Frankly, I think I might hate The Witness. Even after hours of playtime, I don’t know enough to tell.

Pokémon is a series that never reinvents the wheel, but instead continues to polish the basic design until it sparkles.

It manages to keep the core gameplay of battling and trading magical monsters intact, while weaving in ideas that were vital to the television show and to the idea of Pokémon in general.

But If you're willing to put in the time to learn the game's nuances however, and don't mind losing days of your life to faux interstellar conquest, Sins of a Solar Empire is easily the finest game to hit PCs this year.

Like a window opened just a crack, a tiny aperture that occasionally allows vivid glimpses of the future of videogames. When Heavy Rain works its magic, it is powerful stuff; rarely have I felt so attached to game characters or so invested in a story. For those small moments, anyone who cares about videogames must play Heavy Rain.

The original Gold and Silver are getting a bit long in the tooth, but a decade of extra gameplay polish makes HeartGold and SoulSilver extremely appealing. The games are next-gen nostalgia done right.

No matter how much the games dresses things up, the endless battles get repetitive after a while. You're performing the exact same moves throughout the game.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii is an excellent game with friends, and I had a great deal of challenging fun with the solo mode. But if you’re looking for a new Mario adventure that’s tailored to creating the maximum amount of fun for just one person, you’ll have to wait for next year’s Super Mario Galaxy 2.

Helping and being helped, working together, and loving everyone, regardless of where they’re coming from, is a lesson that we can all forget at times. And I’m overjoyed to know that children picking up these games today might just walk away better, more empathetic people even though at the end of the day they’re still teaching digital animals to tear each other apart.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is the best 2-D platform game I've played in ages. Its level design meets the gold standard set by the 2-D Mario games. Retro Studios can add another feather to its cap.

The Witness is a sterile, lifeless videogame. It revels in the idea of knowledge, fascinated by how it’s earned and what it signifies. But it seems uninterested in players and their accomplishments, and with that lack of interest comes a lack of the human touch necessary to make sense of the knowledge it offers...The Witness is like the island on which it takes place: a machine, to the core. Anything within it that seems lifelike is superficial.

The original Gold and Silver are getting a bit long in the tooth, but a decade of extra gameplay polish makes HeartGold and SoulSilver extremely appealing. The games are next-gen nostalgia done right.

Gorgeous re-imagining of the original, lots of gaming for your buck.

Pokémon is a series that never reinvents the wheel, but instead continues to polish the basic design until it sparkles.

Above all, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor once again proves Treasure's mastery of making games in which lots of things explode. The action is fast and furious and the game's super-short length makes it perfect for several playthroughs. Even if it can be a bit too difficult for its own good.

Spelunky is designed to be played repeatedly, a randomly generated battle of human versus machine. Its goal is to challenge the player in a way that is seemingly impossible, but ultimately surmountable given the proper amount of training and skill. I can't recall another game that achieves that delicate balance as well as Spelunky. Its randomly generated nature and ecosystem of interactive elements challenges your decision-making abilities in a way that's nothing short of awe-inspiring.

If you’re willing to step away from the idea of goal-oriented achievement, Vignettes achieves something almost transcendent. Like its name implies, it feels like a series of short stories about objects, meditations on the secret lives of stuff. What do you really know about a lamp, anyway? Have you ever really looked at it? Isn’t it weird, how pear-shaped they usually are? Hey, who first came up with the lamp shade?

While it gives players that quintessential amped-up FPS experience, it isn't doing anything especially innovative or new. The firefights are intense, the pacing will keep you on the edge of your seat and quite a few scenes prove absolutely breathtaking, but the game's chief strength is the story that binds it all together, and the multiplayer modes that should keep us amused for quite some time.

The one major qualm I have with the game is in its voice acting.

A challenging and fun experience, bolstered by a potentially limitless supply of user-generated content to keep the game fresh.

My first session with the game lasted roughly half an hour longer than I meant it to. While there are puzzle packs available for in-app purchase, Typeshift is free, with a large bevy of puzzles to play immediately and a free daily puzzle. You can also shell out for hints if you get really stumped. By the time you get through the initial offering, two bucks for another set of puzzles will probably be a no-brainer if you’re still enjoying yourself. And you probably will be. Typeshift is more than a smart, fun word puzzler. It’s just good game design.

Patapon is a clever spin on the rhythm genre, and the tiny characters are simply adorable. Leveling up your warriors can be quite trying, but the game's charm and refreshing adaptation of established mechanics make such transgressions forgivable.

It’s just a solid, addictive, finely polished game that’s easy enough for newbies and challenging enough for those who remember. Sometimes, they do make ‘em like they used to.

Bastion's fantasy world doesn't feel derivative. Its world and characters are all its own, and the narrator's verbal descriptions of abandoned quarries, forsaken gods and terrifying fortresses breathe life into them.

That's all Max Payne 3 is – a beautiful, playable action movie.

Endless depth, gorgeous graphics, excellent polish for a new MMO.

From its opening unhinged riff on Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the more traditional bulk of its gameplay, it’s an eerie, consistently entertaining puzzle box drenched in Southern gothic dread. And the videotapes are the stroke of genius that turn that puzzle box into a tesseract.

Gorgeous re-imagining of the original, lots of gaming for your buck.