Republique is a relatively simple stealth game with a lot of love dumped into its presentation and its world, but Episode 4's attempt to shake things up in both gameplay and plot is weak.

Fortified marries multiple different genres while maintaining consistent waves of challenging fun in a cohesive experience. The game is best when played as part of a team, although the omission of split-screen co-op is a disappointment, and the lack of a health bar is a bit frustrating.

XCOM 2 improves on its predecessor in almost every way, and proudly stands as one of the most deeply satisfying action-strategy games currently available.

Its biggest strength is also its main weakness. It is a very good version of a familiar game. The card art is beautiful, the user interface is crisp and clean, the booster packs are frustratingly realistic, the deck builds are flavorful and diverse, and it all feels a great deal like card games most genre fans have played before. It's an excellent take on the trading card game, digital or otherwise, but given that it's competing in a very well established place, it might not do enough to develop a huge audience.

I went into The Bug Butcher with few expectations, so I was pleasantly surprised by how well the classic arcade mechanics held up to today's standards. It's a challenging game that never feels cheap or unfair.

Great puzzles that are unfortunately marred by sub-par presentation with cringeworthy dialogue and voice over.

Five Nights at Freddy's World is a retro parody JRPG that feels incomplete now, but is steadily getting better as patches come out.

The Witness is a beautiful, brain-tickling, "puzzle-adventure," that will manage to both frustrate and awe you at the same time.

If you can overlook the early game difficulty, Pocket Mortys is a freemium game that is never in your face about taking your money. With short rounds of gameplay and a lot of post-game activities, Pocket Mortys is well worth a download if you enjoy Pokemon and are slowing wasting away while waiting for the third season of Rick and Morty.

The Westport Independent will leave you more aware of the media as a whole, and how editorial direction can have wide-ranging results. While the game is short, that playtime is justified since you can replay and explore different possible outcomes. The $9.99 initial price might be too high for some people's liking, but the story is certainly enjoyable for the hour or two needed to complete it.

While the story sometimes sticks too close to familiar ground, Deserts of Kharak is a fun and challenging RTS title that's a worthy addition to the Homeworld franchise.

Here Be Dragons is a fun, if modest and repetitive expansion that stays true to the gameplay of Knights of Pen & Paper 2.

Knights of Pen & Paper 2 simulates the imperfect, but undeniably fun experience of a tabletop RPG. It's a game that pokes fun of entertainment culture and RPG stereotypes as a whole, bundled into an engaging 16-bit retro experience.

Energy Cycle manages to hold itself up on the concept. There were moments of frustration at some of the more challenging puzzles. But the premise of the game makes it clear that there was always a solution possible. What sets the game's strengths back is a distracting aesthetic choice. The soundtrack and background that gameplay uses made strategy difficult rather than complimenting it.

Resident Evil 0 HD Remaster includes more content than most HD remasters, but does little to fix design flaws from the original.

Oxenfree is a story about human interaction and how we choose to treat each other, all set against a backdrop of supernatural horror. It just feels really human in spite of all the weird stuff.

Dragon's Dogma still holds up as a solid game in 2016. Capcom fixed many of the technical errors and glitches of the 2012 console release with patches, allowing a reliable framerate to go with your experience. The included difficulty modes raise the stakes of the challenge.

Darkest Dungeon will kill your party, drive you insane, and leave you a gibbering mess at the Sanitarium. Yet it's so compelling and rewarding at the same time, you won't be able to resist diving back in for one more quest.

Echoes of Aetheria weaves narrative, combat, and exploration together wonderfully, with no one aspect of the game overshadowing another. However, dialogue is occasionally cheesy and design flaws cast a shadow on what is meant to be a tactical combat experience.

Pony Island is an incredibly clever puzzle-horror game that manages to immerse you in a screwed up world of ponies, code, and demonic machinations.

Like inventing and describing a new color, That Dragon, Cancer tries to describe something indescribable, and does an admirable job of it.

A tense, challenging, and addictive strategy game with strong atmosphere, weakened by excessive randomness that too often pushes things past "hard" into "hopeless."

While some more star power in the soundtrack would have went a long way, and the way Harmonix artificially pads the game's length with its song unlock requirements is ridiculous, Amplitude remains an exciting blend of rhythm action and electronica that does well by its predecessors.

One of the best examples of how good the Japanese RPG can be, even if no single aspect sets the bar for the genre.

A fantastic cyberpunk game whose biggest strength is its writing.

A strong entry for franchise fans, and runs fluently on PC to give the expressive anime visual style the opportunity to show off its fullest potential.

While Valhalla Hills doesn't have the presentation and energy of some of the more popular RTS games, it does manage to offer up an addictive experience that is a lot of fun. Listening to the intriguing sound effects of the Vikings mustering up their strength to work remains delightful and humorous throughout the entire game.

For the short time it lasts, Pale Echoes has an interesting and creative battle system, a compelling story to tell, and an interesting world to explore.