Fire Emblem: Awakening completely engaged me while I was playing it, whether I was connecting with its well-written characters or taxing my (limited) intellect as I tried to win a difficult battle while keeping everyone alive. It's hard to ask for much more from a strategy game, but Awakening goes beyond that by supporting its great mechanics with immersion and beautiful art.

One of the best open-world games available, portable or otherwise. The atmospheric world, likable cast, and clever, entertaining mechanics make it a title that you can easily sink many joyous hours into, even if you spend a lot of them just flying around the city and hunting for gems.

Even if you've never liked a stealth game, you shouldn't miss Mark of the Ninja. It redefines the silent assassin.

Being able to use my fingers to manage items onscreen in both story and creation environments is a significant upgrade in the playability of the title.

Borderlands 2 is everything fans of the original could have hoped for. No, it doesn't mess with a formula that already proved itself. Instead it supports the framework for a great role-playing game with a bigger world, while offering more customization options for its players. It's also one of the funnier games you're likely to play this year.

Antichamber is the film "Cube" sans horror, the threat of death, and poor acting. It's insanely hard and painfully simple, just like any expertly crafted puzzle. Bruce has created one of the finest and most challenging puzzle games I have ever experienced.

The game evokes an incredible amount of emotion from you, and it is the kind of game that its fans will play over and over.

The quintessential pick-up-and-play party game, especially now that multiplayer has been added. Anyone can "get it" within seconds of grabbing the controller, and the difficulty ramps up much more smoothly than in the original.

FIFA 13 is irritating and painful yet wonderful and nuanced, just like the sport it so painstakingly emulates.

Some core players might find the puzzle elements and on-rails battle sequences too easy, but I'm definitely not one of them. As a story-focused motion control offering, Fable: The Journey shows off the Kinect's potential while still existing as far more than a technology demo; this is a true Fable in all senses of the word.

With its addition of 45 more tracks and routines to the franchise's repertoire, and its suite of new multiplayer modes that push the genre in new and interesting ways, the series is stronger than ever.

It's unfortunate that 343 didn't stretch past the standard Halo playbook instead of falling back to so many recognizable gameplay beats (and I do wonder if that was a conscious decision meant to counter the "Will it be Halo?" doubters), but the gameplay itself offsets those issues. The level design is a precision instrument. Above and beyond that, Halo 4 expertly folds an intimate story into an epic scope, taking risks with iconic characters and sticking the landing every time.

It's a cute, easy-to-play, innovative brawler presented with humor and a well-developed sense of fun. It's even more fun played through with a partner or two, and though the vs. multiplayer isn't to my taste, I'm sure many gamers will like it.

This game offers a potential for endless hours of fun...We all expected a knock-off, but this fighter has an identity that's completely unique.

Thanks to Episode 5: No Time Left, I spent nearly three hours sitting at my computer with a knot in my stomach and a few unshed tears in my eyes. It's rare to play a game that moves you emotionally, makes you care about its characters, and causes you to gasp out loud as it shocks and disgusts you.

It’s a joy to see SimCity return in a better form than it has ever been. It is wonderfully complex, but very easy to play. The title is a massive undertaking and it has come together beautifully overall.

Children deserve massive, explorable worlds just as much as adults. It’s wonderful that TT Fusion took that concept and made a fully functioning and largely non-violent world without sacrificing action. You won’t miss firing guns or swinging lightsabers in Lego City — not when you’re scouring the landscape for super builds and smashing everything in sight.

The game's best narrative trick - again borrowed from Silent Hill - is its mystery, leaving itself open to interpretation and examination. Who was the Man Who Wears A Box? The Seated Figure? The White-faced Man? Who was the brown-haired girl I held hands with in my dreams? The answers aren't overtly clear, but I can't wait to play again to find out.

This is a polished, well constructed gaming experience with few glaring errors.

Staggeringly beautiful and provides just enough fan service for the RPG players while ramping up the challenge for the fighting game guys.

If Fall of Cybertron has one lesson that it's trying to convey, it's the same thing that players will quickly learn upon trying out the multiplayer mode: Keep moving, adapt, and be willing to change. Otherwise, you'll probably blow up.

The common thread of all of the subgames is that they are very hard to master. Most of them are easy to pick up and start playing, with the exception of Strike Force. But you'll want to play them over and over again until you finally conquer a mission. Once you get that mastery, you'll feel great.

Crashmo is a fine example of what a talented developer can do with a solid gameplay mechanic. It's also a great argument for separating business from play.

Far Cry 3 executes beautifully on its promises, rolling together a massive open world, excellent stealth, smartly designed RPG elements, and tense gunfights into one smooth whole. The multiplayer fails to distinguish itself in any meaningful way, and a slightly smarter A.I. would've been nice, but those are the only things robbing Ubisoft of an uncontested victory.

Sly Cooper: Thieves is Time is a fantastic addition to the series and a great entry point for newcomers. Most of my gripes are minor, but the aggressive load times present the biggest detriment to the game, and the need for a PS Vita might irritate anyone who wants to collect everything these time periods have to offer. The rest is just a few hiccups in history, but they shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the latest chapter in the Cooper story.

Did you miss the part where this is Star Wars Pinball? If you like both of those things, and you have a device capable of playing video games, you really have no excuse not to pick this up.

Infinite’s biggest issue is that the stiff nonplayer characters really dampen the impact of the social themes. Irrational worked so hard building this world filled with terrible racial imagery, but it’s difficult to feel the effects of that when I can’t relate to the mechanical mannequins that populate Columbia...It’s actually a minor complaint, but it’s very noticeable in a product that is otherwise so exquisitely put together.

It's not only the best-looking 2D fighter ever created, but in my opinion, it's also one of the best and most feature-laden fighting games period - a statement I do not make lightly.