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.