At least Far Harbor was better than fighting the robots of the Automatron DLC.

Tuning issues aside, Warlock is a fantasy strategy game that's more than just Civilization with dragons and elves because it's not Civilization at all. Far too many strategy games rely on Sid Meiers' classic formula, often bogging down in the process. It's nice to see a developer getting back to the basics and down in the trenches with goblins, werewolves, skeletons, dragons, clerics and the odd angry fireball.

The biggest problem with Starhawk - and unfortunately, it's a doozy - is a crushing lack of identity.

Because it’s trying so hard to be a Metal Gear game, and falling so short, Metal Gear Survive is the wrong kind of off-kilter. Sometimes a Kojima game without Kojima just isn’t a Kojima game. Sometimes it’s just a snack to tide me over.

Battlefield 4′s most spectacular failing is its lack of technical stability. I literally cannot play for more than two or three matches without something failing catastrophically and either locking up my computer or booting me from the server.

Rocket science, orbital trajectories, and gravity wells are a terrible milieu for guesswork. It’s like a bunch of kids on a merry-go-round hucking rocks at each other, and then setting off fireworks at each other, and eventually shooting guns at each other. All the while the merry-go-round goes round. Did you miss?

If you don’t mind fighting over the same cluttered iraqi streets and desolate afghan hills that you’ve seen a hundred times before, Insurgency brings enough hardcore sensibility and competent execution to stand out from the other multiplayer shooters. The old-school gameplay combined with updated mechanics are a breath of fresh air in a genre crowded with games that don’t understand that failure can still be fun.

Hypatia is already far more interesting than anyplace I’ve previously settled in Sins of a Solar Empire. And that’s even before finding any of the new artifacts Forbidden Worlds introduced.

Domina is so indolent that some might describe as a bad game. I don’t necessarily disagree. You might as well watch Spartacus on Starz. The graphics are probably better. The thrills of occasional action are probably more elaborate. But when it comes to RPing a lazy Roman noble who can barely be arsed to lift his arm high enough to give the wrist enough play for a dismissive flick, there’s nothing better than lolling around in the shade with Domina.

Dragon’s Crown’s unique beauty goes a long way. But it doesn’t go quite long enough.

Triple Town is yet another clever game hobbled by yet another mercenary business decision.

As limber as Cities: Skylines is, it’s sorely lacking in replayability. Instead, it lets you get the most out of your favorite city by encouraging you to endlessly optimize and furthermore giving you the tools you need to do it. Come for the ant farm spectacle and spreadsheet detail. Stay for the endless cultivation of your favorite garden.

There are plenty of these "bounce ever upward" games where you try to reach a new height before . I suppose it's a vertical variation on the endless runner. But what I like about Paper Galaxy is how it litters the screen with planets that have character.

The quick and easy multiplayer for up to four players is a real asset, particularly with friends taking advantage of the Vita's voice chat support. Suddenly a brainless two-gun game turns into a loadout challenge for players attempting difficulty levels a notch too high, deciding who's going to hang back with the sniper rifle and healing drone.

Many of its elements never quite come together, so there’s no payoff. The clumsy human stories, the botched difficulty curve, the dangling gameplay threads, the pointless decisions, the cool 3D printer scavenging economy, the coral, the hunters, the various survivors who need saving. If I never had fewer than a dozen mana potions, what did it matter whether I did the quest to put mana healing into the water supply?

An occasionally horrific game with a memorable character and some fantastically grotesque artwork, it’s absolutely worth the journey.

One failing of Shelter is that it takes a while to truly get underway, and it’s too simple a game to take so long to get less simple.

The gear in Darksiders II is only as important as the combat, and the combat simply isn't that important. If there's one place the mostly satisfying and smartly designed Darksiders II needed more streamlining, it was the monty haul and the corresponding hack-and-slash.

Right now what you’ve got with Driveclub is a grand single-player game with a set of demanding challenges on lovely tracks using distinct cars with uniquely appealing driving models. In other words, you’ve got the latest game from Evolution Studios, and a worthy successor to the games they’ve been making in the Motorstorm franchise, but one that has almost none of the online features that were intended to give it its indentity. What you don’t have is the game they intended to make or any meaningful ETA as to when that game will be ready.

The fundamental fact about Desync is a paradox. Its difficulty level is an obstacle and a draw. When I’m playing Desync, it takes me about thirty minutes to decide “this is too hard, f.ck it”. And when I’m not playing Desync, it takes me about a week to decide “hmm, I should give Desync another try”.

Without a solid foundation — namely, a better RTS at the bottom of everything — Dragon Commander is a frail novelty that will fall apart shortly after you’ve handled it.

Wildstar, which has very little sense of identity, which has very little pull, which feels like a collection of features, which has a subscription fee, was a relic as soon as it was released. And I’m afraid one of the most trenchant facts about it is one of the worst things you could say about any MMO: it’s going to be easy to stop playing.

These new heroes are a joy to discover, but the game doesn’t give you any incentive to explore them. Without a new game plus mode or even difficulty options, Guild of Dungeoneering feels very once-and-done. This is a terrible way for a rogue-like to feel. Just as the lack of documentation and tuning is a terrible thing to do to such a clever, addicting, and charmingly presented concept like this. If there’s one thing worse than not telling me how to play your game, it’s revealing to me I no longer need to play it once I’ve figured it out. Sadly, that’s the case with Guild of Dungeoneering.

Resident Evil 7 has a strong opening, a sagging middle, and a disappointing finale. In other words, it hews closely to the arc of most horror. But to Capcom’s credit, this Resident Evil is taking pages from books it hasn’t previously read. I’m not convinced it understands those pages, but at least it’s attempting something other than the usual roiling mass of black goo with bright orange weak points you have to shoot. For a while at least. It’ll get to that. But before it plods through its sagging middle to its disappointing finale, Resident Evil 7 is at least trying.

Without a more effective delivery system than a single checkpoint overwriting all your other progress, the Faction Pack is a frustrating example of death by linearity.

It’s a careful, intricate, and skillful creation that no one can accuse of being too short. But as a game that does nothing other than teach you how to play, it is perhaps the most meaningless game I’ve ever played. Considering the games I’ve played, that’s saying a lot.

How did BioWare, veterans of making games with fine-tuned progression systems, make this uninteresting slog of bad loot and dull advancement? How could the developers that gave us Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and even Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood create such a technically incompetent mess of loading screens and disconnects?

Unfortunately, Betrayer falls apart quickly, and it can’t afford to do this given how short it is.