A beautiful and content-rich bundle of joy for Vita owners looking to dust off their woefully undersupported handhelds. The subtle incorporation of new characters, scenarios, and even online connectivity takes full advantage of the new hardware without compromising content or story quality.

I was equally exhilarated and disappointed by Mass Effect 3, and while I mostly enjoyed Commander Shepard's final chapter at the time, I'm now left pondering everything that it could have been, yet sadly never will be.

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.

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.

Xenoblade Chronicles is genuinely fun to play. It's an RPG with an extra-capital G, a gameplay-driven game. That's a sign of real progress from Monolith Soft, and hopefully promise of even better games to come.

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.

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.

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

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.

It's a neat trick for a game to dish out a real challenge without inflicting a lot of stress in the process. This is not something we see very often, and it would be nice if developers could replicate this experience more frequently.

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.

Dishonored nails the Thief-style gameplay while missing the BioShock-quality story that would've elevated it into something truly special. It'll have to settle for amazingly cool instead. The impressive depth, range, and balance earn this one an easy recommendation despite a few hiccups and one dreary, excessively long level.

The scope of Enemy Unknown is immense, both thematically and mechanically...In these ways, Enemy Unknown is peerless in modern game design.

While two big draws are definitely the affordable price and flexible multiplayer options, the game also earns its place among the other top action-RPGS of the year. It's well made and fun, just not revolutionary.

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.

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

Angry Birds Star Wars is far from the most original game you'll play, but the addicting formula still works great, and fans of the classic movies will love seeing this silly take on Luke Skywalker's adventures.

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 fun, efficient, and rewarding way to play baseball, and it’s the closest most of us will come to achieving our big league dreams.

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.

I really do hate Spelunky. It is frustrating in a way that few console games ever are. It's audio-visual trappings don't really help the matter for me, but the sense of discovery has me intrigued to find out what happens next. That doesn't make Spelunky a good game, but I can't wait to get back to playing it.

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.

A number of minor gaffes, an uninspired multiplayer, and a severe drop in tension defuse Tomb Raider somewhat, but nothing stops it from living up to Lara’s legacy.

No one expected the single-player campaign to be a milestone in video game literature, so I can excuse its meandering tone and appreciate it as a window into StarCraft’s development.

The original Devil May Cry paved new roads in action gaming. As a remake, DmC: Devil May Cry largely repaves the same road, but a gleefully brutal combat system and the patented bad attitude bring the sexy back to mass demon extermination. Even better, the action endures throughout a lengthy campaign with few drops in the tempo - no small feat, that.

Max Payne shoots more rockets out of the air than Nathan Drake falls off of stuff.

Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon is a puzzle-rich wonderland full of irreverent humor and clever level design, but it cannot overcome the 3DS’s limitations. Tilt controls and the lack of a second analog stick really tarnishes an otherwise amazing game.

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.