It’s a fun time if you know what you’re getting into. It’s Date Night Bowling, and it does what it says on the box. There’s bowling and there’s dating. It’s a fun time if you can wrangle a partner, romantic or otherwise, but it doesn’t really have lasting appeal. A few times through, then you can take your balls elsewhere.

In terms of addressing and incorporating the new standards established by Kinect, Kung Fu High Impact has done well. It's fun played alone or with a group, and is even a great workout.

It isn't fun, it isn't scary, it isn't insightful, and the narrative is mediocre at best if not disconnected and a bit offensive.

I like the game, warts and all. Objectively, you should be able to tell for yourself it shows nary a whisper of growth or innovation since the series’ debut. Subjectively, I’m somehow that giggling schoolgirl once more, fawning over a cake I just mini-gamed into existence.

If you are a big enough pirate fan and willing to overlook Pirates of Black Cove's faults in favor of its charm, there is enough fun to be had to make its budget price a barrrrgain. Should such pirate puns lead to haemorrhaging in your brain's language centers, however, then this might not be the game for you.

Tales of Elastic Boy - Mission 1 requires that you contort your wrist in ways it wasn't meant to bend. Maybe the blistering tendinosis you'd likely develop is a sign that this game isn't meant to be played, either.

There's an unshakable sense that almost everything is less finely-tuned than it should be. Still, this could be one of my favorite flawed games of 2020. It could be the one asymmetrical multiplayer title I keep up with for more than a few weeks. (Sorry, Resident Evil Resistance. I tried!). Granted, I'll need IllFonic to get in the weeds and fight the urge to over-balance, and I'll need my fellow mid-level players to stick with it so the rest of us aren't carved up by diehard Predator fans.

Modern Warfare 3 begs the question of whether this annual cycle should continue or not. Almost half the game feels shoehorned in, such as the forgettable campaign. Meanwhile, the other half has mixed results in the case of the multiplayer maps. But if players engage with the truly special parts of MW3, such as its exceptional improvements to gameplay and spectacular alternative modes like Zombies and Ground War, they’ll find there is a worthy experience in there somewhere.

The highest praise one can afford this game is that it's playable. It's not broken, nor is it really that offensive. It's just a condensed exercise in bromidic game design, a brief waste of time squirted out of some mercenary developer's squalid hole.

Your reaction to it will likely depend on how receptive you are to Azur Lane itself. Existing fans and open-minded lovers of cute anime girls gabbing will find much to dive deep into, but everyone else is probably better off taking some shore leave.

Nothing special. It looks fairly pretty and the game is decently put together, but it's barely even a videogame when you truly consider what it offers. With a combat system that's hollow even by brawler standards and a structure so blatantly circular that even gullible children would soon detect the pattern, Rumble Blast is a game that not even ardent fans should bother with.

Longest Day is a vibrant, scatterbrained thing that seems far more intent on creating a spectacle than a compelling story or gameplay experience.

Bound By Flame is the midnight snack that sates, but leaves you wanting something a bit more savory. But when the snack is this tasty, you may find yourself coming back for a second helping a lot quicker than you might think.

As a longtime fan of the series and as someone that honestly tried to give this a shot, I'm sorry to say that Breakpoint is a failure. I suppose the game can only get better from here, but it is not currently in a shape to even be considered finished.

Alas, Kinect Star Wars as a package is a mixed, if varied bag of motion tricks. For everything that works well, something else ruins the experience.

It's a sloppy, uninspired game at its best. At its worst, it's -- to quote Jonathan North -- "one fu.king long exercise in triage."

Dynasty Warriors Gundam is not a bad game, but it's certainly nothing special, nor will it be as fun for Warriors fans as the real thing.

You already know whether or not this game appeals to you. If you're a long-term Warriors hater, then nothing this game does will appeal to you. If you're even a casual fan, however, this is one of the best examples of the series out there.

The End is Nigh seems like the foundation for an exceptional, well-put-together brawler, with the look of a Triple-A title that could have been something more. But it also feels like a concept, a shell that only gets the basics right and doesn’t take that next step to become a more interesting, engaging experience.

While the genre itself hasn't evolved much in the past twenty years, there is still an undeniable satisfaction that one derives from building and watching Goldberg machines run. For only ten dollars, puzzle fans and creative types can find a lot to enjoy here.

As much as I want to like Anna for being a horror point-and-click, with such extensive translation issues, I can't in good conscious recommend it to anyone. It has a few good scares and some startling imagery, but otherwise just can't deliver the well-crafted intrigue of its peers.

Despite how lazy and pointless it is, its ability to provide cheap laughs and easily gratifying stealth missions can't be denied.

Capturing the breadth of the Dragon Ball Z franchise is no small feat, and Ultimate Tenkaichi does an admirable job. While combat can be a bit on the repetitive side, there's still that hint of satisfaction when you decimate your foe with an canyon-creating power move. There's a lot here for fans to enjoy, and while the story may be streamlined for new fans of the franchise, I can't really recommend it to anyone but the hardcore.

A pleasant surprise. As a massive fan of the Panzer series, I was worried that this wouldn't quite honor it, but there's plenty here for gamers who have been longing for an entry since 2003's Orta. There are some mechanical problems, but any old-school rail shooter fan will be able to handle them.

For long-time fans, Mega Man X on iOS is at best tolerable and at worst insulting. It's a "remake" rife with unnecessary alterations that only serve to make it feel more dated than the original game.

Dwelling somewhere between mediocrity and greatness, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory isn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It's just not a very good one either. A nuanced, rhythmic, and generally entertaining combat system awaits alongside a nascent story for those that can endure more than their fair share of suffering.

With hitbox resizing, the ability to move in one direction while shooting in another, and some difficulty adjustments, Gryphon Knight Epic could be an okay game. As it stands, it's a messy medieval hodgepodge that you'd be better off avoiding at all costs.

Despite its impressive audiovisual presentation, it fails in the areas that make a game a game. It is beautiful in its own dismal way, and the story it tells is decent, but I could not wait for it to end so I would not have to deal with the frustrating control and dull design decisions.

Bright Memory has the potential to be great once Infinite arrives, but for now it gets a very light recommendation with some provisos.

There's no escaping the issue of this being a shameful followup to a genuinely great brawler. I like Koei, but I'm the first to admit it can cut corners wherever it feels able to get away with doing so -- and even for that particular studio, this is a notably substandard effort. Uglier, more boring, as stale as week-old French bread, Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage 2 is best ignored by fans of both Dynasty Warriors and Hokotu no Ken alike.

The game just isn’t fun. The spotty controls, rigid character movement, and frail character creation drag Smash Court into the ground.

Creeping Terror is a short, serviceable title that pays tribute to a bygone era of horror gaming. That sentence is probably the nicest thing I can say about it.

Even if Akiba's Beat had a higher budget and more time, it lacks any unique features, mimicking what other games do, but worse. For 40 hours you'll mash X through slow dialogue, then run around a dead environment, and then do more dialogue until you get to mash square against sponges. If Akiba's Trip is the shirtless jock who kicks the door with beers in hand, Akiba's Beat is the timid cocktail-drinker standing in the corner with one hand in his pocket. Technically functional, but spiritually dead.

If the shrug emoticon were a video game, it would be Code Shifter. It's just a tepid experience from top to bottom, one that doesn't do anything to make me hate it but certainly doesn't do anything to garner a recommendation.

Fable Heroes is merely boring beyond belief.

Iron Front isn't about winning or seeing who is better, it's about trying to recreate the WWII experience and it does a pretty decent job of accomplishing this. Despite being rather clunky and buggy, I have to recommend the game.

At it's core, Mario & Sonic 2014 is fairly competent at what it does, but never manages to be outstanding.

Completing the compulsory mini-games may be uncomfortable for some players, but Criminal Girls: Invite Only is very much a competent game and deserves a look, especially if you've all but converted your Vita at this point into a waifu-collection machine.

There's a tease of depth in the fights, and I even managed to have quite a bit of fun when things fell into place. Too often, however, it felt like accidental fun. Like I wanted to enjoy what I was playing so much, I stumbled into a good time.

The War of the Worlds winds up being a competent action/platform game in the end, and a fun one for fans of the genre. The debatably antiquated gameplay style and mechanics might be a turn-off for some, but those who enjoy those trappings should be satisfied.

Souls of Zill O'll is simply not worth your time. In fact, it's an active waste of it.

In the hands of another developer (Infinity Blade's Chair Entertainment or Epic Games, perhaps?), The Drowning would have been something special. Without the energy mechanic and constant drip-fed weapon and item parts, I could easily see myself destroying an entire afternoon blasting apart zombies. But that's not what happened.

It's a very short game that still manages to be far too long.

Even as a non-fan, I've been finding my time as the jolly green git rather enjoyable and have found plenty to like about it. It's definitely worth a weekend's smashing and bashing, at the very least.

The fighting is pretty looking, but very barebones; the music is catchy, but repetitive; and all the extra modes while solid, don’t do much to make this title truly stand out.

A fun romp, and definitely worth a play. It’s easy to pick up, a joy to look at, and and some of the boss battles are pretty great. My recommendation is that you take it in smaller doses, or try out the drop-in/drop-out cooperative play, which will definitely help when the going gets tough.

Stick to your original copies if you still have them. If you need to see this mess in action for yourself, either wait until developer Grove Street Games heavily patches this collection or wait for a deeply discounted sale.

Any game that makes me listen to P.O.D.’s “Boom” every damn time someone kicks off (and Refused’s “New Noise” at the beginning of every game) is going to draw my ire. For all its lifelike hits, Backbreaker simply isn’t fun to play.

If you haven't played King Arthur, then you won't really enjoy this a whole lot, and if you have played it you'll just think of how much better it is than this weird expansion. I recommend that you check out the original game if you haven't played it, and if you have played it you should just wait for King Arthur 2 to come out.

Sadame is as repetitive as a song about thongs sung by man named Sisqo. The vast majority of encounters in the game follow the same pattern: enter an area, watch enemies appear, defeat enemies, watch more enemies appear, defeat more enemies, go to next area. That's it. That's the whole game.

One of the dumbest ideas in this game is the “Shut ’Em Down” move. Basically, you fill a “special” meter by doing well (hitting shots and dunks, and doing jukes), and you can build up three different levels of Shut ’Em Down moves.

If you don't care about unlocking all the customizations, achievements, high scores, or the few characters that hardly change the gameplay, then you'll probably get bored of this within 20 minutes. Even at a lower price, I wouldn't recommend it.

I can’t exactly recommend Cyber Citizen Shockman if you’re just looking for a good platformer to play. However, if you know what you’re getting into, you can rest easy knowing that it’s a decent porting job that does exactly what it says on the package. Then again, it doesn’t cost all that much to find out for yourself, and may also encourage Ratalaika to localize more niche titles. So, I guess what I’m saying is: Yes, definitely buy Cyber Citizen Shockman.

This game is a flat out 3, you should really play it.

This is a game that is hard to recommend to many players, but those with a taste for the odd and an ability to forgive rather bizarre design flaws will find a good little game hidden under a film of potential inaccessibility.

The End is Nigh seems like the foundation for an exceptional, well-put-together brawler, with the look of a Triple-A title that could have been something more. But it also feels like a concept, a shell that only gets the basics right and doesn’t take that next step to become a more interesting, engaging experience.

Sadly, those at the helm allowed it to be completely ruined by poor design and utterly inconceivable schoolboy errors that should not still be occurring in the year 2008.

Valkyria Revolution is constantly at odds with itself. It tries to be an action game, but at the behest of fans, more strategic elements were shoved in. You'll go into an action-packed warzone full of enemies to slice up, then you'll be rewarded with a seemingly endless amount of cutscenes lacking sound and fury and signifying nothing.

In its current state, No Time To Explain is in serious need of polish. One day, this might be a solid platformer, because the concept is fun and worth iterating upon. For now, though, the annoyances aren't worth putting up with.

As a game, Jurassic Park is pretty bad. Both the action and puzzle sequences are uninteresting at best and obnoxious at worst.

Shallow, predictable, awkward and pathetically brief, Spirit Camera isn't worth the paper that its silly ghost diary is printed on. You'll have a scarier time using the AR features already packed into the 3DS and making spooky owl noises with your mouth.

This is a game that feels like it was developed in a bubble, oblivious to elements that have shaped the best RTS games of the past 15 years or to how an outsider will adjust to the game's rules.

Even though it’s not a painful experience, it comes up short on almost every facet by which I would rate a game’s success. Its gameplay is shallow, the narrative is simple to a fault, and the aesthetics don’t nearly impress. I’d suggest maybe giving the afterlife a pass, because Restless Soul is a mere ghost of a game.

Whereas the Switch 1 had games like ARMS and 1-2 Switch to show off the new tech, NS2 Welcome Tour carries the burden of being somewhere in the middle-ground of those and a free tech demo. If it was a free pack-in, this would've felt like an entirely different experience. But alas, it is unfortunately its own thing, and it's a thing that I hope does not become commonplace.

Buggy, unnecessary, and outstays its welcome before the credits close...Army of Two has never been an especially bad series, it's just never been an especially good one. The Devil's Cartel is the ultimate example of this. Is it bad? Not especially. But it's a far, far cry from good.

Guns Up! is a dull game. It's repetitive, it's tedious, it's digital Ambien. If the thought of a console version of Clash of Clans excites you, you’ll probably have a blast with Guns Up! Me, I can’t wait to delete this off my PS4.

Charmless, cynical, and uninspired, Warfighter encapsulates everything wrong with the annual big budget shooter industry. It's really not an awful game, it's just insipid and shallow, a title that exists solely to exist, and squeeze whatever profit remains to be had from serving the same flavorless porridge to the same unadventurous customers.

A game with nothing to offer the world but boredom and irritation in equal measure, and isn't worth playing even for those who are desperate to flesh out their 3DS library.

It's got a lot of interesting ideas in theory, but the longer I played, the more I felt my feet drag. Making matters worse, it tends to have a bit of a loading problem.

It’s sad to say, but I can only recommend Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star if you’re either a) extremely bird to death over the holidays, B) extremely drunk over the holidays, or ideally, c) extremely both.

If you're really into mafia movies and other cosa nostra flavored dealings, you might get some pure novelty enjoyment out of it on a Steam sale, provided you can put up with the repetitive nature of the game.

The music is repetitive and worse than what you'd hear on an elevator, and the randomness of the difficulty just isn't fun, at all. You could even say it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

If you've got a mind to grind, and you don't mind being asked to run around in circles, there's something in A Valley Without Wind for you, for however long it takes for you to get tired. And you will get tired.

Bedlam will take players on a jaunt through various first-person shooter worlds, but the problem is that none of them are particularly great.

Rush Bros. just isn't fun. The platforming is bland and uninspired, the multiplayer feels more like simultaneous single player, and the rhythm-based elements are almost an afterthought. Though the idea of a platformer that runs on custom soundtracks is a grand one, the execution here is extremely disappointing.

Unfortunately, this is one instance where Compile Heart simply didn't produce perfection -- but if you just want to hang out with the girls when there’s not some sort of crisis going on, it might be worth a look.

For all its shortcomings, I wouldn't mind seeing WayForward get another crack at this series with a more concerted effort to bring in non-fans, with more depth.

Valhalla Knights is a struggle to play, learn, and involve yourself in. I think there is an opportunity for crazy RPG players to enjoy themselves, but I also know that the game lacks so much substance that the marriage cannot last for long.

If you enjoy crazy stories that constantly top themselves and deep action-RPG conventions that others find frustrating, you'll enjoy The Witch and the Hundred Knight. But with a lot of small adjustments, it really could have been a great gateway into the world of complicated isometric titles.

As far as endless runners go, the only thing Shred It! has going for it is the art style, and even that is feeling old hat these days. The gameplay follows the same formula as all the other runners you've played.

I appreciate Ace Team's attempt here, I really do. It's kind of amazing that this game exists in 2019 under Sega. It's not as original as the team's past projects, but SolSeraph has a lot to like if you're looking for a modern take on an absolute gem of the 16-bit era. Part of me wonders how outlandish these creators could've gotten with a bigger budget and scope, but as a tribute, this still hits the spot. Even if SolSeraph fails to raise the bar, I'm so happy someone took another crack at ActRaiser.

Buy this one if you absolutely love Grobda, but anyone else aching for Namco classics would be better to buy Namco Museum Remix for five dollars.

I’m really disappointed in Shadwen and certainly wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s still difficult for me to write it off completely. If you can get through the wonky controls, the pants AI, and the visual stylings that are just a blur of identical guards and barrels, and the endless escort mission featuring the most annoying little girl ever, there are small glimmers of a good game shining out from the cracks.

With all of the incredibly boring slogging that goes on between puzzles, and considering that the quality of the puzzles themselves ranges from bad to mediocre, Doctor Lautrec and the Forgotten Knights is impossible to recommend to even the most ravenous puzzle players. Even if this game were available for free, I wouldn't recommend spending time with it.

A great credits sequence isn't enough to keep the game from getting a [40].

Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed is a horny game if nothing else. It’s not explicit ecchi, but it knows exactly what it’s doing, and it succeeds in a lot of ways. It’s an interesting satire of the otaku lifestyle, both poking fun at and embracing it...Most of the time, though, it’s like playing a stripped-down version of Yakuza. You wander a Japanese neighborhood, shop, do side-quests, build up your character, much like in that venerated series. But then the combat sucks and the story is poorly paced. On the other hand, I can’t deny it grew on me. It feels like one of those janky, Japanese, early PS2 titles like Mr. Mosquito or Robot Alchemic Drive. It might not be the most fun to play, but it’s unique enough to captivate.

If you’re a huge fan of the iconic anime looking for even more fighting action -- and you have friends who are willing to fork out the cash to join you online -- there is some enjoyment to be had. For everyone else, aside from the increased multiplayer, you've already played this before.

A good Star Trek title is hard to find and it’s definitely not here. D-A-C doesn’t offer much in terms of replay value. If you rock out by yourself or even via Xbox LIVE, you’ll quickly become numb to the action. The simple victory parameters coupled with the painfully basic shooting provide an experience that you can become accustomed to in seconds, but there’s nothing there to explore. No strategy, no campaign, and no complexity.

Flip Wars is in some ways less fleshed out than the demo for Fusion Frenzy. Almost every feature, from the blocked out local mode to the disappointing "My Room" option (that's less of a room and more like a statistic menu), is a half measure.

Unfortunately, I spent most of my experience with the title cursing in frustration at all the bugs, or wishing I was doing something -- anything -- other than sitting in front of my PC, watching ships move with the haste of a geriatric. With enough patches it could be a perfectly serviceable RTS, if not a particularly fun one.

I really spent most of my time playing Redfall thinking about what else Redfall could have been. I like that Arkane tried something new, and I’m bummed it came out like this. It’s a really unique premise and concept in its first bite, but its fangs don’t leave a lasting mark.

All that matters is that there's a lot of heart in Inversion, but absolutely nothing going on the brain department. There is desire, with absolutely no thought.

There's room for a good videogame based on A Song of Ice and Fire, but while A Game of Thrones: Genesis is the first of its name, it never becomes more than an incestuous child born from both media parents.

It's still a monotonous and unexciting slog through a game that plays out like a stuck record, and even the most hardcore of Borderlands fans will find little of interest, lacking as it does the series' trademark personality.

Natural Doctrine isn't atrocious, but it does have a lot of issues. It's as frequently enjoyable as it is repugnant, an experience that will often blindside you with cheap deaths that reek of artificial difficulty.

It’s annoying, frustrating, and those hand cramps are all for naught. I was actually surprised to see that a game as brutally simple and dreadfully mundane as Facebreaker dared to have an online component.

Kill Strain has a lot of cool ideas, but many of them don't translate when mired by the sluggish pacing of each round. I think it definitely needs some further optimization, but the uneven fun factor between the Merc and Mutant camps may take longer to iron out.

Monopoly for Nintendo Switch isn’t awful; it just feels like a first draft.