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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Though it fails to innovate in an engaging way, the base on which Tropical Freeze is built is solid as a glacier.
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.
Strider is a stellar example of how to remake a classic. It sticks to the original where it should, and modernizes where the classic formula can be improved.
So this is Rambo: The Video Game. Ugly as sin, flimsy beyond belief, and chock full of some of the worst barely-interactive gameplay you'll "enjoy" so far this year.
Thief is a mess. It's disappointing that there's a genuinely good game hidden under a lot of mediocrity.
A charming concept can only get a game so far, and Garden Warfare fails to capitalize. While there's fun to be had, there's not much meat on the bones, and the repetitive combat ensures this will be nothing but a stopgap title until better shooters enter the market.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 looks gorgeous and could have been wildly original, but it squanders its polish and potential on archaic contrivances, banal writing, and an overall shallow experience. It's fine if you want a factory standard combat game, but in the year 2014, it's just plain dreary.
An episode full of setup, A House Divided trades in its intensity for a bit more action, and a touch of intrigue.
South Park: The Stick of Truth could stand alone as an extended episode of the show. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how funny you think Trey Parker and Matt Stone are. For fans of the show, this is a seriously impressive game.
No game can live up to the level of hype foisted on Titanfall, but few games can be this hyped and still satisfy the end user. Respawn Entertainment most certainly satisfies, providing a solid shooter with a laudable amount of unique extras draped over a durable and familiar framework.
Yoshi's New Island is a solid little platformer, but it struggles to be much more than that. It will, at least, kill a few hours of time, even if that time will hardly be remembered afterwards.
Hearthstone might not fully scratch the strategy itch of the most advanced CCG/TCG players, but it makes an impressive attempt. The rules are simple, so anybody can get the hang of it, but there are enough deck variations available that only skilled deck builders and players will make it high in the ranks.
Audacious is the word that best describes Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. It contains quality material, but it's little more than a preview of something better, and as such, simply should not be presenting itself - deceptively - as a game in its own right.
The best in the series to date, inFAMOUS: Second Son tells an amazing story and gives players a ton of relishable power to play with. It's held back by some outdated and formulaic ideas, but overall it'll keep players happy.