Guitar Hero wrapped in a really good gimmick. Aerosmith is a fun and exciting band to the right people, but the core gameplay is too stale to really warrant anything more than an average score.

Perhaps this would have been a cute little game half a decade ago, but so close to the end of the Wii's life cycle, it smacks of Namco desperately trying to milk the minigame cow one last time. As an ironic celebration of the Wii's most compelling and infamous problem, Go Vacation's selection of tepid and shallow activities might serve some amusing merit, but I don't think even the "family demographic" this is aimed at could find much to enjoy here.

Ultimately, J-Stars Victory VS+ only succeeds as numbers on paper, the game itself being largely disappointing.

It may not be a game you need to finish, necessarily, but it's utterly unique and needs to be seen first hand.

To put it simply: Final Exam is forgettable.

It's a small update that you could live without despite its $15 digital price tag. As a value proposition at $40, it's a laugh unless you missed out SSF4, which is easily one of the brightest and sharpest fighting games in the recent past.

I can’t recommend this to all but the most diehard of genre fans. Even then, the art style may be lost on people who aren’t old enough to remember MS-DOS or a ZX Spectrum. That seems to be the most unique feature of the game.

Redeemer is a bit of a dud. While it certainly has a good premise and delivers on its promise of blood and brutality, it just feels like the game came out of the oven too early. Hopefully after a few patches and some more polish, Sobaka Studio can iron out the bugs present and tighten up the flow to create a decent little brawler. Until then, give this a pass.

Michael Jackson: The Experience mostly feels like a missed opportunity which could have not only honored the music, but the entertainer himself. As it stands, the game doesn't really offer enough beyond lackluster fan service and a few short hours of potential amusement.

If you're interested in the IP, stick to the core Skylanders series and avoid Battlegrounds. Toys for Bob did a great job synthesizing quality figures with quality games: Vicarious Visions, not so much.

While slightly anemic in content, it's titillating when it needs to be, and is at times even fun to play.

If you're looking for a reason to jump back into Just Cause 3, the biggest draw with the Sky Fortress DLC is easily the addition of the jet pack. It's great to fly around in, but it never reaches the same excitement as the old-fashioned wingsuit. The missions don't do anything interesting and the straightforward story is told with static images, making Sky Fortress the definition of mediocre.

The Adventures of Panzer: Legacy Collection features a pair of okay platformers that will probably have more value if you have an affection for the NES platform. They’re really nothing that you have to play, but for a relatively low price tag, you can get a glimpse of someone growing as a game designer. And that’s pretty cool in its own right.

All told, there's a decent game in here somewhere, but it's bogged down by annoying difficulty spikes and movement and aiming controls that never feel quite right. Even without those issues, Rocketbirds 2 does little if anything we haven't seen before. Its premise and world can only take it so far.

Irem Collection Volume 2 is less than spectacular. If the games really appeal to you, then the collection doesn’t diminish them, but it also doesn’t elevate them. In terms of value, you could do worse, but it’s not an immediate recommendation. They’re your quarters, do what you want with them.

The game could have used a few more months in the hopper and taken many more risks.

Mars: War Logs is the kind of experience one can only call serviceable. It exists, it does what it does, and it performs its job suitably. It doesn't do anything terrible, but it never once goes above a basic standard of acceptability.

For a game that leans so hard into the feeling of discovery, Fe has shockingly little to say about anything. It has no clear goals or worthwhile revelations. The idea of mystery is more alluring than any of the actual mysteries in this forest. It's certainly pretty, and the platforming and light puzzle-solving are adequate enough. But Fe very obviously aims to evoke a certain emotional response, and it fails to evoke much of anything at all. That's nothing short of disappointing. Sometimes the trees are just trees.

Gungrave, like when it debuted over a decade ago, is an acquired taste.

Deadly Night is not the best example of what the genre is capable of while at the same time being a demonstration of what it is: short experiences that take you to a simpler time in horror. It’s a worn rental store VHS encapsulated in an interactive experience. It’s lo-fi brain candy for the horror enthusiast. It knows exactly what it is, which allows it to get away with murder.

Gungrave, like when it debuted over a decade ago, is an acquired taste.

Although there is some excellent work put in by Catwoman and John Doe, Fractured Mask is ultimately just a series of "Choose A or B" conversations, taking place in overly-familiar locales, with stakes not quite as high as the game would have you believe.

At worst, Tiny Troopers is a forgettable distraction. It works as intended (most of the time), it's easy to get into, and there are some tough missions for those looking for a challenge. It isn't really bad, it's just rather boring.

Damnation is not exactly a terrible game. As a shooter, it does the bare minimum required to be considered competent. It's just incredibly mediocre and pointless that it's made me wonder exactly how games like this even get the green light.

Truly a strange beast. As a fan of the series, I really wanted to enjoy myself, but the constant fighting with the camera, poor enemy AI in single-player, and terrible pacing keep this one from the top of my list of strategy shooters. It's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination... it's just not very good, either.

Mind Zero is in no way a travesty, but despite glaring shortcomings, it's very average.

It hurts that the gameplay loop is so enjoyable, but falls apart when it comes to progression. The whole product has a fun aesthetic, a sense of humor that avoids the pitfall of being too mean-spirited, and an impressive soundtrack. Godlike Burger works better than it has any right to be, but lets itself down when it comes to tying everything together. It’s like having a perfectly good burger that someone has topped with grilled pineapple; it doesn’t matter how good the meat is, you completely ruined it with your horrible life choices!

It's cheap, sweet candy with little nutritional value that might make you sick after a while.