In the end, I think I wanted to like Dying Light for its flashes of brilliance more than I actually liked the overall experience of it.
In Gods Will Be Watching, however, its rare successes are overshadowed by an abundance of design decisions that are not only frustrating to play, but actively undermine any cohesion the story attempts to salvage.
Screamride is an odd case of a game where I enjoy it while I'm playing it, sinking hours at a time into mastering a screamrider track, finding the perfect pressure point to detonate a demolition level, or tweaking a roller coaster of my own creation for the best balance of speed and excitement. But the hooks aren't fully there, and when I step away from playing I'm neither eager nor excited to return.
Make no mistake, Torchlight 2 is nothing revolutionary. It favors a remix of genre conventions over any true evolution of the action RPG formula, but it is a pitch-perfect execution of those traditions that remains satisfying from start to finish and beyond.
The Swindle is a good game on the cusp of greatness, but falters from a structural identity crisis that is hard to ignore.
Much like the sibling rivalry at its core, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a game of extremes. The game can get so frustrating you'll wish it would just go away, but then on the next puzzle everything works as it should and it becomes difficult not to fall for its charms.
Letting go of the past can be hard, especially if it's a past you have great fondness for, but sometimes letting go is necessary in order to move on. Perhaps that is a lesson both Clementine and the players controlling her will learn together during the course of The Walking Dead: Season Two.
Ultimately rewarding, 10 Second Ninja puts both your reflexes with a controller and your own personal mettle to the test for a game that can be just as hard to put down as it is to pick back up again.
Knack has its moments, and PlayStation 4 owners starved for something to play on their shiny new console will appreciate that the game actually becomes more fun to play the second time around, allowing it to keep players busy during the several month drought that seems to follow every system launch. But had Knack released as it plays now at any time other than a new system's launch, it would have been overlooked and overshadowed without a second glance.
To be clear, Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut is still not an easy game. It is a better-paced and better balanced game, allowing even relative newcomers to zero-gravity dogfights to be able to build up the skills to become ace pilots.
Never Alone is, nevertheless, an important game offering a fascinating window into a rich and ongoing culture among native Alaskans. And if you are open to accepting that cultural exchange then the barriers dividing the people of the world get a little bit smaller, and we all grow closer to never really being alone in the world again.
Gameplay shines in Bayonetta 2, but the game's heroine falls flat
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is a bit of a flawed masterpiece. The core fighting game is the best it has ever been, expertly balancing approachability for newcomers and intricate depth for hardcore fans. If the core Smash Bros. experience is all you are after, then the Wii U's iteration is a no-brainer.
Fez is ultimately a game about games much in the same way Hugo is a film about films. Fez can be very demanding to get the most out of it, but without ever actually asking anything of you. Do not play Fez to beat it, but play to explore and get lost in its puzzles and pixilated world.
Yes, Hatoful Boyfriend is a dating game with a bird gimmick, and that alone will be enough to keep many players at arm's length. But to pigeonhole your time at the St. Pigeonation's Institute as a mere gimmick would be a grave misjudgment of a game that is far more delightful and unexpected than even its bizarre premise would suggest.
Roundabout is simply overflowing with personality, offering the best bad acting around and clever missions that even make the aggravating city exploration worth plodding through.
This War of Mine creates an oppressively bleak landscape, but with just enough humanity shining through that you want to keep digging to find and hold onto that source of light. That earnest human touch keeps This War of Mine compelling even when you mess up and the rubble all comes tumbling down around you, leaving you just enough hope for the next attempt that you'll dive back in and endure it all again.
If the first act truly is half of the game, there is some reasonable concern that Act 2 might need to be considerably longer to resolve everything without resorting to an overly-expository info dump.
Debates still go on as to whether video games have had their Citizen Kane moment, but with Jazzpunk we can at least rest easy knowing that games have had their Naked Gun moment.
It keeps you on edge just enough to pique your curiosity for what the next mystery will bring, and marries that mystery with an eerily beautiful world worth being curious about.