There’s no fun to be had in Baseball Riot, just monotony.

All in all, Daylight was a bit of a disappointment. Let it be said that it's utterly terrifying and will likely scare even the hardiest of players, but ultimately the experience feels a little shallow.

Mark McMorris Infinite Air is not going to appeal to more casual snowboarding fans, and unfortunately I would include myself in that category. If you are looking for a game that you can pick up easily and pull off some crazy looking tricks, you might want to look elsewhere. However, with properly aligned expectations and a willingness to sink some time into learning the game's mechanics, you can get a lot out of this one.

It takes a familiar, played-out sci-fi story and uses mechanics and interactivity to give it a fresh, insightful spin. It’s not as nuanced a take as this sort of story needs, but you can’t argue with how well Divide’s approach works at its best.

I’m so delighted to say that Lust For Darkness is the real deal. The fact that I can compare it to one of the greatest erotic thrillers of all time in Eyes Wide Shut, and not break down laughing, is in itself is a great credit to the developers. The game lacks the sheer mastery and refinement that Stanley Kubrick had over his canvas, but this is still leagues ahead of the clumsy, overly-simple idea of “horror” that most game developers aspire to.

Basically, Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament, is an older game and suffers from a poor localisation, but there’s a heart and soul in it that is so earnest and honest that it’s very easy to forgive the game its transgressions. Whether it’s the mixing of fantasy, spiritual philosophy and some of the most ancient recorded history, or the engaging combat system and stunning art direction it’s easy to get lost in this adventure, and full credit to EastAsiaSoft for giving us a second chance to play it.

Echo Prime doesn't ask for too much commitment from players, but the experience is much shallower as a result. Casual players will be able to look past the repetition due to their shorter, more spaced out gaming sessions.

Lovecraft fans will get a kick out of the references to the horror maestro's body of work that are scattered throughout the mansion as well. From Deep One through Necronomicon it's all there. As primitive as the game is by modern standards, Alone in the Dark is a true classic, and for a dollar or so on the iOS it's well worth playing, either for nostalgia value or to experience the very formation of the horror genre.

It's worth giving Rock Zombie the benefit of the doubt that it wanted to be a trash Z-grade grindhouse game. And if so, mission accomplished. It's just so bad it's worth throwing on in a drunken haze for a laugh or two...But it's not a good game at all. Oh no, no, no, no and no.

All in all, Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed does a really solid job of bringing colourful characters from the series into a new style of game.

I am torn on it because I absolutely loved some of the things that were done, but also came away with the distinct impression that there simply should have been more. More conversation, more depth to the existing mechanics or additional systems that come into play over time, more variety in puzzles and more game in general. I generally enjoyed my time with Armikrog, but came away with the unshakeable feeling that it also missed several opportunities to be a better, more memorable game.

The only redeeming factor of Toby: The Secret Mine is that it’s not one of the many, so many, “roguelikes” or pseudo 8-bit platformers that are the norm these days from indie developers. It felt kind of refreshing to go back to 2014, even for a fleeting moment. The ideas in Toby are sound, the execution however is a lot to be desired.

It's great when you need free chips, but Poker Club was built entirely around the social experience and that's largely absent here. I love Poker Club's design and philosophy, but unfortunately, where Ripstone's other games on Switch are exceptional, this is a vastly inferior port and experience.

There is a lot to like about Loop8, and there’s the sense that the creative team put a lot of work into the symbolism and theming of it. They shot for the stars. Unfortunately, it fell slightly short, and while it’s interesting and different, it never lives up to the clear potential it had. But that’s also okay. At least they tried something different. Gaming wouldn’t be worth it if people didn’t take a creative risk every once in a while.

Ultimately, perhaps we do need to remember that this is FuRyu’s first self-published game, and the existence of Varlet at all is, itself, an experiment. We didn’t get the usual creative subversion that we’ve come to expect from the company behind the likes of Lost Dimension, The Caligula Effect, Crystar, and Reynatis, but in taking this step as a company, perhaps FuRyu will be able to protect its ability to continue to do those games in the future. Valent itself, unfortunately, is a game I wish I could love more than I did.

I am happy to see that Drawn To Life is still mulling around in the minds of the creators. I'm not the world's biggest fan of platformers, but I greatly enjoyed the playful creativity and customisation that the original games offered. That Two Realms has somehow pulled back on a concept that even primitive DS and Wii titles managed perfectly well is very disappointing, but I hope that the low price point means that this was just a token first effort that will lead into a more substantial, and conceptually true, re-boot down the track.

Modern Combat: Blackout isn't a great game by any stretch of the imagination, but it's playable enough, and it's the only military shooter of its kind currently available on the Nintendo Switch. I'd suggest that you're better off with something like Splatoon for competitive hijinks, or City of Brass if you're looking for a simply well-made first person action title.

The very best examples of nostalgic homages are those that add something in the process. Goichi Suda's grindhouse-toned games, for example, add all kinds of stylistic features that help to build on the thematic basis. Milanoir isn't that game. It's slavishly devoted to something very obscure and doesn't do enough to appeal to people who don't know the base material. But that's not to say it's a poor game. Its energy and ballsy attitude is engrossing all in itself.

Photo Finder is easily the weakest entry in the Chibi-Robo series and lacks the same vision and atmosphere of its forerunners, but it still has the love Skip always pours into its quirky adventures.

Not a bad game, it is just a frustratingly average game. It knows what it wants to do and sticks to its strengths, it is just that those strengths are lacking for depth and may prove boring for gamers looking for a bit more action in their adventures. Still, if you set your expectations accordingly, there is some fun to be had here while it lasts.

While I appreciate the idea behind making a Power Rangers game that taps into nostalgia, I can't help but feel that the Power Rangers property can - and should - do far better with the brawler genre.

Red Goddess a great experience. Utilising strong emotions such as joy, fear, and anger could have been done with far less elegance than this, and the act of using them all to investigate and recapture lost memories is a worthy, enjoyable experience.

This absolute travesty was the maiden game by Big Deez Productions. It’s never a nice feeling to be this critical about something, because people did put hard work and passion into it, and as a critic I feel like I’m being cruel to say that something is completely irredeemable. But what Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn is: irredeemable. This is 2018’s most cuttingly unpleasant game to play. And I'm one of those that played Agony.

Probably the most frustrating omission is the lack of any sort of online mode. It's hard to get this kind of game right in online play - Nintendo itself still hasn't achieved it, but a fighting game that doesn't at least try to go online is a dud from the outset.

Even if you don't care about the poor storytelling and juvenile understanding of the noir genre, Metropolis is still a supremely bland and uninteresting match-3 game; one that doesn't integrate the gameplay and narrative together in a particularly interesting way and yet somehow also wants people to play it four times to experience all the endings.

Calling All Units doesn’t set out to do anything new, it’s pretty much an online only version of Need for Speed: Pursuit. The new mechanics of chasing down others online with a group of others is indeed fun, and for the most part the online does work. The story does nothing exciting whatsoever, but it does teach the new mechanics and how they work.

SuperPower 3 does allow you to lead any nation on the planet in any way that you might like to. Unfortunately, while the game is only as exciting as a pile of spreadsheets, it’s nowhere near deep enough to feel like a genuine political simulator. It needed more fireworks and a sense that the decisions that you were making were really impacting on the nation and, once you were powerful enough, international balance. As it stands, all that’s really on offer is a bunch of numbers endlessly ticking over.

It does seem as though Arc System Works were relying entirely on the nostalgia to sell Double Dragon IV. And while it captures the essence of those original games it falls short of being a good game today simply because the original hasn’t aged well. It would have been pretty rockin' back in the 80s though.