The reason why Zombieland was popular was because it was quirky, the characters were charming, and it was hilariously meta (I’m looking at you, Bill Murray). The makers of Road Trip try to recapture that glory but they seemed to have missed the part about how the characters made that movie. Much like how the phrase ‘Nut up or shut up’ was already tired by the end of the first movie, Road Trip is tired even as it boots up. So much so that most of the dialogue given to Tallahassee is that phrase that has been worn out for a full decade. Luckily, Double Tap itself was much better than its game counterpart. Based on historical examples, this isn’t the first time nor will it be the last time we can make that statement.

Zombie Driver is bad. In almost every conceivable way. It never really hits the mark on anything it attempts, leaving the player with a frustrating mess of interchangeable missions, a map that’s a chore to navigate, sluggish controls, and a story that you’ll forget before you hit the X button to close the software. You’d probably have more fun in a real zombie apocalypse.

This is the best version of a very bad, fatally flawed product.

Overall, the fact that the Prototype Biohazard Bundle is so poorly named and that it was snuck on to the market without so much as an acknowledgement it was there should be all the warning you need. But allow me to reiterate the obvious; they didn’t bother to graphically update an outdated game nor did they try to clean up the messy controls.

I’ve gone through some of the most mediocre of shooters in my time, and yet, Calvino Noir often had me baffled by just how mindless it truly is to play.

I was expecting (and hoping for) a spooky and atmospheric thrill ride, but instead got an ill conceived and unpolished first person puzzle game. The story is weak, the puzzles unintuitive, and the experience wholly unsatisfying. Explorers would be better served travelling back in time and playing Myst, or picking up one of the games I mentioned above. Steer clear of this one.

There is no question Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark plays and feels like your typical movie tie-in game. Everything about it screams ‘rushed out the door’ to satisfy the needs of all those poor suckers who wasted money watching the big screen stinker.

Frustrating mechanics, bad interface, and an unbelievably bland, confusing, and uninteresting story make for a bad combination. There’s so much wrong here that I hardly even have time to mention things like the terrible mini-games and wild inconsistency of one-hit stealth killing.

I dislike giving such a harsh review to an indie because I know how important reviews are. I know people worked hard with little money on this game, and I respect their labor and efforts. However, I can’t in good conscience recommend this game to anyone I know, and I think it needed, not only more time in translation but considerably more time in development to flesh out nearly the entire game. The only reason I finished this game is that I’m writing this review, and it’s not a long or hard game to finish. Femida tackles a few interesting subjects, but fails on its execution in nearly all regards. The Revolution couldn’t fix everything.

If you are looking for a portable experience worthy of the Call of Duty name, you will not find it here. Declassified has very little in the way of redeeming qualities which is unfortunate because this is a massive opportunity lost for Activision, Sony and fans of Call of Duty games.

I’ve played dozens of survival action games and MMORPGs but Chimeraland rests on one of the lowest rungs of the ladder. It looks primitive, with tons of technical problems. Nothing about its moment-to-moment gameplay hasn’t been done before and much, much better. The big, open world is a land of blocky textures and monsters that aren’t fun to fight. The goofy character creator and pet system can’t redeem Chimeraland. Even they’re not worth the price of admission. And the game is free.

Going into Weeping Doll I was hoping to experience a horror game in the glory that is VR. Sadly, Weeping Doll didn’t deliver much of anything, except a simple puzzle solving game that feels undercooked.

I understand that release windows are a big thing that helps boost sales maximizes exposure. I’m sure that’s the reasoning behind Tennis World Tour’s release in this state because I can’t think of any other reason a developer would willingly release such a debacle.

FARHOME seems to suffer from an identity crisis. It tries to do something radically different with each mission, but doesn’t stick with one idea long enough to generate anything of interest. If the present is any indication, then FARHOME has a long way to go if it wants to compete in the VR shooter market. There are many issues to be addressed, with the biggest one being a lack of originality in the content. At this point in time, one is better off replaying the games that FARHOME borrows from.

A poorly-done Tomb Raider clone that lacks everything good about that series. Awful combat and stealth mechanics, a boring dead world, and mindless co-op puzzles await all who purchase this. Do yourself a favor and purchase either of the new Tomb Raider games for less than you’d be paying if you bought Troll and I. I’m still shocked they’re trying to charge the exorbitant amount that they are for this buggy, unimpressive adventure.

The game is boring, repetitive, and simply not fun.

The lack of diversity and challenge is boring and the level design doesn’t do anything to help the gameplay.

Ultimately, Left Alive was such an awful experience that I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it for its full $60 price or even half that. Throughout my time with the game, I thought about how money someone should spend to buy this game and I eventually decided on an amount: No more than three dollars.

If there’s one positive about this game, it’s the puzzles. While they’re not on the caliber of, say, AI: The Somnium Files (which has a vaguely similar premise) or the Zero Escape series, some of the puzzles are interesting, if relatively easy. None of them gave me any trouble outside of finding the right item elsewhere in the level or avoiding getting killed in the meantime, but they offered a brief moment where I could pretend that they’d put that modicum of effort into the other aspects of game design. If you absolutely have to pick up this game, do yourself a favor and play Detective mode. You’ll get through it three times as fast and can move onto something worth your time.

With a game that constantly breaks, unstable controls, a pointless map, flat story, and repetitive rock music riffs for audio, Road Rage might incite rage in the gamer, but for all the wrong reasons. This is a game best reserved for feeling like you need to empty your digital wallet and have no other options.

It severely lacks in the fun department with its repetitive gameplay and bland characters. Expecting gamers to drop $50.00 dollars on this game is insulting. Yet, even if it were cheaper it would not make it any better.

Even the most casual gamers will find little in the way of redeeming qualities with this mish-mash of mini-games.

Ultimately this is a bland experience with a runtime less than some actually scary horror films. At $15.99, there just is no way I can recommend this. It almost feels like it is more suited to a VR demo, than an actual game. Save your money and rent a good horror movie, those at least come with a few scares.

There’s far too much wrong here for me to recommend The Deer God. Maybe the devs will continue developing and turn this into an excellent game at some point. The pieces are all there. It just needs more time and effort to unlock its full potential.

Maybe the writing is good? The voice acting? The visuals? Nope. Remothered: Broken Porcelain looks awkward, the writing is weak and the voice acting… actually the some of the voice acting is alright. So, at least it has one redeeming quality, otherwise, this one is a hard pass.

Sniper Rust VR’s formula may work on the mobile free-to-play market, but as a VR title, it doesn’t take advantage of the medium in a way that justifies its existence. Anyone who has handled a sniper rifle in virtual reality will know that sniping should feel fun and rewarding, not like the chore as it is presented here. Unless you’re looking for a lesson in how not to design a VR shooter, steer clear of Sniper Rust VR.

The real kicker here is that Air Missions: HIND features some incredibly detailed helicopter models – almost full simulation quality – and initially looks like it has bags of potential. Sadly, it doesn’t even come close to realizing it.

The gameplay has not aged well, and the Kinect integration is gimmicky at best.

My gripe in this case is that there’s just so much lost potential with Cartoon Network: Battle Crashers that between it’s brief 6 hour run time, it’s boring gameplay, and it’s seemingly soulless presentation that it’s hard to lend praise to this game.

The fact that there are some­ interesting mechanics trapped beneath the monotonous grind called Vroom makes it all the more disappointing. Poisoft has shown the ability to create fun portable experiences in the past, but all of the trappings that would normally keep players coming back are missing here. With little to offer other than some unintentionally hilarious dialogue exchanges, Vroom in the Night Sky is best avoided on the Switch eShop.

If you’re even able to find a copy of Cooking Mama: Cookstar, you should probably reconsider where you’re spending your money. I know there’s a fanbase for the series that are vehemently wishing that the game will be good and that the bizarre story behind its release is all just an unlucky set of circumstances. But the fact of the matter is, Cookstar has nuked the kitchen and left us standing among a snowfall of ash and burnt Chicken Tikka Masala. I hate to say it, but the series may be cooked.

I came in cautiously optimistic, and I left bruised, battered, and brain-dead. Loose controls, bad graphics, and a painful narrative add up to a lousy time. If you’ve already bought into the Senko no Ronde franchise, you’ll probably find something to like here. No others need apply.

This just feels like a frustrating cash grab. I take no joy in being so harsh on this game, as I’m sure many of the people who worked on it did their best in what clearly little time they were given – and hey, game development is hard – but they, and LEGO’s target audience, deserve better than this. If you’re looking for a better LEGO game to get into, check out the recent DC Super-Villains, or the re-release of the Harry Potter games.

For Swag and Sorcery barely qualifies as a game. I don’t know what it is, an elaborate practical joke, shovelware cash grab, or experiment gone wrong. I urge gamers to stay away from it, don’t go down the same dark hole I did. And I implore its developers, all developers really, to learn from these mistakes. This is the exact lack of interaction that makes games bad. This is the recipe for failure, and in the future, it should be used as a road map of precisely what not to do in game design.

I can’t think of any way that Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z could have been worse.

Besides the obvious attempt to cash in on the launch of the Wii U, it seems as if the design philosophy of Game Party Champions was to make playing on the TV and GamePad equate to a DS-like experience. It fails miserably. Trying to combine this sort of experience and motion control onto the Wii U's GamePad is frustrating and feels forced.

If anything it gives all the Xbox One doomsayers a glaring example of why the Kinect should have been abandoned a long time ago. Even if this game was a fraction of its baffling $59.99 price tag, I would not recommend it for anyone. The Fighter Within has only one good thing going for it and that is you can burn a few calories after a fight or two. Otherwise, do yourself a favour, avoid this game as it’s awful.

In addition to the lack of direction, Vane’s controls are floaty and often unresponsive, which makes puzzles and general navigation that much more frustrating. Collision detection is also relatively wonky at times, which is especially challenging in a game where all of the puzzles involve pushing something from one spot to another, or landing on a small piece of metal. The only bit of solace or reward that comes from operating these forklift controls is the severely underused smooth synthwave soundtrack.

The graphics look good for a budget title. From far away environments look especially good. But the music is definitely where Tamarin shines brightest. The score was done by Rare veteran composer David Wise and employs everything from military action music, to synthwave, to jungle beats. A lot of tracks are very memorable, and I was always happy when something extra powerful kicked in for combat sections. I really hope Tamarin’s issues are addressed with patches. It’s possible, as the game was constantly pushed back from its original release date. But right now it’s almost unplayable, because of its camera pulling. It’s not possible to recommend Tamarin for anything other than the music at present.

In summary, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 is pretty much a poorly done remake of THPS 2.

This game is meant for the fans of Tenkai Knights, and when I say fan, I mean a die-hard fan. Even then, I doubt any hardcore fan would find many redeeming qualities with this junker of a 3DS game.

I hated Line of Defense Tactics: Tactical Advantage, so its price tag of twenty five dollars is almost as baffling as the game’s quality itself.

Forget this game. Move along, and pretend you never heard of Decay of Logos. It tries so hard to be something that it simply isn’t, and it leaves players with a frustrating mess of mechanics that have been done so much better elsewhere. There really isn’t any reason for someone to pick this up. If you’re craving a big, open-world to explore, literally any open-world game will be better than this. If you’re looking for a difficult, combat-based action game, literally any combat-based action game will be better than this. Some of the sound design is actually decent, and I’ve heard worse soundtracks before, but there is no reason you should be playing this game. Get out while you can.

There was a real opportunity for DYING: Reborn to shine on virtual reality, but the end result feels like a cruel joke.

Necro Mutex wants to be an old-school shooter but it fails to capture the elements of what made those games special and fun. It throws plenty of gore and carnage in your face without ever stopping to consider why. This tactic may satisfy those seeking a cheap thrill, but it didn’t work for me. And when there are already so many classics old-school shooters available, there’s really no reason to bother with Necro Mutex.

Nothing is redeeming about Joe’s Diner, though, as it’s a poor execution of a dull idea. It’s one of the worst games released on PlayStation 4, but even then it’s not an interesting enough of a disaster to check out.

Boring, uninspired, glitchy, unfinished….those are just a few of the words I’d use to describe a wholly unenjoyable gaming experience in Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons.