The Absolute Best Games for Your New Computer, Console or Mobile Device

December 26, 2014 4:10 PM EST

This is a big weekend for video games, perhaps the biggest of the year, as devices of all kinds come out of their shrink wrap begging to be put to the test. Even with the outages plaguing online services run by Microsoft and Sony respectively, there’s a lot of fun to be had. Maybe you got some software with your new hardware. Maybe you’re thinking about getting more. If that’s the case, here are some good places to start:

If you got a Playstation 4…

Start with The Last of Us Remastered. Why?

You appreciate finely crafted storytelling, you love tenterhooks survival horror games with light stealth elements and a dash of third-person shooting, or you just want to experience one of the finest explorations of the way a relationship can work in an interactive game.

For the rest of the PS4 list, click here.

If you got an Xbox One…

Check out Sunset Overdrive, developer Insomniac’s first try at an open world game, tapping the same screwball vein as its Ratchet & Clank series, only with a grownup twist. Imagine a punk-informed quasi-parkour game by way of a zany skateboarding simulation by way of a metropolis-sized circus playground that knowingly winks at you as it periodically deconstructs itself. For more Xbox One titles, click here.

If you got a PC (or Mac with Bootcamp)…

It’ll really depend on what kind of system you bought, whether it’s a graphical powerhouse, a laptop, et cetera. Whatever the case, you can’t go wrong with Blizzard’s Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, which will run on a wide range of hardware. As the developer’s names signifies scrupulous playtesting and elaborate design values, all of which converge here to make Hearthstone the quickest, slickest, goofiest, most lavish online CCG around. For a longer list of great PC games, click here.

If you got a Wii U…

First, you probably haven’t experienced the outages Xbox and Playstation owners may have. Congrats! Begin with a remastered classic, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. Here’s what critics said about it: “…crisp and energetic, spirited and soulful, just a little bit wayward – and it hasn’t aged a day” (Eurogamer); “…takes note of the finger-wagging gripes unreasonably lobbed at the original and tweaks details to elevate an already fantastic journey to towering heights” (Slant); “…the definitive version of perhaps the most original Zelda adventure” (EGM). For more, click here.

If you got a 3DS…

Pick up Shovel Knight, which is also available on a wide variety of other platforms. This title will scratch the itch if you miss the 8-bit NES aesthetic or you want to play the apotheosis of the best side-scrolling, platforming games popularized by Nintendo’s breakthrough 1980s system. For more 3DS games, click here.

And if you got an ‘i’-anything…

Start with TIME’s best game of 2014, 80 Days, of which reviewer Matt Peckham wrote:

80 Days is less about gameplay subversion than stylish, thoughtful immersion, employing a beloved genre–interactive fiction–to set you loose in a reimagined, politically contemplative rendering of Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days. Here be mechanical golems, underseas trains and steam-powered creatures as you traverse a game world (designed by a British-Indian woman) that doubles as trenchant commentary on the nature of colonialism.

For a full list of the year’s best games, click here.

See The 15 Best Video Game Graphics of 2014

**Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare**. Activision's futuristic first-person shooter in which players take on a rogue private military company uses a brand new engine built specifically for PCs and new-gen consoles to handle its cutting-edge lighting, animation and physics. Sledgehammer Games/Activision

**Far Cry 4**. This pulled back shot of fictional Himalayan region Kyrat is in-game, believe it or not, rendered with an overhauled version of the engine Ubisoft used to design *Far Cry 3*. Ubisoft

The Last of Us Remastered — **The Last of Us: Remastered**. Naughty Dog's meditation on the worst (and best) of humanity is built on technology that reaches back through the studio's pulp-adventure *Uncharted* series. The graphics are so impressive, TIME recently assigned a conflict photographer to photograph inside the game.Ashley Gilbertson for TIME

**Alien: Isolation** Built from scratch, the *Alien: Isolation* engine's outstanding deep space visuals all but replicate the set design of *Alien* film concept artists H.R. Giger and Ron Cobb's work. The Creative Assembly

**Assassin's Creed Unity**. Ubisoft says it "basically remade the whole rendering engine" in its AnvilNext design tool to handle the studio's meticulous recreation of Paris during the French Revolution. Ubisoft

**Child of Light** Inspired by filmmakers like Hayao Miyazaki and artist Yoshitaka Amano, *Child of Light*'s hand-drawn artwork puts the lie to presumptions that graphical richness depends on shader support or polygon counts. Ubisoft

**Destiny** Built from scratch by ex-Halo studio Bungie, *Destiny*'s game engine was designed to scale across the next decade, says the studio. Bungie

**Mario Kart 8** Nintendo's kart-racer for Wii U reminds us that raw horsepower is just a facet of crafting a beautiful game world. Nintendo

**Infamous Second Son** Sucker Punch's freeform Seattle-based superhero adventure models all sorts of minutia, from the intricate wrinkling of an aged character's face to the way eyelids stick, slightly, before separating when characters blink. Sucker Punch Productions

**Monument Valley** Escher-like at first glance, Ustwo's mind-bending puzzler was also inspired by posters, bonsai plants, arabic calligraphy and filmmaker Tarsem Singh's *The Fall*. Ustwo

**Grand Theft Auto V** Rockstar's remastered crime spree opus was crafted from an in-house engine first employed in a game that simulated table tennis. Rockstar

**Forza Horizon 2** Turn 10's Euro-racer actually models light refracted through drops of moisture, the render tech plausibly simulating something as intangible but essential as the earth’s atmosphere. Microsoft Studios/Turn 10 Studios

**80 Days** Inkle's anti-colonialist vamp on Jules Verne's famous novel uses crisp art deco imagery inspired by travel posters to unfurl *80 Days*' tale of intrepid globetrotters Monsieur Fogg and his valet Passepartout. Inkle

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition — **Tomb Raider** Crystal Dynamics' radical reboot of its popular series about an athletic archaeologist uses a modified version of the engine that powered *Tomb Raider: Legend* in 2006. Square Enix

See The 15 Best Video Game Graphics of 2014

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