Fallen City Brawl won me over on vibes and thematic. Its gameplay, while frenetic and fun, needs more depth to exceed the current gold standard utilized by recent additions to the modern beat-em-up genre. It’s great for a quick afternoon playthrough, especially when played with friends.

Crash Team Rumble from Toys For Bob is quite fun. It features a balanced system of gameplay, some fun characters with unique gameplay styles, and a nice set of maps that complement strategy and quick gameplay. The leveling system may work its way to max quickly, but it doesn’t detour how much entertainment you’re going to get from this title. The biggest concern with this game is longevity and variety. It’s nice that Toys For Bob laid out a roadmap to tame some of this worry, something most companies don’t do well nowadays, but only the future seasons will tell the dedication to the title.

Overall, I really enjoyed the experience in NERF: N-Strike Elite. The game is fun while it lasts and the separate dart gun works well at pestering your friends, co-workers, significant others, pets, siblings, etc.

Resident Evil Code: Veronica X HD, despite the re-learning curve, is still one of the best games that came from the four original RE titles.

For the mahjong player on the go, Mahjong Cub3d may be an enticing pickup, but if you've already decided you aren't a fan of mahjong, Cub3d won't change your state of mind.

Overall, Rage 2 is definitely a step up from the original, with a bigger world that feels a lot more desolate (in a good way). It has a variety of lands to explore, unique bosses to run into, and a bevy of leveling trees that will keep you motivated throughout the gameplay. What it needed and didn’t get were a better story and less repetition. The game has grown, but it still has more than enough room to continue to grow.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite looks the part and plays the part, to wonderful effect. Aliens is an action movie at heart, and it’s evident that Cold Iron Studios made a strong effort to capture that ‘80s action movie feel. While the campaign is lackluster and mission variety is sparse, it’s hard to deny that tearing through hordes of Xenomorphs with your friends isn’t fun. While I don’t know if the game has a long-term impact in the way of future content that Cold Iron Studios is going to be putting out in Seasons, there’s enough content here to enjoy for a weekend or two with friends. I know I’ll be going bug hunting again, real soon.

A great game as is, although it has a few very patchable issues that could really put it over the top.

This game’s animation is a beautiful combination of 3D and comic book-like graphics. It is a refreshing take on an adventure and rhythm game and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. This is definitely a game to add to your Steam Wishlist.

Dynasty Warriors Next is a solid entry into the series that combines the gameplay of a typical Dynasty Warriors experience with the exclusive controls and features the Vita hardware offers. If you enjoy the series, there's a lot to like about Next.

In sum, it seems like the vision of State of Mind was bigger and more robust than its end result. The core idea is interesting, but the execution fizzles out early and doesn’t recover. Still, if you’re into sci-fi and are looking for a game to roll through on a lazy Saturday, you could do worse than State of Mind.

I would recommend Red Faction: Guerilla to anyone who likes sci-fi and third person free roaming. While it lacks an intuitive story line, the gameplay makes up for that by being original and engaging. I did, however get bored after playing for long periods of time so I recommend playing in spurts.

Drawing inspiration from a satirical appreciation of the Cold War, it's fair for CounterSpy to teeter on the edge of principled oblivion. Finding value in its eccentricity, however, controls whether you can hang on or fall off.

No matter what lengths were taken to mask it, Jimmy's Vendetta is still a vanilla attempt at milking a property that should have been richer in content to begin with.

Overall, I really did enjoy Miitopia more than I thought I would. It has some good entertaining value to it, but it’s definitely, at least in my opinion, geared towards a younger crowd. Is that a bad thing? Nope, especially if your’e picking up a Nintendo 2DS XL for a first-time gamer. It might be a good way to start their budding video game careers.

FATED: The Silent Oath is short and I didn't get invested in the story or characters, but I found it enjoyable and hope to see Frima expand upon it. [Tested with Rift]

DK Island and Emerald Rush is a dichotomous, albeit controversial, DLC addition to the already fantastic Donkey Kong Bananza. The former is a love letter to DK’s past; it’s a letter that is best appreciated by those who want that trip down memory lane. The latter, though, is a highly replayable and ever-so-engaging roguelite mode that takes things up several notches to truly test your mastery of Bananza’s mechanics. You shouldn’t consider this DLC unless you’ve completed Bananza or intend to do so.

Gang Beasts' madcap brawling creates a dynamic alliance between conflict and chaos. It also enables human responses like surprise, merriment, revenge, and screaming. Driving a wobbly creature to comically murder another flailing mess, as it turns out, is a pleasant and repeatable practice. If only three of your friends could always come along for the ride.

80’s Overdrive asserts that Out Run’s combination of breakneck racing and frantic traffic negotiation will fit neatly inside the progression-focused model of a modern game. It doesn’t, and 80’s Overdrive almost runs out of gas before it reaches a comfortable destination. All the lavish neon and thumping synthwave in the world can’t help 80’s Overdrive make twenty minutes last six hours.

Frozenheim meets the status quo for what you would expect from an RTS game. Where it excels is in its gameplay balance and how much control it gives you to create your gameplay path. It falls short in story cohesiveness and the occasional buggy controls.

Boring and repetitive combat, excessive and misdirected objectives, and a relentlessly depressing theme encumber what is otherwise a triumph in moody, explorative gameplay.

It's no surprise that the Vita release of Jak and Daxter Collection is noticeably inferior to its console counterpart. The problem is I'm referring to both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2 versions of each game. What the Jak and Daxter Collection gains in portability to loses in playability - a compromise that, even for games as objectively great as these three, is tough to reconcile.

Unsteady motion requires forgiveness. Exacting movement demands precision. Giga Wrecker Alt’s puzzle-platforming wants to have it both ways and gets trapped between frustration and satisfaction. For all of its inventive mechanics and generous agency, Giga Wrecker Alt could have benefited from more clarity and cohesion.

For all its positives, in the end, Smash Up is simply less and fewer in every way than Brawl. There are fewer levels (by half), fewer characters (by half), fewer collectible trophies (by an order of magnitude)… and the overall number of unlockables isn’t even in the same ballpark. It’s still a good game, and there’s no denying the appeal once you begin to perfect your technique, but comparison is inevitable under the circumstances.

The King’s Bird offers up a unique platforming experience through its gameplay and design, that leads to some pretty spectacular moments. The feeling of flying is captured masterfully here, and simple controls that are hard to master keep you coming back until you finish the story. The sound and art design, while done before give unique spins that make the world all the more rich in detail. While the story is nothing to write home about, only a handful of other small issues really caused me any annoyance or trouble while playing, and I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who needs a good stress reliever or an excuse to unwind at the end of the day.

WWE 2K18 not only offers very good gameplay, but has an insane amount of depth. Depth that I just don’t reasonably see being improved upon this time next year. The Yuke’s/Visual Concepts team has done a valiant job in coalescing the current state of professional wrestling with an illustrious past. That could very well sustain as the lasting contribution for this particular WWE 2K entry.

Among the Sleep puts the player behind the eyes of a two-year old and tasks them with surviving a series of wildly traumatizing scenarios. Careful hands and compassionate minds push Among the Sleep's delicate subject matter away from abject immorality, however, not with enough guidance to pivot an honest story into a capable game.

NHL 25 is a good game. Don’t get me wrong. The work and progress that the team has put into this year’s release shows itself. There have been a lot of quality-of-life improvements to the in-game product that make me feel good. To me, this feels like the first time this has been as close to real as possible. There are a few things that feel out of place, but overall the improvements are there. However, I just don’t know if this is enough of a step or leap forward to justify it for the average NHL fan or game player.