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From the press start screen, the first time you load Contrast, you'll instantly be taken to a place, a time, an atmosphere. The noir-esque art style and jazz era cabaret sparks a feeling that this game does so well throughout. It's odd, stylized, innocent, just like the characters you'll meet. In Contrast, the developers have created something that'll surprise and entertain. It's only when the music stops and the gameplay begins that things stop being as great as they could be.

I've been a huge fan of From Software's Armored Core franchise since way back when the original was first released on the Playstation, and while I personally feel that the series quality has seen a gradual decline over the years, mostly due to a change in focus in the form of "fast paced action" as opposed to "slow and clunky" mech battles of old, it has always held a special place in my heart. So naturally when Armored Core V was first announced, I was excited to get my hands on the latest instalment of my favourite customisable mech-based action game, ...

Those buxom beauties are back, along with Ryu from Ninja Gaiden and some other guys whose names you don't remember! Dead or Alive has been the subject of some controversy. Is it ok to build a game around the idea of looking at pretty ladies? As any Dead or Alive fan will tell you though, the gameplay goes far deeper than that, and it boasts a roster of characters to equal nearly any other fighting game franchise.

Girl Fight is almost exactly what it sounds like - a game in which a bunch of girls beat each other up. Oh, and the girls don't wear very much. On some levels it manages to be much more than this, on others it falls well short. What you're left with is an interesting idea, a degree of eye candy and occasional disappointment.

Nintendo Land quickly became a joke when it was first revealed. Core gamers everywhere, unconvinced by the Wii U, saw Nintendo end their E3 2012 conference on a mini-game collection built around the franchises they'd used too many times before and that was it. They couldn't understand how Nintendo could go so wrong.

What happens when you blend a puzzle game with adventure and stealth elements, a pinch of comedy, and a dose of noir? The answer is Gunpoint, a unique indie game that is impossible to be tied down to a single genre. This concoction of various ideas may sound like it would create too much dissonance to be fun, but everything comes together in perfect harmony to create a one-of-a-kind adventure.

While not without its hangups, Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition is a solid fighter that takes the franchise back to its roots while pushing it forward at the same time. The fantastic campaign, combos that require more skill than luck and clever new additions not only make this one of the best Mortal Kombats in years, but it's also one of the best fighters on PC.

Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards is perhaps Sierra's most notorious adventure game. While it's not as crafted as their later work, creator Al Lowe managed to make it and its sequels cult classics in the eyes of the many that played the series of adventure titles released in the late 1980s and throughout the '90s.

I love when great games are born from mods. Take Day Z for example, originally a mod for Arma II and is now getting its own standalone title because of its popularity. Cry of Fear is a mod of Half Life 1 but, unlike Day Z, it has its own complete style. What I mean by that is Team Psykskallar, the developers of the game, only used the Half Life source engine and basic code to make Cry of Fear. Everything else in the game (textures, sounds, models) are all made exclusively by Team Psykskallar making the game a very unique experience. If no one told me, I would ...

It would be hard to argue that Magic: the Gathering was not the most popular CCG on the planet. It's been going strong for 20 years now because of the excellent tactical gameplay. While many card games end up being pay-to-win affairs, Magic is balanced in such a way that a good player will nearly always beat a player who has simply spent more money on good cards.