Submerged is one of those titles that some might dispute being called a "game." There's no points counter, no win/lose states, no conflict... your character is actually incapable of dying, even. But regardless of whether you consider it to be a game or not is beside the point. Submerged is a quiet, calming, "great way to unwind after a long day" type of thing, like building a LEGO set with a bottle of bourbon. (What?)

The story is minimal, but for those who need it: you're a young girl named Miku. Your brother Taku is seriously injured and needs medicine, food, water, and other items, so you head out to find resources. Your conveyance is a small motorboat (which can be upgraded to go faster by scavenging abandoned craft) and your locale is an ancient city that's half-sunk into the ocean, plant and animal life having reclaimed the area ages before you got here.

The unnamed city is a wonder to look at. There's destroyed hotels, wrecked apartment buildings, and all manner of statues and faded advertisements around. The plot-specific resources will be found at the top of the larger buildings. You can also find small books in them as you climb, scattered among the debris and in smaller ruins. These are completely optional, but they fill in the lore of the city and how things came to be the way they are. Getting them all also counts toward an achievement, as do the boat parts you recover.

One of the most pleasant surprises are the various animals you can run into. There's a handful of birds and sea creatures populating the city, and they've undergone some mutation over the years. They'll follow your boat, jump out of the water, squawk as you speed past, and just generally look cool. The game features a day/night cycle as well as different weather patterns, which can affect their behavior as well. Also, your boat leaves an amazing looking trail of luminescent algae at night.

Submerged is a short game -I was able to 100% the thing in five hours- but its peaceful, melancholy setting and dedication to telling a story purely through visuals will stick with you. A few people will have gripes with the climbing mechanic and an occasionally wonky camera, but neither of those things bothered me too much. I highly recommend Submerged for anyone who needs a break: from work, from stress, from more intense games.

Internet comedian Doug Walker wryly noted that people eat up crossovers like candy. It's true. Some of my favorite movies are the grand world-building events where companies worked out a way to share profits, resulting in the magic of vastly different characters coming together. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is perhaps the best example of this. More recently, there was Wreck-it Ralph, a charming CG film from Disney that showed us the secret lives of video game heroes and villains and what they do when they're off the clock. It's this simple idea that gave us Poker Night At the Inventory, and the results are pretty hysterical.

As a poker game, it's fairly straightforward stuff. Make your bet, call their bluff, walk away with the pot, and so on. The real draw of this title is the banter between your opponents. Telltale Games give us Max of Sam and Max, Strong Bad from homestarrunner.com, Heavy Weapons Guy of Team Fortress 2 fame, and Tycho, the cynical webcomic star from Penny Arcade. There's hours of dialogue crammed into the game, all of it cleverly written to develop natural relationships between these unlikely poker buddies. Most of it is truly hilarious, and you get to hear something new almost every game. As a fan of homestarrunner.com, I've always loved Strong Bad and lamented the site's long-defunct status, so merely hearing new material from the be-gloved email maestro was a real treat.

There are multiple unlocks available, notably the Team Fortress 2 items that you receive when you successfully knock out one of the other players. In addition, there are several themed decks and tables that can change the look of the game in minor and major ways. All this coupled with the fairly difficult achievement set (some of them relying on pure card-dropping luck) give Poker Night a lot of replay value.

There are some cons of course. The most glaring one is the repetition. After a few hours of play, you'll hear the same conversations over more than a couple times. You can right-click to skip previously heard dialogue, or adjust the gameplay settings to make the characters less chatty. Other reviewers have complained that the mechanics are exceptionally poor for a poker game, but I disagree. However, I suck at playing poker, so my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, I think that the players' styles fit their personalities quite well. Max is clueless, but he's dangerous as a wild card. Strong Bad isn't a good player, but he thinks he is, often bluffing his behind off and trash talking the rest of the table. Heavy is a decent cards man, but his pride can put him at a disadvantage, as he can feel that a big bet or raise is challenging his manhood. And Tycho, as a character who actually plays a lot of games himself, is the keenest of the bunch, rarely going in for high-risk pots.

Poker Night features lots of fun cameos from other Telltale and Homestar Runner characters, most of them quickly glimpsed in the opening cinematic. The music completes the setting, with a lot of remixed versions of themes from the games represented, including Sam and Max and Team Fortress 2.

Bottom line, Poker Night At the Inventory is a game made by geeks for geeks. You may enjoy it just fine as an oddball card game, but if you're familiar with the various franchises involved and get a kick out of the idea of Strong Bad getting upset over being called a tiny Heavy, then this is well worth the $4.99.

Gotham City Impostors is a great concept for a multiplayer deathmatch game. Hundreds of insane citizens have either sided with Batman, carrying on the Dark Knight's work during the day with lethal force(!), or attached themselves to the ideals of the Joker, going toe-to-toe with the bats by utilizing rocket launchers and jack-in-the-box explosives. It's manic, to say the least.

The strongest asset of this title is its humor. There are several voices you can choose for your Bat and your Joker, and most of the things they say are absurd enough to elicit some chuckles. The visuals help, giving Gotham an appropriately comic look, with many jokes spread all over the environment. Of course, you'll likely be running and gunning too much to notice, but there are some very clever visual gags in the Amusement Mile and Crime Alley maps, including some great easter eggs for true Batman/DC fans.

The level of customization is impressive. The more you play, the more weapons, support items, costumes, skins, voices, and body types you'll unlock, with others available for purchase as part of specially themed sets. GCI is a free to play game, so there's no need to buy anything, but it's hard to pass up being a Pirate-themed Batman, am I right?

On the downside, the game being free to play means no server support from the studio, which can result in being kicked out of a match if the host quits or their computer has trouble running the scenario. There are also occasional graphical glitches that can disrupt the flow of a game. Renewed interest from the developer and an update or two would be great. Most of the time though, the challenge is just finding enough people playing to put a match together. The community is small, and certain modes such as Fumigation are never able to be played because the only people logged in will be doing Team Deathmatch and nothing else (compare this situation to Team Fortress 2, where you can always find a game in any mode, any time of day).

In the end though, Gotham City Impostors is a lighthearted, simple, and amusing game that's free to play and offers a few laughs. Can't ask for much more than that.