Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness

The talented team at Red Hook Studios does it again by having a Lovecraftian entity invade its first-rate dungeon-crawler. Building upon stellar role-playing game mechanics, Darkest Dungeon: The Color of Madness challenges you to fight in another dimension, beyond the dusky forests and shadowy crypts. Removing the exploration aspect of the original, The Color of Madness focuses exclusively on combat. The action's nonstop as you fight through multiple waves of eerie enemies, earning brief rest breaks only by filling kill meters. Three gauntlet levels (novice, veteran, and endless) provide plenty of opportunity for earning Comet Shards which can be traded for a wide range of cool battle trinkets. Gather enough Shards, and you can also buy blueprints to build four new structures that offer your heroes various health benefits.

Alien combat has other advantages as well: for instance, surviving a fight with The Thing From the Stars grants heroes useful power-ups (called "Quirks) they can't get any other way. New lighting effects and music are a welcome departure from the look and sound of the original game, and having access to new high-level heroes almost right off the bat is a definite thrill. While its bloody imagery and themes of madness and moral dissolution are definitely not for younger kids, it's well worth the five dollar asking price for older gamers.