Built for adults:Mass Effect 3 (360) SPOILERS

As Sheppard flung herself into a shimmering column of light, and smiled as she fell, I glanced over at my wife. This has been a shared journey, where I would only play when she had time and willingness to watch. She had been captivated by the characters and the story. She was weeping softly. She told me later, surprised at herself, that she couldn't believe that a video game had affected her so. Mass Effect 3 is a masterpiece. It is a capstone on unique experience of unrelenting ambition. If the extent of your enjoyment is tied to the cutscene at the end you have missed the entirety of the 30-40 hours that brought you to that point. Play it again, and reflect on the history across three games that brought Sheppard to this point. Revel in relationships gained and lost and if you are lucky, shed a tear. Mass Effect 3 stands with Journey as diametric proof of games as art. Rejoice.

Smells like bacon tastes like chicken: Dead Island (PC)

Dead Island released as a broken game on all platforms, but perhaps none more broken than PC. Visually stunning and relentlessly ambitious, it has however been patched at least 5 times on PC and several times on console in order to be playable. Some PC voodoo was necessary to make the game run at a smooth 60 fps at 1920 x 1080 on my HDTV or my monitor at 1650 x 1050.