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Life on the frontier wasn't pretty and neither is Banished, but it does provide an interesting city-building simulation with an excellently designed user interface.
Though it fails to innovate in an engaging way, the base on which Tropical Freeze is built is solid as a glacier.
A surprisingly well crafted multiplayer shooter full of options, amusing cartoon violence, and rock solid action. That Loadout does all this, and provides a respectably balanced free-to-play ecosystem, is encouraging to see.
Bravely Default is a joy to play for old school JRPG fans. The music, graphics and mechanics all blend together perfectly and it continues in a already strong lineup of RPGs on the 3DS. This little handheld is becoming quite the powerhouse for these kind of games.
What's here is undoubtedly high quality, but some may find themselves just wanting more of the game. It's a blessing and a curse.
One of 2013's best games, Outlast deserves success in 2014 as a PlayStation 4 release. Disturbing and macabre, sometimes to the extreme, this is one of the best horror games to grace the world in a long time.
The writing in the second episode of Telltale's A Wolf Among Us series does more to investigate the dark corners of your soul than your shrink can in an hour. Sadly, you can play through the episode in just as much time.
Its brevity and reliance on contrived challenges work against Octodad: Deadliest Catch, but when it's at its best, it's a damn hilarious game that'll charm the pants off most players.
Consortium is an ingeniously subversive gem, containing enough backstory to fill a Triple-A trilogy while focusing exclusively on an airship crew in distress. The execution is a little clunky at times, but Consortium still has the charm and depth to encourage multiple playthroughs as we wait for the sequel.
Tomb Raider is a terrific game, and the Definitive Edition is a gorgeous looking version of it. It's the same game it was in 2013, though, with no further improvements justifying its "definitive" status.
Blackguards has its up and downs, but at $40 for 40 or more hours of good gameplay, it's hard to beat.
Nidhogg is a strange, unholy pastiche of lo-fi aesthetics and surprisingly deep, albeit minimal play; taking cues from decades of arcade-style 1v1 fighting games and modern indie darlings.
Continue?9876543210 is a grandiloquent exercise in treading conceptual water. One of the finer examples of what can go wrong when a game swallows too much of its own guff, there's nowhere near enough depth evident to justify its insufferable trumpet blowing.
The hand-drawn visuals, interesting combat, and epic story mean The Banner Saga is crafted from flawless pieces - even if the final product is a little rough.
Broken Age: Act 1 is all about the slow build. Slow isn't boring, however, and a wonderful job is done of carefully constructing the pace while keeping the audience amused. It's a strong start that concludes in a way that makes me desperate for more.
Don't Starve is a gorgeous, terrifying, often funny game, albeit one that can chew away at the player's morale with its constant demands and willingness to undo hard work. Provided you go in willing to work hard and take punches on the nose, there's plenty of reward to be had.
Simple to pick up and play, the precise, tension-filled combat is capable of turning friends into bitter rivals.
It's gorgeous in motion, and can be a satisfying little puzzle-platformer, but prepare yourself for some trial-and-error, garnished with repetition.
It plays out like cold-hearted cash grab, seemingly spat out just so the Wii U has something on its eShop this holiday season. A stuttering, stunted selection of nothingness.
A brilliant, addictive downloadable that is designed to target and trigger the happiness center of your brain.