Polygon

As a bombastic action-RPG with no previous context, Mass Effect 3 is a dark, engaging game with great combat, a well-written story, and all the epic space-opera you could want. But for those who have played through Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, it's something much more.

SimCity is a near-perfect fusion of the classic simulation game with modern social and online play elements. It is in every way the fully realized evolution of the franchise and a much welcome iteration, perfectly engineered to dispense the maximum amount of fun in the most efficient way possible. It is highly addicting, but there are worse things to be addicted to. Just be sure to set an alarm.

Bit.Trip Runner 2 uses a simple premise, a beautiful universe and a giddy set of songs to conjure an overwhelming sense of happiness. It's a game everyone can play. After completing 100-some stages, I've returned to hop and slide across the landscape with ease. I feel skilled, as if I'm playing an instrument. Each button strikes a harmonic note, each stages composes a lovely song. It's music to my eyes.

That repetition is Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2's ultimate failure. It's fun in small doses, but as a whole, the game offers so much indistinguishable content that even the occasional twists failed to make me care about what was next. Despite graphical improvements, streamlined fighting and a broader narrative, it's the same album on repeat, played on a different stereo.

That unexpected thoughtfulness extends to most of the game. It's easy to point out the many ways that Tomb Raider borrows bits and pieces from other popular games of the last five years, but Crystal Dynamics has blended these disparate strengths into something remarkable. It's cinematic yet open, intense yet laid-back, fresh yet polished. It's a near-perfect embodiment of the age of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with a hint of what to expect next.

That might be the thing that stands out the most to me about my time with Crysis 3. I enjoyed myself despite how much of a step backward the entire game feels from its predecessors. It's a beautiful game with jaw-dropping production values. But it took me a few hours to realize how empty Crysis 3 feels. The best thing I can manage to say about it is this: It didn't get in my way. But I would have had more fun if Crysis 3 had put up a fight.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance combines reckless abandon with the beauty of precision. It's a fast, frantic, fun game that does its own thing. But its bizarre plot manages to carve out a comfortable niche within the Metal Gear franchise despite the change of pace. Platinum Games has done something incredibly rare: honoring a beloved series while successfully broadening its reach into a whole new genre.

The challenge isn't a surprise; years of dungeon crawling have built up my tolerance for difficult, slow-paced first-person RPGs. But Unchained Blades' great leveling system and sharp dungeon design clash with its old-school leanings and badly-developed attempts at mixing up the formula. The well-crafted bits could have been built into something special, but they're lost in the shadow of hardcore posturing.

Aliens: Colonial Marines plays like a budget title from early in this console generation. The production values are underwhelming, and there's very little game present. Those things are enough to make Colonial Marines bad. But the infuriating amount of confidence on display as Aliens: Colonial Marines systematically misses the point again and again is what really poisons the experience.

Dead Space 3 is a monster of a game. Visceral avoided major deviations from the gameplay loop established by the previous games, instead choosing to refine those mechanics. But it has made major, substantive additions to the game's structure that make Dead Space 3 feel much more ambitious. Even more surprisingly, it has successfully executed on all of them. Visceral hasn't just avoided screwing up its game with co-op it has made it feel natural and at home, and has done it without impacting the single-player experience in any negative way.