Polygon's Reviews
Mario and Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games is too superficial to win gold
Assassin's Creed 4 is constantly waiting for its dare-to-be-great moment
Battlefield 4 melds elements of its predecessors, but their baggage weighs it down
Pokemon X and Y is a completely interconnected experience, which is exactly how Pokemon is meant to be played — a fact I'd forgotten since my schoolyard days.
Final Fantasy 14 redeems the series' greatest disaster
Like Origins before it, Rayman Legends is polished, pretty and addicting. Legends has teeth — especially when it comes to invaded stages, and some later bosses almost caused me to put a controller or two into orbit. But it's hard to point to another 2D platformer that has the level of variety and quality that Rayman Legends boasts.
Neverwinter's engaging combat and plentiful free content make up for limited customization.
Rogue Legacy rewards patience with non-stop surprises.
The Night of the Rabbit's world and characters are sweet without being cloying, while the gameplay requires serious adventure-game-logic chops. It appeals equally to innocence and experience. A few overly obscure puzzles slow the pace to a crawl, but Jerry's journey is worth taking — even if only to feel like a kid again for a little while.
Though it struggles with scale, PlanetSide 2 provides a unique, fascinating view of war.
Fez is the most authentic exploration of the NES era of games that I've ever played, from its sound and visuals to its obtuseness. It uses the capabilities of current systems to take those ideas further, while limiting itself with specific intentions, deploying scrutability in bits and pieces. It doesn't just love the games it borrows from — it understands them. It knows what it is and what it wants to be, and doesn't compromise on it. And for those willing to bury themselves in Fez's alien world and logic, there are plenty of treasures to be found.
Torchlight 2 doesn't reinvent the series, but there's an absurd amount more of everything that made the original great.
Borderlands 2 is unquestionably a better game than Borderlands. The new emphasis on elemental weapons and dismemberment make for better combat scenarios, and the constant character improvement is a great push forward for players looking for long-term rewards. But sticking around for those payoffs requires more patience than I'd hoped.
Like many of the Western RPGs that influenced it, Dragon's Dogma is an uneven experience, but it's one that rewards patience and perseverance, and it's a bold argument for why Japanese developers should continue making RPGs, with or without the inspiration from this side of the Pacific.