No, this game is far from the "revolution" that excited critics have eagerly claimed it to be, but it is a wonderful little example of how fresh a standard shooter can feel when you pour all sorts of extra garnish over a solid foundation.

An episode full of setup, A House Divided trades in its intensity for a bit more action, and a touch of intrigue.

South Park: The Stick of Truth could stand alone as an extended episode of the show. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how funny you think Trey Parker and Matt Stone are. For fans of the show, this is a seriously impressive game.

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.

Thief is a mess. It's disappointing that there's a genuinely good game hidden under a lot of mediocrity.

A charming concept can only get a game so far, and Garden Warfare fails to capitalize. While there's fun to be hard, there's not much meat on the bones, and the repetitive combat ensures this will be nothing but a stopgap title until better shooters enter the market.

Furthermore, f... this game...Ugly as sin, flimsy beyond belief, and chock full of some of the worst barely-interactive gameplay you'll "enjoy" so far this year.

Strider is a stellar example of how to remake a classic. It sticks to the original where it should, and modernizes where the classic formula can be improved.

I've got nothing against big stupid action games. In fact, they're some of my favorite games of all. Earth Defense Force 2025 tries too hard at not trying hard enough, like one of those awful SyFy mutant movies. It knows it's terrible, and thinks it can get away with it by doubling down on its own awfulness. Clearly, this has worked for some, as the series has a fanbase. I don't get it, though. This is not so bad it's good. It's just plain bad, and there aren't enough giant insects in the world to convince me otherwise.

Life on the frontier wasn't pretty and neither is Banished, but it does provide an interesting city-building simulation with an excellently designed user interface.

Often funny, sometimes shocking, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc is as convoluted as it is curious. A strange but gripping interactive crime novel, and a thoroughly unforgettable jaunt into lunacy.

Though it fails to innovate in an engaging way, the base on which Tropical Freeze is built is solid as a glacier.

The LEGO Movie Videogame is an okay game that LEGO fans will enjoy, but is missing some of the charm of the film and doesn't feel like it lives up to TT's other LEGO titles.

Toukiden: Age of Demons is a solid little Monster Hunter tailgater, but it's highly unremarkable. It's simply okay, and it's not even intrigued by the idea of being more than that.

If you were hoping that Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII was going to be a return to Square's RPG greatness of yesteryear, you're going to be disappointed. This latest title continues to attempt to straddle the line between RPG and action game.

A surprisingly well crafted multiplayer shooter full of options, amusing cartoon violence, and rock solid action. That Loadout does all this, and provides a respectably balanced free-to-play ecosystem, is encouraging to see.

Bravely Default is a joy to play for old school JRPG fans. The music, graphics and mechanics all blend together perfectly and it continues in a already strong lineup of RPGs on the 3DS. This little handheld is becoming quite the powerhouse for these kind of games.

What's here is undoubtedly high quality, but some may find themselves just wanting more of the game. It's a blessing and a curse.

The writing in the second episode of Telltale's A Wolf Among Us series does more to investigate the dark corners of your soul than your shrink can in an hour. Sadly, you can play through the episode in just as much time.

One of 2013's best games, Outlast deserves success in 2014 as a PlayStation 4 release. Disturbing and macabre, sometimes to the extreme, this is one of the best horror games to grace the world in a long time.

While a solid job of remastering the original has been done, the game itself could have used a lot more of an upgrade. It's aged pretty damn badly, and no amount of visual polish can mask that.

Its brevity and reliance on contrived challenges work against Octodad: Deadliest Catch, but when it's at its best, it's a damn hilarious game that'll charm the pants off most players.

Unattractive, uninspiring, and unstable, Rekoil tries to be every other shooter out there, but one would have more fun with almost any other shooter out there.

Consortium is an ingeniously subversive gem, containing enough backstory to fill a Triple-A trilogy while focusing exclusively on an airship crew in distress. The execution is a little clunky at times, but Consortium still has the charm and depth to encourage multiple playthroughs as we wait for the sequel.

Tomb Raider is a terrific game, and the Definitive Edition is a gorgeous looking version of it. It's the same game it was in 2013, though, with no further improvements justifying its "definitive" status.

A fun little game at times, a frustrating little nightmare at others, OlliOlli is a relatively decent, if fairly forgettable, mobile game.

In the end, Blackguards feels a lot like the first time I played Neverwinter Nights in all the good ways and all the bad. Take from that what you will.

Nidhogg is a strange, unholy pastiche of lo-fi aesthetics and surprisingly deep, albeit minimal play; taking cues from decades of arcade-style 1v1 fighting games and modern indie darlings.