Alien: Isolation might not deliver the scary, intimate experience players expected for its entire running time, but smart design, good pacing, and a ton of gameplay variety more than make up for the lack of chills.
Driveclub's social features help elevate an otherwise unexceptional racer, but the dearth of content and some curious design choices keep it from rising too high.
If Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare's storytelling ambitions disappoint, the same can't be said of the upgrades to gameplay. In both campaign and multiplayer, the exoskeleton and other futuristic gadgetry breathe new life into a franchise that seemed increasingly trapped in the shadow of the original Modern Warfare.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection's multiplayer launch problems are an unfortunate blight on what would otherwise be an exciting way to experience the franchise's evolution—online and off—in one smartly executed package.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U offers the most modes, fighters, and stages in the history of the franchise, with a surprisingly high level of polish across the board. Whether you prefer multiplayer or toughing it out against CPU fighters, you'll find hours of excellent fun throwing down with your favorite Nintendo characters.
Far Cry 4 essentially boils down to a retread of the last game in the series with a different setting, a more polished story, and a handful of new traversal mechanics. It's a strong gameplay template to follow, but one that's much less compelling the second time around.
Despite delivering an impressive playground that captures the spirit of America, The Crew struggles to build out a worthwhile game experience around it, resorting to frustrating missions, insipid storytelling, and off-putting microtransactions.
Some aspects of Majora's Mask haven't aged quite that well, and one boss fight has been changed dramatically for the worse, but on the whole, Nintendo has done a stellar job updating the quirkiest and most thematically rich Zelda game for newcomers and old fans alike.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number still sits atop the same solid, brutally violent core that made the first game a success, but it inherits all of its predecessor's flaws as well, and buries them within a bloated, altogether less satisfying experience. While the sequel isn't without its occasional charms, there's no doubt Hotline Miami would be destined for a greater legacy had it called it quits after the first spree.
Though built on the same core as the Souls games, Bloodborne marks the largest departure from the status quo to date. The numerous changes, many in service of a faster and more aggressive playstyle, might not be for everyone, but if you embrace that shift, you might well have a new favorite in the From Software canon.
If you're measuring with the typical genre yardstick, Affordable Space Adventures isn't a particularly great or noteworthy puzzle game, but as an exercise in designing to the Wii U's strengths and delivering an entertaining, one-of-a-kind co-op experience, it's a pretty solid success.
In its finished form, Broken Age is every bit the modern point-and-click classic its strong first act implied it would be. With an entertaining story and clever puzzles wrapped in a modern sensibility and impressive production values, Tim Schafer's return to the genre that made him lives up to the high standard of his earlier work.
If Slightly Mad Studios wanted to prove they could build an engine to compete with the likes of Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, Project CARS is a definite success, with driving that feels as realistic as anything else out there. If they wanted to compete with the polish and robustness of those bigger titles, though, they've come up slightly short.
A few interesting puzzles can't save Nero from being an overwritten, mawkish plod that runs so poorly on the Xbox One it's tough to play without feeling sick.
Like The Chinese Room's previous work, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture will no doubt prove an acquired taste, but the game is bolstered by strong, character-driven writing and a desire to experiment with boundaries no other developer, indie or established, is willing to engage.
Harmonix bills Rock Band 4 as a platform that will grow and improve with the future, but for now, the new game offers little reason to upgrade from Rock Band 3, with a weaker soundtrack, fewer modes, and more promises of exciting features than actual, demonstrable ones.
The Witness is the rare game that boils down to a question of faith. No video, screenshot, or review can really explain why it's such a worthwhile use of your time without spoiling the experience, so you'll have to trust me when I tell you it's worth every second—provided you have a bit of patience and are up for an intellectual challenge.
Snake Pass is a competent and boldly innovative take on the classic 3D platformer, but the game suffers from an overly fiddly control scheme that doesn't match the inviting, pick-up-and-play fun of the genre.
What Remains of Edith Finch masterfully shows that narrative-driven games can tell stories in creative ways without sacrificing gameplay. Ultimately, though, the experience is let down by the story itself, which doesn't do much of anything interesting with its characters or subject matter.
That Danger Zone's core design works is unsurprising, given that it's been borrowed wholesale from a different series, but Three Fields has done little to build out the concept into anything worthy of a full game. You'll enjoy what's here well enough, but don't expect it to last very long—or to dazzle much beyond the explosions and sparks.