Donkey Kong Country Returns proves that Retro Studios doesn't just have a talent for first-person sci-fi adventures. This is a game that succeeds not because of incredible innovations, but simply because it was designed really well.

For a few hours peering into my laptop screen, Telltale managed to make me feel eight years old again. It may not be time travel, but it could be the closest you can get without a flux capacitor.

This is a formula that just works.

Critics are constantly crying out for fresh mechanics, and this is a wonderful one that I hope I get to see an evolution of.

Critics are constantly crying out for fresh mechanics, and this is a wonderful one that I hope I get to see an evolution of.

I've come to a conclusion: Bulletstorm wasn't so much developed as it was raised on human growth hormones and taught the English language by a group of sailors and truck drivers. It was also shown every '80s action and sci-fi movie ever made about a dozen times, given a bottle of whiskey, handed a gun and instructed to shoot anything that moves.

Even without multiplayer, however, Torchlight on XBLA is as close as you can get to dungeon crawling nirvana for $15. Like its PC counterpart, it removes the cruft of the genre, allowing players to get right down to the loot-driven core with a minimum of fuss. And now, thanks to the streamlined controls, we get it all without the constant clacking of a mouse.

As good as any portable Street Fighter game can be. The touchscreen implementation, in fact, makes it a little better than that baseline, by adding an exclusive input method that actually works. It's no replacement for a genuine arcade button layout -- and you'll never forget that for a minute -- but it's a unique, and differently effective, way to interact with the game.

I have to hand it to Namco-Bandai: With the exception of omitting online multiplayer, it really put together a solid entry in the series for the 3DS launch, one that's easily high on the list of best titles available for the new system.

WWE All-Star revels in its absurdness. By moving away from what pro-wrestling actually is -- slow, fake, melodramatic -- WWE All-Stars is closer to what we imagine wrestling to be -- fast, violent, an epic battle between two, three or even four men who unleash not one, but dozens of blows and acrobatics that defy mortality and take a folding chair to Isaac Newton's head.

With the release of Shift 2 Unleashed, the Need For Speed franchise now holds the distinction of representing the best of arcade-style and simulation racing on consoles. It's an evolution of the original -- not a revolution, but still markedly improved across the board -- and a worthy sequel, easy recommendation for those who enjoyed the first game and great entry point to "real" racing in general.

A brilliantly executed, whirling dervish of a game that all but demands to be ripped open and played to death. Grab your kitty-cat, gas up your chainsaw-arm and sharpen your blades. It's gonna be a bloodbath.

Between real, actual co-op and Chell's adventure, Portal 2 provides a stupendous package. So stupendous, in fact, that I feel tremendously guilty admitting that somewhere, way deep down in whatever critics have in place of a heart, I kind of wish it didn't exist.

L.A. Noire may not always be "fun" in the traditional sense, but it's also unsatisfied with being "merely fun," and the result of that aspiration is something that no one who cares about video games should miss.

It has the capability to convert people who aren't particularly interested in rally racing to addicts who need just one more race or Gymkhana event. It would seem that Codemasters' love for the sport is infectious.

Infamous 2 tows a perfect line between too-strong and too-puny, between human and superhuman, between risk and restraint. It halfheartedly delivers on a few of its promises, but its shortcomings are far outweighed by this one stellar achievement: It knows how to make you feel powerful.

It sets a new standard for modern remakes of past-generation titles, proving that there's absolutely nothing wrong with a publisher capitalizing on gamers' nostalgia, so long as they can find a developer who loves the source material just as much as -- if not more than -- we do.

Like Costume Quest and Stacked before it, Trenched is one of those downloadable games that almost makes you feel like you're getting away with robbery for paying $15 for it rather than full retail price.

Though it may seem standoffish and esoteric at first, patience and perseverance will reveal the charming eccentricities and personality quirks that make it so special. Like any relationship worth having, Catherine takes effort, but the end result is worth it.

It doesn't just set a high bar for the flock of touch-based apps which will almost certainly follow in its footsteps to the Kinect platform -- it sets a pretty intimidating precedent for the platform altogether.

The experience of a game so elegantly, artfully designed in both mechanics and visuals is something that will stay with me, even if the plot wasn't totally coherent.

An imperfect, complex and ambitious reminder of what a game can be when it's unafraid.

It's because Capcom had the good sense to leave well enough alone, however, that Online Edition is the best Third Strike there's ever been. And, as we all know, the third strike is what counts.

Resistance 3 isn't just a great game full of marked, inspired improvements over its predecessor -- it's a declaration of intent to become the new heir apparent to the sci-fi shooter throne.

Ubisoft Reflections has pruned the dead weight from Driver's branches, and the result is a pure, focused experience, unencumbered by redundant mechanics and "me too" design choices.

I don't even think those skulls, or the brutal scoring system, were needed to encourage replayability. Bloodrayne Betrayal has enough style, substance and butter-smooth combat to pull me in for a sweet reprise.

The best additions this year are bits of the unexpected, something almost never achieved in sports video games. FIFA 12 delivers enough of those flashes of brilliance to feel a little less like a game, and more like a true soccer simulator.

The cycle of Dark Souls is essentially the same: Hours of diligent, often frustrating work followed by a surprising, often spectacular payoff.