Saints Row pairs a great open-world city and respectable gameplay fundamentals with repetitive, dated mission design, a story that never finds its footing, and too many bugs to count. Depending on what you prioritize in a game, you may get some enjoyment out of it, but at best you’re looking at a diamond in a whole lot of rough.

Martha is Dead starts off strong, with an intriguing story amid a tumultuous backdrop, and a main gameplay mechanic with a ton of room to evolve. Unfortunately, the game squanders every opportunity it has to develop its story or gameplay in interesting ways, instead relying on overplayed tropes and unnecessary mechanics. While Martha is Dead's disturbing imagery might not deserve censorship, its creators betray the trust that it asks of its players, ultimately delivering a shallow experience that does more harm than good.

The true test for The King of Fighters XV is going to come in the days ahead, as the game gets into the hands of the general public and we see how everything fares both online and in far larger pools of player-vs.-player matches. For now, I’m excited for KOF XV. Its gameplay feels solid, its roster is satisfying, and its overall visual design once again does the series justice. I just hope all of those things hold up once the real fight begins.

Far Cry 6 barely hangs together on the strength of the gameplay loop it inherits from its predecessors. Beyond the addition of some fun new toys, like the “resolver” weapons and Supremo backpacks, nearly every design change is mystifyingly for the worse, and the mismatch between the gameplay and storytelling ambitions is more conspicuous than ever.

Biomutant is trying to be too many things. It can be fun when you’re comboing supernatural abilities and homemade weaponry to take down a group of bad guys as a furry little post-apocalyptic ronin. But its RPG mechanics are so clunky and uneven, and its various story threads are so underdeveloped, that you’ll end up feeling like nothing you do actually matters. If you just want to explore yet another open-world and beat up some bad guys, then Biomutant will keep you busy for a few hours. Just be ready to encounter a slew of baffling and questionably executed design choices.

Cyberpunk 2077’s bugs and technical issues certainly hold it back, and with any luck those will be fixed in the coming months. But it’s more difficult to imagine CD Projekt Red doing enough to resolve the deeper problems: awkwardly balanced systems, storytelling misfires, and an inability to merge its open-world action and RPG gameplay into something smooth and cohesive.

Godfall’s sluggish, overly complicated combat, hilariously paper-thin story, and numerous technical issues make it a lowlight of the PlayStation 5’s launch lineup.

Marvel’s Avengers squanders the potential of what might have been a fun superhero romp by grafting on an annoying, overly repetitive games-as-a-service component. Playing as the cast of heroes offers decent thrills, and the campaign tells an enjoyable enough story, but odds are good you’ll get bored long before you grind your way to the top.

At least in my time with it, Wasteland 3 has been a fascinating experience. I’ve come to appreciate its depth of gameplay, character, building, and exploration, even if some of its pieces and parts still feel very foreign to me. I’ve still got a long way to go in the game—thanks to how slow-going my progress has been as I get used to this type of adventure—but I’m eager to see what awaits me next in the frozen wastes of Colorado. [Review-in-Progress]

On a superficial level, Predator: Hunting Grounds succeeds at translating elements of the original 1987 movie into a four-on-one multiplayer game, and the matchups are occasionally tense and thrilling. But shoddy game balance, sloppy design, frequent bugs, and significant technical shortcomings squander most of the potential.

With the game finally completed and released to the world after nine long years, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories marks the return of Granzella’s cult classic series about surviving natural disasters. This time around, the team has traded action set pieces in for a more personal look at the human toll of horrific events—but they’ve done so without injecting enough humanity into that new direction to make it truly work.

For now, Animal Crossing: New Horizons feels like a no-brainer for fans of the franchise, and a perfect place to start for newcomers—with the exception of ruining every other previous Animal Crossing game, should you ever want to go back to them.

If not for its uninspired design and lack of effort in the storytelling, One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows might have actually been a good game. Oddly for a fighting game, it focuses almost entirely on its single-player, often to its detriment. But if you can look past the repetitive structure and the uneven pacing, there’s actually some fun combat to be found, and its multiplayer meta is surprisingly addictive.

The best compliment that I can give Ring Fit Adventure is that it’s a video game that features exercise, instead of an exercise program disguised as a video game. In the two weeks that I’ve been playing my copy, I’ve legitimately regretted any day that I couldn’t play, and have always looked forward to not only exploring deeper into its adventure mode, but actually doing the workout associated with it

Concrete Genie’s painting tech impresses at first and its heart is certainly in the right place, but the game ultimately proves too aimless to support its already brief running time. Adorning the city in landscapes of your own creation quickly loses its luster as you realize that what you create lacks meaningful interactivity. Even the jarring addition of combat midway through doesn’t do much to counter the sense that Pixelopus couldn’t find a way to build out a full game around a simple gameplay idea.

Looting for better gear is a trend that’s taken over gaming, but it’s never seemed as unnecessary and as cynical as it does in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Turning the game into an amalgamation of Wildlands and The Division, Breakpoint’s gear system ruins any immersion you may have felt in pretending to be an elite spec ops soldier. If that was the game’s only issue, it might have still been salvageable, but its predictable story, graphical infidelity, and obnoxious open world make this a failed experiment at marrying two or three different properties from the same publisher.

All MachineGames and Arkane Studios needed to do was make a straightforward, cooperative Wolfenstein experience. Instead, Youngblood replaces the series’ celebrated narrative twists and turns with humdrum XP grinding and a live-service model. It would be bad in most games, but the fact that it’s in a Wolfenstein title makes it sting a little bit worse.

The Heist is a fun little way to spend more time with the delightful gameplay, characters, and world of Marvel’s Spider-Man, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a complete, satisfying expansion on its own.

What could have been an intriguing, unique, if somewhat underwhelming RPG is completely crippled by a terrible save system and game-breaking bugs. Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s well-publicized adherence to historical accuracy pays off in its thoughtfully designed landscapes and intriguing combat system, even if its survival-style mechanics fall somewhat flat. It’s just a shame that the more positive qualities are doomed to exist within a game that ended up being unplayable.

Need for Speed Payback might be a new low point for the franchise. A horrendous progression system compounded by uninteresting characters and terrible AI only illustrates how far behind this series has fallen compared to the other arcade racers out there. The multiplayer is solid, but that’s like saying at least the car wreck didn’t cause a fire, too.

Lucky is unrealized potential. There is always space for a new kid-friendly platformer, and Lucky’s cute and colorful world could’ve served as a great entry point for a new franchise. Sadly, poor controls, a terrible camera, and just overall lackluster gameplay leave Super Lucky’s Tale being a subpar effort not worthy of your time.

What looks like a harmless return to the Bubsy franchise quickly becomes a clear lesson in laziness. Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back takes no time to show how little effort was put into a simple platformer. From the controls to the overall spirit of the game, it’s hard to recommend anyone try it out, even at its “low” price.

While there’s really nothing broken in Archangel, the game suffers from a clear lack of follow-through on any of the interesting ideas it tries to bring to the table. Its slow, plodding pace stands out even more against the backdrop of mediocre gameplay and one-note characters that made me thankful when the game came to its abrupt end.

A stellar atmosphere is not enough to save such a puzzle-platformer that completely lacks any sort of challenge. While the story of Six is a sad one, it’s not for the fact that her adventure begins in a cage—but that the developer failed to find a way to make me care about it at all.

A heavy dose of randomness coupled with a lack of permanent progression makes Has-Been Heroes a chore to keep playing. Though there’s a good strategy idea buried in its multi-lane gameplay, the high-risk, no-reward setup isn’t satisfying enough to make up for its otherwise mediocre aspects. Coupled with repetitive enemies, forgettable assets, and bizarre controls, Has-Been Heroes is a game that can go right back into retirement.

Old Time Hockey is more style than substance. Its heart was in the right place, but shoddy controls, glitches, and poor gameplay design make this an arcade-style game hockey fans just don’t need in their lives.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen such a mess of a game. There’s a decent story here, but it’s buried under so much technical and design shortcomings that it’s not worth your time digging to try to find it.

There is a core idea here that could’ve worked, but Metroid Prime: Federation Force is nothing short of a disaster due to horribly thought out implementation and shoddy execution.