In the simplest terms, playing The Witcher 2 is a lot like attending an archaeological dig with nothing but your bare hands: you're sure to come up with something amazing, but you'll suffer a lot of unnecessary punishment and stress to attain it.

There’s a good game in Pokemon X, and fans looking for another game near-identical to the ones before it likely won’t find issue with a lot of the dusty trimmings and transparent battle system. If you want to get into into the new stat rebuilding features and grind out tons of easy battles to prep for high-level online multiplayer, it’s never been easier to do so. But for all else, the game’s excellent visuals belie the frustratingly old-fashioned design. RPG folk can find better times on their 3DS.

Just an average stealth game on the PS2. It suffers from frame rate problems and just doesn't offer as much as we all would have hoped.

Perhaps with time Heroes of the Storm can age into something great, for now it’s worth checking out if you want to experience a different take on a popular genre.

It definitely overstays its welcome, and it's far from the best in the series, it's been so long since there was a Metroid game that it's nice to see it back here on the 3DS. I feel like they've built strong mechanics, which can hopefully serve a more varied and interesting quest in a future entry to the series, maybe one that DOESN'T involve doing the same fights over and over the entire game. Samus Returns is definitely a step up from the original Metroid 2, but it is unable to touch the heights of both the series and the genre.

MLB The Show 17 is still a great game of baseball but one that with each season seems less and less impressive compared to other sports games available. With a lack of competition, it's hard to not recommend. But with each year I'm still wanting to see the team at Sony San Diego push the envelope even if there isn't any competition to force their hand.

Ikaruga is a game that takes the old and combines it with the new, and does a good job of it.

Tangle Tower is still worth exploring despite its issues, especially for those with access to Apple Arcade. At it's piecemeal $20 price tag, though, the game's flaws are less forgivable. If anything, Tangle Tower makes a compelling case for a long-running franchise starring Detective Grimoire and Sally. The foundation is there: sharp writing, beautiful presentation, phenomenal voice work, stellar music. With just a little more time in the oven, SFB's next game could be something truly special. For now, we'll just have to settle for "good."

MLB The Show 16 is yet another great game of baseball, but for the first time I felt like the franchise is starting to wane in its greatness.

A wonderful novelty, Sorcery! exists to serve a niche group of users and will struggle to find a captivated mainstream audience.

PlanetSide 2 is a hard game to sum up. It's a beautiful, solidly built shooter that presents large-scale conflict like nobody else in the business. The rest of the game's enjoyment, however, is entirely up to you. If you can dedicate the time to learning the systems, decoding the cumbersome UI, and finding a group of people that you like playing with, PlanetSide 2 will be a blast.

Capcom has put out a partially broken full retial game. I had fun with it despite its flaws, but $60 is too much to ask for what this game is.

Zen Pinball’s South Park offering isn’t perfect but it will serve as a lovely addition to its already robust catalog of tables.

Each episode so far has had its good parts and bad parts- but each time, it's something different. It's been inconsistent, and I don't think it can keep my interest if it doesn't settle down and find a groove for itself. The lack of focus on Lee/Clementine is only forgiven because of the extra focus on a good story twist at the end- but I really hope they find a balance in the future, which would truly make the game compelling on a level that Telltale hasn't done before. As of now, it still feels like a work in progress.

The latest Need for Speed release has its share of slip-ups, but it's mostly able to sideline them and deliver a fast, fun open world racing game very much like Criterion's classic Burnout Paradise.

Unless you’re a chronic stat-cruncher and menu enthusiast, though, I can’t imagine that this incremental and grind-heavy sequel will resonate with you.

The developers went back to the core ideals of the franchise, and came out with what made it fun, and fully customized to really shine on the DS.

Resogun is great for spontaneous, quick play. Anything longer than that starts to give me a headache.

F1 2019 is a great game with solid presentation, smooth technical performance and tons of things to tinker with and drive through. However, it’s severely hurt by its moronic AI. Marrying more traditional video games sentiments to a simulation is always problematic. The thing is, Codemasters has no competition in the genre so there’s no outside pressure to improve on what they have been doing in the past. Emulating clean driving, especially from the AI’s side, isn’t impossible as Gran Turismo Sport did it in a very classy way. Maybe that’s something Codemasters should look into before rolling out F1 2020.

It is great that Xbox 360 and PS3 owners can now experience Resident Evil 4 but it is a shame that more effort was not put into it to make it stand out. As it is, there is really no reason for this version to exist as it does not bring anything new to the package.

Sure, the game is tepid in some spots and the steep price and lack of any multiplayer options does sting a bit, but provided you haven't grown tired of this tried-and-true formula then Orcs Must Die can definitely provide some hours of silly, unrelenting fun.

The best advice I can give is to not come into Persona Q looking for another handheld version of the previous two games. The changes made to the formula may seem minor but they have a huge impact on the experience.

A decent enough addition for those collecting Zen Pinball 2: Portal tables though it is a slightly empty homage to Aperture Science.

The value of Lumines: Electronic Symphony is debatable. Players who gravitate toward long form puzzle challenges and high-score hunting will fall in love with its charms, as will fans of electronic music. It's unlike any other puzzler, and it's well worth every gamer's time to experience the symbiotic relationship that forms between player and game during a good run. Aside from that, however, this remains little more than a glossy refreshment of a game that appeared 7 years ago. It's a great design, to be sure, but in the end it's still just putting blocks together.

So should you take the dip into Destiny 2? If you are looking for something to sink your teeth into, have a ton of time on your hands, and like shooters, there’s a lot here to get behind. But if, even for an instant, the thought of grinding out slightly better pieces of equipment in a near endless loot to get just to see a number go up just a tiny bit, seems unappealing, you are going to have some issues with Bungie’s future shooter. In the end, I think it may be just a bit to close to the original for me.

As far as puzzle-platformers are concerned, Creaks doesn’t quite break the mold. It makes a fun first impression through a neat call to adventure but it wasn’t long before I developed a wandering eye. Throwing in new obstacles injects excitement when things get overly familiar but the trick eventually loses its luster. Creaks stands out by its beautiful art style, especially when it comes to the various paintings found throughout the mansion. Amanita Design has made a puzzle game that offers just enough accessible cerebral challenges. Though by no means a poorly constructed piece of software, Creaks’ minimalist approach to gameplay is entertaining in the moment but doesn’t quite leave much of a lasting impression.

While there are new additions that make Super Mega Baseball 3 a worthwhile sequel, I hoped for more features – especially given its much higher price point. Just as its predecessors delivered, it’s a great game, but feels somewhat schizophrenic when you stack up what features have been added versus what has been passed on. There is a major emphasis on some inclusions that feel like they’d be more at home in a realistic baseball simulator, yet some very fundamental inclusions for an arcade baseball game are still absent.

Limbo’s idea of a challenge is to lure you into false solutions until you happen upon the one that works, that is to say, if it works within the parameters of your limited movement. But the harsh truth is that trial and error is actually quite easy once you accept its inevitability. In fact, at that point it even manages to be minimally frustrating. The real issue is that it’s just so overwhelmingly dull, so mentally unstimulating, akin to floating in some kind of... limbo. Hm.