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The Talos Principle: Deluxe Edition is a fantastic package of two great first-person puzzlers. It's basically identical to the PC version, so if you've got those already there's not much need to double-dip, but otherwise it's a must-own.
Joking aside, there's a valuable comparison to be made between Broken Age and Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse. Both are throwbacks to the golden age of point and click adventures made by creators who helped define that era.
Much like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse is a constantly creative adventure that offers players something they won't find anywhere else. Its claymation visuals are astoundingly beautiful, and while brief, Kirby's latest adventure is never anything less than satisfying.
There was little doubt Nintendo would deliver its absolute best with Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, but somehow the Japanese company has managed to blow past the expectations for a title of this magnitude.
Just like his grand adventure, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is simply a delight to experience in the unique and puzzling world he explores.
The beauty of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is that it never fails to be cute, clever and ever so slightly challenging all at once. It's absolutely clinical in its design from start to finish, boasting some of the most creative levels Nintendo has ever produced.
Super Mario 3D World is the Mario experience we've always treasured, but with some fantastic changes to the formula. Between the hidden levels, new powers, each character having strength and uniquely designed stages, this is easily one of the more memorable Mario titles.
There's nothing quite as rewarding as a good Metroidvania and Ori and the Blind Forest proves itself to be classified as one. Giant, sprawling landscapes hide tons of goodies just waiting to be collected once you've gained some new skills.
#IDARB is a game that keeps on giving and the quintessential Xbox One multiplayer experience. Nintendo systems have Mario Kart and Mario Party, many moons ago the SEGA Saturn offered the ultimate multiplayer mayhem in Saturn Bomberman and now we have #IDARB for the Xbox One as one of the best and most inclusive multiplayer havens.
Crypt of the NecroDancer is a phenomenal dungeon crawler. It's loaded with personality, great music, fun characters and deep action that only appears simplistic on the surface.
Castle in the Darkness knows what it wants to be and succeeds marvelously. It's a smooth-playing action platformer that meshes a variety of genres together nicely.
This may sound strange, but TRI offers a zen-like experience. Its mostly empty areas provide players with full control over handling every problem.
Amid the Ruins is an exhilarating adventure and the best episode thus far. It gives players drastic choices to partake in, not to mention building on the relationships between Clementine and her party.
The amount of content, style and polish in BattleBlock Theater is incredible and puts the efforts of many AAA developers to shame. The story and writing alone could fill a comedy club, but the accessible, addictive gameplay demonstrates a mastery of platformer fundamentals.
A combination of fun, fairness, beauty and joy, Mario Kart 8 is absolutely brilliant. A botched battle mode and some missing online features stop it short of perfection, but it's hard to imagine any Mario Kart game looking, playing, or sounding better.
CastleStorm comes with an easy and complete recommendation, and it is one of the special games that can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It's Angry Birds meets tower defense meets beat 'em up meets crack cocaine levels of addictiveness in a hodgepodge amalgamation of stuff that absolutely should not work as well as it does.
Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault is a standalone title in the venerable franchise that is wholeheartedly worth exploring. It's hard to say if this is the definitive version of COH2, but it's the most polished and full-featured.
As a single-player campaign, Blackrock Mountain isn't quite as well-tuned as Curse of Naxxramas, but it makes up for that shortcoming by somehow being even funnier. It proves that Naxx wasn't a fluke – these adventures aren't just convoluted card-delivery systems, they're legitimately fun experiences in their own right.
In its music, writing, art and acting ,Valkyria Chronicles is brimming with the emotional potency to bring a man to tears. It would make an excellent movie if that were all it had going for it, but the story is told in a way that could only work in a video game, and built on a rock-solid framework of deep and challenging tactical gameplay.
It must be an interesting challenge for developers of a series so focused on history to tackle questions of humanity's future. Obviously both subjects tap into many of the same sources, but where most Civilization games explore who we are, Beyond Earth systemizes who we could be.