I had a fairly good time with Bleach: Soul Resurreccion. I never really knew what was going on in the story, and the button mashing destroyed my hands, but it was an enjoyable, mindless romp in a really pretty anime world.

I won't lie: htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary feels like an ordeal to play, but it is worth noting that historically, surviving an ordeal was often taken as a sign of being blessed by a higher power. That notion may appeal to some types of players, and it's they who'll find the fun in this gorgeous, cruel game. Everyone else should just hang back and ask how it went.

It's fairly shallow but very fun in spurts, and the best part is that players can truly enjoy the game for more than a few minutes at a time without feeling like they aren't getting anywhere.

Players desperate for traditional action gaming may glean some passing repletion from what is ultimately an inoffensive waste of time. However, the monotonous action long outstays its welcome and a series of this pedigree should be bringing so much more to the table. Instead, it does just enough to be a videogame available for purchase, and not a lot more than that.

The game is boring for long stretches, has an uneven level of difficulty and no worthwhile story.

A worthy experience, but it's lacking in too many minor areas to achieve greatness. While the voice-controlled strategy gameplay is engaging, it does lead to some design hiccups. While the narrative is entertaining and even intellectually demanding at times, it just as easily falls into navel-gazing jargon. While the technology is impressive, it feels like it belongs in a much bigger game.

This just feels like an all around sloppy port that was quickly pushed out to try to score some cash off of Friday the 13th's bungled release. The console version doesn't even include all the download content released for PC, including the Halloween DLC with Michael Myers. The mouse-like controls in the menus, coupled with the fact that most all the actions are mapped to the triggers and shoulder buttons, makes it feel like whoever ported this doesn't play consoles to begin with (thankfully you can remap the controls).

I hope that in the next few months, Space Hulk: Deathwing goes through some drastic changes and becomes a more engaging romp through grimdarkness. For now, I'd say get your bloody jollies elsewhere.

What's here is decent, there just isn't much of it.

Even if the price was right (and that price is free, regardless of platform) Goat Simulator is not worth playing. It's a game designed for YouTube, not the average consumer. Reward this shrewd business decision by not buying this game and just watching some clips online instead.

Aksys Games nailed the localization with Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and they've done it again with the excellent writing in Fate/EXTRA. Unfortunately, a sea of monotony and repetitiveness plagues the game's potential for being one of the PSP's elite RPG's.

Even though Compile Heart had a couple interesting ideas with this game, its execution failed to bring out its true potential. And despite having two Tales of series members on board, their involvement couldn't stop Dark Rose Valkyrie from wasting people's valuable time. At least Fujishima's character designs continue to look gorgeous.

I'd have had no hesitation in recommending 1-2-Switch if it were included with the Switch or maybe $20 max, but as it stands it is far too expensive for the dash of entertainment it provides. 1-2-Switch is a good distraction for parties with people who don't game much, or those looking for something a little different than Cards Against Humanity for the millionth time. Otherwise, wait for a deep price drop.

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind is built upon a highly inventive central concept and smartly dressed in an authentic audio/visual package that accurately captures the dangerous world of The Shelby Family. The inventiveness of this core element is not captilised upon, however, resulting in uninspired action and repetitive gameplay. Peaky Blinders fans might find a few hours of entertainment but, overall, Mastermind is a missed opportunity.

Tales of the Shire is a charming life sim that leans heavily on cozy game comfort but rarely ventures beyond it. The gorgeous world and a few unique mechanics offer fleeting moments of greatness—especially for fans of the genre or Middle-earth—but the experience feels safe, familiar, and ultimately too shallow to truly stand out.

A game for puzzle fans who have a high tolerance for frustrating design. It's a great game that sometimes fights with players due to its loose and sometimes confused stylus control, but the game's fun-factor and satisfying puzzling gameplay overrides the annoyances to create a pretty good little portable title.

The level design is dull, the platforming is simplistic, the graphics look a few generations old, the RPG elements are basic, the music is forgettable, the enemies are pushovers, the difficulty is turned all the way to easy – I'm honestly at a loss for words.

I wish I didn't want to like The Caligula Effect as much as I do, but it's just tragic how far it falls from its own obviously lofty goals. For a game about a virtual world where everyone appears as their best possible self, The Caligula Effect is a walking worst-case scenario, representing the most disappointing possible execution on the huge potential of its best ideas.

A solid game that definitely has an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun. [Tested with Oculus Rift]

An impressive, if flawed, effort. Toting an interesting setting and some standout design choices, ELEX goes farther than any previous Piranha Bytes game in making the case for sticking with it in pursuit of a certain old-school ideal of RPG gaming, even if it can come at a cost in polish and presentation.

For a game about a bunch of girls finding their voices and path in the world, it has distressingly little "voice" of its own.

Hawken has never been a terrible game, but it has never made a case for itself as anything more either. This console version puts up even less of a fight.

There are too many creepy statues, too many pools of blood, and too many run-ins with the knife woman to keep up the pretense that I'm supposed to be terrified. Viviette tries to go gonzo with the jump scares and frenetic furnishings rather than showing a crumb of constraint, something that would have gone a long way to keeping the tension from the first 45 minutes or so alive through its conclusion.

This isn't a bad idea, but the game doesn't do much to justify its existence.

The lack of online play and the overall single-player experience is a pretty big bummer. Unless you’re desperate and need a quick Mario Party fix on the go, stick with a console version if you can.

This isn't a bad game and some of the activities can be quite fun when played with real people. But these sub-games have always been the side-dish to the single-player main course, and without a worthwhile entrée, Kirby Battle Royale feels deficient.

The beginning of Typoman showed promise, full of amusing and creative moments, something that anyone could enjoy. But unfortunately it wasn't able to hold that momentum for very long and quickly devolved into tedium and confusion, and lots of standing around doing nothing.

I am nothing but conflicted regarding The First Descendant. It’s a Modern Prometheus of parts and ideas that looks and plays wonderfully when it works. However, the Dr. Frankenstein who assembled it is clearly profit-driven and has a bit of a reputation for its microtransactions. Throw in the equivalent of a Dell Dimension 8400 for a server and things look grim. I don’t expect The First Descendant to get a lot of support in the time it’s around, and I’ll enjoy it for what it is, but I won’t make the mistake of believing it will hold much attention outside of a small, dedicated player base.