This is a real treasure and a tribute to all-things Witcher, perfectly captured in the final moment before the credits roll: a close-up of Geralt, who turns to look directly at the player through the screen with a subtle grin, as if giving thanks for the chance to tell one last Witcher story.
While it has a few flaws, it's a frightening, innovative example of the survival horror genre, where AAA titles have been trending more and more towards action/horror mixes that, quite frankly, just aren't scary.
Lego The Hobbit is, if not the best Lego game, then closely matched with the top entries in the series.
Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved is a solid, entertaining game that's not too challenging for kids and whose main story I completed in about six-and-a-half hours.
Rocket League was great back when I got to preview it, but having more time with it really made it clear just how much the developer Psyonix has managed to zero in on what's fun about the experience. It has a very limited set of modes currently, and the single-player feels a little flat; but the multiplayer is glorious, fast paced fun, with short explosive play sessions that you just want to keep coming back to, with plenty of amazing moments where you won't believe you—or another player—managed to make that shot.
If you're looking for enjoyable gaming content for the Portal and Doctor Who franchises, this is a really fantastic place to find it, with the promise of more in their individual level packs.
Disney Infinity 3.0 is the best of the series yet, with the excellent Twilight of the Republic starter set, and the general polish of the game overall is extremely refined with gameplay feeling much more responsive. The Toy Box feels much more like something you could actually build game content in now as well, with greater detail in the design-by-numbers features.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is epic and a really great game, but one that requires the player to approach it in a specific way. It's an oddity on the Wii U, a full-fledged massive RPG experience from a first-party Nintendo developer. Parts of it are so Japanese—character design, animations, anime/manga-esque plot—that it feels like it should be an Atlus or Nippon-Ichi title; but if it were that niche it would never have been able to develop the expansive environment. There's certainly nothing like it on the Wii U, or anywhere else. It's definitely worth picking up if you have the platform.
Agent 47 is a cipher for how you want to play the game; he exists to unlock its secrets while also letting you establish your own style—within the game's parameters—and it's great to see how that evolves in this second episode.
Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Workshop DLC would be more than worth it for most players if all it did was make the cavern space available to build their own vault. That it adds a 4-5 hour quest on top of making these assets available, for the same $5 price as the other workshop DLCs, makes it a really fantastic value, and one that will give a far greater return to anyone who's wanted to take their experience from Fallout Shelter to the main game. But if you're the type of player who expects a fuller story-based DLC from the Fallout series, this may not be for you.
Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes is still an excellent upgrade to both the single player and content aspects of the game. There were moments in The Avengers set where my jaw dropped open as enemies tossed cars around like they were cardboard and errant blasts tore chunks out of buildings, giving the whole experience a truly super-heroic epic scale that I didn't expect.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is a good value for the $20 entry-level fee, provided you are willing to explore every nook and cranny of the environment and all of the possible ways of playing.
It really is the best Lego and best Marvel game that I've played—an excellent ride.
Blackguards 2 had a rocky launch, but the 2.0 patch release fixes virtually all the technical and balancing issues that I encountered with it. I found its story to be a little pedestrian, but really enjoyed the gameplay and customizability of the characters.
The simplicity of the plot, the solid combat, and the bizarre perspective shifts during boss gameplay make this feel like it's the "purest" God of War game to me. It's a tribute to how much the game does right to the point that I didn't remember a lot of this stuff when I started playing God of War III again, playing from start to finish in a single session (normally I space these things out).
The first episode of Hitman is a solid starting point for the full game content, which is Contract-driven, with each environment focusing on a single mission with multiple objectives. This is a solid structure for the franchise, even if it's a little jarring to finish the first mission and realize you have to wait for the rest of what would have been released as a complete title.
What this all makes for is a much tighter and more precisely balanced game than Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, where decisions matter, even in Casual mode. The story in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is stronger, but still feels somewhat like filler meant to set up the true narrative to be revealed in Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation. While this feels like a vastly superior game, it also feels very much like part-two of three, in a three-part title. Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest is an excellent, challenging SRPG that requires a great deal of forethought and precision, rewarding the player for hard choices, and keeping your characters in play. While the story is stronger with more engaging characters, it still feels like another "bad ending" setting up the player to have to purchase the third campaign when it releases in March.
While the new additions and the costume collection are nice, the strongest value of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is its clean 1080p presentation on new-gen consoles where it performs cleanly and admirably.
It's still one of my favorite games this year, but the flaws keep me from recommending it to everyone; this is a game for those who love the genre, and want an old-school tactical RPG challenge.
For its price, Strider has great value, especially if you can switch gears towards being more exploratory at the end. Otherwise, it's frustrating as heck to have the difficulty curve go from playing tag with some school chums, to enemies darting for your throat with the gnashing of werewolf-like fangs for your body's fleshy sustenance. Ninjas are lean meat, after all.