cute stuff, this is definitely the B-side table of this pack.

I suppose the gamepad is a valuable way to look at the map without calling up a fullscreen map view. But mostly, it’s a sadly missed opportunity in an otherwise great racing game.

Pinball Arcade fails one crucial part of videogame pinball. It has no sense for the social elements that make Pinball FX 2 so effective, and that are therefore an integral part of videogame pinball.

A fitting finale to CD Projekt Red's masterpiece trilogy.

Torchlight II's willingness to play tough is only one of its selling points, but it's arguably what sets it apart from the other good latest-gen action RPGs you could be playing right now (Diablo III, Borderlands 2, Darksiders II, and Guild Wars 2 come to mind).

The best thing Skullgirls, a moderately demanding fighting game, has going for a fighting game dilettante like me is the character design, which focuses its considerably creativity and love on a few characters.

At last a racing game carefully and entirely built around drive well instead of just driving fast.

Like any great action RPG, the game is about tuning a character build, and shepherding it through increasingly difficult variations of the same things you’ve been doing all along, with friends, strangers, or an AI along for the ride. But unlike many such games, it’s got one hell of a story, insidiously barbed gameplay hooks, and the sort of infinite lifespan that makes your Vita worth the money you spent.

This persistence is Epic Quest's most notable feature. Think of it as an experiment in building an ongoing leveling system onto a single table.

This clearly defined gameplay pattern sustains Doom’s breakneck pace. If I was just zipping through monsters holding down the fire button, it would get pretty tedious pretty quickly. But because I’m constantly positioning myself in that ammo-health-ammo-health sequence, I’m staying engaged. I’m surfing some pretty smart moment-to-moment gunplay. Doom grooves.

It’s got what it needs: a keen appreciation for how to smooth the tedium out of stealth games, adroitly presented by its rakish cast on a picante Western stage.

What if there were a Dark Souls for people who want something to do instead of play the same boss fight over and over until I get lucky and don't die? Well, this is! And this is it!

Does it sound complicated? It eventually is. It takes a while to get here, and there are plenty of lower level achievements to chase. Once you get to the harder challenges, Reus can be a little bit brutal.

Hover isn’t just free-form faffing about. There’s a movement here and if you want to join it, well…I’ll let you discover that stuff. Even anarchists’ playgrounds can have structured activities.

It's a real thumb in the eye to have to suffer through a launch that was exactly like any MMO launch. It's a sad reality that too many of us have accepted DRM with gritted teeth and open wallets, so this is likely the price of AAA gaming for the foreseeable future. Us sheep get what we deserve, which is a Diablo III, a fine game for playing solo, with all the pitfalls of an online game.

What’s most remarkable about Stars in Shadow is that it holds it own among arguably better games like Endless Space 2, Galactic Civilizations III, Star Ruler 2, and Stellaris. Those games all embrace the epic sweep of science fiction with detail and breadth. They must do everything and they must do it epicly. After all, if it’s out in space, it has to be as vast and formidable as space itself. But Stars in Shadow, by contrast, knows how to do something too few games do. It knows how to focus.

Tightly pieced together, efficient, muscular if not nimble.

For parents, this is a sure-fire hit. For Gamers, keep an open mind. There is something under the cuddly hood. For Gamer parents, don't pass this up.

It’s a minor miracle that Arcen Games could revise Valley Without Wind 1 so completely without simply upgrading it, that they have instead made a completely separate game that plays so differently and creates a unique type of experience based on getting your ass kicked.

In this situation, my diplomatic standing with a neighboring regime, the loyalty of some of my leaders, my regime’s profile, the units I can use in my army, the stratagem cards I’ll be able to draw, and global bonuses for diplomacy, food income, and combat are all connected. I hope it’s not a spoiler to tell you that a war with Tiefmark — an avoidable war — broke out a few turns later.

Bethesda has laid solid and at times spectacular groundwork for an awesome game. I look forward to another developer building on it.

Choose a lane, endure, upgrade, push, endure, upgrade, push, repeat. I forget, does familiarity breed contempt or content?

But I love that someone is still making - and putting onto the iTunes store - something so barely this side of the theoretical stages. Fertang has about as much dressing as it can bear before becoming something else.

Combat Hacking — I’m just going to pretend it’s not called PWN — is a nifty exercise in fingerwork and brain power. It looks like a puzzle game, but it’s not. It’s actually a head-to-head real time strategy game focusing on territory control, maneuvering, and the careful application of special powers, all lovingly cyberpunk themed.

In Forza Horizon, racing is rubbing, wrecking, banging, and rewinding. Without a meaningful economy, there's no incentive to drive anything other than completely wrecklessly. The driving physics concur. This is one of those games that has no solution to the problem of videogames teaching kids that the best way to keep inside a turn is to bounce off the side of another car. Bounce off other cars, rear end the guy in front of you to slow down, and cut across corners with impunity.

The bigger problem is that the framerate is godawful, which seems like a networking issue, since it’s much more pronounced during games with more players. I suspect I’m being dropped into servers with terrible pings. I’ve even joined game where I literally can’t move because the warping is so bad. Here’s me, connected to EA servers.