It builds a strong foundation on the gameplay front, offering up rewarding combat and simple skills, but doesn’t follow that with anything substantial, being content to let the standard end game grind and excellent-yet-stressful PVP try to cover all the questions its writing leaves you with.

The design of the monsters and the Innsmouthers are fantastic and the world building is creepy and fun. However, The Sinking City gets hamstrung by an overall chunkiness it doesn’t quite recover from. It’s hard to stay invested when combat is terrible and glitches and crashes ruin pacing and progression. This is a game demands a lot of patience and tolerance.

It could have been a good start to the series, but there are some really frustrating elements, and it baffles me how the developers looked at them and said, “yes, this is the product we want to release to the world”: the terrible semi-fixed camera that moves in an unpredictable manner as you move around, the boring gunfight segments, and the fact that, for a standalone episode, pretty much nothing actually happens.

Xenoraid isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. It didn’t feel like a complete waste of time, though. For the first hour or so, the game didn’t provide any kind of challenge, and I was left feeling a bit bored. The trouble is, even though the game gets better after a while, the game never really changes up its design, so it always seems like you’re doing the same boring things, even if it’s just a bit more challenging. Everything is much too repetitive and lacks substance. Once again, it’s just another indie title that you’ll forget you ever bought.

NBA Playgrounds does a solid job of filling the void left by the NBA Street and NBA Jam series. There is a deep roster of players, and the game's cartoonish visuals look great, but the bare-bones online play and frustrating gameplay mechanics sometimes make the game feel more like a chore rather than an enjoyable experience.

This squad-based shooter badly needed something extra to set it apart from the others, as it falls off the mark due to complicated controls and terrible AI.

It never completely captures the intensity or fun of previous Starfox titles and the strategy elements don’t offer enough depth to completely make up for it.

Pirate Pop Plus is really just a victim of changing expectations in the market – if it had come out on the original Game Boy, say, it would be an easy rec. Fun, high score challenge, and look at how much to unlock, just incredible! But now it just feels very shallow, and the $5 asking price starts to feel weirdly steep for a game that would feel so much more at home on a phone, the last bastion for these kinds of "boot em up quick at the doctors office!" types of games. If it comes out there and has an awesome high score tracking feature or something, it's easy to recommend, but now if you just want to grab something fun and don't mind spending the $5, you could do worse.

Those who can break through the complexity and achieve that “AHA!” moment will be the ones that get the most out of this robot simulation.

There is probably a reason that chess has withstood fundamental changes over the centuries, and that reason might be its near-perfect balance of offensive and defensive strategies and how it appeals to gamers at all levels of expertise. Still, there is an intimidation factor and a perception that beyond the basics, winning requires a lot of memorization and the ability to think many moves ahead. Super X Chess removes that particular barrier and although the Super X rules are not going to permanently revolutionize the game, they do serve to sweep the cobwebs off the dusty shelf of rote, memorized and uninspired play.

I can’t shake the feeling that Illusion is in fact and old, abandoned game that got finished in all silence. It could explain why it’s technically and mentally so old-fashioned. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make the game a timeless classic but a bundle of unanswered expectations. 20 bucks is a way too steep asking price for what Illusion has to offer. Pick it up from a digital sale if you insist.

Sky Force Anniversary is a polished and slick shoot 'em up but for a solo player it's more miss than a hit. It's really nothing special and there are more flashy games in the same genre available. If you have a friend to play the local co-op with the Sky Force Anniversary is more rewarding experience. Still I would have preferred the classic way of doing shooters instead of a grind festival which makes more sense in the mobile market due to the micro transactions easing up the way for the more impatient players.

The characters you meet are entertaining and visually gorgeous, with each having distinct personalities and all feel like a cohesive part of the world. The slow pace and vague directions to progress, however, make the story hard to experience in a satisfying manner. If you’re willing to overlook some tough gameplay elements, Smoke and Sacrifice’s heart beats strong with a gripping and enthralling story. Be warned, though, the barrier to entry could be a potential turnoff.

All in all, World War Z is an entertaining comfort food piece of gaming entertainment. It doesn't have a gripping and visceral story that will keep you invigorated the same way other games can, and it feels disappointingly short in length, but those who are looking for a fun zombie-killing game that you can play with a bunch of your friends, the game definitely does the trick.

Microsoft seeks to spice things up with this sequel to the surprise hit Party game. Although the game can be fun with friends, it is let down by the bland single player mode.

Lovingly assembled and enjoyable while it lasts, Retro/Grade is ultimately too meagre a package to be fully recommended. Rhythm game fans will get some mileage out of its solid gameplay and its unique wrapper helps the basic rhythm gameplay feel new, but unless you really fall in love with the presentation, it's tough to see anyone playing it more than a couple hours and essentially playing (and hearing) everything it truly has to offer long before the challenges end.

In a serious need of additional development, bug-fixes and testing, as well as ditching the misguided fixed camera, Eternity: The Last Unicorn plays like a medley of solid action-RPG mechanics and ideas without much depth or polish. The setting, characters and story are its saving grace but their charms are overshadowed by the game’s repetitive and sluggish combat and the annoying camera. Calling a game’s mechanics “classic” is no excuse for gameplay that is simply not very satisfying or fun.

What is left is a run-of-the-mill 2D sidescroller grafted to a superficial Assassin’s Creed theme. More than anything Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China makes me less interested in the rest of the new series. Give me a proper Assassin’s Creed game set in China instead.

Nintendo transitions the classic SNES hit Excitebike to the Wii, but lets us down with overly simplistic, shallow gameplay and barely decent graphics.

The sequel to the Empires branch of the famed tactical actioner actually adds some strategic elements to the mix, but sadly let down by severely dumbed down combat and enemy AI.

The ideas behind Conflict: Vietnam are there, the execution of the game just is not.

Girl With A Heart Of is a decent first game that, sadly, has a number of flaws preventing it from achieving greatness.

Make no mistake, if you enjoyed what you have played so far of Pillars of Eternity, then it will be worthwhile for you to finish off the saga by playing this expansion pack. It is more of what you loved in your previous experience with this game. With that said, you might be surprised by how much that disappoints you, or how just plain tired you are of it.

If you’ve ever played a Bomberman game, nothing will surprise you about this modest entry. The fast-paced multiplayer action remains on top of its game, provided you’re not playing with the laggy online mode. But it’s still a tough sell, considering we’ve seen this standard battle mode before, and done better in some cases. Unless this is your only means of playing old-school Bomberman, there are cheaper and more content-rich options on older consoles. More than anything, Super Bomberman R serves as a blip on Bomberman’s heart monitor. As a fan of the series, I’m excited that the little white bomber is back, but he deserves better than this

Despite moment’s of brilliance, it’s hard to recommend to an audience of any age, whether it be a fifty year old gaming aficionado or a five year old infant.

It's possible to enjoy Conan Exiles, primarily for its tie-in to the legendary character and his mythology, which is subtly reflected in the game world. At its core, Conan Exiles is another open world crafting and survival game: heavy on grinding, lonely for single players and frustrating for most in multiplayer. Overall, it feels like a product coming a little too late to an overcrowded table. As a genre, the realistic survival/building niche (Minecraft aside) is still opaque and in need of a streamlined, mass-appeal hit. Conan Exiles is not that game.

I wanted to love this game, I really did; the first stage showed so much promise but the lack of content and variety cemented this as an average game with a killer soundtrack and lofty aspirations.

Kinect Sports: Season Two is a mixed bag. A few of the sports were fun, while others were disappointing. Menu navigation has been greatly improved from the original and voice controls were a welcome feature, even if they didn't work perfectly. The game gets boring really fast, and there's nothing that will keep you coming back to play.