Writers Rob Auten and Tom Bissell discuss creating Gears of War: Judgment with studios in North Carolina and Poland while also living in two different cities.

Disney Interactive announced its most ambitious video game to date on Tuesday. The company and developer Avalanche Studios are calling Disney Infinity a gaming platform rather than a game, a multi-part product that is equal parts Skylanders and Minecraft.

Traveller's Tales second big LEGO game in 2012 doesn't quite capture the grand story of its inspiration but it does build a wider open world to play in than any other game in the series. LEGO Lord of the Rings is worth exploring.

While the sterile seriousness of the Need For Speed series has seeped into its formula, Criterion has made another spectacular game.

Microsoft guided us through an early mission in Master Chief's new war, but this Halo 4 preview felt a whole lot like Chief's old war.

Jet Set Radio HD is not one of the best retro releases of 2012, but one of the best period. Strap on skates, grab a can, and hit the city.

In building a bigger world for Darksiders II, Vigil forgot to make a better story.

New Super Mario Bros. 2 is craft made gaming, but it lacks the artisan's touch.

The NBA 2K series has dominated the video game basketball field for years, but Visual Concepts continues to refine with base improvements.

5 years after its promising debut at GDC, Little Big Planet has received its 7 millionth user-made level.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's unrelenting spectacle spells trouble for a series that's lost sight of what made it special in the first place.

Beenox and Activision's The Amazing Spider-man shows off Peter Parker's good side at E3, but there are still to many questions about its missions and feel to give it an early thumbs up.

Sony's PlayStation Vita was largely absent from the company's E3 2012 presentation, but Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation was a diamond in the handheld rough.

Solid Snake enjoys strong sales 25-years after his birth as the series prepares for a 2012 reinvention.

The Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn beta will begin in February as Square-Enix embarks on a four phase testing process to try and avoid a similarly catastrophic launch as when the original MMO was released in 2010.

Chatting with two of Final Fantasy's key creatives about the future of the series.

Most iPhone games cost just 99-cents, but if you want to play one of the illustrious Square-Enix's games, you'll have to shell out more than that. The developers of Final Fantasy Dimensions explain why their RPGs cost what they do.

It's been six long years since Square-Enix released Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for Nintendo DS, and it's finally bringing the series back... as a Mobage-made social game.

Rather than let some other studio do the dirty work of porting its racing game to Nintendo Wii U, Criterion Games made Need For Speed: Most Wanted U itself. The game is still the excellent follow up to Burnout Paradise it was on other consoles, but the additions to the Wii U feel less like bonuses and more like missed opportunities.

Keiji Inafune is down in the dumps since leaving Capcom if Soul Sacrifice, his oppressive and often moving RPG for PS Vita, is anything to go by. This debut game from Inafune's new studio Comcept looks like Monster Hunter but plays like something else entirely.

Nintendo's ridiculous insistence on tacking motion controls on every Nintendo Wii game hobbled Donkey Kong Country Returns. Can the Nintendo 3DS save a broken game? Monster Games' remake of the original loses none of the good and fixes every problem with the original release.

Like every other big console racing game released in 2010's, Grid 2 is glossy and indistinct. Beneath the hood hides a thoughtful attempt to make a racing game that's as simple as an arcade racer, but demanding as a sim.

George Kamitani and his studio Vanillaware deliver their crowning achievement in the modern arcade brawler, Dragon's Crown. Ambrosial fighting, sumptuous art, and an expertly structured adventure combine for one of 2013's best games.

Starbreeze, the developer of grim shooters like The Darkness, reinvents itself in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, a surprising and beautiful game about loss, family, and fellowship. First time director Josef Fares finds revelation in gaming's simplest components: sight and touch.

The Bureau: XCOM Declassified's prolonged development culminates in a game that is sadly less than it could have been. What at first seems like a period spin on Mass Effect is brought low by bad writing and miserable artificial intelligence.

Konami strips the Pro Evolution Soccer series to its bare fundamentals for one last show on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 before shifting to next-gen consoles. While it sacrifices style for sparseness, the game is an admirably pure experience.

EA Canada continues its winning streak with FIFA 14. There are no real changes on the field, but the developer has made some impressive structural changes that makes the package more inviting than ever.

Nintendo has never made a Zelda sequel as directly tied to a previous entry as A Link Between Worlds is to A Link to the Past, but leveraging this old world has led Nintendo to make a marvelously progressive entry in the series.

Bravely Default is a thoroughly modern role-playing game that still bears all the hallmarks of tradition. Thanks to a number of forward-thinking design choices, it's also one the 3DS' best games.

Strider is an excellent game but one that sacrifices the crucial idiosyncrasies that made the character’s scant appearances back in the day so memorable.

Yoshi's had trouble recapturing the platforming glory of his first starring role on Super Nintendo, and while Yoshi's New Island doesn't reach the heights of that debut, it is equally solid.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z should be a mess, a parody offshoot of a once great action series made by three separate development studios. Instead, it works as an admirably honest and fun piece of trash.

Trials Fusion seems to make only superficial changes to RedLynx's motocross, but a complex and impressively deep game hides beneath the flashy new sci-fi setting.

2014 FIFA World Cup may feel like a licensing cash grab considering the absence of typical FIFA features, but its clarity, focus, and charm make it a commendable entry all the same.