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Final Form Games throws history out the window to create an action-packed shoot-em-up where 17th century colonists fight over Mars. This is a great looking game that will remind players of the genre's heyday in the 1990s. And with dozens of items to unlock and a wide variety of weapons to shoot, Jamestown+ will keep shoot-em-up fans happy for many hours to come.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars is enjoyable but rather easy, even in later stages. The main attraction here is the stage builder where after unlocking everything you can build practically any kind of stage you wish. While some people tend to make stages simply to give easy stars in the hopes of getting easy stars in return, there are stages where a lot of thought was put into them and are challenging. If you like the series, you'll enjoy Tipping Stars, but you might find it a bit too easy.
Etrian Mystery Dungeon continues the streak of great Etrian titles. The shake-up in gameplay doesn't rattle the game too much for die-hard fans and will give them exactly what they want, while giving people unfamiliar with the franchise, a good entry level introduction.
Olli Olli 2 may be incredibly difficult at times but it is also non stop fun. It takes everything that made the first game great and made it even better. If you missed out on the first game, you really can't go wrong with this one. This is a game that I feel that anyone can enjoy and especially those who need an extreme skateboarding fix since Tony Hawk and Skate are now dead. If there is an Olli Olli 3, I anxiously await to see how they are going to top this one.
The Sims 4 Get to Work does a lot of right things for being its first expansion pack that only stumbles in a few places. The manageable retail businesses and photography skill are great additions to the base game, while the new career venues suffer from repetitive gameplay and frequent load screens. Sims fans shouldn't hesitate in picking up the Get to Work expansion pack as the new gameplay features and added content are well worth the purchase.
Infinity Runner does provide a few moments of intense fun. Unfortunately, those moments are broken up too often with gameplay choices that really bring the game (and the fun) to a screeching halt.
It's hard to hold the lack of revolutionary changes against MLB 15: The Show. The bar for not only baseball games, but for all sports games, has already been set high by the folks at SCE San Diego Studio. Any additional changes at this point feel like hitting a few more home runs in a season where you've already hit 40. People looking for drastic changes to Road to The Show or Franchise mode, however, may be disappointed with this PlayStation-exclusive baseball sim.
Easily the best fighting game on the market today. MK X takes all of the lessons learned with the 2011 release and turns it up to 11: content, gameplay, and overall fun. If the developers can improve the netcode a little bit, this could be a major contender on the fighting game scene for years to come.
Q*Bert Rebooted isn't without potential; it has a lot of content and some of the new ideas are solid. Unfortunately, any potential is squandered by an overlong campaign and a control scheme that often feels broken. Not being able to reliably move in diagonal directions makes certain levels near impossible. Q*Bert deserves better.
Mario Party 10 introduces some great new uses for the Wii U GamePad and makes smart use of the Amiibo figurines, but unfortunately its main mode is still bogged down with bad ideas from Mario Party 9. If you ignore the main mode and explore everything else the game has to offer there is definitely fun to be had here, but it doesn't live up to the series' colorful, deceptively deep gameplay history.
As a multiplayer-focused free-for-all, Starwhal is a lot of fun in short doses. Sadly, the game is too repetitive and the extra modes are bafflingly unbalanced. I can imagine this being a hit with large parties, but solo players need not apply.
Hand of Fate is a devastatingly addictive adventure game that mixes card collecting with fast-paced third-person action and board games. Although full of disparate ideas, the game is never confusing. It has a few technical issues and I would have preferred a way to continue, but none of that should keep you from experiencing Hand of Fate.
Take simple, Pitfall-like platforming (minus the rope swinging), mix in a hint of Sword & Sworcery's art style, and then you have an overreaching X-meets-Y makeup of The Deer God. I feel like its motivations are far better than half-hearted; creatively and intentionally. But The Deer God keeps asking me to return to a life I find less and less interesting with each reincarnation.
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round is an excellent ending point for this chapter of the series. It takes all of the groundwork laid in DoA5 and polishes it off in the best way possible. Armed with an excellent roster of characters and a ton of modes, this is a great introduction to 3D fighting on the new generation of fighters. Just be prepared to be smothered with DLC options.
There's nothing horribly wrong with The Assignment, but the instant death rules that I disliked about The Evil Within continue to plague the DLC, making Kidman's story one of frustration and retries.
BoxBoy is a fun game with some pretty creative puzzles. However, the easier difficulty might turn off some more experienced players as there isn't too much of a challenge until much later in the game. While a good game, it would have been nice to see some more complex puzzles around the mid-way point to up the challenge a bit more.
Resident Evil: Revelations 2 comes to a proper close with chapter 4; Metamorphosis. The great gameplay carries through to a satisfying ending and Raid Mode continues to be a blast.
Old school merely in looks, Axiom Verge is the definition of a great action and explorations game. The Metroidvania genre has rarely been done this well and this adventure deserves to be held up there among the greats like Symphony of the Night and the original Metroid.
Hotline Miami 2 is everything you would expect out of the sequel. It's still as violent as ever before and best of all, it's still incredibly fun. With multiple playable characters, an interesting story, a phenomenal soundtrack, and intense gameplay, I have a feeling that Hotline Miami 2 will be on my top 10 list of games when 2015 comes to a close. Aside from a couple of issues, Hotline Miami 2 is incredibly fun and is a game that shouldn't be missed.
This is not your typical Dynasty Warriors sequel. Empire plays out like a game of Risk, where fast-paced action sequences replace rolling the dice. Unfortunately, the developer doesn't take the novel concept far enough. Fans may enjoy the fast-paced action and emphasis on character building, but everybody else will be left scratching their heads at the outdated graphics and repetitive gameplay.