With that said, the primary flaw in Assassin's Creed Rogue is the plot. Conrad, in Heart of Darkness, wrote "showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would best like to hear." And Ubisoft Sofia has succumbed to these weaknesses. Rogue does not tell the story players want to hear.

Demetrios is a solid point and click title from Cowcat. It is point and click and dialogue-driven, even to a fault at some points, but the difficulty will be enough to offer up a challenge to those who love the genre. Demetrios certainly isn’t perfect, much like its main character, but it is intriguing enough to warrant a go.

Overall, this is a fun game. Upgrading your Arsenal and gaining new weapons and equipment to fight enemies feels very rewarding, especially when fighting the bosses. If you can get past the cheesy dialogue and fighting endless waves of common enemies, you will enjoy this game and all it has to offer.

At $20, Fatesworn offers a strong enough great to bland ratio for me to recommend. I thought the DLC felt a little formulaic, with a lot of boxes checked and not a lot of fresh creativity and inspiration, but, I adore Kingdoms of Amalur and was happy to dive into a new area with new content. Fatesworn will provide a solid ten hours, if not more, depending on the difficulty you’re playing on, your skill, and just how thorough you want to be. Given that you have to have completed the original (long) game to access this new content, Fatesworn is clearly for fans who enjoyed the original gameplay loop and want more of the same. If that’s you, like it was me, Fatesworn was worth the wait. Here’s hoping THQ Nordic keeps Amalur in their future plans.

This is all to say that Phantom Abyss falls somewhat short on achieving the goal of offering a challenging parkour adventure in a roguelite package. The whip and phantom gameplay involving other players’ trial and error are unique, but its clunkiness, difficulty, and disparate progression are worth a pause. I’m confident that additional polish and content are coming down the pipeline, but I need more from the current state of the game.

The Day I Became a Bird, from developer Hyper Luminal Games Ltd., is a fun, adorable visual novel adventure that features a fair amount of well-placed gameplay and a good dose of creative and nostalgic flavor to it. It’s a short journey, though, clocking in at 1.5 hours.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record is a textbook definition of a director's cut. Those enjoying it for the first time won't know the difference, those who disliked it won't care, and those who loved the original will be split down the middle in their appreciation of a reworked interpretation.

The simplicity of Super Rocket Shootout cannot be understated. It’s a good ‘ol jump in and have fun sort of situation with the gameplay. It tosses in some goodies here and there for variety, but ultimately it just wants you to have quick bouts of fun. That’s a concept I grew up with in the arcade days of gaming and this is a concept that works for me with Super Rocket Shootout. That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe it can’t be more, and it should, but as it stands it’s fun.

This Collection is a decent tip of the hat to games of old, though it’s a shame that NG3 is still as bad as it is. The Master Collection is also priced fairly at $40, but it’s too bad that these games did not get more love on this release — the Master Collection is about as barebones as you can get for a compilation release. Still, if this is maybe an indication that the door to a whole new NG adventure is forthcoming, one that embraces the design of the first two, then that’s great news. Anyway — speculation aside — if you’re looking to relive these games or want to get into the franchise for the first time, this is very good way to do it.

The definitive version of How To Survive that's priced well and enjoyable online or off, solo, or with a friend.

World of Final Fantasy Maxima adds enough content, including mirages, and enough adorable personality to make it a possible purchase. Newcomers to the series might benefit off the Maxima upgrade in one package due to the overall body of work being new to them more than those that are merely upgrading.

While it’s perhaps not as full as Animal Crossing or as thematically engrossing as Kingdom Hearts, Disney Magical World is a surprisingly nice addition to the Disney universe that stands well on its own while further extending the reaches of Walt’s massive canon.

Juggling a myriad of different game ideas, Dead Island works as either a cooperative loot fest with some friends or a solo decent into survival and isolation. For all it borrows from other games, it takes a step forward in twisting a real sense of adventure into the worn zombie apocalypse model. Unfortunately most of Dead Island's gifts can be compromised by a potentially ruinous save system or completely wiped out with bugs, neither of which should be considered acceptable.

Fallen Earth suffers from the same problems most MMO's face. Billing it's self by not having "elves and wizards" just takes away the fantasy veneer and replaces it with fresh thin coat of post-apocalyptic paint.

Super Meat Boy 3D is a thrillingly apt interpretation of the original Super Meat Boy. Those who loved Meat Boy’s squelching, sticky jumps in 2D would be hard-pressed not to fall in love with the same brutal execution in 3D. While some precision and legibility gets lost in translation to varying degrees of success, the wealth of content and homage is retained. Team Meat’s reverence for the genre is unmatched and I can’t wait to keep exploding in a hail of meat for years to come.

Ultimately, God’s Trigger’s grindhouse kitsch is effective because you can believe it was made by deeply inspired people who barely knew what they were doing. Blundering adrenaline has an unconscious authenticity which, by its nature, translates to a gnarly player experience. Misadventure is technically still an adventure.

Competent virtual reality creates a profound shift in the way games immerse players. Past the novelty, however, comes the demand to have a material effect on the virtual world. Being a witness is fine, but becoming a participant is better. Job Simulator, perhaps more than any other PlayStation VR launch title, neither dwells in abstracts nor resides in stasis. Its cartoony confines are genuine, and player agency, however modest, feels authentic.

Payday 2 Crimewave Edition brings all the fun of Payday to the console. It's the game to buy if you're looking for a new, smart shooter.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope isn’t a long game by any measure, but what it delivers in its time is used effectively enough to purvey a sense of dread. While not necessarily a traditional horror game full of jump scares or horrific machinations, Little Hope attempts to deliver nuance in the style of an arthouse horror film. It mostly gets there depending on a player’s choice, but overall it doesn’t completely stick the landing. Little Hope’s themes put in a 2020-context make it stand out as a horror title but otherwise, it offers very little in terms of true horror.

In 2020, Saints Row IV: Re-Elected’s combat feels prosaic, its glut of content perfunctory, and its humor antiquated. It’s great on Switch but actually playing it feels like looking through a weird interactive museum.

This is a twin-stick shooter that would feel at home as a Konami title during the mid 90s. With an engaging enough gameplay core, it’s certainly a good ride, especially if you have any desire to climb the leaderboards once your weekend with it is over.

Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact has several good ideas, but very little follow through in catering to diehard fighting game players, new players unfamiliar with the tag-fighter subgenre, or even folks unfamiliar with the franchise. It’s fun yet fluid fighter, don’t get me wrong; only time will tell if it reaches a more fulfilling state in the future.

What it does is haphazardly simulate the thrill of ripping a man's heart out of his chest and replacing it with another one under the most ridiculous circumstances possible. It’s a joke of a game, sure, but for once the player gets to be in on it.

With just four included games, it arguably may not be quite the value that the original MMLC was, and it’s a bit disappointing we won’t be seeing these games on the portable consoles (3DS and Switch) considering how well they’d translate to those platforms... but regardless, Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 is the most sensible way to enjoy these four games that exists today.

CoD: WWII's The Resistance DLC is a strong start to the DLC packs for WW2. While the highlight is certainly The Darkest Shore zombie map, the other four map additions are certainly welcome, and offer some much needed variety to the multiplayer mode.

Ragnarok is a beast of an expansion pack, and it gets more right than wrong. It’s not quite as polished or as impressive as the original and its expansion from so many years ago, but it’s still a valiant effort and a solid expansion to a great game. I have yet to complete it at the time of this writing, in part because of holidays and illness, but it’s inspiring to see a classic game get a sudden, big, expansion pack. For old player and new alike, Ragnarok is worth your attention.

Possessor(s) is many things: stylized, satisfying, occasionally frustrating, and short but sweet despite its large map. It’s a familiar yet solid gameplay loop with few frills, save for shirtless demon protagonists and neon stylizations.

Vergil's Downfall is worth playing through if you enjoyed DmC at all, and you could do a lot worse with $9.