Headliner: NoviNews isn’t meant to dazzle people with super tight, unique, and revolutionary gameplay. It is, however, immensely replayable as it gives room for you to play through the story again and make all sorts of different choices the second or third time around. Whichever route you take, the entire practice of selecting which articles to publish is to get you thinking about the role journalism plays in society. It’s meant to provoke thought and test the player’s willingness to stay true to their own self in the face of ever-growing moral quandaries.

One of those games that did not live up to the hype that its fan base put out for it.

If you like the song list and you like Singstar titles there is no reason why you should not pick up this game.

Jon Shafer’s At the Gates is not a mass-market game. It decries the populist and dumbed down direction in which the Civilization franchise has moved, replacing it with a strategy title for the patient player that tolerates a measured pace, likes the challenge of long-range planning, can overlook some bugs, and finds satisfaction in a cerebral, hard-fought victory. For the average strategy fan, At the Gates may frustrate but the rewards of pushing through to comprehension are significant.

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.

Although this expansion is short and skimpy on features, it’s still fun and I had a great time to playing through it.

There are definite issues with timing between the gorgeous soundtrack and powerful art direction, but they’re still worth playing despite this. The levels are on the shorter side and don’t demand perfection, making them palatable in addition to being complementary to the story. M.I.R.A.I. has a decent enough story that was worth going through. But sometimes it can be just a single piece that defines the full experience. In this case, Lost in Harmony became a recommendable title thanks to a touching tale between a boy and a girl.

>observer_ offers a glimpse in a terrifying cyberpunk future that is far more frightening than any pursuing monsters of unreasonable size. The stealth action moments of the game failed to make an impact and I usually greeted them with a “let’s get this over with” attitude. No, the game is at its best when you’re exploring the claustrophobic corridors of an old world building appropriated by corporate interests, lazily retrofitted with invasive technology that is much more of a hindrance than any sort of benefit to mankind.

It is a shame that the story for Conan wasn't developed further, it really could have been something that pushed the experience from start to finish.

While the movie wasn't exactly a resounding success for a Pixar-less Disney, the game is a surprisingly decent adventure that will please the younger gamers.

The game heartily emphasizes family values, where the unifying factor is ultimately to love over good food. Those who enter the family from outside are as much uncles, aunts, and cousins as those who were born into it. Of course, the story is mushy, but these days when gritty games try their hardest to tear you into pieces, there’s a vacant lot for feel-good entertainment. In this context, it’s heartless to moan about some gameplay and design issues, like mostly uneventful driving parts or linear nature of family meetings where a failure is hardly an option. All these gripes are fully acceptable if you put your heart into the game. Road to Guangdong might not be the next must-buy hit but it has more humanity to share than most games out there put together.

Don’t Knock Twice is a short, play-it-once-and-forget kind of game whose purpose is to promote a film that might have flown below a radar or two. I enjoyed the genuinely unnerving moments of psychological terror that I thought brought the game within arms reach of Silent Hill. As a media tie-in, it’s not an especially bad game but the schtick doesn’t last as long as it should. The game does have two different endings but to ask the player to go through the whole game again just to see them is almost too much. If given a more polish and additional content, Don’t Knock Twice could have been a fantastic VR horror experience.

It's a series that needs a lot of work and WWE'12 is the first step towards something that could be great. While it's nothing drastically different from what it was in the past, this game is still improving on a franchise that could have just as easily repeated itself into oblivion. The improvements made here aren't perfect but it manages to set the ground work for something great in the future and helps make this game stand out among its predecessors.

While the actual story felt like it was trying to drive me away from the action, Guns, Gore and Cannoli 2 kept me in by being a really stellar side-scroller. The shooting felt great, the environments were well-designed and chock full of enemies to beat, and the arenas were challenging without being cheap. Certainly not as sweet as its namesake overall, but you’d be crazy to turn down this cannoli without giving it a chance.

Combining some fascinating mechanics I've never seen in a card game with a lot of variety, there's plenty to recommend Faeria. Its held back however by poor tools to really learn the game and design decisions that just don't fit a portable console. Add in concerns for the future of the game and I'm nervous to invest too much more of myself into Faeria, but it may be too late for me to stop. It has that wonderful just one more game quality that will keep me firing it up. Just make sure you know what you're getting before you decide to follow me.

It’s not necessarily a game for players looking for brilliantly devious puzzles and new mechanics, but from an artistic standpoint it succeeds in some important ways. Its pleasant visuals and music are cornerstones for a quality adventure time, even if it’s otherwise not overly ambitious and suffers from occasional flaws. However, the game is fairly easy to recommend if you’re looking for a story that explores themes such as mental health and tragedy.

Overall, Atelier Sophie is a mixed bag. This game serves as a good point of entry for newcomers due to the removal of the series’ notorious time limit, but fans may find the experience middling. While item alchemy is surprisingly fun, the elements surrounding it are not as engaging. The tedious gameplay loop may turn players off before the plot finally gets going. Much like the items synthesized in Sophie’s cauldron, the game excels most when everything comes together – rallying the townspeople to jointly make a gift for Plachta, forming a party of townsfolk equipped with handcrafted weapons and armor, and painstakingly creating amazing items to destroy the toughest foes. At its best, Atelier Sophie devotes itself to its alchemic theme, synthesizing a pleasant experience.

While the combination of frustratingly underdeveloped combat and a short length weigh the experience down, there’s definitely enough worth seeing here, at least from a visual and narrative standpoint.

Hybrid is decent, but not essential. The well-executed mechanics that make up the core gameplay are interesting for a little while, but how long it holds your interest for depends on how willing you are to look past the game's niggling problems.

With nothing to call its own, other turn-based strategy games have a distinct edge over Panzer Tactics HD. Make no mistake, the game is by no means bad, but there are plenty of other more memorable entries in the genre to keep you busy.

Like so many survival/crafting games, from Minecraft to Subnautica, ARK presupposes a player with a lot of time to dedicate to the experience, a high tolerance for repetition, and a fondness for chaos and the unexpected. With its sci-fi inflected single player campaign, ARK at least offers a solo player the chance to get the gist of the game without the threat of anti-social humans ruining whatever progress has been made. For the past two years, ARK has been helping to shape the genre and now that it's finished, it feels like the genre is due for the next stage of evolution.

What's really interesting about this game is that for all that it's doing differently, it still just does not feel all that much different from the typical Sims formula.

There are many gamers, I’m certain, who will not only enjoy Ghostrunner’s challenges but be perfectly happy with its demanding and repetitive mechanics. I enjoy challenge, too, but I also want to learn from my mistakes and maybe even succeed the first time around. Ghostrunner is a well-made game with a very specific intention, and there are players for whom this title will be Nirvana. Just not me.

This is a game with a ton of content, but too much time is spent in less rewarding downtime or grinding for materials in environments that simply aren’t that fun. It’s obvious that My Time at Portia would love to be both a dream game for the building/crafting fans as well as offer a substantial narrative. The slow pace of the former undercuts the momentum of the latter but My Time at Portia does offer a legitimately different variation on what has become a pretty formulaic genre.

In the end, Warhammer: Chaosbane is more about its satisfying gameplay than being an accurate and respectful representation of its franchise. Here, Warhammer is actually a mere coating to a competent Diablo clone rather than being an essence of it. In many ways, the game has budget title sentiments to it when it resorts to simple narration and recycling assets but still it’s sold for a full price. That’s a fact, in addition to the lackluster performance of the online game, that drops Warhammer: Chaosbane from an essential purchase it would definitely have been as a mid-price title. Wait for a sale and you’re probably happier with what you get.

The major downside to Battlecry was the repetitive nature of the game, which thankfully is not present anymore in the game.

Psychonauts Rhombus of Ruin has its feet firmly planted in foundation laid by the first game - as it should. Though it is trapped within a medium that is still trying to find steady feet, Rhombus at least has the heart and spirit of what made Psychonauts so enthralling. It's a fun and delectable morsel designed to satiate the palate until the second game comes out. While it does excite me for Psychonauts 2, it's only because I know that a console game will let Double Fine’s imagination soar much higher than the VR platform would let them.

For representing an untested genre on consoles, Guardians of Middle Earth acquits itself pretty well. If only the online functionality was as airtight as its core strategy, we'd have a truly great mashup on our hands.