Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition, despite the main game being a year old, proves to still be one of the premier downloadable titles around. Expertly-tuned combat, responsive platforming and addicting exploration and upgrade elements make damn sure of that.
Transistor is ripe with potential, and features a solid plot, a good combat system, solid RPG elements, and a knockout audiovisual presentation. Despite this, it doesn't rise to the occasion, and thus prevents itself from becoming greater than the sum of its parts.
For those that are impatiently waiting for a unique title, I come with awesome news: Transistor drops May 20th, and to help convince you of its distinctiveness, Supergiant Games (Bastion) have just dropped an incredibly intriguing launch trailer that greatly succeeds in making the short wait that much tougher.
When Don't Starve is not rage-inducing, it's an absolute charmer. Its wonderful, Tim Burton-esque art style lends tons of adorable quirkiness to the proceedings as does the pleasantly gothic soundtrack. It's not a game for everyone, but those who revel in micromanagement and hoarding tons of supplies to take on the dangerous wild with will eat this up.
NBA Live 14 muscles its way to the top of the list as the worst next-gen launch game. The competition has nothing on its significantly subpar visuals, paltry commentary, and stiffer-than-a-man's-morning gameplay.
NBA 2K14's reference-quality graphics, intricately animated gameplay, and massive time-sinking game modes allows Virtual Concepts to posterize the competition.
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures is a mildly entertaining take on "my baby's first platformer," but won't hold the interest of more competent gamers for too long. It simply doesn't come close to comparing with the genre's better efforts.
Cabela's African Adventures is a functional slog that has no real redeemable qualities other than hey, it works. It certainly doesn't do anything to justify any price tag, even if it were free. I can honestly say that going to your local laundromat to watch the dryer cycle would provide more of a thrill than anything you'll find here.
After an applause-worthy (yet inconsistent) third season, it's understandable for fans of The Walking Dead to be nervous about another showrunner taking the reigns from someone who had an absolutely solid run with the show. Fortunately, Scott Gimple, The Walking Dead's new showrunner, pretty much makes us forget about all the behind-the-scenes switching -- and who would have thought that all we needed was a full-sized zombie mistletoe complete with gorgeous Christmas-red entrails to let us know that we're in for a good season?
It's always been a bit of a bummer in the Assassin's Creed series that you never had anywhere near the amount of freedom to explore the present day (Desmond's stomping grounds, that is) as you did the incredibly detailed backdrops of Jerusalem, Italy, and Revolution-set America. Once you were outside the ancestor-reprising machine known as the Animus and on your feet in the present, your exploration boundaries were very confined. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag looks to rip that small aspect a new one, promising even more hours of exploration.
