The hand-drawn visuals, interesting combat, and epic story mean The Banner Saga is crafted from flawless pieces - even if the final product is a little rough.

Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta is pure garbage. It just about works, it's shameless in its mimicry of better games, and it's as ugly as Satan's pink portion. God damn, there's something hilarious about it though.

Don't Starve is a gorgeous, terrifying, often funny game, albeit one that can chew away at the player's morale with its constant demands and willingness to undo hard work. Provided you go in willing to work hard and take punches on the nose, there's plenty of reward to be had.

An impressive port that, while needing to jury rig one or two things, does a most admirable job of putting Terraria in your pocket.

Simple to pick up and play, the precise, tension-filled combat is capable of turning friends into bitter rivals.

More like the broken candy cane at the bottom of your stocking, left half forgotten in the hurry of the holiday rush, than a real, heart-felt gift to fans of the franchise.

It's gorgeous in motion, and can be a satisfying little puzzle-platformer, but prepare yourself for some trial-and-error, garnished with repetition.

It plays out like cold-hearted cash grab, seemingly spat out just so the Wii U has something on its eShop this holiday season. A stuttering, stunted selection of nothingness.

A brilliant, addictive downloadable that will is designed to target and trigger the happiness center of your brain.

All That Remains has quickly put to bed any worries I had that TellTale would be unable to pull off the same stunt twice. Written with a maturity, intelligence, and above all, restraint, the season opener packs its punches with frighteningly effective precision, and delivers exactly the kind of memorable, beautifully distressing content fans of the first series will have come to expect.

A rewarding business simulation for all types of players, though one that eventually boxes in the player a little too much.

YS: Memories of Celceta is a great action RPG and one of the most entertaining games on the Vita. It perhaps stumbles in a few places but never enough to fully fall.

As good as the series has ever been. The franchise is almost always a safe bet and they won't let anyone down with this installment. Gran Turismo 6 doesn't really introduce anything too new, but it will give you little snippets of fun to offset the tension that can accrue over hours of playing a serious racing game where every turn could make or break the race.

Tiny Brains is short, messy, and relies heavily on reusing its ideas, but it's also a funny and clever little game that can delight as much as dismay.

A Link Between Worlds is a sentimental game that skates off its predecessor's successes, but is so good at doing so one hardly minds. A few neat new tricks and a beautiful visual style help make up for the game's more frustrating hurdles.

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.

It's quite possibly the best looking next-gen title. Hardcore fans will enjoy it to its full extent, but it's fairly forgiving to newcomers as well. There's just not a ton of middle ground, you'll either really love it or not be interested at all.

What it really boils down to is that Tearaway is just FUN. Thoughtful, engaging, and charming in a way that many recent games haven't been, this beautiful world will appeal to lovers of platformers both old and new.

Super Mario 3D World is a very good Mario game that suffers only in that the unrealized potential for it to have been a great game, period, keeps peeking in between the cracks. Fun to play for veterans and newcomers alike either as a single-player challenge or frenetic multiplayer party-brawl; and a definite must for current and prospective WiiU owners.

Resogun's pretty graphics and sometimes excessive effects make it look like a tech demo, but its refined action and subtle intricacies quickly put such notions to death. This is a thrilling and challenging shooter that just so happens to demo the tech quite well!

Just don't expect anything particularly "next-gen" about the game. The visuals are reminiscent of any given game from the end of the X360 or PS3's life cycle. This is an update to an old style of gameplay, but there's not a lot new here. There's a lot of old to love, though.

Killer Instinct is definitely fun, if a bit lacking in depth. The lack of campaign mode and limited character options mean it won't take long for you to breeze through the entirety of the content offering, but the online versus should ensure that you get plenty of enjoyment for your investment.

LocoCycle has an utterly ridiculous story that will illicit a few laughs, but its gameplay isn't all that engaging.

Dead Rising 3 will likely go down as one of the quintessentially "good" launch titles seen when a new console releases. It's an exclusive title with a big open world and tons of zombies that demonstrates the power of the next gen console well.

The enhancements aren't quite ready for prime-time, but Baldur's Gate II remains one of the greatest RPGs of all time and an unsurpassed D&D experience. The improvements to the interface are fantastic, and if the new content gets the final wax-and-polish it deserves, it will be too.

While the story is good fun, and the mechanical conceits awesome, Contrast's puzzles just aren't as hard as they need to be.

Need for Speed: Rivals is like the love child of GTA and Grand Turismo. It avoids the repetitive closed-course race tracks in favor of a fun, free-spirited open world racing experience.

Knack is a colorful, but mediocre platformer that has issues with repetitive gameplay on top of being frustratingly difficult at times.