Infamous: First Light benefits from Second Son's excellent fundamentals. Its missions and storytelling, however, lack spark.
Destiny's essentials are there, and they're great--but the game surrounding them is cold and shallow.
Alien: Isolation harbors legitimate frights, but they're nestled between endless stretches of bland lever-pulling and button-pressing.
It is the most sumptuous and stealth-focused Assassin's Creed yet, but Chronicles: China doesn't assemble its pieces into a gratifying whole.
Fun combat and great looks make DC Universe Online entertaining for a while, though various limitations keep it from being a long-term destination.
Like the terrain if depicts, Far Cry 4 travels both high and low, representing the good, the bad, and ugly of video games all at once. It's awesome and messy and dumb and fun and annoying and gross and beautiful.
Much of Black Desert Online is a convoluted mess, but few games let you create a virtual life this absorbing.
Arkham Knight is another slick and enjoyable Batman adventure, though what it brings to the series' table is not always for the best.
The Path to Thalamus is not free of bumps, but the journey should be taken, if only because the sights are so vivid.
PlanetSide 2 on the PlayStation 4 suffers from a lot of technical issues--but not enough to dissuade you from the rigors of its massive battles.
Dreamfall Chapters' first entry isn't wholly satisfying on its own, but it lays a great and characterful foundation for the episodes to come.
Elegy for a Dead World is an intriguing and attractive creation tool that fills a highly specific, highly underserved niche.
More often than not, the gorgeous and intriguing Banner Saga successfully balances the conflicting ideas of strategic control and arbitrary consequence.
South Park: The Stick of Truth is as simplistic as role-playing games come, but it captures the spirit of the animated show's riotous raunch.
WildStar is a colorful and traditional online role-playing game that evokes the compulsive need to fight everything you can fight, and click everything you can click.
Like it's predecessors, Risen 3 provides a rollicking adventure that doesn't quite deliver on the details.
Screamride is good, destructive fun in spite of some frustrating limits on creation.
D4 is all kinds of crazy, and you may not take to its unique brand of humor. But if you do, there's no forgetting it.
Killzone: Shadow Fall's multiplayer plays to the series' key strengths. It's too bad the campaign forgot to turn on the heat.
Comforting colors, excellent sound design, and simple gameplay make Entwined a lovely and fleeting experience.