Foul Play has a killer narrative gimmick, in that the game's story is framed as a stage play; your goal, through combos and general combat flair, is to please an audience who cheers and boos appropriately. Characters chew the virtual wooden scenery, the scenery itself is moved about as the play proceeds, and occasional gaffes like actors forgetting their lines makes the aesthetic genuinely fun to be a part of.

But the combat itself is just too shallow. Well, not "just" too shallow -- it's also too dense. It would be one thing if I was just blithely beating up goons with quick attacks, power attacks, and counters, but the amount of enemies leaping around means that there's little opportunity to stop mashing buttons. Seriously -- my fingers were sore after finishing the first level.

Although I do like the game's "hook," Foul Play's sheer repetitiveness in combat has me uninterested in pressing on with it.

Progress: Finished Act 1.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons invites - provokes, on occasion - comparison to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Like Team Ico's productions, Brothers tells a slightly-touching story of juvenile innocence. It takes place in a world whose initial tranquility belies dark, sometimes morbid fantasy (seriously -- don't make the mistake of assuming that this is a kid-friendly game). It relies on character and environmental cues to convey its mechanics, only very rarely showing button prompts on-screen. It does a splendid job of building environments around puzzles, and vice-versa, to make you feel as if you're really engaging with the game world as you play.

It also has controls that will confuse the absolute shit out of you at first, only to become mildly irritating over time. But, considering you're controlling two characters at the same time, that's totally understandable.

Brothers does a really excellent job of exploring various ideas using this two-character mechanic. Sometimes you'll need to use one brother to help the other; sometimes you'll need one brother's unique attributes to continue on. And sometimes you'll need to control both in close coordination, such as when paddling a boat, or in cooperative rock-climbing. These parts are the clear highlights of the game, and the number of these unique scenarios the game invents is pretty impressive.

As for the story, it's applied with a light touch, but probably not as light as it should be. Misfortune and death are ever-present forces throughout the brothers' journey, and the game does a great job of alluding to horrific and terrible events without showing most of them directly. But it also spends too much time in fake-dialog, with characters gibbering non-language at each other, when a quick facial expression or hand gesture would do. To me the gibberish dehumanized the game's characters, which is a shame, since the situations they find themselves in are so emotionally evocative.

The ending, though, the ending is good. At least the game doesn't end on a low note.

As a brief aside regarding the game's technical fidelity: the PC "features" of Brothers are a bit of a let-down, particularly considering it's an Unreal Engine game. Other than screen resolution, there aren't any meaningful graphics options to fiddle with; and the visual quality of the models and textures makes it pretty clear this was made for 720p. And of course, while it's understandable that Brothers would recommend a controller, requiring it seems like a cheap way out of attempting a mouse-and-keyboard scheme.

While it shouldn't necessarily be surprising that Brothers is short - about two or three hours, in line with other downloadable puzzle-adventures of its ilk - it did surprise me, when I was finished, that it had been so brief. With the depth and detail lavished on the game's numerous locales, it feels much bigger than it really is. In a good way.

Brothers has just enough design and execution problems that I wouldn't really call it a triumph. But it does enough right to be fun to play, and - crucially - it nails the design of its two-character mechanic really well. If only for that reason, I expect Brothers, like Shadow of the Colossus, to be remembered with much more fondness than when it was played.

Better than: Limbo
Not as good as: Fez
Alternate title suggestion: Co-Princes of Persia, what with all the jumping and climbing these kids can do.

Progress: Finished.

When compared to Pirate's Booty, Campaign of Carnage, and Big Game Hunt, Dragon Keep has both more content and more general polish. There are a bunch of of substantial zones to explore, and each is filled with plenty of new and interesting enemy types. And of course, the writing and voice acting is as excellent as ever.

There are also a ton of sidequests -- and you should absolutely do them. Here's the thing: I didn't. I wanted to run through the story quickly, so I didn't attempt any of the sidequests, and ultimately I realized that it would have taken about the same amount of time; because the main quests take you through almost the whole map anyway. Just, without sidequests punctuating the journey, there are long stretches of very little happening. So yeah. Do the sidequests.

Even though I stupidly missed out on much of what this DLC has to offer, what I have seen gives me the confidence to assert that this is Borderlands 2's best DLC yet. Other than a moment toward the end where the plot gets a little too ... heavy, the outright comedy on display here is as good as you could possibly expect. And the combat is legitimately some of the best since the original game, with an incredible amount of enemy variety.

You should probably bring some friends, too, because many of the encounters are super-difficult. I had some real trouble near the end, despite being substantially above the enemy level range.

Better than: Borderlands 2: Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty
Not as good as: Borderlands 2 on its own
Seriously: Do the sidequests. I cannot stress this enough.

Progress: Finished the main quest.

Mark of the Ninja was one of my favorites. And in the sense that it preserves the genius gameplay formula and design talent of the core game, the Special Edition's bonus level is a fun little diversion. But as a value proposition, the Special Edition DLC is a hard sell.

The new mission is good, but not the best, and it's the only new one. The other additional content, items and a costume, aren't meaningful at all when weighed against what's already in the game. And the developer commentary, while cool, is no better - actually, less informative - than what you could get by reading a Gamasutra article or any given post-mortem.

There's a fun hour or two of bonus-level in here, but otherwise the Special Edition DLC is utterly lacking in substance.

Clickr is a bright, friendly puzzle game with fun-looking characters. So why haven't you ever heard of it? And why are there only a handful of players on its leaderboards? Well - aside from a complete absence of marketing - the underlying game just isn't ... good.

The gameplay itself is simple enough. Not dramatically different from your garden variety Bejeweled clone, your goal is to gain points and combos by clearing large arrangements of like-colored blocks; and you can create these arrangements by clearing smaller blocks out of the way, whereby gravity causes replacement blocks to fall in from the top of the play field. There are a handful of quirks tossed in to this formula, but they don't fundamentally change moment-to-moment play.

Although there are a few other modes to unlock (I'll get to this in a bit), the centerpiece of the game is a "puzzle stage" mode, a sequence of stages with unique challenges -- attaining a goal score, executing a certain number of combo moves, etc. And these goals, combined with the aforementioned gameplay, are the real problem with Clickr -- your ability to form large blocks for points and combos, and continue to do so within the stage's time limit, is governed entirely by the random chance of new blocks falling in. Some of the stages I played, practically won themselves, by virtue of fortuitous arrangements falling in. Other stages became literally impossible in some attempts, due to the refusal of the game to give me what I needed.

There are other modes of play, which I assume change this adversarial relationship between the game's mechanics and objectives. But to unlock them, you need to spend block points, which you can only gain by grinding away at the "puzzle stage" mode. So. Fuck that.

UPDATE: I decided to go back and try to unlock the other modes, just to see what they were like.

• "Battle" mode is actually a pretty neat idea, where getting combos sends little attacker dudes over to your opponent -- like a puzzle-driven Swords & Soldiers. But it's still vulnerable to the game's intense reliance on chance.
• "Push" mode is almost exactly like Battle mode, in the sense that combos will "push" a block of the combo's color toward your opponent, and you must push a certain number of them to win. It seems like a pretty pointless derivative of the already-superior Battle mode.
• "IQ" mode is what I really wanted to try, where there are no replacement blocks and you have to figure out how to use combos to clear the field of all blocks. But now Clickr's other central mechanic - rotating the play field - becomes the problem. Most of the IQ puzzles are framed around this rotation and how gravity will move blocks around the field, and frankly, it is just too goddamned confusing. When you have to rotate left, then right, right, left, right, right, right, ... et al, just to push some blocks together - and a wrong move at any point will make the puzzle unsolvable - no, thanks.

So, overall, my opinion of the game is no better than it was before.

Add to these grievances a general lack of technical care and support, like no resolution options and lingering bugs, and I'm hard-pressed to find kind words for this game.

Progress: Puzzle Stage 21, IQ puzzle Easy-16.

Well, it took me long enough. Stealth Bastard's primary flaw is that, despite frequent checkpoints, dying over and over again can be exhausting. It's hard to play for more than a few levels at a time without needing a break.

But the puzzles are great, the platforming challenges are great, and there's a very respectable amount of levels, to boot. Each "sector" (collection of levels) introduces a new mechanic, which suceeds in keeping the gameplay formula fresh throughout. Especially in the later levels, which often involve a mix of rapid and precise movement.

The "story" never gets anywhere meaningful, unless you count the irreverently-humorous ending. But that's totally fine; the game itself is tight and engaging enough, aforementioned exhaustion aside. This is a damned impressive platform-puzzler, particularly in its platforming strength. And while I'm completely satisfied with the level of difficulty in "finishing" the game, there are plenty of collectible and ranking challenges for players who are ... really into that sort of thing.

I can only hope that the PS3 and Vita "Stealth Inc." incarnation hasn't lost this game's sense of bastardity.

Better than: VVVVVV
Not as good as: Mark of the Ninja
Surprising proof: that GameMaker can produce something really solid.

Progress: Finish Sector 8.

This is an interesting one.

At first, the gameplay is pretty straightforward. Ninja run to vault obstacles; slap enemies around with fast, light attacks and slow, heavy attacks; go into slow-motion to finish someone off with an absurd slice-storm. Maybe a little simplistic, but, a fun slash-em-up with bombastic set pieces.

Then comes the boss battle that changes everything -- the "Viewtiful Joe helicopter" moment. Now you have to learn how the parry really works. Now you have to take inventory of the game's controls, to lock-on and use healing items. (Reading this is what helped me.) You don't have to be an expert to finish the battle, but you do have to appreciate and respect the game in a way that wasn't previously evident.

From here, Revengeance can appear to back off at times, but the lesson is clear: don't turn your back on it. You never know when you'll be ambushed by a robot made out of guns that shoot knives that explode on your face.

As for the story? Well. It has about as much subtlety as you'd expect from a Metal Gear - the bad guys in the prologue talk matter-of-factly about their plan, leaving nothing to the imagination - as well as the franchise's eccentric approach to enemy designs and personalities. Actually, they're a bit reminiscent of No More Heroes, which is pretty rad. But the overall plotting, which tries to shoehorn these wacky characters into a serious war drama, is too outlandish to take seriously. While also not outlandish enough to be funny. It's ... awkward.

Revengeance is a little different than what I expected; Vanquish's unique brand of high-speed, long-range combat doesn't really translate into Raiden's up-close-and-personal swordplay. But it's still frantic, fun, and satisfyingly weird.

Progress: Finished R-01.

Super Mario 3D World's twelfth and final world, World Crown, is a sick, twisted dare. The Champion's Road level is a cruel test of skill, a minutes-long string of deadly obstacles with no checkpoints and no power-ups. Mystery House Marathon, meanwhile, is a 30-part time trial where missing a single 10-second challenge sends you back to part 1. These levels are ... evil. And I love it.

Still, though, I have to ding 3D World for this endgame difficulty level, which seems practically (if not literally) impossible as a solo player. If not for another player to survive my death, or another hand to help in a timed task, these levels wouldn't just be hard -- they would be unreasonable.

At any rate, I'll continue banging my head against them until I finally unlock everything, or until I am incapacitated.

Progress: 364 green stars, 79 stamps.

How the Saints Save Christmas is, really, a perfectly descriptive title. In a dystopian future, the terrible Claws has wreaked havoc upon the universe, and a cyborg Shaundi is sent back in time - T-800 style - to save the present. To save Christmas, and the future, you'll need to spread holiday cheer; be it by fixing a movie theater to play a holiday cartoon, shooting gingerbread men with an air rifle, or nuking the absolute shit out of some "giant elves" (making them roughly human-sized).

How the Saints Save Christmas visits a fair variety of environs throughout its three story missions, and does a pretty good job of stringing you along from plot point to plot point. It doesn't bring a lot of change to Saints Row IV's gameplay - new enemies are really reskins of existing ones, and the closest thing it has to a new weapon is a holiday-themed Dubstep Gun - but it has a convincingly cohesive aesthetic of wintry snow, cheer, and mayhem.

This DLC episode introduces two new activities, one where you present-bomb houses from a VTOL sleigh (awesome), and one which mixes up Professor Genki's Mind Over Murder with holiday items and moving targets (frustrating and insane). There are also some collectibles to ... collect, but you can only revisit the areas they're in by replaying the DLC's story missions, so it hardly seems worth it. To wit: of this DLC's optional extras, most are negligible.

But overall, the mini-campaign and its remixed game elements make for a fun, exciting, and humorous addition to the world of Saints Row IV. And whether by referencing A Christmas Story, Die Hard, or Seinfeld's Festivus, your holiday celebration of choice is sure to be represented as you explode your way to saving Christmas.

Better than: Saints Row IV: Enter the Dominatrix
Not as good as: Saints Row IV
Equivalently as good as: Saints Row: The Third - The Trouble with Clones

Unsatisfied with Saints Row IV's flirtations with breaking the fourth wall, Enter the Dominatrix builds a fifth wall - that of an in-game video documentary, regarding the game itself - and throws a bunch of bondage fetishists at it. This being Saints Row, of course, the story only becomes more ridiculous from here.

And the story, as an encore for Volition's incredible performance in the main game, is hilarious and brilliant in its own way. Unfortunately, there isn't enough of it -- even for this extremely brief, approximately hour-long DLC episode. The missions that sit between Dominatrix's expository cutscenes are slow and sparse, and don't introduce any new (or even new-ish) gameplay.

It's hard to hate Saints Row, and, to be fair, this DLC's ending really knocks it out of the park. But aside from about 15 or 20 minutes of good writing, there just isn't anything of value here.

Better than: Red Faction: Armageddon - Path to War
Not as good as: Saints Row: The Third - Gangstas in Space
Poor: Donnie.