Anthem has some good ideas and excellent combat, but the current state of the game leaves a lot to be desired.

The lack of gear and infuriating combat mechanics leave much to be desired from what could have been a gorgeous and fun game about monster slaying.

Despite a pleasing aesthetic and overtures at greatness, Yonder’s clunky menuing, excessive fetch questing, and empty story deprive it of the greatness it reaches for. There’s a lovely game buried within Yonder The Cloud Catcher Chronicles that I want to enjoy, but it’s far too shrouded in Murk to properly get at for now.

The potential was there for Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom to be a big improvement over its already solid predecessor, but instead of focusing on one new thing and doing that well, it doesn’t keep anything that worked and gives us several modes that could’ve been great but all have major issues. It’s not a bad game, but certainly not on par with the original and does little well enough to make it stand out in a pretty big sea of PS4 RPGs.

Misplaced hype? Nostalgia done poorly? A shinier clone of Banjo-Kazooie? Yooka-Laylee is a prime example of all of these things, serving up fifteen passable hours of entertainment yet not managing to surprise at any point along the way. But while those looking to revisit their youth will likely find the game enjoyable enough, Yooka-Laylee is also a testament to why the book should stay closed on the lessons gaming has already learned.

Lineage 2: Revolution is proof that something like the MMORPG format can work on mobile, but its insistence on clinging to certain MMO conventions will likely confuse those looking for a different experience than what it offers.

Mr. Shifty is a competent and mostly enjoyable top-down brawler with an instinctive, visceral combat system. The teleportation mechanic is a standout addition to the game that makes players feel more like a superhero than a thief. But that feeling is short-lived, as the game fails to meaningfully introduce enough new elements to keep the gameplay from feeling formulaic and repetitive. With essentially no replayability, Mr. Shifty is a mildly entertaining title that did not fully capitalize on its potential.

With a story that’s just okay and controls that make you want to pull your hair out, the great audio and voice acting are overshadowed. Watching someone else play it would be the more satisfying route to experience The Medium.

Frantics is a novelty by virtue of Sony’s continued exploration of how phones can be used as controllers on a console, and I was impressed with how well that tech worked, but that’s mostly where my interest ended. Frustrating tutorials and a lack of options made a small set of already middling minigames a chore to get through, even with friends involved.

For a game made by the same studio responsible for the previous two Bayonetta games, it’s strange how often Bayonetta 3 feels like a poorly made fan project. The story that has been built up has been thrown to the wayside to introduce a tired “multiverse” concept. All the confidence and character development has been completely scraped in favor of turning her into a loving motherly type character in constant need of saving. Wonky camera angles and visuals make it look like this game should have gone back into the over for another year. It’s playable and, at times, fun, but as part of a series, it’s quite possibly the weakest chapter.

Bugs, lackluster graphics and questionable design choices prevent Temtem from becoming the Pokemon alternative many had hoped it would be.

As far as games for kids go, Disney’s Illusion Island provides a quality and challenge rarely seen in modern games for younger players. But if you’re an older gamer looking to play an interesting and unique Metroidvania, you’re more than likely going to find yourself disappointed by the bland stage design and the swarms of copy and pasted enemies.

As far as Picross games go, this game is middle of the road. It offers nothing new and devolves into basic pictures of birds and animals once it goes through a few Hatsune Miku puzzles. As far as a Hatsune Miku game though, it’s a huge disappointment. None of the iconic songs are present nor the animation quality. It’s just a Picross game with pictures of Hatsune Miku taped over it.

Mario Sports Superstars left me with a weird mess of feelings. Some aspects, such as the tennis, baseball, and some aspects of horseback riding and golf were genuinely enjoyable, if lacking in long-term replay value. Others, such as the golf course reskins, everything in soccer, the tedium of horse care, and the fact that the best versions of every character in every sports are locked behind paywalls left a sour taste in my mouth. Should you get this game? If you like Mario Sports in general, well, sure. But if you’re only looking at a single sport or just looking for more 3DS fun before you cave and purchase a Switch, Mario Sports Superstars is a title you can skip without regret.

At the end of the day, I have to wonder who Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers is really for. If you just want a competitive multiplayer game on the Nintendo Switch, there are better options.

Subnautica: Below Zero feels like more of Subnautica, and that is only a good thing to a certain extent. Where it falls short by copying its predecessor is in the story and thematic department, making it feel like an uneventful and unimportant step in the series.

Jump Force feels more like a game you’d watch rather than own. For Shōnen Jump’s 50th anniversary celebration, it’s lacking in crucial areas.

Earth’s greatest defender, our boy Goku, deserves the best; instead, we only get a title that is competent, not exceptional. Die-hard fans — and even casual ones looking for a bit of nostalgia fuel — will have a blast at points, but it’s hard to recommend Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot for anyone else.

The Cosmic Shake’s biggest advantage is unfortunately its biggest flaw as it does too much for the kind of game it is. As a result, it suffers as a slightly above average game that only kids and a few nostalgia soaked adults will enjoy.

While WrestleQuest’s well written and heartfelt story combined with it’s fun 16-bit throwback sprites look like it’s getting ready for a Royal Rumble, the combat and the game breaking bugs get it launched out of the ring almost immediately. There’s potential here for a killer game here, but it needed to spend more time in gym before making it’s debut.

Although there are some surprisingly strong stealth elements in the gameplay, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood’s mediocre combat, dull characters, and boring plot makes this experience an average one at best.

While The Suicide of Rachel Foster has the environmental and graphical potential to be an incredibly spooky and mysterious horror game, it becomes a frustrating and uncomfortable story that never really gives a cathartic ending and therefore squanders its narrative and horror potential.

While I haven’t seen a game use this many of another game’s components since Super Mario Brothers 2, it definitely has it’s moments. Unfortunately, these moments are repeated till even the exciting parts are redundant and boring. Also, a beat’em up without multiplayer is just a cardinal sin.

Kirby’s Dream Buffet is cute and is undeniably Kirby, but so is a still picture of Kirby. A stunning lack of variety mixed with surprising lag issues for a game with so few players equates to a massive swing-and-a-miss that is likely to kill people’s interest long before Nintendo ever gets around to fixing its network issues.

An interesting concept that falls apart in its execution, Truberbrook is an amalgamation of disappointments.

After a high-stakes opening salvo, Batman: The Enemy Within episode 2 feels more like a retaliating sling of an arrow. With the exception of an intriguing interpretation of this episode’s focal antagonist, Telltale Games misfires on many facets of narrative and gameplay design.

A meandering plot, a formulaic, by-the-numbers gameplay flow and contextually redundant choices undo the good work and story built up to this stage, leaving players asking how could so much go so wrong, so quickly.

Wonder Boy returns except it’s actually Monster World and you’re a girl. This is the least confusing part of this mess of a remake featuring Dreamcast era graphics, poor translations, and lazy settings and textures that create a situation that is less of a history lesson on Wonder Boy and more an essay on why some things should just be left to history.

Despite the enormous potential of the ideas behind its job and relationship systems, Miitopia falls short in almost every department except quirkiness. At least the screenshots will be a good laugh.

It’s a collection of ten minigames, half of which are fairly similar, and none of which are especially fun unless you have friends in the room with you, and even then only for an hour or two. The best I can say about it is that it’s functional online and off, but most of the Kirby magic has been sucked right out of this spin-off.

The awkward story mode, lackluster roster and poor presentation overall don’t live up to the standard of the series. Though casuals should probably proceed with caution, Infinite has a decent game just lying beneath everything bad about it; it’ll just take those patient and forgiving enough to find it.

Fire Emblem: Engage feels like a massive step backward from both Awakening and Three Houses. Losing many of the features that made modern Fire Emblem games, ironically, engaging, we’re left with a barebones game that barely feels like a Fire Emblem title. Stories are poorly written, characters are barely fleshed out anime tropes, graphics are muddled, and the series’ signature bold and clear tactical battlefields have been replaced with PS2 era maps with indistinguishable tiny 3D models on them that look near identical until the camera swoops in.

What started out as a promising, unnerving recreation of a tabletop RPG became a rushed, unfocused mess racing to the finish line that leaves players’ input almost meaningless. Call of Cthulhu is a dressed-up horror walking simulator that pitched itself on misleading terms, bungling its story while being light on gameplay or its RPG roots.

Despite being a fascinating rundown of the Nintendo Switch hardware’s capabilities, as a game in its own right, 1-2-Switch falls sadly flat. You’ll enjoy yourself immensely for a few hours, but after you and your friends have tried it, 1-2-Switch will be relegated to gathering dust on your shelf and having its most innuendo-heavy screenshots be used for bad memes. If you can play a preview of this somewhere, you’ve already seen everything it has to offer.

In essence, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a pretty average RPG with some interesting tweaks to combat, but suffers from tedious crafting, bad party management, and padding and serious crashing issues that need to be addressed immediately.

Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time represents the show it is based on incredibly well when it comes to the look and the characters. That’s all it gets right, though, as the gameplay is just frustrating and tedious.

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed had the potential to be a rockin’ asymmetrical game with references to the movies we love. However, redundancy, cross-play issues and lack of content make it a mediocre installment.

There’s not enough here beyond simple questions and answers to hold your attention for long, and that makes the game’s tedious pace drag on even worse. Get yourself some Trivial Pursuit and the drink of your choice for a far more enjoyable evening than this.

Super Lucky's Tale had potential to be the good kind of throwback 3D mascot platformer you don't see any more. But a terrible camera, shoddy jumping and awful forced padding squander it completely, leaving Lucky to once again join the graveyard of forgettable video game mascots.

Relicta has a lot of clever ideas that are marred by a heavy lack of polish. Unnecessarily large hub worlds littered with an oversaturation of clone items, like benches and beanbag chairs, broken and muddy textures, and a wealth of characters that all feel written in the same voice, create a world that felt less like an escape and more like a chore. This is a game that seems so confused by the capability of magnets, I’m surprised Insane Clown Posse wasn’t given a special thanks in the end credits.

Primal Survivors is an average title with nothing to really make it stand out or be remarkable in any way. Afil Games has been pumping out titles lately, but I'd like to see what they could do with a little more time on a single game as opposed to the mad rush of cornucopia titles.

A graphic adventure title cannot coast on its cast; the story must remain a gripping journey through its narrative design and storytelling. Guardians of the Galaxy episode 5 fails to deliver on both accounts, presenting a mishmash of conflicting ideals and tension-killing slowdown right on the verge of the story’s climax.

The Company Man is a serviceable platformer that shows a lot of promise with innovative ideas and clever premises. But it fails to live up to expectations and feels like a missed opportunity to be something more. If you’re looking for a Mega Man clone with some solid workplace puns then this has you covered for about three hours.

This is a game poorly planned and executed by Konami, and unfortunately, could be the final nail in the coffin for longtime fans of the Metal Gear franchise.

One Piece: World Seeker can certainly offer serious fans of the franchise something with its resplendent visuals and a solid story, but the lack of polish and often unpleasant gameplay make it a poor attempt at capturing the magic of the popular anime.

Magikarp Jump can barely be called a game and is instead more of an exercise in scrolling through endless text boxes. While a cheery aesthetic and some admittedly clever writing can keep you engaged for a few league’s worth of jumping, there’s simply not enough to this game to merit your attention for longer than a few days at best. At least, unlike the Magikarp, you can buy in the main games for 500 Pokedollars, with Magikarp Jump you get what you pay for.

Vampyr sports an interesting cast and a compelling morality tale with unexpected twists and turns, but it's horribly weighed down by performance issues, dull combat at best and a city that's a chore to traverse.

Even if you forgive the nightmarish art style and the dated quest methods, as it is a remake of a decade-old game, it doesn’t forgive The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD for having awful controls and a complete lack of quality of life features.

Put very simply, the Star Card system ruins what’s otherwise an actual improvement from the first of DICE’s galactic efforts. There are indeed more ways to play, albeit those ways come in the form of a largely forgettable campaign and an arcade mode that’s ultimately just not rewarding. Multiplayer is a little better, but the entire progression system is flawed at its very core, and they run through the entire experience at large. It would take a massive overhaul that’s likely impossible in order to clean up this mess.

WWE 2K18 sees the series spinning wheels in nearly every aspect. Sure, the game looks great and the Creation Suite is just as good as ever, but with every other mode and even gameplay lacking improvement in some ways, it feels more like a jobber and less like John Cena.

The environments are gorgeous and the game runs smoothly across all platforms, but uninspiring gameplay and a lackluster story leave much to be desired in this entirely mediocre action-adventure platformer.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an extremely immersive and ambitious open-world medieval RPG unlike any we’ve ever seen. But its attempts to remain engaging are ruined by a plethora of technical issues and an overall lack of polish.

An intriguing and exciting concept that is completely removed due to its monotonous and repetitive execution. Fans of the narrative genre will appreciate the game and its new approach, but quickly realize where it falls short. As a result, we go from a revolutionary concept for the genre to an average title overall that can only be improved upon with future titles.

If you like the indie feeling of a dark and dreary walking simulator with no actual need for a camera, then 35MM may be the game for you. However, it seems maybe PC is the better home for it.

I’ve played many difficult platformers in my time but this isn’t the way to go about. Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection does everything you’d expect out of a game from this famous franchise but painful controls and lifeless graphics make me question why something as advanced as the RE2 Engine needed to be busted out when this game looks like it was done completely in Flash.

Dragon Quest Heroes II is a game that looks good in HD and runs smoothly at 60 fps, but shows that a great-looking and performing game cannot cover for a shallow adventure with repetitive sound, seemingly never-ending battles, and repetitive gameplay. There is a good game in Dragon Quest Heroes II. It is half as long, much more streamlined and features a raucous soundtrack befitting the big battles you experience. This bloated version merely deserves to get slimed.

Even though the game is fun in its own way, at launch there just isn’t enough about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to make it anything but mid. Hopefully given time, it will get new content but all we can do is wait and see.

After the first few hours of Fallout 76, you can expect a lot of the same mission types over and over again. Playing with friends is ideal, but it cannot overcome the constant repetition. Base-building and undiscovered locations serve to be the best portions of this radioactive mess.

Wonky controls, strange visual choices, and a lack of any connection to the character or the world made this entire experience one that feels like this game may be for someone, but definitely not me.

Has-Been Heroes is a brilliant idea that overreached itself in difficulty. A mix of incredibly complex strategy, RNG, weak tutorials, poor UI explanations, and a limp story drag a strong concept into the mud. If you’re patient, skilled, and attentive, you might be able to master the core concepts of Has-Been Heroes and relish the goodness hidden beneath the bad design choices. But had I not been reviewing the game, I would have been done after just a few hours. I just don’t like skeletons that much.

Take a MOBA formula, drop the selectable roster to six characters, put it on a tiny map, and make Marvel’s most iconic characters look like Borderlands NPCs and you’ve got a recipe — a recipe that can just go right into the compost pile.

Simply put, Madden NFL 20 just isn’t all that enjoyable as a whole. Gameplay still has unfixed issues that have been prevalent for years and Franchise is still lacking the complete overhaul and player control it’s needed for years. Face of the Franchise is a total flop, serving as more proof that it’s time for EA to give up cinematic sports stories. Sure, Ultimate Team got some needed improvements and some X-Factors are fun to mess around with – but this year is more proof than ever that Madden needs a serious overhaul in nearly every aspect.

Unfortunately, what was promised with After Us did not come to fruition due to lackluster design and aspects that worked in contrast to each other rather than cohesively. Instead, we are left with a nice looking world yet below average platformer and hope for what may have been with a worn out “humans killed the planet” trope and poor execution.

Valkyria Revolution is an extremely wrong-headed attempt to re-invent a series that needed no such treatment, and falls short on just about every level.

Crackdown 3 is a severely outdated sandbox title that neither pushes boundaries or evolves itself in any way. While it puts an emphasis on gameplay, the game does the absolute bare minimum to provide any entertainment for the player and, instead, creates a 20-hour-long headache.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 is not a terrible game. It is, however, hopelessly dull, shoddily put together, and lacking any distinguishing features to make a case for itself over its contemporaries. All would-be snipers are encouraged to set their cross-hairs on other, much better titles.

Roguebok is a card-based roguelike that takes many elements from successful games like it but fails in its execution with them. Muddled sound, blurry graphics, stuttering animation, illegible text, no accessibility options and an overly boring story makes this a game I’d probably just avoid completely.

A return to classic linear FPS gameplay is lost beneath a pile of broken mechanics, terrible dialogue, repetitive villain design, and some of the most boring environments I’ve ever seen. Serious Sam 4 is a remarkably dated game that should be reserved for the most “serious” of Serious Sam fans.

With so much potential under their belt after their last successful release, Supermassive dropped the ball with The Devil in Me, leaving players with crappy graphics, crappier mechanics and the crappiest of characters.

Frank Rising strips away all of Dead Rising 4’s best assets – most notably its weaponry and light-hearted humor – in favour of an unforgivably short piece of DLC that butchers the narrative of the main campaign for cheap thrills. If you’re a Dead Rising fan, best to sit this one out.

Randall is not a bad looking or broken game, but its lack of variety in level and enemy design, along with the lackluster plot, confusing dialogue and cut-scenes, make it a chore to finish.

Just Cause 4 has more of the same destruction and mayhem the series is known for, but the game has a litany of technical issues and empty mechanics that make it impossible to recommend.

Dead by Daylight has enough positive in it that this isn’t a terrible game. The problem is that it’s just not a particularly good one. The look of the game seems to be one that could fit just as easily on the previous generation, and the replayability factor is rather low given the limited maps and ways to win.

Despite showing signs of a strong vision, undercooked mechanics and a nonsensical story propel The Quiet Man to miss the mark in just about every way, causing its best ideas to deteriorate into forgettable gimmicks.

The Council episode 4, "Burning Bridges," took a big risk by becoming a different video game with different ideals. Deduction and dialogue were given less care than the need to double down on its more grandiose suggestions. As a result, my efforts to build a Louis de Richet worth a damn has eroded after a dozen hours in a matter of seconds. Burn it all down. I don't care what happens anymore.

Troll and I had the potential to be a good game: an intriguing (albeit overdone) adventure-driven story mixed with puzzle solving, combat, crafting, and more. But the game fails to successful execute any of these ideas in a meaningful way. The plot falls flat and the gameplay is repetitive and boring. The game is filled with immersion breaking bugs, and has the graphics of a PS2 era title from a Walmart bargain bin. When looking at Troll and I, remember the internet meme: “Don’t feed the troll.”

If you're looking for a game where you can control a scuba diver and occasionally see a fish, you're in luck. If you're looking for ANYTHING more than that though you're going to be deeply disappointed. A step down from Endless Ocean's original Wii entries, Endless Ocean Luminous has you exploring a version of the ocean depths so boring and devoid of detail that it may as well be the background.