A terribly disappointing collection of recycled minigames that don't have the spirit of ingenuity of previous Wariowares. There's some fun to be had, but it feels like a tease; a mere experiment in video game comedy more than a game.

The game is minimalist and doesn’t add enough to justify the cost. Despite the lustre of the event, the game is badly put together. I cannot recommend this for anything other than a shelf adornment.

Liberally recycled events and poor GamePad implementation make this stylised collection of winter sports utterly mediocre.

1,2 Switch is an interesting, occasionally fun primer to the Switch's controllers. Had it been packed in, 1,2 Switch would have garnered its fair share of converts - but with its lack of depth and its frankly ludicrous price, it’s just not worth investing in.

WWE 2K17 isn’t exactly a step forward for the franchise. At best, it’s stuck in the past and completely lacking in any of the features that made 2K’s beast incarnate a strong contender from previous encounters. And that’s the bottom line.

Assetto Corsa may try to parade around on console as a video game, but it’s not fooling anyone. It’s a simulator made for those that want the most realistic driving experience possible. Even then, it’s fairly rough around the edges and is only in any way recommended to diehard racing fans who are willing to drop money on a decent wheel and pedal setup.

Curious design decisions and a confusing, cumbersome control scheme help destroy the immersion, but there's a certain charm to Immortal Legacy's ambition that makes it easier to overlook its problems. It's an occasionally fun VR first-person shooter adventure that's worth a look, especially for its budget price.

While Warcraft 3 is still a phenomenal game to play today, Reforged is unfortunately a chaotic storm of failed promises, technical bugs and missed opportunities that makes a great game worse.

There’s a good game buried within Those Who Remain’s many shortcomings, but it blunders the final hundred meters of its dash for survival like a sorority girl outrunning a slasher in a forest filled with tree roots. Repetitive scenarios of item-hunting tarnish the more ingenious puzzles you’re presented with, horror clichés sour an otherwise wonderfully tense atmosphere and a control scheme from hell drags a promising game back into the shadows, never to be seen again.

A tennis game that lacks motion controls, signature Mario silliness or even the effort for unique cut scenes, the only thing Mario Tennis Ultra Smash has going for it is that it's functional and vaguely entertaining for short periods of time.

It may look lovely and run well, but Sonic Forces' uninspired level design and lack of flow prevent it being much fun to play.

The problem with Flashback is that despite having faults that can be overlooked, the remaining execution feels flat and average. There is absolutely nothing special about Flashback. And that in itself is one of the worst sins that a game can commit.

With a bit more polish, and less of a lingering sense of obligation to hold on to the licence, MXGP could grow to become a premier racing sim, but right now it’s muddy at best.

While the attempts to inject a bit of life into the series with a semi open-world mode and a track editor are laudable, the game itself is just too familiar. Newcomers might appreciate what the MXGP 2019 has to offer, but anyone who’s played any previous game in the series will just feel like they’ve seen it all before.

2K’s fifth WWE game has all the style and none of the substance of WWE games of old. All show and no actual in-ring talent, everything new in WWE 2K18 is quickly superseded by an uneven graphics engine and a career mode that’s certified G for Grody.

After a stellar effort with the second Ultimate Storm game in 2010, Cyber Connect hasn't just gone downhill with a second lackluster sequel. They've gone into terminal velocity with a game that puts visuals ahead of gameplay, something that they can't even manage to pull off properly.

Occasionally interesting ideas and untapped potential don't make up for a woeful lack of content. It's short and it's shallow, but its biggest crime is that it's dull.

Soulless and bland, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is an utterly generic, paint-by-numbers shooter that’s not explicitly bad, but is far from being good.

Ironfall: Invasion attempts to plug the rather vacant hole in the 3DS' shooter lineup and with its technically impressive, smooth 60fps, Gears of War-inspired gameplay it very nearly does that. Unfortunately, its campaign is hollow, cliched and ultimately boring.

Mario’s foray in to the sporting world has had its ups and down; soaring highs and disheartening lows. This? This is just middling, a mediocre package unlikely win the multifaceted Mario new fans.

Space Hulk’s latest iteration is potential squandered, regularly broken and guilty of a crime worse than the Horus Heresy…It’s boring.

There's no competition in the genre on the Xbox One right now, so if you absolutely must shoot marbles then you probably can't go wrong with Sparkle Unleashed. However it feels, looks and plays like a mobile port - which is okay, because that's exactly what it is.

Some interesting ideas lie within Goodgame Empires. Running a kingdom, forming alliances, and conquering your enemies sounds like a recipe for success on paper. This however, is a recipe to bleed the pockets of anybody who plays – unless they have ridiculous patience.

For someone who played and loved the original, I'm sure this expansion will be a welcome excuse to return to this world. However, Dark Arisen just does not deliver in the same vein, and falls short of being exciting in a new way. Instead, it seems to continue on from the original - incredibly inspired, and yet lacking in follow through.

Fascinating for 15 minutes and boring for hours, you’ll be howling with frustration at this missed opportunity for full moon madness in Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood.

Call of Cthulu is a deeply disappointing game, because those opening hours showed such promise. If developer Cyanide had just stuck to the bits that work – the investigation – we’d have ended up with a better game. Instead of descending into madness, it descends into tedium.

Oh Sir…The Insult Simulator! looks charming, but on a list of things I’d rather be doing instead of playing it, French-kissing a live jackhammer rates higher on my schedule.

Metal Gear Survive is a good idea that finds itself crippled by an overwhelming mob of bad ideas. It’s interesting but ultimately handicapped by a ruthless application of unnecessarily brutal constraints that serves to diminish what should have been a fascinating spin-off.

Even with the promise of challenging friends in races or posting ever-improving time scores, Sonic Lost World is instantly forgettable. Every once in a while a title comes around that acts as a yardstick for what we can consider to be truly “Mediocre”. It just so happens that Sonic Lost World is perfectly suited for this role

Need For Speed Payback is several bad ideas on four wheels, a drab racer whose potential is rear-ended by an underhanded upgrade system and a story that belongs in a direct-to-DVD bargain bin.

If you appreciated the streamlined vehicle approach introduced in Mario Party 9, and have yet to bored silly by mini-games you’ll probably enjoy the vast amount of content that on offer here. It’s hard, however, to shake the feeling that we’ve seen, and played this all too many times before.

WRC 4 is a perfect example of an annualised game at its worst, having churned out yet another sub-par performance which rests on average and has no drive to go further and actually be worthwhile.

Despite some excellent moments, Risen 3 reaches too far and falls short. Glitchy and clunky design will undermine even the most ardent RPG fans hopes of enjoying this game. You’re better off waiting for the games you actually want to play.

The Wizards: Enhanced Edition wrestles with the limitations of PSVR and never wins, deeply undercutting its enjoyable spellcasting with inaccurate motion tracking. These issues are only made worse by uninteresting missions and repetitive combat, making the initial splendour of this spellcasting adventure fade very quickly.

A new twist on the old formula, The LEGO Movie 2: The Video Game offers up some new mechanics and gameplay but fails at delivering an experience that is either memorable or fun.

There's not really very much to say about Super Bomberman R. It's the Bomberman you've come to know and love, which counts very much against its favour once you factor in its cost. It's no doubt fun, especially in multiplayer, but that fleeting fun is expensive.

Despite looking the part, and having some of the best voice work in a third person shooter, Lost Planet 3 turns the gun on itself with bad gameplay design, terrible boss battles, and a story that never delivers on its promises.

Rage 2 tries to do so many things in such a small timeframe that it forgets to do anything original or inventive with its many unfocused components. Its combat alleviates these issues in short spurts, but it's not enough to weave a cohesive thread through this confused trip through a familiar wasteland.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 should have been a better game. Disassembled, it had all the parts needed to give the thrill of the one-shot one-kill calibre that it deserves. The assembled game however, completely misses its target as it comes off as a mismanaged product that fails to deliver on its promises.

Someday You’ll Return is an occasionally pretty game with a splash of interesting ideas and visuals that are unfortunately let down by shoddy performance, abysmal storytelling and an overall lack of care placed into its presentation.

Narcos: Rise of the Cartels was shaping up to be a fascinating advert for Netflix’s hit series, but the overall quid pro quo bend of strategy ultimately makes it the shallowest of tie-ins. This is one Search Bloc party that you can count me out for.

Overall, TBXD makes a reasonable shooter with some quite clever tactical stuff thrown in. The interface for Combat Focus is great; the combat itself grows stale quickly and the squad never feels as cohesive and essential as it did previously. It’s almost as if the game was scrapped halfway through and then rushed through production.

If you’re looking for a certain thrill to accompany random acts of mass slaughter, you’ll find it in plenty of other games on the market today. Controversy can only carry a game so far, before it trips itself up.

Champions of Anteria is a dull, repetitive, and inconsistent attempt to make a RTS/MOBA hybrid. The strategy sections of the game feel undercooked to the point of being inconsequential to the rest of the game, while the broken AI and repetitive gameplay of the tactical RPG sections offer little that other games aren’t doing better. Champions of Anteria feels like a game made by someone who doesn’t really understand what people like about strategy games or MOBA’s, and at a $30 price, I can’t see recommending it to anyone.

My Time at Portia wears its influences on its sleeve but fails to build both a compelling world and charming inhabitants to engage with when reaching for the same lofty heights. Its loop of resource gathering and intricate building is implemented well, but it lacks the charm to make it all cohesive enough to be alluring.

Boring, generic, uninspired and every other synonym for painfully average, The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines isn’t worth the time it takes to say its name.

Starblood Arena has the mechanics to be a compelling online VR shooter. But the lack of any compelling content and the difficulty of finding other people to play with proves to be one too many obstacles you shouldn’t need to be facing for a game this expensive.

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India is a game that should have everything going for it with its great visuals and setting, established world and an interesting protagonist. Instead we're left with an average game with a bland narration that's frustrating to control and play. It's truly such a shame.

Hamstrung by slow loading times and real-world thumb-twiddling, Ghostbusters World doesn't deliver on the potential of its interesting story mode and entertaining elements.

Ride has some genuinely good moments going into the corner, but it fails to remember that it needs to hit the throttle in order to power on through ahead of the pack. Competent, but hardly excellent.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle isn’t a bad game, but it isn’t a good one either as it lacks any of the attitude that made the original series so endearing. The Nostalgia may be on point, but everything else quickly taps out of the Morphin grid after an hour or two. Or to put it another way: AY-YI-YI-YI-YI!

Daymare 1998 is a competent survival horror game that borrows too heavily from its influences to do anything interesting or unique and thus suffers from poor writing and uninspired gameplay.

Neither heavenly nor hellish, Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell is an average standalone that is firmly stuck in Limbo.

A half-hearted, boring attempt at a farming RPG, Harvest Moon: One World does nothing especially well. Even though it does show some initial promise, it quickly squanders that on poor farming mechanics, a bland open-world and lifeless characters.

Fossil Fighters Frontier is a game that is aimed more towards children but it doesn’t justify the forgettable story, monotonous fossil excavation and uninvolved battle system. While the exploration is fun and it has some neat multiplayer ideas, Fossil Fighters Frontier doesn’t have much else going for it and there are far better games for your kids.

If you can look past the terrible controls, barely optimised visuals, useless trick system and erratic frame-rate issues then MX vs. ATV Supercross Encore might appeal to you.

Aliens: Colonial Marines stings of bitter disappointment; fans of the franchise will dually be delighted by the fan service, but appalled at the misappropriation of the license and the liberties taken with the new Xenomorphs; while those just looking for a suspenseful horror title will find little more than a run-of-the-mill corridor shooter. It’s Duke Nukem Forever all over again.

It may be free to play, but the cost of actually spending time with Marvel Heroes is too damn high. The idea is solid, but completely lacking the spirit of what makes these timeless heroes so popular over multiple decades of action.

WWE 2K15 is a slick product but on closer examination it hides numerous problems and flaws. It’s the game of tomorrow with the problems of yesteryear, a transitional game between platforms that feels like very little care has gone into crafting the ultimate simulation in sports entertainment. And that’s the bottom line.

Shadwen is a game that I so badly wanted to love but even with all its quirks and interesting mechanics, I couldn’t get past its bland levels, disappointing story and odd gameplay hiccups. A shame, really, as it could’ve been something special. Instead it’s nothing more than average, at best. The interesting gameplay mechanics found in Shadwen do little to hide the fact that the game is pretty boring and has a story that hardly amounts to anything.

Lost Valley struggles to retain the heart and soul of previous titles and while it does a few things right and does end up being somewhat enjoyable in the end, the road to reach any semblance of enjoyment was just too long and never feels worth the time investment.

A title like The Crew has to be more than a glorified "Google Earth" simulator or a VOIP chat client - especially if it's advertised as a "revolutionary action car and driving game".

Fade to Silence is an ambitious survival game with an intriguing setting but suffers from a laborious pace, poorly implemented mechanics and uninteresting characters and writing resulting in an unfun grind that never really pays off.

You don’t need a Spider-sense to realise that a game with various audio glitches, gameplay crashes and overall sloppy design might not be worth your time or effort, as this Spider-Man isn’t the hero that fans need or deserve.

There’s nothing wrong with freemium games when they’re done right, but what Pokémon Shuffle does is reward players with very few benefits when cash is handed over, and that’s just a damn shame.

In a genre that has its fair share of challengers, V Rally 4 comes in dead last thanks to its bipolar handling, meagre selection of tracks and a modest grab bag of disciplines that fails to excite any fan of dirty racing.

It lacks both length and depth, but most importantly, it lack the charm of The Muppets. A younger audience may find extended joy in the title. Others, especially fans, will be sorely disappointed.

It looks nice, and it’s fun to play for a short while - but it’s such a pallid production that it just feels like a shadow of the game it could have been. Micro Machines deserves better.

Fans might get a kick out of this self-aware spinoff, but its referential meta-jokes ultimately fall flat. Worse though is that it’s just not very much fun to play. It’s repetitive to the point of being tiresome, and not even its occasionally enjoyable boss battles save Travis Strikes Again from being dull and dreary.

Extinction is a fantastic idea buried in mediocrity. It’s one trick is stunning for a short while, but quickly runs out of steam as repetition, flimsy combat and a glib story cuts it down to size.

In trying to re-invent a classic that was never really any good to begin with, Shadow of the Beast becomes a cautionary tale about how nostalgia is sometimes better left in the past.

Bee Simulator is more of a kids action game than it is a simulator. While it has an undeniable charm, it’s short, repetitive to a fault and feels like it’s been hastily cobbled together.

Balan Wonderworld is a game of missed opportunities. It’s simplified control scheme robs it of any of the subtle complexity that the genre is best at, its various ideas are half-baked at best, and its core gameplay is a taxing uphill climb through even the most basic of platforming principles. Amusing visual design aside, the only thing that Balan Wonderworld is good at is being consistently boring.

Sacred 3 is a complete let down for fans of the franchise, departing from a formula that has somewhat worked in the past in the hope of attracting a wider audience. Instead of building on features, and borrowing some from games that pull off the action RPG genera to a tee, Sacred 3 is disjointed, boring and just downright bad.

Fun for belting out a few tunes at a party, Singstar Ultimate Party simply doesn't offer the variety to give it any form of longevity. Add to that some serious mic pickup issues, and the game quickly loses any party charm.

Overall, Star Ocean Integrity and Faithlessness is not a good game. It’s plagued with a bland narrative, generic characters, repetitive gameplay, unskippable custcenes with sparse savepoints, unbalanced battle system, dumb AI, a jarring camera, inconsistent visuals and performance and an unsatisfying ending.

Frantics should be a fun collection of casual-friendly mini-games made in the Mario Party mould. Unfortunately, it's just criminally boring.

Mario & Sonic at Rio 2016 Olympic Games on the 3DS is a disappointing collection of hastily cobbled together minigames. There's some fleeting fun to be had, but most of its sporting disciplines are an exercise in repetitive drudgery.

Hunter’s Legacy is a game that clearly wanted to remind players of classic metroidvania gameplay, but the combination of a generic plot, uninspired visuals, and uneven and often frustrating gameplay make Hunter’s Legacy a game that offers little to its players.

A sub-par experience with stripped down features, a complete lack of multiplayer and no noticeable improvement whatsoever.

If you desperately need a new Rugby game to fill the void, you might still consider picking Rugby 20 up, but even then you might be better off going back to Rugby Challenge and playing that with some of the new community squads.

For every inch of innovation, there is endless, effortless copycatting.

Forgettable, drab and middling to the extreme, MXGP Pro is an unfinished two wheel disaster.

Unless you’re the sort who loves doing the same thing over and over again within artificial confines, there’s very little redeeming about this DLC.

Devil’s Third bears the scars of a game that’s had the troubled sort of development that would lead to other games being cancelled. In this case, it should have been.

Street Power Soccer's fancy footwork can't disguise its soulless gameplay, complete lack of challenge, and an entire pitch of technical shortcomings.

Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise wants to revel and self-praise its own absurdist nature, but at the end of the day the actual game attached to all the strange dialogue, mechanics and gameplay is painfully frustrating.

Override is a game that had so much potential and could have done something great with more ambition. In the end, no amount of oil could polish this scrap metal into something decent and enjoyable.

Occasional moments of brilliance do very little to elevate what is otherwise a terrible, poorly designed game. It's an unfortunate mash of ill-fitting, ill-conceived ideas, leaving us with yet another poor Sonic game.

While visually intriguing and distinct, Liberated feels more like an idea than a game, thanks to an uninspired story, boring gameplay and a stunning lack of polish.

Bravo Team embodies some of the worst traits in a VR game. It’s lackluster gameplay and stale shooting never take full advantage of VR as a medium, and stumble across all the worst hardware pitfalls PSVR has to wrangle with. It’s a mercifully short experience that doesn’t justify the price, especially when better games that fundamentally understand VR hardware exist already.

Fallout 76’s mundane quest and lifeless story put too much weight on the aged combat and trivial crafting for them to bear. It’s a multiplayer experiment with far too many flaws to put up with, both in its limiting player interactions and its woeful technical polish. Fallout with friends is still an idea that could work one, but that’s not what Fallout 76 is serving up.

Fire and Ice just isn't a good game. While its platforming may be mechanically sound, the game just tries to do too much - and fails at most of it. If you're looking for a return to form for Sonic the Hedgehog, Fire and Ice unfortunately isn't it.

SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy might rightly draw ire for its overt, unnecessary sexualisation of fighting games’ femme fatales, but its problems extend further than social problems. It's anaemic in content and the fighting itself lacks any real depth.

Those hoping for an engaging, exciting Tennis game are bound to be disappointed. Tennis World Tennis World Tour is an unpolished, unfinished simulation that’s impossible to recommend.

The Tomorrow Children is definitely a case of style over substance which fails to provide any sort of reason to keep you playing. It's a chore - and when a game feels like actual work, it's just not a fun game.

It’s bland, isn’t as functional as it should be, and has been superseded by far better apps that you can use on your phone. Where it had some use 5 years ago when it was originally released on the DS, there’s really very little reason for Music On: Electric Guitar to exist anymore.

Star Trek is nothing more than an unfinished, licenced cash-in. While it might have production values (so far as voice casting is concerned), everything else is a shambles, with a plodding story that (boldly) goes nowhere.