Multiplayer issues aside, Elite: Dangerous is a pretty slick single-player game. If you can look past the always-online connection, this game is the next-gen remastering that space sim fans have longed for since the 1990s. Any faults it does embody are countered by impressively unique features that make it well worth breaking out your joystick once more.

For the $20 price of entry, The Dark Below provides some quality skirmishes and will keep players busy for hours, if that’s how you measure value.

For the inspiration alone, it’s worth spending a little time on Dejobaan’s dead worlds.

It may not have ended up being the first, but Doublebear has certainly earned its place among the zombie survival greats.

It’s a game that aspires to be more than what we traditionally expect, and one that has an intangible quality that makes it more than the sum of its parts. It’ll stay with you after you’ve completed it and call you back to explore its hidden corners to see what else you’ll uncover there.

There’s a lot about Far Cry 4 to like: it’s beautiful and huge, and little additions like elephants to ride and helicopters to fly can make it great. But it’s less than a sum of its parts, and often is bloated and confused. For as big a world as Kyrat is, it lacks life and cohesion; it’s fun as long as you don’t think too much about the wheel beneath your feet.

The Witcher Adventure Game is very flexible in how much players want to interact with each other.

At least, there’s a ton of potential for the next five installments in this series, and no shortage of twists and intrigue to be found in this inaugural outing.

This War of Mine is a great counterpoint to the yearly influx of war games, and uses the language of video games to present a harrowing real-life experience in a way that’s often particularly engaging. It’s dark, it’s sad, it’s often crushing and difficult. It might not be fun, but it’s definitely worth experiencing.

Not only is it an incredible party fighting game to casually play with up to 8 players, but it’s also a fantastic 1-on-1 fighting game for those who put in the time and dedication to master its mechanics.

Maybe the big lesson is that Assassin’s Creed doesn’t have much left to say, or to offer. Maybe all of us, Assassins, Templars, players and developers, need to take a break.

Ignoring the visuals, it is an inferior product in every way compared to last year’s WWE 2K14, and even WWE 13 from the year before that. WWE 2K15 ofers fewer wrestlers, match types and creative options, a weaker story mode, and the same core gameplay that, honestly, is starting to feel a little stale.

It’s a great game from start to finish, one that lets you do just about whatever you want, and then rewards you for just about all of it. While it does have some minor problems, they don’t detract from the quality of the whole. The way the world responds to, and builds itself around, your character makes Inquisition a must-play for any RPG enthusiast.

Unity is still one of the weaker entries of the series. Co-op, while fun, feels half-baked; the game is ultimately meaningless in terms of the series canon because of the lack of focus on the present day story line; and many of the design decisions feel driven by the unwelcome addition of micro-transactions. Better luck next year, I guess.

It’s an atmospheric slog with some cool art direction, granted (although its anemic, somewhat confused mad science story doesn’t add much on that front). But it’s a slog nonetheless, constantly punishing the player for not reading its mind. Dying in a game isn’t scary — almost dying is. The Evil Within, however, never figures that out.

It’s a competent shooter that scratches exactly the itch that Call of Duty players want scratched — a new setting, some new abilities, and lots of new maps within which to shoot each other. Just don’t expect anything you haven’t already seen before.

It’s a solid action/RPG that stumbles on the execution of several of its fantastic ideas, but nevertheless provides a great entry point for those looking to get into the type of deep, challenging, and rewarding experiences that games like Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls provide.

Fact is, I had more unadulterated fun playing Sunset Overdrive than nearly any other game this year. You can tell that Insomniac had a blast making this game, and that joy transferred directly into me as I bounced on balloons in an amusement park, on to the rails of a rollercoaster, and then rained down explosive hairspray bombs to result in a brilliant orange explosion of goo.

It feels cheap, it feels rushed, and it is also very short.

Ultimately, Beyond Earth is an exceedingly polished 4x experience, taking you and humanity through space exploration, frustrations and all.

Grimrock’s dungeon crawling gameplay is as solid as ever.

Exactly what fans of the series wanted in a new installment — more Borderlands. It keeps everything that made Borderlands 2 great, and adds a few new tricks of its own. It might not be innovative, but it’s damn fun to play. Honestly, isn’t that what really matters?

There’s something beautiful about Alien: Isolation’s intensity, about the way it ebbs and flows, about how you learn when you’re a modicum safer than you were just a minute ago, and you can and should move a little faster, or risk waiting too long. It’s amazing how much it looks and feels like a film, translated into another medium, using that medium to make something similar and yet differently powerful.

For players who like story and experience to trump all else, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is a low-key journey with some interesting ideas.

Minor complaints aside, Wasteland 2 is a deep and addictive experience that will grab and hold you hard for its duration. Is it for everyone? Probably not. It has a decidedly old-school foundations that could be a put-off for new and younger gamers raised on modern day Fallouts and Skyrims. That said, for its target audience and for gamers looking for a deep and lengthy role-playing experience that steps well outside the current norm, Wasteland 2 is a near-perfect product.

Defense Grid 2 is hard. Make no mistake about it. I hit my first wall at level 8 and found an uphill climb after that. Those new to the tower defense genre will find its difficulty curve unforgiving. Yet, somehow, this challenge ends up feeling rewarding.

If you’re up for the challenge, Fenix Rage has more than enough content to keep you busy for a long, long time. The game is also a speedrunners’ dream, and I anticipate seeing some incredible things done with this game by the speedrunning community in the coming months.

It’s a fun game that lets you experience The Lord of the Rings regardless of how much knowledge you have of the world coming in. Great combat and an amazing setting round out one of the best Lord of the Rings titles in years.

I think it is a better foundation to build on than The Sims 3 had at launch.

Bungie has said it has come up with 10 years of content for Destiny, but I was bored at around 10 hours. The game has its moments, but it needs more. It needs adventurous thinking and risky ideas. It needs challenges that go beyond racking up headshots. It needs engagement among players to make them feel useful and important. It needs people and places within it that have more character than just pretty helmets and vistas and lens flare.

A Story About My Uncle accomplishes its goal of creating a feeling through controls that many games aspire to, but fail to grasp. My biggest takeaway from the game was wishing there was more of it; the game does a phenomenal job of making it exciting merely to be present in and move about its world, if only for a fleeting visit.

There just wasn’t enough here to warrant a standalone purchase.

It’s a testament to Road Not Taken’s creepy little world that I’m so willing to continue the search, and to its gameplay and style that each foray remains rewarding.

It’s familiar enough that you can easily pick up its basics, while being original enough to require you to pay close attention to learn its idiosyncrasies.

It’s hard work to be a hero, Gods Will Be Watching reminds, and invites you to try to answer whether, given the challenges, you might not become a cold-hearted villain instead.

The story continues to develop in unexpected directions, and the suspense that’s building for Episode 5 is palpable and intense.

Players looking for a solid set of approachable, easy-to-learn and tougher-to-master puzzles will find a lot on offer in MouseCraft, not to mention the unlimited potential of player-built levels to surpass its initial 80 offerings.

There’s a fun game to be had with the right mix of these elements — ghosts, crime-solving, a troubled cop and a serial killer — but Murdered: Soul Suspect just isn’t really it.

If Valiant Hearts’ gameplay could match most of its storytelling, it’d probably be the best game of the year to this point. As it stands, it’s still a remarkably beautiful piece of interactive entertainment that does a fantastic job of showing players a piece of history in a way that’s easily accessible and yet emotionally engaging.

Sniper Elite 3 gets its sniping pretty right, but all the things it gets wrong keep it from reaching its potential.

The Company of Heroes 2: Western Front Armies DLC is a nice addition to a strategy game that was already pretty darn good to start with. While the cost might be a bit steep for those of us who already own the game, it’s almost a no-brainer for folks who want to see what all the fuss is about without breaking the bank.

One of the best games of 2014 so far, and you’d be remiss to let it fly by under your radar. Even more so if you grew up in the NES era and have any sort of fond memories of the great games during that time.

While the setting of Among The Sleep is different, the cogs and gears underneath are a bit too familiar, and that stops Among The Sleep from being quite as scary as it could be.

Monochroma is a flawed but beautiful game that has a few shining moments, but for the most part struggles with the two most important aspects of a puzzle platformer: the puzzles and the platforming.

Its best moments feel like flashes of brilliance rather than sustained genius. Its weakest moments are formulaic, repetitious and banal — a reminder that the next generation is a lot like the old one, but with more gimmicks.

Even with these negatives, Tropico 5 is still a blast to play. The thrill of walking the line between the superpowers as you try to make your island (and yourself) as rich as possible hasn’t gone anywhere, and it’s still fun. It’s also nice that the internal strife never ends in Tropico.

With a great pay model — you give money to play chapters as they release to help fund further development, but each is eventually free — and no lack of dread-inducing darkness, The Last Door is worthy of the unflinching, lidless eye of horror and adventure fans. Be warned, though: you’ll be waiting a while for the answers Devitt seeks.

There’s a great game in Transistor, and a deceptive and strange world, and a touching character relationship between Red and the sword, even if it only makes sense once you’ve seen the ending cinematic. But Transistor won’t give you those things up front; you’ll have to earn them. That means putting up with a story that seems meaningless and a battle system that starts out feeling limited to the point of being potentially annoying.

As far as shooters are concerned, Wolfenstein: The New Order beautifully taps some of the best elements and mechanics the genre has seen over the last generation. It also delivers on an expansive what-if world vision that can be pretty intriguing, and opens doors with its characters — specifically a franchise protagonist who’s never been too deep — that add some nuance to the exploration of that world.

What The Walking Dead is about is people, and in Episode 3, the game continues to deliver those well-written and interesting characters with whom Clementine interacts and relates. As the episodes before it, Episode 3 delivers on a series of moments in which players must balance relationships and survival, freedom and security, and as always, there are never any easy answers.

If horror is meant to plumb your fears and unnerve you, The Whistleblower at least manages that to do so a few times. For the rest, it’s a fun return to the stock release’s setting and mechanics for some solid jump scares and atmosphere, which lasts just long enough to remind of what made the original enthralling.

If horror games are to be judged by their scares, then Daylight gives players their money’s worth. The game never failed to hit me with numerous jump-inducing moments, and smartly keeps the tension ratcheted through its mazes, only to let it out slowly in between — but just barely. Though short, the procedural generation adds replay value to the overall package, as does the Twitch functionality that makes streaming a bit more than just an experience in watching someone else scream like an idiot.

It’s expansive and fun, delivering plenty of game for the money, but it fails to bring much more to the table than its impressive style.

There’s just no reason to play Deus Ex: The Fall, even for big-time Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Human Revolution fans. You can get the same experience out of reading a Wiki entry online. Better yet, if you must play the game, grab it on a mobile device, where it will actually work.

One of the deepest, most challenging, and most rewarding experiences you’ll ever have in this modern era of video games.

Reaper of Souls doesn’t veer too far from the road Diablo 3 has laid down. While the changes that came in patch 2.0.1 are great for the game, the expansion really feels like more of the same than any significant step forward. That said, if you liked Diablo 3, you’re going to like Reaper of Souls. And hey, isn’t that how an expansion is supposed to work?

Blizzard has put its imprimatur onto another genre, and it looks poised to succeed in CCGs with Hearthstone as it has with MMOs in World of Warcraft.

If what you’re expecting is a much, much prettier version of Infamous 2, albeit with a frustrating mechanic of switching between your powers, then you’ll likely be happy with what you get in Second Son. If you’re thinking that a leap to a new console generation should mean more than just a leap in graphical fidelity, then I welcome you into my boat.

Luftrausers is a very good time and it’s nice that it shakes up the genre of arcade shooters by making creatively escaping death and blasting away at bad guys carry the same weight. But it’s also mostly a momentary distraction, a game you come back to for a few minutes when you’ve got time to kill, and for that, Luftrausers feels like its asking price is a bit too high for what’s on offer.

Titanfall comes recommended, surely, and when it’s on, it’s really on. Players will keep coming back for those great, high-intensity moments, but for how long isn’t yet clear.

A House Divided is another powerful, emotional installment, and continues to make a beautiful, tense experience about finding and trusting one another the end of the world.

The one thing The Stick of Truth was meant to do more than anything else — capture South Park in game form — the title does incredibly well. As a licensed property, it may well stand alone in that sense; you’ll never get closer to headin’ on down to South Park than in The Stick of Truth.

Operating from the shadows should feel great, and it does. It’s just a shame that the great sneaking gameplay has been wedded to a story that doesn’t quite feel like it fits the classic character you’re cast as. It doesn’t ruin the game, but it definitely keeps it from living up to its potential.

This is a package that manages to tell a new story within the threads of The Last of Us, and the overall tapestry is richer for having it.

There’s a great game buried in the code of Lightning Returns, and if you’re the sort that’s willing to dig through a seemingly endless amount of mind numbing sidequests, then you might be able to find it. For me though, Lightning Returns was a draining gauntlet of fetch quests and gathering missions that occasionally allowed me to have fun with its deep combat and customization options. Unfortunately, occasional fun is not something I can recommend for a game that lasts upwards of 40 hours, especially when the rest of time spent playing feels like running errands.

The Wolf Among Us Episode 2 generally feels quieter and more focused on Bigby’s detective side. Even when you are given violent options, they are less primal than Episode 1’s lengthy action scenes, but it also draws attention to Episode 2’s weakness.

Perhaps when Broken Age is complete, it’ll feel like a stronger offering — it was never meant to be divided in half anyway, and the forced split feels like it comes just as the game finally hits a comfortable stride. But for a game about young people striking out on their own, made by a developer that set out to gain the financial freedom to do exactly what it wanted, Broken Age feels like it plays it safe; a cushy adventure game with some heart, but absent any sharp edges.

The intangible thing that ties everything together is the mood of the game — grim and somber in a way that fits the setting perfectly. Whether it’s the hard-bitten characters, the swirling snow, or the haunting score by Journey composer Austin Wintory, The Banner Saga is a game about an apocalypse that actually feels like there’s something being lost, not one that feels like a chance for an unkillable hero to simply kick more ass.

A fantastic little indie gem, and the addition of online matchmaking allows me to recommend it without it being conditional on whether you have friends to play it with. It’s got simple, but deep combat and a well-designed, if a bit paltry, selection of levels, and it’s just a blast to play. Say hello to 2014’s first great game.

Nothing feels like it matters. Freedom Cry has an interesting protagonist with an interesting perspective in an interesting time and place, and reduces it all to numbers on a sheet and repetitive tasks, all while playing it incredibly safe with gameplay or storytelling.

Other rickety spots aside, How To Survive’s biggest issue is that it doesn’t do enough to keep you engaged across its short, repetitive campaign.

Same strong characters and plotting that made Season 1 so powerful.

So much of the experience is locked off due to an inbalanced in-game economy and even more has just been cut entirely. Forza 5 was just good enough enough to keep me from going back to Forza 4: the addition of drivatars and the desire to compete for slots on the global leader board in particular just managed to keep me invested.

The problem with the big battles of Helm’s Deep is that it’s a story we all know, and it’s possible the concept could have been stronger if Turbine had included other battles from Middle Earth’s history for variety. All too quickly, the repetition grows tiring and the appeal wears thin, and that’s true of the questing content as well.

The Novelist asks you questions about your own life through the lens of Dan and his family, and shows well the ways that games can challenge their players, and be more than the sum of their parts.

Quotation forthcoming.

Tiny Brains is the definition of accessibility with depth, and especially for new Playstation 4 owners, it’s a great justification for stocking up on DualShock 4 controllers.

A wobbly title that misses the mark on both sides — keeping the wrong things of a bygone era while failing to introduce much of anything exciting to go with a new console generation.

Ryse has the look and feel of a stellar AAA action game, and it even has the makings of a combat system that can be positively compared to the highly regarded Batman games. Unfortunately that combat system remains underdeveloped as the game goes on, and as a result, the game becomes a repetitive trudge through its brief 6 hour campaign.

Thankfully, Shadow Fall handles far better than its predecessors that were hamstrung by the limited abilities of the PlayStation 3. It’s perfectly smooth to play, and there’s no longer a button to attach yourself to cover — simply crouching behind a chest-high wall will hide you, and pushing forward against it will let you stick your gun out to shoot.

To top off a growing tower of gripes, navigation around space in Rebirth is an astounding hassle.

Much like Geometry Wars was for the Xbox 360, it’s an extremely fun and addictive arcade shoot-em-up that is actually more worth your time than any of the hotly anticipated full-priced launch titles.

There’s a great game hidden somewhere in the shadows of Contrast, and every now and then you see brief glimpses of that potential brilliance. But one can’t help but feel like the game either ran out of time or ran out of ideas.

Burial at Sea is a DLC package that trades on the fan love for Rapture and little else, with nothing new to add to that place — and what’s more, it feels a bit lazy and a bit messy. Maybe it’s time this undersea city was left buried, finally.

EXALT adds an extra level of tension to this strategic management layer.

Newcomers who persevere and keep on bashing away until they master the fundamentals will be rewarded greatly, but in all honesty, you might be best off tracking down at least the first NUNS game on PS3 and Xbox 360. For existing fans of the series, these are the ninjas you’re looking for. Network quirks aside, if you’ve got a PC capable of making NUNS3 sing, you won’t be disappointed.

You might expect Call of Duty: Ghosts to play it safe and lean heavily on past formulas. Instead, it goes in the complete opposite direction and crafts its own path. In some areas, like the Campaign and Extinction, that works exceptionally well, but in others, such as the Squads mode, it falls woefully flat.

Eldritch is almost two games for the price of one. Initially it could be said that it’s a comedy. The difficulty is un-obstructing and many of the enemy designs and animations are actually quite cute for nightmarish abominations. It welcomes you in and builds up your confidence, only to tear you back down again in New Game +, where Eldritch reveals its true colors as a first-person Spelunky with a horror slant.

I can’t stress enough how much fun Forced is when you’ve got even just one other player. It’s a smartly designed cooperative action game with lots of depth, great variety in its challenges, and a great combat system that encourages teamwork over all else. It’s a shame then that online play, at least at the time of this review, is too laggy for me to recommend, and playing solo is oftentimes more frustrating than fun.

Battlefield 4 isn’t perfect — its campaign definitely sees to that — but the multiplayer component is one of the best you’ll see in 2014.

While I have mixed feelings about EA’s perch on this lucrative pedestal, it’s hard to to argue that the EA Canada team hasn’t earned it, and doesn’t continue to earn it, by delivering a game that really does feel better, really does feel different, every year, even if you have to be an avid player of the game to really appreciate how.

That kind of consistent progression and steady experiential learning is the crux of the game and it’s here in spades. While not quite as good as the truly exceptional TD games I’ve found online in years past, but Defense Technica definitely worth its budget price.

The real goal is to come out the other side with some sort of meaningful appreciation of our hero’s plight. To understand what tools are required for such a person to even exist while being plagued by these nightmares so often that they become reality itself. To gain the ability to adapt well enough to those circumstances to be able to use those tools effectively. That is Knock-Knock.

Arkham Origins is a fantastic game, and one that is worthy of the Arkham legacy, but that being said, one can’t help but feel that WB Games Montreal played this one safe. They relied on the strength of Rocksteady’s rock-solid foundation, and simply applied new coats of paint and some extra decorations that weren’t there before.

It’s a shame that it’s so often frustrating and inscrutable, and a bigger shame that some of the humor skews toward the cringe-worthy. Goodbye Deponia feels as though this trilogy never quite made it to its own comedy Elysium, even though it was capable of reaching those heights.

This is a thought experiment of sorts, and in comparison to some of its hordes of first-person peers, it may even be said that there’s not much of an actual point to the gameplay. But keep in mind that if that’s your conclusion, there’s a strong danger that you’re exactly the type of complacent player The Stanley Parable’s criticisms are aimed at.

Just like the island of Montague’s Mount is empty, so too is this game. There’s no substance — just darkness, rain, and the airy affectation of what “emotional” games should be like. But emotions are more than sad-looking photos, plodding pace, quiet narration and soft violin music. In Montague’s Mount, just like that ethereal mountain, emotion is decidedly absent. All that’s left is boredom.

An incredibly impressive little game, from its understated old-school art style to its ability to make you feel uncomfortable with how much you enjoy catching criminals trying to trick their way into your country.