Perhaps most disappointing of all is the actual world. The map consists of long wending noodles of road draped over Frostbite landscapes. It’s built for you to drive fast and bang into cars, so it minimizes the concept of mastering a route or reacting to the road. It’s all long, thin, shallow. This means there’s little sense of place. There is minimal traffic. There are too few opportunities to actually turn onto another road or take a shortcut. The world even feels small. You’ll be chasing someone, or running from someone, and suddenly you’re back where you were just a little while ago. It all feels so constrained.

A mess. This is no surprise given Egosoft’s penchant for releasing messes and then tidying them up after the fact. But the problem with X Rebirth is that it’s a different kind of mess than the previous games, in new and terribly wrong ways that are beyond tidying up. X Rebirth doesn’t seem to understand what people liked about the previous games. It is a game based on misguided assumptions.

Remember when you thought this was a frivolous roguelike and not a seriously meaty strategy game that you’ll be playing for literally days? How silly of you.

I really can’t figure out why this game exists other than the desire to cash in on the work done by Rocksteady. The combat isn’t as good, the story is weak and meaningless, all tension drained from it because we know that nothing bad happens to anyone as they’re all around in Arkham Asylum, and the gadgets are either exactly the same or have the barest of cosmetic differences to distinguish them from previous games’ gadgets.

Never has a game delivered on the promise of living the life of a pirate with as well as Black Flag with its awesome production values, refined game design, and lively oceangoing hijinx.

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

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.

And so that’s the sum total of Call of Duty: Ghosts. The disappointing single-player, the usual multiplayer, the slightly confused squad bot matches, and a nifty co-op Infestation mode that could use more maps.

What most surprises me about Skylanders is the effectiveness of these little toys. I mean, dolls. I mean, uh, action figures. Whatever you call them, I can’t deny that picking up pieces and moving them onto the base is a surprisingly effective hook.

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.

The best thing I can say about Pokemon Y is that the various design tweaks and visual upgrades brings out the joy of this world to match that first time you caught a Pokemon or beat a gym leader.

Starfighter Assault is all about the iconic sights and sounds of Star Wars space combat, translated into a very good pinball table. If this is how Zen Studios is going to milk a franchise, milk away!

But Beyond: Two Souls is far worse than convenient, facile, and ridiculous. It’s overall tone is low-key and morose, without energy or enthusiasm. Scenes drag out, with long pauses. Glances shift awkwardly. Character models fidget. This is about an eight hour game, but I’d estimate two or three of those hours are pregnant pauses.

At this point, I have learned to stop worrying and love the plastic.

The primary accomplishment in Grand Theft Auto V isn’t gameplay. It’s character. Grand Theft Auto V believes so strongly in its characters that everything else — even gameplay — is secondary.

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.

When it clicks, the game is second-to-none which is why I’ll continue to play despite its many issues. With no campaign, spotty multiplayer, and poor canned scenarios, Arma III just isn’t a complete product at this time.

Is the PC version of Diablo III better? In some very important ways, yes. But as a console game, Diablo III is outstanding. There is no comparable experience on console systems... There is nothing with Diablo III’s breadth, accessibility, and richness.

I am astonished at the state of this game. Did they think that I wouldn’t notice the clumsy interface, the wretched documentation, the absolutely untenable naval combat, the weird bugs, the lock-ups, the game-killing glitches? Did they think I wouldn’t notice the AI? Did they really think this was an acceptable AI for a single-player game? A single player game with disappointing multiplayer compared to the clever multiplayer in their last release?

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

The bottom line is that I’m complaining because the action, the gunplay, the visuals, the demanding teamwork, the ultimate sense of gratification from leveling up and mastering the levels are all pretty much unparalleled, even if they could have been situated into a better gameplay structure. Payday 2 is a wonderful shooter that stands alone in a genre full of me-toos, wanna-bes, and coulda-beens.

Race the Sun is far too gorgeously hypnotic to be an endless runner.

The consistent thrill of Saints Row IV is how it constantly, eagerly, happily, accommodatingly asks you “Hey, how do you want to break the game now?” And for a game so colossal, so occasionally dumb, so often colossally sharks-with-laser-beams-on-their-heads-that-can-also-breathe-fire-and-fly-and-turn-invisible-and-you-can-even-ride-them dumb, what an incredibly smart thing to do with an open world, a franchise, and a story.

Gone Home achieves an unexpected and effective range of emotions. Although it’s a mostly sad eerie poignant story, it has flashes of anger and frustration, and the way it manages to fold music into these emotions, as well as the choice of music, is every bit as good as what Bioshock Infinite did with its music.

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.

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

The new flying pikmin are a nifty twist for how they break the level design.

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.