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Lifeless Planet is bold and memorable and oddly sweet in the earnestness of its message and its preoccupations. It's a truly efficient payload. Fire it up and be transported.
MouseCraft is always, noticeably and unapologetically, Lemmings meets Tetris - and like the mice of its title, it seems happy to scrabble about in the twin shadows of its genre-defining inspirations.
Certainly, I have no hesitation in recommending Original Sin to RPG fans old and new, provided that you're up for a challenge from very early on and don't expect to romp through, Diablo-style. While Skyrim is obviously more freeform and immersive, and the likes of Mass Effect are more cinematic, Divinity: Original Sin is hands down the best classic-style RPG in years.
With its delicious score system taken into account, Astebreed is well-constructed, well-presented and well-balanced. A certain amount of delight comes from the novelty of a 32-bit-esque indie game, as it offers a welcome change from the army of sprite-based titles of the previous few years.
This game rewards the most patient of tacticians. If that's you - if you're the person with enough time units of your own - it will certainly satisfy. Xenonauts knows exactly who its audience is, exactly what it's aiming for and, while it may never achieve a wider appeal, it will capture that audience in a very familiar act of alien abduction.
But then, low-level disappointment hangs over Rise of the Dark Spark in a constant fog. It is, at best, a functional shooter that asks little of the player and offers the bare minimum in return. Though it pains me to say it, if there's to be another Transformers game to coincide with the inevitable fifth movie, a little of Michael Bay's bullish mayhem would go a long way in livening up this increasingly dull formula.
While Distant Worlds may be a paragon of its style, I can only recommend it to a select few: those with beefy computers and plenty of time to really dig into the meat of this stunningly elegant and impressively wide-ranging bit of software.
Still, it's hard not to be impressed. The fact Intercept is due for release as a standalone product later in the year suggests Guerrilla intends to offer continued support. The meagre number of maps means repetition soon kicks in, but the gorgeous visuals, frenetic carnage and demanding teamwork make for the tightest Horde variant since Mass Effect 3's. A surprisingly good time for all.
There is gold in these old genres, and Shovel Knight is a successful dig.
The package as a whole is still very much a rough diamond, but it's a definite improvement over its predecessor. The gruesome kill-cam remains a deliciously wrong thrill and the unifying force that holds the game together, but it's doubtful that it would be enough to paper over the cracks in a fourth game without a major overhaul of the AI and physics code. Even with its flaws, though, Sniper Elite 3 is a solidly enjoyable mid-tier action game. It may not hit the bullseye, but it's getting closer with every shot.
While Valiant Hearts struggles to make sense of itself as a game, in its odd, playful innocence and in its focus on four friends (and a dog) it at least offers a fleeting human perspective on a new kind of war that turned out to be far, far worse in its mechanised violence than anybody was quite expecting.
Grid Autosport is a fine racing game, though it's never a thoroughbred one. It's the muscle car that was Grid 2 stripped out and retooled for the track, but too often you can see the solder-work at the seams. In 2008, Race Driver: Grid was a partial reinvention of the racing genre, equipped with a handful of fresh ideas. Six years on, Grid Autosport - while a definite return to form for Codemasters - is simply a rediscovery of it.
If you'd like to pick up just one of the new factions, that'll only run you 10 pounds, and with that you can start playing one of the best World War 2 strategy games ever made... alongside its near-perfect predecessor, of course.
Add the graphical overhaul, refined handling and experimental modes together and you end up with a racer that feels much more competitive that its immediate predecessors. Milestone has a habit of releasing motorcycling sequels that hold little distinction outside of the yearly livery changes, but in MotoGP 14, it's not relying solely on the draw of the licence and the pull of its physics. That doesn't mean it's comparable to Marquez in terms of getting everything right, but if ever there was a game made by MotoGP fans for MotoGP fans, this is definitely it.
But Pullblox World is also a sequel and a fairly timid one at that. If you've been following the series and hoped for a similar leap in design as the one between Pullblox and Fallblox, your enjoyment will be tinged with mild disappointment. There's clearly more that can be done with this concept on this hardware and it's a shame to see such a promising series tread water so early in its life. If the next entry takes a similarly cautious approach, it'll be time to worry. For now, enjoy what is still one of the best and most undervalued puzzle games around.
EA Sports UFC is a game capable of brilliance. It's let down by some curious design decisions, signs of a team perhaps too interested in capturing non-essential moves seen on YouTube rather than nailing the essence of the sport. But when it flows against human competition, it offers beautiful destruction and glorious drama. Landing a picture-perfect head kick in the final minute of the fifth round of a title fight? Well, it doesn't get much better. And if that's not worth a fistbump, I don't know what is.
But a small handful of highlights is not enough to save Entwined. It's a game that strains for profundity and meaning - that's particularly evident in its Trophy titles - but finds them ever beyond its grasp. Some will be soothed by its contemplative mood, others will relish the challenge of mastering those devious patterns, but to me the two felt like an awkward mismatch. Sony might have given Entwined a gentle shove into the spotlight, but there are surely better, more deserving PS4 indies waiting in the wings for their time to shine.
It's very easy to be caught up in the giddy swirl of this DLC, but the rush is rather short-lived. In many ways, it's a spiritual sibling to Far Cry 3's Blood Dragon expansion. Both are fuelled by a heady brew of nostalgia and adrenalin, and both have tongue so firmly implanted in cheek that it bursts out the other side. Where Blood Dragon built to a manic crescendo, however, after the first few hours SUDR3ARHEEXPA too easily turns into a fun but flawed grind for all but the most dedicated Capcom aficionado.
Concursion is a little too shaggy, a little too loose in control, to reach that level. An interesting game, then, and sometimes a brilliant game, but one that demands a little too much patience and forgiveness to fully appreciate.
A life less ordinary.