The initial adventure in Rise of the Tomb Raider is around 6-8 hours, but every minute of it is fun, especially with retooled gameplay controls and unlockables for incentive. Adding to that time frame is a large amount of worthwhile exploring and wonderful backtracking once the campaign is completed. If you're into that, then this game is going to make you happy.
Guitar Hero Live is quite fun.
While Yoshi's Woolley World sometimes becomes stagnant from level to level, and the lack of chances the game takes helps push that along a bit, it does have some great things going for it to make the entertainment prominent. The challenges, the motivation to explore and the overall theme of the 'Woolley World' help to alleviate the shortcomings the game contains. Yoshi's Woolley World is fun, especially in terms of visuals and Yoshi's added personality, but it's not perfect.
Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below is a huge step forward for Omega Force. This is the right formula for making future Dynasty Warrior-like games, as story, leveling structure and beautiful presentation form a perfect wrapper around typical/repetitive button mashing gameplay experience.
The Taken King resets Destiny for the better. It brings a lot more fun to the table while taming all the things people complained about up to this point in the game, well almost all.
Back to Bed is a visual upgrade from its mobile brethren, but it still maintains the quick, casual fun that the mobile side sported. If you like a decent puzzle game, this might be worth looking at on the PlayStation 4.
The joy of I Am Bread is the frustration that you have to go through to get to its goals . The wacky control scheme and the uncooperativeness of it all is a planned design, as well as the driving point for the game. Much like Bossa Studios' Surgeon Simulator, which is more about the complication of trying to perform surgery with individually assigned buttons for fingers, I Am Bread is lighter version of that same concept where it's not quite as frustrating, but still nonetheless a chore to play through.
Overall, the gameplay for Madden NFL 16 has been refined, simplified and improved. It feels like it's going back to a time where playing a football game was less of a chore and more fun. I think EA Tiburon hit the right notes with this year's Madden and has opened the door for everyone wanting to play a good game of football on their current generation system. Kudos to them for logical and entertaining gameplay improvements.
Until Dawn doesn't hide what it's trying to do. It's a game that focuses on story and QTE heavy gameplay. It has linear design driving it, while only deviating from the course with player choices, which affect the direction of the story. If you can accept these things, and realize it's not perfect, then you're going to probably enjoy Supermassive Games' horror show.
The Descent is a good addition to the Dragon Age: Inquisition family. It has great atmosphere, wonderful level design and motivates the player to explore the Deep Roads a bit. It does get repetitive in the enemy department, and brutal at times in terms of difficulty, though the rewards help to ease the pain a bit.
The Swindle is frustrating at first glance, but smooths out to spread its steampunk wings thanks to some good depth, variety and quick gameplay style.
Legend of Kay Anniversary is a worthy nod to a 2005 game. Despite its flaws, such as the irritating camera movement, it contains some fun moments, improved graphics and a few other little things to remind you how good it was back in the day.
Planetside 2 is entertaining, huge and still a work in progress. It's certainly worth a go, if you have the available time on your side.
Rory McIlroy PGA Tour may not win any awards for visuals, but it's a solid experience in the gameplay department with flexible controls, entertaining modes and enough depth to keep you going for awhile.
J-Stars Victory Vs+ brings together some good fighting moments with popular Bandai Namco licenses, while offering up somewhat addictive, yet sporadic, gameplay flow. Improvements in environment variety, CPU artificial intelligence and visuals could help to make this a more memorable brawler in the future, as it falls short in these categories as it stands.
What Whispering Willows lacks in complicated hands-on gameplay, it makes up for in story and atmosphere.
The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited makes its console debut in quite a functionally good fashion. The additional content, improved stability and expansive adventure makes for a great game.
The Devil May Cry 4 core gameplay that made it fun in 2008 is still very much alive and breathing underneath the 'special edition' moniker, though some of the gameplay mechanics have been smoothed out. The added characters, improvement in visuals and price point might make this something to jump on, especially if you have never played the game.
Jurassic World is a bit more constrained when compared to recent LEGO titles. There's less open world exploration and more linear gameplay design. What it lacks in exploration, it makes up for with story, presentation and quick gameplay design.
Ultra Street Fighter IV is a wonderful appetizer for the impending Street Fighter V. SFIV is a proof-of-concept to how a Street Fighter game can turn out when built and utilized properly on big time hardware.