Cross of the Dutchman just doesn’t feel finished. If the combat gets tightened up and the stealth gets reworked or removed, my opinion of this game would dramatically improve.

Much like the movies, the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection takes a couple good ideas and stretches them way out. If you’re a diehard fan, you might have a great time diving into each iteration of Alan Grant’s murder safari. For me, these games were mostly penance. My childhood fixation was used as leverage, cracking open the door to let in this hodgepodge of mediocre slurry. Unless you’re an absolute freak for the Jurassic Park franchise, I can’t in good conscience recommend this collection of games.

What 7 Days to Die does right is provide a hearty selection of crafting and allows you to team up with friends locally or online to enjoy some co-op action. But is it worth picking up? For the simple fact that there’s better examples of world-building engines out there with a large fan base and even larger servers, I say pass.

It’s dull, repetitive, and just doesn’t offer the replayability of other rogue-likes.

I won’t say Soul Axiom is a terrible game, but I honestly believe if developers focused on creating a shorter game, with more effort put into the games pacing, graphics and sound, the overall experience would have been far more enjoyable.

While every game will always have things that could be improved, The Conjuring House needs to improve dramatically to become the game that it’s promising with its trailers. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to say whether Rym Games will be able to pull together enough patches going forward to really make The Conjuring House livable.

I will be very interested to look at WWE 2K20 a year from now, after some massive updates, and featuring all modes. It’ll probably have the same ugly graphics, but let’s hope that this is a wake-up call to 2K games that they need to release a polished product. Some of us still like having our games on disc when we buy them.

All in all, the game simply does not work as a stand alone title. This leaves one disconnected from the events of the story. Given how the story is structured, the developer should have waited releasing the game as a complete package with all three parts included.

For three hours of entertainment, I’m not sure The Midnight Sanctuary is worth the $9.99. However, it does present an increasingly entertaining story with surrealist visuals, so if that sounds like something you’d like, it might be worth checking out. For me, slogging through 3-D models that could have been traditional visual novel artwork for a story that only kicked into gear in the last thirty minutes just wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day. Still, that ending though, right?

It’s a disappointment to see something squander such potential.

The Switch version of Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is awful. It’s not ready to be played right now, because the menu navigation is straight-up broken. The game needs a patch with cursor sensitivity options at the very minimum, but even that fix would still make for a lazy port, that isn’t console ready. The story of Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo is captivating, and the throwback point-and-click adventure gameplay will be a treat for some. But the game needs more time and effort to be an enjoyable experience.

What comes together to create the full package is very underwhelming but wrestling fans will get a kick out of some of the references made from fight to fight as they beat their way across Beatdown City. Non-wrestling fans will find very little to enjoy in the characters and story but may find the experimental combat innovative.

There’re solid game ideas here, and I hope that Serenity Forge’s next title will bring all these elements together. But for now, while Date Night Bowling isn’t rolling complete gutterballs, it’s not bowling any strikes, either.

Has all the ingredients to be good but it fails to bring it all together and ends up being a mediocre experience at the very best.

Overall, there’s not a lot here for me to even criticize. The motion controls are a bit sloppy, the dialogue needs work and the amount of actual content is pretty laughable. On top of that, you’d be hard-pressed to get through this game without feeling gross or guilty. Yet, I still have to salute Xseed’s commitment to their physics engines and character models. Whatever else the game lacks, Asuka still moves and reacts at the level you expect from any Senran Kagura title.

Fundamentally, it is flawed with poor design and weak content. Colonial Marines feels dated, and fails to capture any essence of what an Alien game should be. Though Aliens: Colonial Marines has been crafted with the fans in mind, it just needed a stronger approach in its design, accompanied by some serious polish.

With good reason, Re-Legion is getting missed reviews in the Steam Marketplace. RTS fans are disappointed because the concept seemed so new! An RTS that focuses on conversion rather than building factories or buildings to convert armies. It’s a really cool idea, but the implementation was not there. It’s upsetting, really. Everyone who picks it up really wants to like it because the vision of the developers is very clear. They clearly have a love and understanding of what they are going for, but they may not have had the right team in place to make it happen for them.

The unbalanced multiplayer, uninspiring music and repetitive gameplay are just a few of the more significant issues that dragged the entire experience down. Sadly, Extreme Exorcism is going straight to the graveyard for me.

In small bursts, Hotel Transylvania is tolerable, featuring some challenging platform areas forcing you to make some precise movements with the circle pad. Unfortunately, the overall experience comes up a bit short making it hard for me to recommend this game for anyone this holiday season.

Although Bedlam has quite a few areas to improve on, what makes the game bearable is the story.

Tangle Tower is a very excellent presentation of a very short game. It feels like a mobile game, and has a very short play time of 5 hours, with no incentive to replay. If this was a $5 game it would be a lot easier to recommend, but as it stands, Tangle Tower can’t justify it’s $20 price point.

I understand the interest in placing a game like this on the market, but it just seems too rushed and not really necessary. The game comes off like a bit of a cash grab for the market, and priced at $40, it just seems to be too little for the price tag. It’s ambitious, I’ll give it that, but one year of Early Access really should have ironed out some of these bugs.

Corpse Party: Book of Shadows is, quite frankly, unremarkable. It’s not atrocious enough for me to say that I hated it. I didn’t hate it. If you’re a hardcore fan of visual novels, you might not hate it. However, I certainly wouldn’t recommend that you seek it out.

Overlord: Fellowship of Evil had the potential to be great especially with the direction of the Diablo-eqsue style game play. Sadly, the lack of polish in the presentation and unintriguing gameplay made for a hot mess and is a definite pass for any gamer, fan of the series or not.

Overall, its a competent strategy game that is bogged down by its immature humor and annoyances.

Clunky controls, poor visuals, and boring and repetitive gameplay make this game experience one that you should skip.

The aesthetics were legitimately nice, but they were overshadowed by the red brought to my eyes by the gameplay. The music was nice, but a song’s repetition grows irksome after returning to a stage after each one of a multitude of deaths. The bad of the game is bad enough to darken the good of the game, which is a shame to those who truly did excellent work. Those who worked on the pixel art, on the aesthetics, or on the music, hats off to you. You did great work. I wish the game I played was of the same caliber.

Criticisms aside, this was the studio’s first crack at the survival game genre. I can see their talent in making good-looking environments, especially in cities and building interiors. It’s hard trying to do something unfamiliar and I respect them for trying something so different. Dead Man’s Diary feels like a learning step possibly leading to something greater in the future.

I realize this is what’s considered a budget title at $39.99, but regardless of this fact I felt like one would not get much for their hard earned, and spent, dollars here. Give this one a pass unless you are the most addicted of scope junkies or if you enjoyed the first game.

This clay could have used some more time in the kiln, that’s for sure.

Nightmare Boy had the potential to be a quirky and fun take on the Metroidvania platform, but it squanders that potential by falling flat in nearly all the fundamental components of what makes those types of games fun to play in the first place.

For Cyberpunk 2077 to be an outstanding game, one of two things needed to happen. Descoping of large portions of the game, and a structure more akin to an action RPG. A tighter focus akin to Rise of the Tomb Raider or even Prey could have allowed for more depth to the narrative experience. OR, alternatively, they could have leaned way further into the RPG elements of the game. Spend more time balancing and incentivizing the various half baked systems like Netrunning, and offer far more flexibility in how V can be role played. Of course, such a move would come at the expense of the high production value narrative CD Projekt Red wanted to create. As it turns out, even 8 years of development couldn’t make both – or either – of those outcomes happen. So is this a good game? Yes, sometimes, but only if they manage to sufficiently patch it.

I hate to say it but if the development team had put as much effort into refining Boo Bunny Plague’s gameplay as they did the soundtrack, this could have been a very enjoyable game. Poor controls, bland level design, and last-gen graphics just make the experience so disappointing.

Despite its intriguing, creative premise, playing Of Bird and Cage is a depressing experience. Its humorless, bleak story is coupled with subpar gameplay mechanics and low-quality production values. Whatever thematic chances the game wants to take are undercut by its lackluster presentation. The music alone might be a decent album’s worth of tunes, but it can’t save the pretty terrible game it has to support. It would be hard to recommend Of Bird and Cage to anyone, especially fans of music-based games. Just go listen to your favorite metal band, and make up a story in your head.

While there’s definitely promise in the concept of Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot, the shiny visuals don’t make up for the lack of content and subpar execution. It’s a decent showpiece for the PSVR, but at this point in the platform’s lifecycle something with more meat is the expectation.

If you’re someone who can get lost in a repetitive task, then I will say you may find yourself falling into a trance, an almost zen-like state. But maybe do so on PC if you have one available to you. I could not get into Barents Sea on the tiny screen with its muddy and bare world. And I would advise if Switch is your only way to play it, maybe find another ocean to travel.

Monster Jam Steel Titans lacks the depth of a sim and the fun of an arcade racer. What we’re left with is a good concept, marred by a lack of fun. Realistic monster truck physics are unique to be sure. But what’s here is just so bland, and unfun that the end result will provide about as much playtime as a demo would.

In short, Syndrome is disappointing. Your level of disappointment will depend on how many horror games you have played as the games Syndrome borrows from are all substantially better.

While the humour seems to be the centre of the game, Zenith has some major fundamental flaws that make it less fun to play and all the more frustrating. If you like the story, the writing and the humour, it might be worth your time. If you need fluid controls and care about the combat and game mechanics, then absolutely not.

When it comes to humor, satire and pretend violence, I have endlessly high tolerance. Art and entertainment should be free to push buttons and push the limits of what’s acceptable. I have far less patience for lazy, sloppy and tired humor that masquerades as edgy, and no patience at all for developers that waste my time with games that barely run. With Postal 3, Running With Scissors blamed it on the Russians. With Postal 4, they have no one to blame but themselves.

The stale visuals and problematic control issues make this game hard to recommend.

Pulse is a victim of the Kickstarter craze. It had a unique idea and successful campaign, but failed to go anywhere meaningful from a gameplay standpoint. The music and visual style are redeeming factors, but the short length and uninspired mechanics (not to mention the brain scrambling acid trip sections) make Pulse an experience that feels unfinished and one I can’t honestly recommend.

Regardless of the format, Gungrave VR doesn’t really offer any major reason to try it. It just exists, although even that is up for debate considering how little content is actually available. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair, the type of game I’ll forget I even reviewed a few months from now and should serve as more of a warning for the upcoming Gungrave GORE than a precursor. This gun belongs back in the grave.

After the polish and fun of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, it’s hard to believe this company let such a barely baked like Bravo Team out the door.

Vindicta would’ve been a decent title had it launched a year sooner, before the release of superior shooters such as Robo Recall and Raw Data.

This just annoys the hell out of me because with the original Dark Souls approaching its 10th birthday, there are a lot of gamers out there who only know the game by association. I honestly think it gives people the wrong impression of what the genre can be like, and it cheapens the original masterpiece. Just like how first-person-shooters were called doom-clones before it, we really need a new name for this genre.

Some people will get a real kick out of this one and there is some fun to be had from the frenetic slaughter of massive amounts of enemies in co-op mode, but all the fun is leeched out of it in just a few missions.

Syberia 3 feels unfinished. It is buggy and rough in almost every way. It fails to be immersive in spite of some honestly impressive world building simply because it offers too many distractions. All of this is extremely disappointing, because I really want to play more of it but I can’t force myself to finish it in its current state.

Not only are the ideas of both the narrative and combat experiences not well executed, but the game seems to struggle with an identity crisis. It appears the developers were trying so hard to make environmental interaction a top priority that they forgot to pay attention to the other aspects of the game. Had they delved deeper into Richard’s story with a longer game, and slapped some much-needed polish on the graphics, voice acting and combat, this could’ve been a completely different and exponentially more enjoyable experience. That’s not to say it’s all bad however as they nailed the tone of the game, the soundtrack is great and the object manipulation is pretty satisfying.

This Spider-Man entry feels rushed, remains largely unchanged from previous Beenox Spider-Man games and the new web slinging mechanic zapped the fun out of arguably the most enjoyable things about Spider-Man games.

Driving at insane speeds on a wise cracking sentient motorcycle should be gaming nirvana, but the writing, mechanics, and design of Lococycle are subpar. It’s not worth the price of admission, and is one of the Xbox One’s weaker launch titles.

As much as I love playing a good RTS game, this isn't one of them. Too many things hold it back from being enjoyable and standing out in a crowd.

Whether you think it’s an artsy and legit plot point or a cheap cop out (I tend to lean heavily towards the latter), Retired Men’s Nude Beach Volleyball League has appallingly simple and amazingly unattractive art, horrific control and mechanics, audio that sounds like it was ripped from an Edison cylinder (look it up, kids), and repetitive music. A purposefully crude game made as some sort of meta-comment on “real” games is not even close to being a new idea, and its high-concept absurdism and potential insights about aging are not worth the one to three hours it takes to “play” through to the end.

It looks, sounds and plays like a game that wasn’t ready to leave the drawing board, much less be released. Claustrophobia will make you feel trapped, for sure. Maybe just not the way the developer intended.

Please, for those who are interested, I implore you to take them up on that offer and make sure this game is right for you before you make a purchase.

Even for die-hard fans, there’s very little here worthy of checking out. The experience is so mindless and generic that you could easily replace the protagonist Specimen #139 with a human and not notice a difference. This VR shooter runs just shy of two hours, and even that felt too long. The days of bad movie tie-ins are not over, and unfortunately, Crisis on the Planet of the Apes is proof of that.

No matter how well you do, you’ll never pull away from the pack. It’s the cheapest of AI solutions and undermines any sense of accomplishment. There’s no escape from it either, as the game does not support multiplayer. So it’s AI racing or nothing. Nothing is the better choice.

I can’t imagine anyone so desperate for content that they would find value in this only marginally improved ten-year-old game. Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed is and has always been, awful and no HD remaster will fix its terrible story, lackluster combat, primitive graphics, and creepy tone. Some games are broken or bad in a kind of fun way, but Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed isn’t broken, it’s just bad and decidedly, aggressively not fun at all.

With a few more level types and a real change in difficulty other than needing better reflexes, Johnny Kung Fu would have been entertaining for more than a weekend; as it stands now, I would let Mr. Wang win this battle.

I was about to launch into another broken situation here, but I’m sure you get the point. The point is this: although there’s a very competent core loop and entertaining resource management sim somewhere within State of Decay 2, it’s really, really, broken. Unacceptably so. It frustrated me mightily to see a flash of a game I wanted to play, only to be immediately reminded that it’s not ready for release.

If you’re looking for a challenge, you might find Technosphere Reload is worth your time – however, in its current state, I just can’t recommend it.

Overall I would say that Fractured Sanity is a decent concept that needs more polishing, and more detail. It feels unfinished. I definitely felt uneasy at times, but that was more from the frustrating glitches and general rough edges than actual horror. I would say hold off on picking this one up until it’s updated and fully fleshed-out.

Rescues and level subgoals add a lot of additional meat and challenge, but this is a very simple shmup. There is no interesting key gameplay mechanic, no waves of bullet hell, no fast speeds, and no interesting setting. In a world where Bug Princess is 13 years old, Ikaruga is 16 years old, and 1942 is 33 years old, there is absolutely no reason to play a shmup so basic.

Frank Rising provides a much-needed conclusion to Dead Rising 4, but it’s also a completely unacceptable cash grab.

The Sinking City on Nintendo Switch is extremely rough around the edges. I understand the lack of hand-holding when examining clues and evidence, but the fact of the matter is the game is so terrible in nearly every other aspect, that I wanted my hand to be held to get through it quicker! The Sinking City is the type of game that will appeal only to the most hardcore of H.P. Lovecraft, or noir fiction fans. Everyone else will be left wondering how so much could go so wrong in what really is an excellent idea for a game. Like the visions haunting Charles Reed, I’ll be seeing this one in my nightmares for quite some time.

Perhaps the truly hardcore fans may have some interest in adding this to their collection, but with dreadfully long and uninteresting cutscenes, repetitive combat and monotonous level design, as a newcomer to the series I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth, and I simply cannot recommend purchasing this game.

The Path of Motus is pretty to look at and has some good ideas, but it fails in its execution throughout, its story too simplistic for adults, and its gameplay too difficult for children.

Sure your child may get an hour of two of cheap thrills, but simply put there are far better family oriented Kinect games already on the market that offer much more content, replay value, and are simply much more polished.

On the Nintendo Switch, R.B.I. Baseball 21 strikes out, but swinging at least. There were some moves in the right direction for the franchise, rosters appear to update frequently, and the pitching was still pretty fun. However, a lack of polish, depth, and much more than competitors are providing leave R.B.I. Baseball 21 quite a ways behind. Despite the game having its issues, it could serve as a “pass the time” experience on the couch when the TV is being utilized.

There’s someone out there who may enjoy Doctor Kvorak’s manic style, and if so, they may find a game with decent puzzle design. Even that person though, will have to brave the game’s difficult control scheme, and finicky physics. Doctor Kvorak picked some good influences, but doesn’t come close to matching their quality.

Fallout 76 is a confused product that blows it on so many levels. 76 represents a critical misunderstanding about what makes the Fallout franchise special, and sacrifices all those pieces to shoehorn in a half baked and barely functional online system. While I applaud taking a chance on a crazy idea, Fallout 76 would undoubtedly have been a better and more engaging experience as a traditional open world RPG. As it stands, this is a broken, unfun, and repetitive title that I can’t recommend. And that hurts me to say.

If Ghost Blade had a classic, well-established pedigree I could understand picking this one up. If you’re in that extremely small niche that enjoys this sort of game, you’ll love it. Anyone less than absolutely hard-core should steer clear.

While this could have been an incredible new entry in its genre, Zheros falls flat with its bare facsimile of a story, its bland gameplay, and monotonous level design.

In the end, Path Out accomplishes what it set out to do. The problem is that it ends up feeling too shallow and disjointed to be emotionally resonant.

The clunky controls, combined with a ghost town of players to actually play this game online with, really works against this title.

A fractured, short, unrewarding experience that needs to figure out what it is before it says anything more.

I Saw Black Clouds is awful. The story is stupid and confusing. Halfway through the game, you’ll be treated with this bizarre twist completely negating the first half of the story, and then the final half is a rushed mess that ruins anything the first half of the story had built up. The filming is brutally amateurish. I can’t help but think this mess could have been saved by a director who had a better understanding of camera angles, movement and so on. The only redeeming quality is that when you replay the game, you can skip any scenes you’ve previously watched – this will allow you to experience alternative scenes faster. Ultimately, there really is nothing here worth recommending. I Saw Black Clouds so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

Even if you can get past the poor humour and lack of story, the controls and combat just feel bad.

Aside from some cheap laughs and managing to somehow become an internet cultural phenomenon, this goat game offers up little in terms of any substance. Instead you get a glitch, buggy shallow experience you will ditch in a matter of days.

The big problem with Music VR is that the game just doesn’t have a lot of substance.

Ultimately, Lithium undoes the good it tries to bring to the table with how aggravating it actually is. If you miss you the old Resident Evil games, then just buy the remastered versions of them. This game will try your patience far more than it will give you feelings of nostalgia.

While Symmetry has an appealing art style, and an intriguing story, it doesn’t have the gameplay to hold attention.

Gravity Falls: Legend Of The Gnome Gemulets is a beautiful platformer that accurately recreates the look and feel of the TV show it’s based on. Unfortunately, the game is so short, and so lacking in variety, that it feels unfinished.

What I will say is that you can see the passion that went into this project. The environments are well-designed and it’s clear that the developers had a lot of love for the genre. It’s a game made for survival horror fans, but sadly isn’t one I can see many survival horror fans loving. It’s a mildly effective throwback, but somehow manages to feel more dated than games that were made decades ago, and that’s not a comfortable spot to be sitting in.

There’s just really not a whole lot going on for Bombshell. The cutscenes look kind of nice, and when you look at the gameplay from a distance it can seem fun, but ultimately what you’re left with is a game that is worth far less than the asking price of thirty dollars.

A game about the clashing forces of heaven and hell deserves to be far more interesting, if not in gameplay, then at least in story. Devil’s Hunt fails to deliver on both fronts. It does have a neat take on the afterlife — Lucifer is essentially a shady businessman who outsources his dirty work, and the angels wear suits and conduct their operations from a pristine office tower – but these ideas are lost in the banality of everything else surrounding them. This is not a hunt worth embarking on.

It’s not entertaining, nor is it memorable for any good reason. It’s simply frustrating, annoying, problematic and painful to play. Skip it, and spend your money on something much more deserving of it than Manual Samuel is.

Contrary to its name, Original Journey is far from an original adventure, offering little to motivate players to see its campaign through. If not for the sake of this review, I would have thrown in the towel long ago. Unless you’re really keen on checking out some hand-drawn art, steer clear of Original Journey.

Even beyond this bizarre hurdle, the whole game is designed to impede you. The money you earn can't be spent on anything useful. The experience you gain never leads to you getting stronger. The battle mechanics make every fight as slow as possible. Even clicking on chests and items comes with a short delay. YIIK frustrates me so badly I feel like I personally offended the creators at a party or something, and this game is their revenge.

Is Red Game Without A Great Name the worst game I’ve played this year? No, that still belongs to Calvino Noir. Is it one of the worst? Absolutely. Don’t buy it. Don’t rent it. Don’t look at it. Don’t allow it to enter your thoughts. Avoid this game like I avoid social situations.

It’s a tedious game that this title may have been served best as a cheaper iOS game for those boring bus rides to and from work.

Star Trek: The Video Game is definitely not worth the price of admission; spend the money and take a friend to see Star Trek Into Darkness in IMAX 3D instead.

RBI Baseball 20 is rough. I said it before, but I’ll repeat it – this is the worst baseball game I’ve ever played. Fielding and hitting both fail to capture any of the enjoyment you’d typically get from either video game baseball, or the real thing, and the animations and character models are shockingly bad for a game released in 2020. The pitching mechanics are decent, but that’s about all that’s on tap with RBI Baseball 20. The fireworks that go off during the home run derby are cool, so it’s got that, I guess?

You might dig the groovy aesthetic for a short while but inevitably you’ll walk away either bored or frustrated.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum tries to be a respectful homage to Tolkien’s masterpiece. Unfortunately, it’s expressed through buggy, unpolished, and not very interesting or enjoyable gameplay. Gollum is a fascinating and complex character, but makes a poor protagonist for an action game. Only ravenous fans of Tolkien will want to come near this game, and then only if they have a very high tolerance for crashes, bugs, and disappointment.

The idea was there, but the execution of the final product is a confused and chaotic mess. It’s unfortunate to say, but Umbrella Corps has taken the title of being the most poorly executed Resident Evil game to date.

Not a single element in this game stands out as remarkable or even remotely average. Flight Combat fans have a choice, they can download War Thunder for free and enjoy it, or they can buy Vector Thrust and despise it. Easiest. Decision. Ever.

As much as it was an enjoyable exercise in nostalgia, compared to the standards set by today’s games Flashback falls short. The bottom line is this game borders on being technically flawed. Story doesn’t make up for this or the shortcomings of elementary gameplay.