Pinball Lockdown costs pennies, and you get five tables for a price lower than a single Pinball FX3 table, but you also get what you pay for. Aside from a nice aesthetic, this collection of tables suffers from amateurish design, physics that greatly lack for inspiration, and, for a game that relies on precision and reflexes, completely unforgivable technical issues that inhibit the player's ability to master either. Sadly, this game isn't even worth the pennies.

Puzzle & Dragons on console could be and should be so much more than this. The base game - the puzzling action itself - is so good, and we've already seen the proof that it works in a more expanded, ambitious project. Dumping the mobile game on Nintendo Switch, meanwhile, seems odd and pointless. I can't even play the mobile game here in Australia and I was still left wondering why anyone would think something this shallow and featureless would work on console.

Black Legend is not completely without merit, but it's a game that had better ideas than execution. The big, unique gameplay mechanic that dominates its combat system is also responsible for making each battle far too long, and while the game's atmosphere is excellent, the art direction is uninteresting and there isn't nearly enough of a narrative to actually make something of the setting. There are a lot of excellent tactics games being produced these days, and I fear that the developers of Black Legend won't even be able to use patches to bring it up to the standard of the least of their competitors. The flaws are simply too ingrained into the core experience.

These kinds of traditional luck-based board games have a mixed audience. Honestly I would prefer a bit more strategy in mine, but I have enough fond memories of Battleships with my friends as a kid to give Sea Battle a bit of nostalgic credit, but beyond it is a difficult game to recommend to most people.

Even if you can overlook the troublesome philosophies that permeate Detroit, you still won’t find much interesting here. The story loses a lot of its charm once it goes from dealing with day-to-day android life to trying to tell a huge event that will change the shape of civilization. It falls into a common trap of video game writing, as it forces the player into life or death situations constantly. These mostly fall flat and players are left with a game that really doesn’t have much to say that wasn’t already incredibly obvious from the start.

Had the game been a tiny part of a greater whole it would have worked. But as it is, and particularly on the Wii U, Cosmophony ends up playing like a demo, stripped of its powers to sustain by its confused design, lack of content and its impossible level of difficulty.

My original mental conclusion to The Mysteries of Ranko Togawa: Murder on the Marine Express was that it was perfectly average. But honestly, after reading my notes I disagree with myself: it's actually kind of subpar. No character growth and a predicable (mystery!) story make for a rather bland experience. I mean, it was okay, I guess, but that's the closest to a superlative I can use to describe the game. It's a good thing it only took me just under three hours to play, or I'd have given up at that point regardless of completing the game or not. It's the first in a series, and only time will tell if things will look up from here.

The thing is, though, I did find myself having fun with this stupid thing. Each time you unlock a new minigame, that little Dante guide (actually a body-less mouse-creature with long arms) gives you a very self-aware summary of what the minigame is. He knows that three quarters of them suck, and he doesn’t hold back in his assessment of that. So with 100 in 1 Games, you’re playing bad games that the developers know are bad and have a sense of humour about their project. If that isn’t the dictionary definition of a game that is an utter hoot when you’re on the beers, then I dunno what is. But perhaps it’s also a sign that I should get on the beers a little less often.

While the runner platformer is fine and the visuals and story behind the game pleasant, the end result does not come together to create a cohesive experience worth investing your time into.

In fact, it’s almost like a tech demo where the development team has come up with a brilliant combat system and has released that as a commercial project in the hope that a publisher will take note and throw them the money they need to make a real game next.

Cinderella Girls is a downright strange release and I worry that it will do more harm to whatever commercial potential Idolm@ster has in the English-speaking world than it will do good.

Industry Giant II is a game that I would recommend in a heartbeat, as it’s a fascinating simulation of the fascinating production and logistics processes in economics. It’s also highly educational, both in its approach to gameplay and its actual presentation, and I’m a big fan of games that do that. But all of it is for nought if you’ve just spent a weekend slowly building up a commercial empire, only to have a bug corrupt your save file and make you lose all that progress.

The fact that this is a terrible port on the Nintendo Switch only makes things worse. All I can hope for at this point is to have a developer show up with a vision, a way to turn the WWE series around and begin from scratch. Perhaps next year. The Nintendo Switch would be a perfect platform to start from scratch and create something truly magical that does the art of pro-wrestling the justice it deserves.

I've had fun playing this game again. It goes to show the strength of the material that Ravensword is based on that a low-budget, massively stripped-down take on the formula can still be enjoyable. I have fond memories of playing this through on my iPad over my Christmas holiday back in 2012, and there was a rush of nostalgia from doing so again on the Switch. However, the lesson that developers really should take from this is that it doesn't matter how technically impressive a game is if you can't deliver something memorable from the artistic side of things. Without a great narrative, interesting design elements, creative gameplay or similar, your game is dated the moment it has been released, and as a result every time you try to re-release it on new consoles and devices, you're going to experience diminishing returns and an increasingly tarnished legacy.

Moto Racer 4 is not a bad game, but it is a shallow, arcade motorcycle racer. It might be perfectly serviceable, and average racer that is fun enough in short spurts, but it really doesn't do enough to separate itself from the racing pack in any meaningful or memorable way either.

Unfortunately a lack of personality and gameplay that doesn't live up to its promises have left Ironclad Tactics dead in the water.

I can't for the life of me understand why the developers, who put such an earnest effort into recreating a true vision of the Judeo-Christian hell, would let some arbitrary need for gameplay let their work down.

David is easy on both your time and your wallet so it’s not an immediate write-off. There are still some excellent ideas hidden away which might be worth your time though, as long as you don’t go in expecting Shadow of the Colossus.

It’s just a shame that the gameplay is so generic.

There’s a premise with a lot of potential in enigma, but it’s squandered on cliche characters, uneven pacing, and rough localisation.

There’s a reasonably robust toolset that allows people to create their own adventures, and this helps extend the long-term value of the game if you can get a group of friends together for some play sessions. But, unfortunately, there’s just not enough to Sword Coast Legends to make it the truly classic game that I wish it could be.

As the first RTS on the Switch, WarParty is an brave attempt to emulate the glory days of a genre that has long moved on in terms of what it offers players. Admirable as the attempt might be, though, the game is so unrelentingly unpleasant to play, and so limited in scope, that I think I'll be sticking to the plethora of superb turn-based strategy titles that are also available on the console.

As a paid product, The Charnel House Trilogy fails to deliver on its promised horror.

The reality is that if you're going to make an arena score-attack game featuring zombies, you're going to need to do something really different at this point. Undead Battle Royale doesn't get there. It's not even close. There's nothing outwardly wrong with it, but there are so many other games you could be playing instead, and every second that you spend in this game you will most definitely be thinking that exact thing.

The story as a whole is predictable and underwhelming. It treads a lot of well-worn horror cliches without really doing anything to stand out, and it tries to take you on an emotional journey without giving you a reason to care.

Ice Cream Surfer deserves full credit for offering a taste the Wii U could use more of. I just wish the developers focused less on decking their digital sundae with chocolate sauce and realised that the ice cream beneath it was past its prime.

As a spin on air hockey’s basic premise, Power Disc is decent, but it’s also frustrating, and that’s even if you can figure out how to perform necessary advanced techniques.

Eternity is a misfire. It's such a pity to see a project that had such good intentions fall to the wayside, but it's hard to share the feeling that for a new developer, making its first game, Eternity is an overreach in just about every way. I'm sure we'll see something much more refined and mature next time around.