In the end, Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time is a middle-of-the-road licensed game. For fans, there’s probably enough here in this victory lap of a final season cover that will make the gripes I have fade away into the beautiful backgrounds. For those in the middle, like me, the amount of good it does is just not enough to keep me coming back for more. Sadly, this Jack just doesn’t jump as well as he should.

There’s nothing quite like it out there – even SpaceChem is only thematically similar – so who knows, maybe it will awaken the passion of some budding physicists. It’s more likely, however, to merely serve as a warning against future game ideas based on subatomic particles.

You have to give the game credit it looks great, but that in my book doesn’t come close to making a great game. What started out great ended up being rather disappointing. For those who like Afro Samurai and are interested in the game it may be a safer option to rent this.

It’s a particularly dire case of style over substance, putting you through an easy, unremarkable rollercoaster ride that you’ll play in an afternoon and forget about a couple days later. And with the number of quality family titles and platformers to choose from this year, I just don't see a place for a game like this. There’s a point in the weak story where Classic Sonic has to go home, making Tails feel sad. Sonic cheers him up: “I’m sure we’ll run into him again.” Well, 3D Sonic, with Mania’s quality and success, I'm sure we will too. It’s you I’m worried about.

All things considered, an interesting premise and good storytelling can’t make up for bad game design.

The writing doesn’t really save the fact that you spend most of this game just hitting the same buttons in order until victory. I guess sometimes that’s all you want, but if that’s the case, why not just play something like Cookie Clicker instead?

If you've played the previous two Death Spank titles and enjoyed them beyond all measure, I'm sure you will delighted with The Baconing. For the rest of you, you're better off spending your time and money elsewhere.

Morkredd's main mechanic succinctly reflects my own thoughts on it altogether. The glowing orb represents life: punctuating atmosphere, inspired visual design, and a motivating gimmick. But when you begin to step away, as you wander outside its glow, you encounter death: day-one DLC, technical problems, an atrocious finale, and more. These severe disparities, bright day and atramentous night, imply even genre fans will be ambivalent towards it.

With all of the hype and anticipation surrounding Driv3r, it's a shame the game had to fail so miserably like it did.

The classic Frogger series seeks to shine again, but instead cannot seem to get with the times, due to frustrating controls and stale gameplay ideas.

A game based on the American Civil War could get fans excited, and you'd expect more when it carries the History Channel name. A thoroughly disappointing outing.

I love the game that is bubbling under all the excess garbage. This year’s MyPlayer is pretty much what I would have liked to see before in the series, even though I had to play it with Plan B characters as photo uploading in-game didn’t initially work. Despite its crappy presentation, MyCareer is also endearing and inspiring. If you, like me, advocate equality in all things, WWE 2K20 is worth your attention if the entertainment it features is your thing – and only when it’s fixed to the state when all the playtime won’t be spent on bewildering bugs and glitches. A tip to 2K and Visual Concepts; don’t even bother with the next year’s iteration until this one is fully patched.

Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon has some potential and is definitely not the worst game based on a television show but is far from being a quality game in its own right.

Koei jazzes up their flagship franchise just in time for the holidays, but doesn't seem to offer enough to warrant the asking price.

Train Simulator 2012 has its audience that will appreciate everything the game has to offer. Train enthusiasts will be able to look past the graphics and solely focus on the fact that this game offers an unrivaled simulation. However, every other player that either casually likes trains or is unenthused by locomotives will find Train Simulator 2012 to be an interesting concept that is easy to get into, but is often too complicated and dry to offer up more than a few hours of meaningful gameplay.

Flight sims should be great on the DS, but the touch screen feature was sadly underused here, and feels much too clunky and lackluster for today's gamers.

As it is, Zombeer stands as a decent zombie based FPS with a dash of hit or miss humor.

With exceptions, even fans may find these tales of woe and terror far to easy to put down, and never pick up again.

Nom Nom Galaxy is a functional game with good art direction, sound, and story; however, I found that I was forcing myself through each level without really being engaged in the process. I do have a strong urge to go make some soup though.

GRIP: Combat Racing is a solid enough throwback to warrant a play from Rollcage fans but for those racing game players looking for something new, the game doesn’t deliver. It isn’t bad by any measure, but it doesn’t do enough to set pulses racing.

Payday: The Heist could be fun when you grab friends and laugh together at all the random absurdities. I've said many times that adding co-op to your game can only make the experience better since you can enjoy with friends. Very few gamers will find a good time with Payday, but most will be wondering why they are not playing something else.

Like all games that stress art and atmosphere above all else, appraising Vane is difficult. Some will fall in love with it from the first scene, simply because they appreciate its visual style and engaging music. For me, it’s the game equivalent of tuning in to the fireplace channel on Christmas day. It’s oddly pleasant in its own way, but there’s little substance to it. Vane simply has too many faults and not enough strengths to carry a recommendation. Even in the absence of technical mishaps, it’s simply not engaging or interesting.

Arc of Alchemist had potential, but, ultimately, fails to deliver a compelling experience. If you like chibi characters, lots of dialogue, grinding, and mindless battle systems, you might enjoy Arc of Alchemist. Otherwise, this is a game you can easily skip.

Overall, this game feels like a watered-down Story of Seasons experience in the end, one that has traded gameplay and variety away for story and themes. Still, it's undeniable that the game is very unique, as it focuses on the Doraemon story and characters. This fact alone has changed the formula in a number of ways, for better or worse. Personally, I'd rather have a more robust and in-depth farming experience, but I can easily see how Doraemon fans would enjoy this title.

The short experience failed to stand out and, though fun while it lasted, was entirely forgettable.

I can definitely applaud CE2 for not just resting on its laurels and just releasing more CEDX but with more maps and skins or something, but what they actually did with the gameplay managed to take a lot of the thrill out of it. Despite the fact that it seems to run a lot faster, there were too many times while playing this game that I just got bored in the middle of a run. “This still going, huh?” I thought to myself. For all its bells and whistles, bumping music, and sleek framerate, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 just doesn’t keep the thrill alive.

In the end, Legend of Dungeon is a by-the-numbers roguelike with little to get excited about besides its unique style. Unfortunately, that style makes a promise of originality that the gameplay simply can’t deliver on.

I hate to bash a game, but I felt like I was wasting my gaming time. When I play a console game, I either want an intriguing story, complex gameplay mechanics, or engaging competition all of which High Society has none.