If you’re going to model your video game after another, it’s a good idea to pick from the best. And while comparisons to Portal can’t be avoided, Ukraine-based Frogwares has put enough topspin on Magrunner: Dark Pulse that it stands on its own.

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Not so much a game as an interactive experience, Proteus is the vision of two artists, programmer Ed Key and musician David Kanaga. It’s about wandering and wonderment. Presented in the first-person perspective, you start standing in water. Hazily on the horizon you can see an island.

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With Year Walk, the Swedish developers at Simogo drew from weird and ancient cultural traditions. The practice of undergoing a “year walk,” a literal translation, had disappeared by the 20th century, but used to be a vision quest of sorts, taken by oneself late at night.

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The title of this clever and challenging platformer-style game is a portmanteau of “penumbra” (the area along the edge of a shadow) and “bear” (the protagonist).

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Sam Fisher was getting old. So Ubisoft gave the video game protagonist a make-over.

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If you haven’t played the other games in the franchise, the fourth (being released on August 20) is a perfect place to step into the world of the gangsters known as the Saints. Rob Gable, with developer Volition, told me at E3 that “wackiness is where we’re comfortable”, and this game proves it.

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Mario and Luigi are a duo for most of Dream Team, jumping in concert and battling adversaries side-by-side. The combat in this adventure game is still based on the brothers jumping on the heads of enemies, but here the fights are a modified turn-based system. The boys can dodge and counter enemy attacks and, with timed button presses, can do more damage.

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