FrannyFantastic

A super-powered romp through virtual reality. This game takes you through a slew of great set-pieces: motorcycle races, 50s sitcoms, side-scrolling fighters and space battles. The varied gameplay, cheerful parody and viscerally fun combat makes this a joyful experience.

It's a sizeable accomplishment to make killing zombies with sledgehammers boring, but Dead Rising 2 accomplishes it quite well. If you encourage the player to restart their game (and you're not a rogue-like) you should know your game's got some design issues. Chuck in an errand system that MAKES you go to certain places at certain times - discouraging you from exploration - and you have a game that actively goes out of its way to stop you from having fun.

A little rough around the edges but a very worthwhile game. The direction and pacing of the story is superb and the amount of emotion conveyed through 16-bit sprites was unbelievable. LISA's main concept, a Father trying to protect his (adopted) daughter - indeed the last female on Earth - is incredibly compelling. Without giving too much away, I'll also say that the protagonist was incredibly sympathetic and tragic, something which really had me invested in his welfare. Gameplay is good though not necessarily my cup of java. It's basically a polished Earthbound battle system with some neat mini-games thrown in. The battle system suits the quirky style of the game and is a bit more complicated then the typical turn-based 'Press A to Win', though it's pretty easy to just spam status ailments to get through. Overall I was pretty lukewarm where the actual game mechanics were concerned. They were decent but I found myself ploughing through just to progress the story. That being said, LISA definitely has an amazing narrative and aesthetic and for this alone it deserves all the praise it gets.

Offers a big open world and creates a genuine sense of adventure, but after a while everything feels very samey. Looting tombs and dungeons become a routine chore and the core, hack and slash gameplay soon turn into a dull affair.

Far Cry 3 is the ultimate power fantasy, and I mean this as a compliment. Yeah, lots of games let you take back strongholds with bazookas and flamethrowers, but few offer an experience as smooth as Far Cry's. Combat is the perfect balance between stealth and firefighting, letting you sneak behind bushes or aim explosives at everything in sight. The hunting side quests are also a ton of fun.

A visually gorgeous platformer. Rayman Origins is challenging without being unforgiving, and boasts some varied and truly fantastic level design. Surprisingly lengthy to boot!

This is my go-to game for nostalgic pleasure. Though the platforming-heavy sections are quite average, the Zelda-like dungeons are hugely enjoyable. The impressive boss battles, quirky presentation and fantastic music also help to make this a really fun experience.

A huge step up from the bland and sterile 2D Mario games on the Nintendo Wii. This is a fun 3D platformer with a huge array of levels. Although short, each one is unique and presents a different challenge. But solid as it is the game is still rather vanilla. Compared to Donkey Kong Country Returns or Shovel Knight the platforming feels plain and the level design a bit simple.

Pokémon X refines everything great about the series and does away with its drawbacks. Hours of tedious level-grinding are no longer necessary and team-building is now speedy and unobtrusive. The dearth of post-game content is pretty disappointing, but it doesn't stop this game from being the best in the series.

Distilling platforming to its purest essence, Super Meat Boy is challenging but never unforgiving or unfair. The levels are short and sweet, and the sheer amount of them provide endless hours of fun.

As polished as this new instalment of Super Smash Bros. is, I don't feel there is enough variation in the single-player modes to warrant a higher score. Without any challenge or story modes there is only classic and all-star campaigns, and these are both very repetitive fare. The Smash Run mode is a great addition, and despite being a breeze to clock through on your own it's still a load of fun. A huge roster of characters also gives the player an array of fighting styles to experiment with, but for me, the dearth of any solid, single-player modes really puts a black mark on this.

Easily one of my five favourite games. Psychonauts is genuinely funny, remembering that idiosyncratic characters have always been key to good comedy. I was also impressed by the big themes that the game tackled: mental illness, child-parent relationships and trauma being among them. For all this Psychonauts is never heavy-handed or frivolous in its treatment of these concerns. The gameplay is incredibly solid, keeping enough variation to keep the audience engaged. Each level offers different challenges and objectives, never lingering too long at a certain point, but without straying from core mechanics. I wouldn't say it's perfect, and it times the 'collect-a-thon' elements are a bit tiresome, but aside from this Psychonauts is a game of incredible merit and creativity.

Bioshock Infinite is not only visually stunning but has a phenomenal sense of storytelling. The dialogue and characters in this game are a clear cut about most contemporary fiction, and it tackles its own themes masterfully. This being said I did not find the gameplay and combat in any way spectacular. They were definitely solid, but also boil down to spamming superpowers and the standard FPS fare. Even this is greatly redeemed by some expansive battle environments and a constant sense of tension. I did find myself wanting to zoom through the game in order to proceed with the story, and ultimately I'm a bit reluctant to play it again. This being said, as a narrative artform there aren't many finer examples than this.

This game has fantastic presentation and oozes charm. It's so colourful and cute that it can't help but make you smile. That being said the game is also very short, and for most $60 games you are getting far more for your money's worth. Even with the hidden levels it only takes around ten hours to complete, and the difficulty level is set so low (even compared to other Kirby games) that it doesn't offer any real feeling of achievement.

Not a terrible game by any means, but the level design is average at best and in place of any genuine challenge there is level-grinding and gold-farming That's what ultimately bothers me about Rogue Legacy. The game treats its audience to a 'Skinner Box' experience, and when you strip away all the bells and whistles, all the rogue and rpg elements - all you're left with is a rather underwhelming platformer.