Polygon

When Monaco is working — when two or more people are picking through its stages, evading traps, conking out guards, and breaking into dangerous territory, it clicks like an expensive safe. It nails the white-knuckled, Hollywood heist motif with style. But you’re going to need like-minded friends — and a whole lot of patience — to get there.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen could have reached new fans and old alike. It was a chance for Capcom to lock in an audience for this burgeoning franchise. But poor balance and careless design limit its appeal to a tiny group of the most hardcore. The original Dragon's Dogma didn't completely succeed in its attempt to emulate Western, open-world RPGs. Dark Arisen makes a much greater mistake: It fails to recognize or capitalize on its own strengths.

There was a contingent of players that didn't have the problems I had with the original Dead Island. (Trust me, I heard from them.) They were perfectly content to have some brainless (zing!) fun with a few buddies. And I understand that. But I imagine even the most stalwart defenders of the series are going to be disappointed when they see just how little reason there is to travel from Banoi to Palanai.

The Knife of Dunwall is almost exactly what it needs to be. Familiar without feeling the same, comprehensible but more demanding. The Knife of Dunwall artfully builds onto Arkane's world, even if it shares some of the fictional and design difficulties of its foundation — and the most exciting thing about it is what it promises for the continuing story of Dunwall.

Terraria could do a better job of leading players toward the treasures they need for basic survival and the knowledge they need for basic progression without robbing them of freedom to discover most of what it has to offer at their own pace. There's an alluring game buried under these little issues; it just takes some digging to find it.

That solid core is a rock worth polishing. Even with its blemishes, there's a lot of enjoyment to be had in the creaking world of Defiance 1.0. Its creators have banked on the "fun shall overcome" school of game design which, with exceptions, Defiance achieves. I only wish it didn't have to overcome quite so much.

Despite its friendly aesthetic and fast-paced action, Alien Spidy fails to deliver on its promises. With a punishing gatekeeping system and slippery controls, the difficulty often feels artificial and unfair, ruining what could have been a much more charming game. There's an excellent platformer inside of Alien Spidy, but you'll need superhuman patience to find it.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is a capable sniping simulator overwhelmed by technical hiccups and shallow drama. The few occasions where the game rearranges its own formula are laudable, but the freedom for player creativity was too rare to sustain my interest or suspend my disbelief for long. If nothing else, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 makes it easy to identify with Captain Anderson's lot in life.

With well-implemented platforming mechanics that hold up across game modes and intelligently designed levels that always offer challenge and reward ambition, BattleBlock Theater is a great genre-bending 2D experiment. Taking an elaborate collection of blocks and engineered something special with it, The Behemoth has created a player experience far more sophisticated than the goofy theme belies.

By dumbing down encounters and emphasizing overkill, Visceral Montreal has removed the necessity of cooperation and strategy that made up the series' (albeit unrealized) potential. The changes in Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel don't make for a more appealing mass-audience shoot-em up — the result is a final, underwhelming swan song for a series that never lived up to the hype, and one I had started to forget by the time I was finished playing.