One of the biggest factors I always rate games on is whether they are fun to play. A game could be the most mechanically polished, gorgeous, epic game, but if I didn’t have much fun playing it, that would impact my score dramatically. So, while “fun” is entirely subjective, I just had absolutely no fun whatsoever with …If Found. As a side note: I completed this game is entirely under two hours. While that isn’t a problem for me personally, some gamers do make a cost benefit decision based upon length of content. So, it is something to be aware of.

The Longing is one of those video games that dares you to see it through. Guiding a barely mobile creature who can’t be bothered to pick up the pace a little seems so nonsensical and completely antithetical to fun but if you’re the kind of person that likes to find their own unique brand of fun in video games - like following the rules of the road in Grand Theft Auto - then The Longing is bound to trigger some sort of positive electrical charge. And because much of the game can be accomplished while you’re away, it’s the kind of game you can have going on in the background as you sit through the latest Zoom meeting. Given the uniqueness and special circumstances of reviewing The Longing, Darkstation does not give it a score.

The unfortunately named Enhanced Edition fails to make a compelling case for its existence in any meaningful way, especially when you consider its asking price of twenty bucks can net you both the original Baldur's Gate and the far-superior sequel from a site like GOG, and downloading a few free mods that make them really shine takes mere minutes of your time. I would highly recommend that course of action instead.

Mushroom 11 does a great job of realizing a concept and sticking to it, it’s just too bad that concept falters as much as it does, making the game feel like a big miss instead of an indie darling.

Little Red Lie is depressing and misguided. However, it curls up so much in its self-pity and vitriolic hate towards everything that you can’t take it seriously anymore. And the game is meant to be taken very, very seriously. Not all entertainment is meant to make us feel good, but Little Red Lie pushes the envelope. At the very end, the game even falls into mocking at the player who has suffered the self-indulgent boredom of it all. I’m not sure that’s a good sales pitch for Will O’Neill’s future projects… I played this game through for you, and I hope you won’t ever make the same mistake. I’m sure the author meant for us to go all reflective on ourselves at the end but the game didn’t make me look into the mirror. I’m better than that - and so are you. And I’m not lying.

There are some things you expect coming into a Square Enix produced JRPG. You expect some grinding, you expect some weird dialogue, you even expect it to take a while to get going (I’m looking at you Final Fantasy XIII and the 30 hours it took to get good). What you don’t expect is for the game to feel like it’s just going through the motions with its story, for the central class system to not feel worthwhile, and for the battle system’s main claim to fame being you get to skip your turn to go later. Turns out Defaulting on this one is the right move.

Unfortunately with reviewing this game I have to think of it in terms of should someone spend their hard earned money on this game and that hurts Dear Esther in a regrettable way. It tells a very interesting story in a mysterious and ambitious way and stands out as a risky decision on the developers but manages to be at least a little entertaining for how shallow the gameplay is. At a ten dollar price range I feel like I may have over paid a little and would have felt more comfortable with a price half that.

Beneath what I had originally found so interesting I found a game frustratingly vague, that held for me no wonder, nothing that drove me to want to explore or survive.

It didn’t give me anything positive to hold on to. Maybe it is just the style of the game that gave me a bad taste, maybe it’s just not my cup of tea, maybe it is your cup, or maybe, the tea just isn’t very good to begin with.

The game is intriguing and offers a unique experience; however, none of its well-executed ideas are worth anything if the game simply doesn’t function properly.

If you’re looking for a game with good music and not much else than Beatbuddy is your jam. Otherwise, look for the soundtrack and skip the frustration.

Due to unfortunate design choices, I just wanted to rush through everything and couldn’t exactly enjoy my time with the game. In short, Ancestors Legacy felt too much like a chore to play. Saying this doesn’t bring me any joy because the Middle Ages setting and the presented factions were actually cool. The idea to make a history-based, story-driven RTS title with dynamic features could have been great, but all these sides didn’t mesh well here. I really wanted to get into the gameplay, but the best I could muster was excitement for engaging cutscenes and disturbingly alluring images.

Despite its problems, I really do like Guilty Gear. It’s a fun and well-designed fighting engine. Unfortunately, the actual product being sold is little more than a shell for this fighting engine. The lack of narrative explanation is very frustrating, even if you are familiar with fighting games. Because of this, I can only recommend Guilty Gear to those who just want a solid version of the game on modern consoles.

For being a flash animation that took three years to develop and then lose all other meaning behind it's saddening gameplay and all around lack of sheen Rocketbirds doesn't get a recommendation from me.

Armello has a lot of potential but the interesting bits never come to the forefront in any meaningful way, leading to a rather bland experience.

In a nutshell, Punch Club acted like a stamina-fueled boxer and wore me down. Over time I found myself loathing the training process I originally felt happy progressing in. What started as a fun progression from nobody to star became a tedious task of increasing numbers that may or may not affect the outcome of a fight.

A grim journey indeed. Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey Remastered fails to make a puzzle game work the way that they should with messy RPG elements and difficulty based on an upgrade system rather than your own personal skill level.

9 Monkeys of Shaolin is not anything to write home about, nor is it a must-play rebirth of the beat ‘em up genre that the publishers and developers claim it to be. Although the game provides aesthetically pleasing environments and some enjoyable music, it ultimately suffers from an uninspired and one dimensional co-op beat ‘em up experience and is hamstrung by a vanilla cast of characters.

Despite how short the game is, it maybe emphasizes why the other games use this idea to break it up – the concept never really evolves or grows in any way, and with the platforming so basic, there’s really not much else here to dig into. It winds up being a rhythm game with disposable musical elements, a platformer with uninteresting mechanics.

It’s a shame that Team17 have found it hard to strike a balance between complicating things enough to keep Mugsters interesting but not too much to make it tedious and frustrating. The first few levels are a fantastic hook into the game, showing off its terrific abstract graphical style and some fun, yet simple puzzle mechanics, but the more you play, the more it gets bogged down by the burden of adding more. The multiplayer does add some fun novelty, but ultimately Mugsters probably isn’t a game you’ll feel like completing.

Pinstripe is a game that has such promise at its start but fails to capitalize on what makes it special by its completion. The simplistic platforming and combat take away from the game’s excellent atmosphere and world building and instead give the game this odd mix of tension in cutscenes immediately followed by easy-to-beat levels. While the minister was in Hell, facing the fears of humanity, I never felt like I was there with him. While the art and atmosphere are worthy of all the praise in the world, the gameplay and storytelling hurt the game exponentially, leading to a short and forgettable experience.

I really hope to see Membrane revisited at some point with a greater focus on making satisfying puzzles and using the mechanics to their fullest extent. As it stands, though, there really isn't much to go on here. Membrane's got great aesthetics and all, but there's nothing to really back it up, and so you wind up going through the game without feeling much like engaging in it. There are fun levels sprinkled throughout, but for the most part, I found myself wondering what the point was, and never wound up finding an answer.

No Man’s Sky is a missed opportunity to do something truly epic, and while the final game, when measured moment by moment, showed glimpses of something more than merely ordinary, the final result, was far less than. Promises aside, there’s just not enough to this universe to make it worth exploring.

Gauntlet: Slayer Edition is a passable action-RPG for those desperately looking for a dungeon crawler to play with friends but it doesn’t offer much in the way of replayability or unique concepts to really recommend past that.

Regrettably, despite my initial interest in Heavy Metal Thunder, and my high hopes for a piece of gripping and thrilling science fiction set in an inspired and fleshed-out universe, the final product failed to entertain me with every dull page-turn.

It's very important to understand what Hydrophobia: Prophecy is; literally, the third version of the same game with major technical and creative modifications made based on user feedback. With this iteration of Hydrophobia being riddled with issues, I have to wonder about the quality of the initial release and am curious about whether or not Dark Energy Digital will continue to modify it in the future.

Finding enjoyment in Unity requires a great deal of patience, more than anyone can afford. I want to like the game, and I do to some extent, however I cannot ignore that it’s broken. And there is no patch that can ever save Unity from its tarnished image.

It really seems like it would have worked better as a middleware physics engine, because it certainly doesn’t work as a game.

Deus Ex: The Fall is a very ambitious game that pays off in some significant ways but fails in some fairly key areas.

The Cave isn’t completely without merit, but it is unquestionably a subpar game in more than a few respects, and one of its developer’s weakest outings. It has a great look and an interesting setup, but it just loses too much of its potential to middling mechanics. I wouldn’t recommend spending your fifteen bucks on it.

I wanted to like 99Vidas after it promised to faithfully live up to the classics and add new beat ‘em up elements, but it couldn’t hit its own hype at all. The beat ‘em up genre is one that is filled with monotony and it desperately needs a fresh new face to give it the revitalization that other genres, like fighting games, have seen in recent years. I wasn’t expecting 99Vidas to be that game but I was hoping it’d be a competent beat ‘em up. Instead, it leans too heavily on lazy writing and tired mechanics while only adding mechanics that serve to make the game more frustrating.

I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. It's a simple game that quickly left me bored and never got much better. The game is alright in some areas but it suffers from being mindless and simple, which isn't what I look for in a game. Phantom Breaker serves a purpose, though the Switch is so loaded down with games at this point that space on the console is better off being used for something else.

Under the auspices of creating a “hardcore RPG experience,” Daedalic has instead created a rage inducing time waster.

Vergil’s Downfall is not fundamentally broken, but it’s over quickly and falls far short of the quality of the main game. It’s super disappointing.

By divorcing themselves so much from the experience, Pwnee Studios allows their game to suffer from not being able to judge whether a level is actually fun, making it come off pointless, shallow and uninteresting.

Broforce is a fun concept that just never coalesces right.

The game shines most through its aesthetics with impressive environments and an atmospheric score. Its lack of agency and action may bore players, especially if the confusing story doesn’t reach them.

Despite its issues, Fable Anniversary is the best way for players to experience the original Fable. Just keep in mind that action RPGs have a come a very long way since then.

A serious lack of fun and no desire to break free of its own monotony are reasons enough to avoid the game altogether. Spend your money on something else.

It’s a lesson Dillon’s Rolling Western: The Last Crusade could have used: it’s not always good to be genre-straddling, especially when you do it in a way that leaves both your genres hamstrung and uninteresting.

KickBeat was a really interesting idea that with a little better direction could have made for a great rhythm game on the Vita which, I feel, is a platform that can handle rhythm games very well.

The Town of Light features a harrowing, historically-accurate story of mental illness and society's failure to understand it. Unfortunately, its steadily-worsening gameplay ultimately obscures the impact and importance of this tale, rendering even one playthrough far from worth it. I will grant that it made me want to read about 20th-century mental asylums on my own time, but I suppose that says it all; just read about these asylums and you'll spare yourself a lot of pain.

The outside looks good, but the moment you get close enough to interact with anything, it never ceases to reveal just how shallow it is. The missions, the few that actually exist, end the same way and are quite frequently unimpressive, the wasteland looks great but is boring to traverse and explore, and the few things that are good, like the combat, are mired with systems that are either a hassle to get access to or a hassle to deal with. It’s been a while since I have been genuinely disappointed with a game in almost every way. I don’t like this feeling. And neither will you.

The developer’s desire to recapture the magic of a previous age clouded their vision of what constitutes good design, and created an experience fraught with antithetical decisions. As a result, Hard Reset offers an average game which becomes particularly tedious long before it ends.

There are interesting concepts at play here and I definitely understand why the team behind Interrogation were inspired to create it. It looks great with a black and white, noir-like visual style which really lands. From gameplay to messaging, though, Interrogation fails on almost every other level. Some of the more insane scenes that show up are something to behold but not for any sort of good reason. Don't be deceived into thinking Interrogation is worth your time.

My dissatisfaction with Rocketbirds 2 stems from Ratloop’s poorly implemented ambition. On paper, the new tweaks and gameplay adjustments should have made for a much more fun game. But because the combat, which wasn’t great in the first place, never got the shot in the arm it needed, the whole thing is a mess.

Even the plot, which is initially intriguing, will likely disappoint by its conclusion, when it becomes apparent that the game is only interested in telling about half of it. In this age of the AAA blockbuster, games as personal projects are always welcome, but, as this one demonstrates, there’s a reason games are usually created by more than one person.

I would never go so far as to say that This is the Police 2 is a poorly or incompetently made game, but it is by no means a fun one. Even if you loved the first game, I cannot recommend this sequel to you, either for its gameplay or its story. For what it's worth, the game's story ends on a cliff hanger, and I am still interested in seeing how the next game turns out. I don't know if the third game will end up being a good one, but I do know that I have no desire to ever go back and play through the second one.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing was a fun game when it came out for the PC in 2013. It was a hack and slash RPG that gave players yearning for more Diablo something to bide their time while great titles came out to refresh the genre. No one will say that this game changed or evolved the genre upon release, but it was fun and worth playing for the action-RPG crowd. However, the same cannot be said about the PS4 version. This is a poor port of a decent game that should be avoided. There are other action-RPGs to play on the PS4 with better performance that offer better value and experiences. Stay away from this version of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and either get the PC version or pop in Diablo III instead.

With a shallow combat system and boring mission structure and unbalanced online function, Battle of Z is not for the faint of heart and can easily be skipped, but if you REALLY want to play a Dragon Ball Z game you could do a lot worse.

If you just want to play a game that’s all about pointless grinding, for whatever weird reason, then go ahead. But Citizens of Earth just can’t keep up with the promise of its story and falls flat after just a few hours and then you realize that you’re somehow not even halfway done.

It is, in no uncertain terms, a waste of money.

At the end of it all, Omega Labyrinth Life is a game that was not made to be remembered, but instead made to pander certain kind of players. The overt sexual themes, lackluster story, and misused features all came together to make me uncomfortable at worst, while making me only mildly amused at best. What the game does do well has been done before and better, and everything ends up suffocating under its lovingly rendered and bouncing massive mammaries.

Overall, Iron Rain echoes Insect Armageddon as a spin-off that tries to take the well-loved series in a new direction. Unfortunately, it drained out a lot of the charm that made the older titles so fun to begin with. Admittedly, any Earth Defense Force game will have a passable fun factor just from how straightforwardly enjoyable it is to blow up giant enemies and buildings. However, the campaign dragged on far too long and relied too heavily on endless waves of bland enemies. Sadly, Iron Rain is a massive misstep that should probably be avoided by both fans and newcomers alike.

Multiplayer puzzle games aren’t exactly plentiful on the PS4 right now, but that fact doesn’t make Tiny Brains more appealing. Its short, easy and unimaginative. The Worms and soccer-inspired mini game diversions don’t help its cause as a game to break out with friends, either. Even if this sort of couch co-op experience is your jam, I can’t recommend it.

Fictorum, to me, feels like a game that has a single focus, its destruction mechanic, and everything else was slapped on after that was nailed down. It feels like the kind of game that is acting more as a business pitch to bigger companies, a way for the developers to say look at this cool thing we did instead of hey gamers, check out our awesome game. There is a great mechanic here that is fun to play with, but Fictorum lacks any kind of soul beyond that. It’s worth checking out for a weekend or two, but I can’t recommend much more than that.

I really enjoyed the previous versions of this game but the 3DS version is sadly just not worth anyone’s time.

It’s an experience that will undoubtedly draw a cult following, but without some kind of universally applicable lesson the rest of us can skip it.

Koral is part science display, part puzzle game, and all design compromise. It feels like a roadmap on what not to do when designing an environmentally conscious game. Without a doubt, the visuals are initially captivating, but their flair quickly wears off and you’re left with the game’s dismal content. The game provides a clunky experience that doesn’t satisfy in any meaningful manner. Too shallow in both its educational content and puzzle-solving gameplay, Koral finds the perfect middle ground to embody an especially painful kind of mediocrity.

My first thought as soon as I opened the game was “wow this feels cheap.” The feeling never went away, and just got even deeper.

Disney Tsum Tsum Festival is a conflicting title. It definitely appears to be a low-effort game that borders on shovelware, but there are glimpses of quality spread throughout. With more experiences like Bubble Hockey and Lost Treasure, the game would’ve been great, but as it is now, I’d much rather play Mario Party. Though it’s worth playing for dedicated fans, it’s not worth playing for others. Overall, Disney Tsum Tsum Festival can be fun for young kids who enjoy Tsum characters, but holding the game to a higher standard, there’s little to keep playing.

There is certainly an audience this game will appeal to, but for me personally, I was left tired and listless after each of my half hour sessions (I’d probably make a terrible psychiatrist). Also, 95% of the game takes place in the same room with the same backing ambient track that slowly worms its way into your brain after hours on repeat.

Overall, Super Monkey Ball banana Blitz HD is too difficult to play due to the controls. It made me feel sick, and it lacks a lot of the fun extras that were a draw for the series, or at least what should be expected in one for the current generation of consoles.

The whole package just feels lazy and while it may find an audience with kids who may not know any better, any adult fan will just feel cheated and bored. Unfortunately the Vita will have to wait a little longer for a satisfying whole hearted Lego experience.

All Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate is (aside from a terrible name that feels super stitched together) is a boring game in a great franchise that reminds you how to not translate a game from 3D to 2D.

The game’s downfall is the forsaking of its predecessor’s main elements of dread in favor of resorting to cheap jump-scares with the over-saturation of old animatronics and the music box preventing you from being able to change your actions more.

Basically, Cube Tactics isn’t a great tactics game. Instead it wants to be a puzzle game, but if that’s the case, it’s a pretty bad puzzle game as well.

The forced dialogue, lacking visuals and boring gameplay do little to make The Legend of Kay: Anniversary worth the price of admission.

In the end, Spellspire feels like a game that was clearly made for mobile devices and was designed to be played very casually. When it is played on a console, the shortcomings become glaringly apparent. With the wide variety of games available on PlayStation 4, it simply is not compelling enough to demand attention.

Toy Soldiers: War Chest feels like a game that was rushed through without care or polish. Nostalgia can’t save this game from being an absolute disappointment.

Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is not a great game. Though it has an entertaining character creator and some fantastic customization options, separate the game from the license for a second, and it becomes clear that Shinobi Striker is a sub-par action game and an even worse multiplayer experience. The game sets an interesting foundation for future Naruto games, if only conceptually, but no one save for the bravest of Naruto fans would likely enjoy Shinobi Striker in its current form. Better off next time, Naruto. Believe it!

At the very least, Gun Gale Online could have been a world worth exploring. But no, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet offers nothing to keep you but freely gives more than enough to make you wish you had the time you spent playing it back.

I wouldn’t recommend the Vita version of Atomic Ninjas. The game itself is fine and could be exciting when played against a full compliment of human opponents but that’s a guarantee the game can’t make.

Bee Simulator seems pressed into mixing action elements with educational tools about one of Earth’s most fascinating insects. I don’t decry Varsav Games, and publisher Big Ben Interactive, for trying to tap into this specialized market. But at virtually every turn I was simply going through the motions until completion after the opening half-hour. Whether it’s in respect to the repetitive gameplay structure, unsatisfying flight controls, or deflating brevity, there’s really no reason to see what the buzz is about. Bee Simulator is a well-meaning edutainment game but its honeymoon period is gone at breakneck speed. You’ve bee-n warned, and I’ve run out of puns.

There is definitely an interesting and unique idea underneath the problems which far outweigh everything else.

You won’t find the fast-paced action of Diablo, or the tactical challenge of Dragon Age: Origins or Pillars of Eternity. Whatever you are looking for, you will probably find it somewhere else in a better game that you already own.

There are things to like in Schrodinger’s Cat. The gameplay shows signs of brilliance, but the writing and poor level design ultimately hold it back.

If you're already familiar with Payday 2 and are dying to play the game on the go with a group of equally excited friends, then Payday 2 on Switch will scratch that itch. For those unfamiliar with the Payday series looking to give it a whirl, you're better off sticking to the far cheaper (and feature complete) version of the game on PC. Meanwhile, everyone else should probably spend their money on something much newer and fresher than this.

All Zombies Must Die is a $10 downloadable game that fails to reach the bar it sets by its own absurdity.

As a hobbyist and critic, I’ve played a lot of games in the past few years that feel like they make a solid case for VR, games of imagination or innovation that simply couldn’t exist in any other medium. In contrast, Last Labyrinth just demonstrates that a poor game is not redeemed by VR, but made exponentially worse. Dark, dull and depressingly devoid of real entertainment value, Last Labyrinth is — like a shadow-filled room — best avoided.

Off-Road Drive is a good example of a game trying too hard to imitate reality when the technology behind it is simply not there and is unbalanced.

Sadly, Resistance's debut on the PS Vita is undone by the very concept it proves. In time, we may see first-person shooters thrive on this system, and that's a relief, but Burning Skies doesn't warrant a place among them.

Hardcore horror fans will appreciate it, as presumably they’re used to tolerating subpar gameplay and sub-subpar production values, but casual players would be better off sticking with the more venerable titles it draws influence from.

Jeremy McGrath's Offroad is an unchallenging, bland bore not worth your time or money. There are more engaging racers out there, retail and downloadable that will satisfy your driving needs.

Despite the amount of cool and interesting features this game has, the game isn’t enjoyable, and it never wants to work properly. Deformers is pretty interesting in concept and really changes up the arena-based shooter genre with quirky graphics and unique gameplay elements. But the game is mostly broken, and all of the players have pretty much already abandoned ship. For a thirty dollar game, I couldn’t ever recommend giving it a go. It’s a waste of time and money, to put it quite simply. If the bugs were cleaned up and the game was free to play, I could see Deformers standing on its own as a pretty decent game. Perhaps if they also added some additional content or single player modes, it could hold a bit more value, but I don’t think it could save the game. Ultimately, considering the number of currently active players and lack of initiative to fix the game by the developers, I think the damage has already been done. There is simply no reason to buy this game, period.

Separation is an apt title to illuminate its central problem. The adventure beckons you to experience a desolate world, utilize a VR headset, tingle your sensory stimuli in a way you can almost touch, and engage with a narrative tackling uncomfortable emotions. But, despite this magical potential, all of the accumulated shortcomings reveal the integral quality it sorely lacks: authentic connection.

For what it’s worth, I think the developers of Narcos were on the right track. They had a good idea that other games have nearly perfected, and tried to add their own twist to it. Sometimes those chances work out, giving us another way to play some of our favorite game types. This was not one of those times. Narcos tried to change the game. It just didn’t work.

Ultimately, Mario Party: The Top 100 is not an awful game. The multiplayer is fun if you can find people to play with, but even then it overstays its welcome rather quickly. The modes are shallow, the only Mario Party style board is tiny and non-interactive, and the minigame selection leaves something to be desired.

This is not a good game, and its few shining moments make it all the more frustrating that it was released feeling so unfinished.

I know games like this take a lot of work from creators with a very small budget, but sometimes, an idea just isn’t that great.

I certainly appreciate the game existing on the eShop, but unfortunately, The Starship Damrey needed to have better storytelling and a better payoff to make the download worth it.

There’s a reason scope management is taught in game design schools. Overflow Games’ underestimation of its own limitations is the source of almost all of the faults in Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim.

There isn’t much positive to say about OverRide 2: Super Mech League. Although the game provides a diverse cast of characters, it also provides a mostly online centric experience while lacking a playerbase to make it work. The graphics look relatively nice running on the Xbox Series X, however, the gameplay is extremely clunky and unrefined, especially when it comes to the awkward trigger-centric control scheme. The campaign is relatively non-existent and mostly serves as a tutorial to teach players important game mechanics. All-in-all, OverRide 2: Super Mech League is a disappointing brawler experience.

The game’s utter lack of compelling mechanics and scenarios, combined with a dreadfully dull world, make it a laughable proposition at fifteen dollars, and the most disappointing sequel I may have ever played.

It is rather hard to recommend God Mode. Even though it has competent mechanics, flat out there isn’t enough content to see you playing for more than a couple of hours, especially when there are full retail games out there with similar game modes bundled in as well as with full campaigns and full multiplayer offerings for the same, or lower, price.

Dick Wilde 2 is an interestingly bizarre game. It has a nice visual style, the music is catchy, and some of its elements are so bizarre that I want to love it. The problem is that the game is never more fun than it’s frustrating.

I wish I had better news to share but Tennis World Tour 2, like its predecessor, is a very rough game of tennis that unless heavily patched feels like yet another tennis game to skip while we eagerly await a true spiritual successor to the Top Spin franchise.

Its puzzles are frustrating not because they are hard, but because cost-management means you spend more time trying to figure out what parts can be deleted so you have can build elsewhere.