Wayne Santos
If you're looking for a very different, very open ended, very "freeing" game about jail breaks, The Escapists will appeal to the experimenter and escape artist in you. It's not going to hold your hand when it comes to enacting a brilliant escape from jail, but if you're willing to watch, plan and be patient it's a very rewarding—if demanding—game.
There are still fairly large, sprawling JRPGs with modest budgets, such as Bandai Namco’s Tales games, but Neptunia is still a basic dungeon crawl with the occasional boss fight, punctuated by portrait/text based cut scenes.
Farming Simulator 15 can provide a tranquil, educational and interesting virtual farming experience. However, at $50 for a hamstrung version compared to its PC sibling, the bugs and narrow gameplay make it difficult to easily recommend.
For fans of Dragon Age, this is a meaty, content-packed piece of DLC that will take a few hours to thoroughly explore, and feels like it naturally slips in with the base game content.
Nicole Martinez and Brad Kane clearly care a lot about this world, and with episode four, they've introduced a lot of critical momentum to the season that makes it feel like the series has turned a corner.
Upgrading gear is no longer quite the marathon it once was, with players able to retain the stats of weapons, and even upgrade existing gear to meet the new performance caps that have come with House of Wolves. And this really is the expansion's biggest issue; the patch changes that are free to all are more important than the paid content.
The Witcher III has a compelling plot, combined with some old school, complex game systems that encourage exploration, crafting and experimentation.
The constant need to speed up, turn, avoid, or utilize level features at break neck speeds all conspire to make your moves instinctual. It's possible to get "in the zone," with this game, where you hit that Zen state where your hands know what to do faster than your brain does.
There's no denying the quality of FFX, as it's often hailed by some as the last "good" JRPG Square Enix has made in the last 15 years, but there's already a much cheaper, slightly blurrier version of this compilation out there on the PS3.
Make no mistake, Shovel Knight is a classic, side-scrolling, retro platforming, and if that’s the kind of game you’re looking for, it’s one of the best out there.
If you're looking for an action-RPG with a substantial story to fill the Diablo void in your life, then Bastion will be right up your alley. It plays well, has a striking aesthetic, and a unique story.
As a game, Xenoblade is still one of the best JRPGs available in years, and on that front, any fan of the genre who's never played it should buy it immediately if there's a new 3DS in the house. As a port, however, it's a less than stellar job, and people spoiled on improved remasters of old games are in for an unpleasant surprise.
Episode Three fulfills all the promises it needs to for fans of the Game of Thrones TV series, even if it doesn't necessarily give old school adventure game fans much to actually do in terms of interactivity.
As with any remaster, the value of the Handsome Collection comes down to your relationship with this series. There's no question of the quality of these games, just your own sense of (over) familiarity with them.
If you're looking for a fun, solid-though-not-brilliant cop drama to play through that then lets you jump into multiplayer and be the cop or the robber, this is the game for you.
For people that love the world of Borderlands, and people that appreciate snappy writing and surreal comedy, episode 2 is a definite winner
Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, is very good portable game that's been snuck onto consoles, and it feels like it.
In the end, Train Fever has been designed to serve a very, VERY specific need; people that love to tinker with the infrastructure of public transportation.
Whatever your feelings are of the original DmC, credit has to be given for the sizable chunk of new additions made to this remaster.
If you’ve got a Vita and you’re jonesing for a Final Fantasy Tactics clone that is not too deep, and incredibly silly, this is the game for you.