James Stephanie Sterling
Is the game worth playing? Certainly. It's a decent little adventure that will provide enough solid gameplay to be worth the money. Just make sure one expects no more than that, and it'll be a most worthy purchase. Bastion is fun enough for what it is, but it does not transcend to the levels that it would like you to believe it does.
Lone Survivor is easily among the best survival horror games that I’ve ever played, a feat that’s truly remarkable when one considers the 2D perspective and visual limitations. Demonstrating that a commitment to ambience and art direction trumps technical superiority, this guaranteed indie classic manages to provoke — and sometimes even frighten — as much as the genre’s most lauded entries. Its depressing premise, eccentric characters, and engrossing narrative bolster the solid survival gameplay to create a journey that’s sure to stick with players for a very long time.
Went wrong somewhere along the line. The original idea might have promise, but in practice it has failed. Threatens to be interesting sometimes, but rarely.
Charming, funny, and only sometimes exasperating, Rayman Legends is the kind of game that makes this industry a better place for its existence.
Nobody has demonstrated they can do Pokemon better than Pokemon can. X and Y does everything it needs to remain relevant, to prove why it's the top of its field, and if that's not good enough for you, there's nothing Ekans say to change your mind.
: Killzone: Shadow Fall is not going to win over the masses, especially those who never cared for the series to begin with. It is, however, a fine shooter with a fun story, and a multiplayer mode that fans can sink hours and hours into.
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!
The Legend of Zelda: 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.
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 rewarding business simulation for all types of players, though one that eventually boxes in the player a little too much.
Season One was like tossing your soul into a thresher. If All That Remains is anything to go by, this second season will burn the very heart of you.
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.
It's gorgeous in motion, and can be a satisfying little puzzle-platformer, but prepare yourself for some trial-and-error, garnished with repetition.
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.
Broken Age: Act 1 is all about the slow build. Slow isn't boring, however, and a wonderful job is done of carefully constructing the pace while keeping the audience amused. It's a strong start that concludes in a way that makes me desperate for more.
Continue?9876543210 is a grandiloquent exercise in treading conceptual water. One of the finer examples of what can go wrong when a game swallows too much of its own guff, there's nowhere near enough depth evident to justify its insufferable trumpet blowing.
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.
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.
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.
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.