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

After being delayed, Eidos finally outs their GTA-inspired actioner. We say don't bother as it is plagued by sloppy controls, disjointed plot and dull visuals.

On the surface LA Cops appears to be a solid top-down shooter. Unfortunately, it relies too heavily on a broken teamwork system. The shoddy AI works against the game and results in the game being more of a frustrating title than an fun one.

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.

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.

As a character, Grave fails to impress and comes off as a tryhard edgelord with his gothic-inspired coffin chained to both arms. Even the product page on the PlayStation website appears slapdash, with text seemingly lifted from Google Translate without any readability edits. Gungrave VR is a total headache (which has nothing to do with virtual reality) and no one, either series fan or VR enthusiast, should waste their time.

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.

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.

The argument has been made a lot in the video game industry. Which is better five hours of exceptional gameplay or twenty hours of good gameplay? Don't worry about that with X-Men Destiny it's not only short but it's just flat out a bad game. Unless you want easy achievement points there are far too many great titles this holiday to waste your time with this one.

If Carmen Sandiego had more educational value I may have raised the overall a point, but with the lack of educational value, we are given a platformer that doesn't have a lot to offer. There are better educational games out there and there are better platformers out there.

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.

Do yourself a favor and just buy an old Snoop album for $10 on Amazon.

Unless you remember these three fondly from your youth, there’s little reason to pursue them now. Being able to reach back to the origins of one of gaming’s biggest companies continues to be an act of at least some historical interest, but little amusement.

Mechanical Scrollery is an experimental title that is rough around the edges. There’s clearly some ambition with the direction the game was going, but a lack of polish and vision ultimately hinder the experience. Though I found some joy in the mindless, bland gameplay, it’s not something I’d be eager to return to. Past the core combat, the RPG system provides a progression system that delivered passable incentives for getting through the game. Overall, Mechanical Scrollery is not a title I’d recommend as there are plenty of more polished and creative Touhou fangames out there.

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.

Lazaretto lacks focus on what exactly it wants to do. Does it want to scare players with a sense of horrific immersion, or does it want to send us on a mind tripping journey? The game doesn't seem to know, and neither do I. Ultimately, Lazaretto has a strong start and truly great sound design, but I think the developers should have spent more time at the drawing board for this one. As this is Chapter 1, let's hope Chapter 2 can pull it together.

Overall, Dune Sea feels like a work in progress. Though it generally succeeds with its pleasant scenery and occasionally inspiring music, the gameplay holds the game back from being the kind of experience it was meant to be. Had the flying been more polished and the glitches less abundant, Dune Sea would easily be a solid, relaxing experience. As it is now, it’s a good example of why playtesting and polishing are so important.

Offering a plot from different perspective seems like a grand idea, but the lazy execution, boring characters and slow pacing makes this one an absolute mess.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Warfighter is uninspired, underdeveloped, and completely profligate with the solemn potential of its core concept.

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.

Unlike the dedicated officers of the R.I.P.D., do yourself a favor and just let this one go. I don’t think this needs anymore words to get that point across.

Midway tries to resurrect their fun Rampage franchise on the Wii and fails miserably. Get ready for some simplistic controls and extremely dated visuals.

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

Unearthing Mars begins as a serious expedition to Mars only to transform into a laughably bad science fiction space opera about angry aliens and partying pig dog beasts. It won’t leave you with anything to remember it by, except for how laughably bad it is. The experience of Unearthing Mars is a lot like being EPCOT Center’s Spaceship Earth while riding high on bad weed.

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.

This is a functional but mostly joyless and aimless game whose design maximizes the most tedious parts of its dungeon crawl, and not even local co-op for four can make things more palatable. Adventure Time deserves more respect than this.

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.

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.

One of the most celebrated children's tale turns out as a dreadful platformer, sporting way too many flaws to be a remotely fun game.

No character differentiation, the lack of arenas, the frustrating gameplay, inconsistency of AI and the unheard of lack of online for a car game makes this game feel incomplete. After about three hours you may never pick this game up again, unless you have a game night with friends.

If you’re looking for a game with not even a sliver of hand-holding, Viviette will scratch your itch. If you need no motivation to explore a spooky mansion, you’ll find that in the game. However, If you need either of those things even in the slightest, this is one game I would suggest you hide from.

A next-gen Sonic platformer would have been a godsend, but Sega somehow manages to screw this up with an insanely frustrating camera and serious framerate issues.

It winds up having a look and bothering to introduce an idea, but doesn’t pay it off or give a reason to come back for the next episode.

The gameplay just seemed so bland and boring that I really don't think I ever enjoyed this game.

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.

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.

I wanted to like Prime World: Defenders as it really had me going for the first few levels. I had a couple of close calls where my HP almost went down but I managed to keep it perfect with well placed towers. This exciting back and forth between me and the enemies rarely showed its head again during the rest of my playthrough.

This all may come across as overly harsh and a tad vindictive, but I really wanted to love this game. There's so many juicy elements in Valkyria Revolution that could have been molded into a truly wonderful experience, but all those pieces just never seemed to properly assemble. I appreciate that the designers tried something new with the combat, but trying to blend strategy RPG elements with a hack 'n' slash just didn't work in this case. If you're curious about the Valkyria franchise, my advice would be to pick up the HD remaster of the original Valkyria Chronicles. I can't speak for the two follow-up games released on the Vita, but I can say, with certainty, that Valkyria Revolution is not worth your time or money.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Regardless of the setting and the fantastic visuals, Adr1ft feels like an also-ran walking simulator with more rules and less explanation along the way. It’s a good distillation of the limits and how the genre both does and doesn’t work. It may have been a cool idea but it’s unable to deliver on the promise inherent in being trapped in space, resulting in something too slow, too tedious, and too unsatisfying when you reach the end of its too-long running time.

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!

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.

There’s still some fun to be had in each game and the price is very low, but the ability to brute force you’re way through each one with unlimited continues means that only those who enjoy chasing their friends on leaderboards should purchase this first collection.

Conceptually, Repressed is exactly the type of game that appeals to me. Delving into the repressed depths of the mind provides plenty of opportunities to tell an immensely profound and intriguing story. In practice, however, Repressed is actually quite bland and uninteresting. Mechanically uninventive and stylistically dull, there was little that kept me engaged besides the passable but rudimentary story. Repressed is hard to recommend for anyone besides those that are completely sold on the minimalist aesthetic or a limited creative concept.

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.

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

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

My final opinion is that it could have used a lot more quality testing.

If you want a real survival horror then find something else because this one is not worth your time.

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.

Swordbreaker: Back to the Castle is a bargain-price game, but a low price point cannot balance the scale against the lack of quality that casts a shadow over every moment of playtime. If its combat were better or its storytelling actually existed in some form beyond rudimentary, and if its quests or enemies were interesting, Swordbreaker might be worth a look. The open world RPG space is populated by excellent, well-made and entertaining games, but unfortunately Swordbreaker: Back to the Castle is not one of them.

Those hoping for a taste of the old good times best look elsewhere, as the game ruins the arcade classic with terrible camera and barebones-simple gameplay.

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.

Broforce is a fun concept that just never coalesces right.

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.

Girl fight is a difficult game to recommend. It’s clear to see where the developers were drawing their inspiration, however they have succeeded only in creating a game which emulates the bigger budget titles on a very basic level.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is an unfortunate addition to an otherwise great franchise. With this being the second of three Resident Evil games coming out this year it would probably be best to just skip this one entirely unless you are a diehard fan who wants to see every game in the series. This title had a lot of great potential but falls flat on almost every part of its delivery and while it may not do everything wrong what it does right is hardly enough to save this alternate take on a great franchise.

Maize is a premise without a core. It’s corn without the cob. There’s no foundation in the gameplay for its various ideas – both good and bad – to stick to, and it leads to the whole experience feeling hollow. This could be forgiven if Maize was funny, or if the narrative was humorous but heartfelt. Unfortunately, jokes are the only component here, overemphasized over anything else, leaving the rest bare. This is just a comedy script devoid of any subtlety that has been reluctantly stapled onto a game.

I can’t recommend Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn - it’s a joke that fizzles out quickly, and leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

There are too many strategy games out right now to warrant giving A Game of Thrones: Genesis a try. With games out there like Starcraft 2, Civilization V, and Total War: Shogun 2 it just isn't viable to play Genesis when it feels stale and unfinished. Even for fans of the books or show it just isn't a good enough game, even in the fan service perspective, to go out and spend $40 on. Do yourself a favor and read the books, then go play a better strategy game.

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.

Regrettably, it amounts to a barely-competent shooter with an off-putting aesthetic, ludicrous plot, gimmicky hook, and a frustrating tendency to repeat its boss-battles more than a JRPG.

And that sums it up. Fuel Overdose is a game full of wrong turns. From art direction to gameplay, lacking story to lacking track design, it’s a game that never really finds its way to anything that even resembles mediocrity.

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.

STONE arrives at an uncomfortable middle more akin to a pile-up than a tightrope balancing act. The anthropomorphized backdrop feigns a more peculiar and memorable adventure, but the story is mostly lifeless and forgetful. It’s another third-person walking sim that’s not bothered to utilize our protagonist’s skills in any interesting or tangible way. Add on a fifteen-dollar retail price and you’re left considering a few rounds at the pub has more value, and I doubt our marsupial lead would protest to that.

XIII Remake completely disgraces the original game by converting it into fodder for Internet memes. It’s better left to the digital wasteland of unfortunate titles that should have never existed. If you really want to play XIII as it was intended, dust off your old PlayStation 2 (or GameCube or Xbox) and scavenge garage sales for a copy of the game.

Trackless provides a glimpse into a fascinating world. Its intriguing lore and phenomenal soundtrack encouraged me to see the game through from beginning to end. Ultimately, however, its performance issues and rough difficulty spikes hindered it for much of the journey. Poorly optimized, buggy, and unwieldy, Trackless lacks the polish of the strong adventure titles it looks to emulate.

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.

From gameplay that boils down to memory quizzes to poor production values to bland stories, there is no reason you should play this game, no matter how big a fan of adventure games or Law & Order you are.

Is Knee Deep worth it? Is Knee Deep, with so many alternatives available whether you are looking for an adventure game or a deep, thought provoking indie game, really worth it. If you're looking for a good adventure game with choice driven dialogue that impacts the overall story, I would suggest you check out a Telltale game that has been relesed in the last 3-4 years, or maybe Grim Fandango, I know that it's a bit old school but come on it's good.

Game Party 2 is not a game I could ever recommend for any Wii owner and is just another horrible mini-game style arcade game that relies solely on the Wii remote to make it fun.

Every enticing prospect in its description – the promising subject matter, the skill accumulation, the sharp colours – exists to postpone the realization that the game is as fulfilling as stargazing on a cloudy night.

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.

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 really feel a need to play this, get it on Steam or some other PC forum. From what I have seen, the pictures featured here, or anywhere on the internet for that matter, point in that direction. I can’t speak for the quality of the title there, but I can, emphatically and until I am out of breath, say this: Do not, under any circumstances, play this version. Leave it on the shelf. Don’t even purchase it on sale. Don’t play it. Just… don’t.

I won’t lie to you, I am trying to be positive, and I want people to enjoy this game. ARK: Survival Evolved is a solid survival adventure with unique mechanics, an intriguing mystery and lore, and plenty of years of development in its past to show for it. However, there are just too many issues on the Switch version right now to enjoy it to its fullest, making it near unplayable for many, and I really hope that changes as we move forward.

As an experience, this title is truly exceptional, and has me looking out for Outlands' next title. But I am a game reviewer, and as a game, I cannot in good conscious suggest you play North, as it falls fatuigingly flat fairly fleetly.

I feel for the developers, who clearly had their hearts in the right place when making this game, but the misjudgements in its structure and release make it impossible to love.

Barring the possible subtext about adventure game protagonists (which may be entirely in my head), the game is artistically bankrupt – it copies ideas, spouts constant references in lieu of jokes, and features a story so flawed that even its own writers seemed to give up by the end of it.

It has so many flaws, combined with the short span of the game, makes for one that would be near impossible to recommend.

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

Takedown: Red Sabre was supposed to be an eloquent love letter to the tactical shooter genre, but the final product ends up reading more like hate mail. There isn’t a single part of the game that rises above mediocrity, and much of it dips below that mark. Worst of all, the very fans who have been craving a new game like Takedown are the ones who will be disappointed by it the most.

I don't want anyone to feel like they are trudging through the monotony and minutia of this game just to witness the pretty lights. It's not worth it. Sure, the environments are pretty, but that doesn't hide the ugly that is this game. For people looking for a quick shooter, you can find it in Bodycount, but other than that, look elsewhere.

To put it bluntly, don’t bother with Fireburst.

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.

The Expendables is a great Hollywood concept that could easily make a great video game but sadly this isn't it.

While the idea of turning real world items into in-game ones is pretty neat, the game throws in everything it can to make the experience as uninteresting as it possibly can.

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.

This is the freshman effort for developer We the Force Studios and it is certainly noticeable throughout the entirety of Randall. The Mexico based developer has crafted a game that obviously pays homage to a style of gameplay that they are fond of. However, the end result is little more than just that: an homage without any of the hooks that make other games of this variety so great. There is certainly potential for a great game within Randall and I hope this fledgling developer is able to learn from its mistakes to craft a more cohesive game in its next attempt.

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.