Ryse: Son of Rome tells its story well. It has amazingly enjoyable and ruthlessly violent combat, which pairs incredibly well with the stellar graphics quality. Sadly, the experience is over all too quickly, and you'll be left wondering where the rest of your game is.

The AI can be a bit clunky and its reluctance to bring important developments to your attention can be annoying, but if you're out for some simple strategy fun that won't bury you in arcane rules (or you just dig the idea of building your own glorious underground kingdom), A Game of Dwarves should suit nicely.

The overarching issue with Type-NOISE: Shonen Shojo! is that it plays it too safe. It never truly innovates the genre nor narrative, which produces a predictable experience despite the potential the title has.

Crackdown 3 is an enjoyable mess.

In spite of dated graphics and other technical whizbangery, Crazy Taxi will remind you why you love driving games - and who started that fire. It's a game that's fun to play in short bursts that will become longer and longer the more of them you devote to it.

This one is good for a rental at best, but only if you're so in love with Star Wars that you can see past its faults.

The cartoony appearance might throw you off, but there's no shortage of violence in this retelling of a folk legend's homegrown rebellion.

If you're willing to really delve into all the facets of Dust 514, and a few technical issues, there's a satisfying shooter with some stakes for you and your corporation mates to be found. If you'd rather not get that invested, then Dust 514 might not be for you.

Defiance is a middle-of-the road third-person shooter that never seems to fully capitalize on its alien-filled, post apocalyptic setting.

Painkiller isn’t the game I wanted, nor is there a game in there that I want to play either. How did all these pieces not coalesce into something better than the sum of their parts? That’s right, you need to build an enjoyable experience underneath the mechanics and a dire nine-level campaign that offers the player nothing other than the option to replay them – which is something I won’t be doing anytime soon.

Murdered: Soul Suspect has some neat concepts, but it is not a success. A few elements of its supernatural murder mystery may hold your interest, but it ultimately feels hollow because it lacks any real challenge or entertainment in solving that mystery.

While its skin-deep qualities suggest something artistic and maybe a little philosophical, this middling arcade game packs not enough wallop to be worth more than a bit of a shrug. While not awful, it's certainly not intriguing enough to maintain interest even in spite of a brief running time.

It may not re-write the book on action games, but for licenses, it just might.

Kyn is a solidly-crafted RPG with some fun and interesting set pieces, but isn't innovative enough to stand out among similar titles in the genre.

A solid third person shooter but is marred by some repetitive gameplay elements and a lack of depth with its mechanics and story.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 looks gorgeous and could have been wildly original, but it squanders its polish and potential on archaic contrivances, banal writing, and an overall shallow experience. It's fine if you want a factory standard combat game, but in the year 2014, it's just plain dreary.

Sacred 3 is a mildly fulfilling hack and slash game that, while fun in limited doses, isn't a patch on previous entries, and does very little to stand out within the genre in which it wishes to now be housed.

A solid, if bite-sized, space combat game that revitalizes a defunct genre with excellent flight combat and only a few missteps.

Armikrog is a fun and quirky point-and-click adventure game with unfortunately dated mechanics.

Whatever it ought to have been, it's not. It has a few new features, but nothing to separate it from the more popular, more polished games that cover exactly the same ground. It may be inexpensive, but the cost-to-value ratio is still too high.

As frustrating as all of the technoglitches are, they might be dealable if there was anything or anyone to care about in Riptide, but there isn't.

Playing a blind girl helped me see how challenging it was, but I wish I saw a reason to care about the world Eva lived in.

An above-average brawler/platformer, held back by issues with repetition and missed potential, and a severe lack of J Jonah Jameson.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is serviceable, and serviceable is as good as it gets. Competent, with admirable attempts at original storytelling, this movie tie-in is the perfect example of a middle-ground title.

Toren is a short but sweet game about growing up, climbing towers, and fighting dragons, all shrouded in symbolism and cosmic metaphors. While it has its flaws - including a noticeably limited playtime - it's an incredibly unique outing from Swordtales that's well worth playing.

By nature of its very premise, Infinity Runner is an addling game that ought not work. It succeeds far better than it should, however, and surprises in how fun it can be.

I picked up Michael Jackson The Experience as a skeptic, but I had a lot of fun dancing with my sequined glove despite myself. There's not much of a game beyond mastering the choreography, but it's worth it if you ever wanted to dance with a legend.

Bound By Flame would be an immensely likable game, were it not for just how slipshod it ultimately feels. Its individual components are well crafted, but when brought together, the result is something that just isn't quite right.