The Callisto Protocol feels like a throwback title, for better and worse. While the Dead Space comparisons are unavoidable, director Glen Schofield’s return to survival horror does bring with it several new concepts, but many, like the melee combat system, suffer from poor execution. Still, if you’re looking for a fun, B-movie disaster story with some famous Hollywood faces and a more straightforward, linear single-player experience, you could do worse—at least until the Dead Space remake launches next year.

Project X Zone brings together more than 200 characters from various Namco Bandai, Capcom, and Sega properties—and then proceeds to have them engage in some of the most tedious, drawn-out battles in strategy-RPG history. Yes, it’s great fun in short bursts, but the game rarely lets you experience combat that way, unfortunately.

Sims fans have been worried about all the cuts of longtime features in The Sims 4, and while some critical elements are indeed missing, the core addiction remains. Plus, with the addition of the online Gallery and the ability to share and download creations, it’s easier than ever to liven up your little virtual world.

Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Collection is a solid pairing considering the price tag, but with nothing new besides the HD facelift, there's little here to entice veteran players.

While some of its parts still feel like trappings of a less-advanced era of gaming, Deception IV is a more than worthy—not to mention unashamed—continuation of a franchise that mixes unique, original concepts with that deep, dark desire we all hold to be a little evil sometimes.

Like all Intelligent Systems games, Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. is absolutely worth it for strategy fans—but this one’s got a few more warts than usual.

Even though all of its individual pieces did their job, there wasn’t much that made me want to keep playing Final Fantasy Explorers. Even scenic landscapes and potent sentimentality can’t save the game from bland combat and repetitive missions.

While it feels like a not insignificant step down from the breakout hit Until Dawn, Supermassive Games’ latest attempt at interactive horror still serves up some compelling thrills and chills. The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan definitely gets better the deeper you get into its story, but traveling that path is fraught with technical issues and questionable narrative direction more often than it should be.

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.

For those looking for a well-crafted, enjoyable tennis game, Mario Tennis Open will leave you satisfied. For those looking for a great Mario tennis game, you'll probably be left wanting more.

Actively unpleasant to play, embarrassingly buggy, and wholly devoid of any personality, Eidos Montreal’s Thief reboot certainly isn’t the worthy continuation fans waited almost a decade for.

Rainbow Six Extraction takes Siege’s best parts—its characters and its gunplay—and successfully adapts them to a cooperative experience, but repetitive level design and an uneven progression system make the game feel more boring than it has any right to be. Extraction had all the elements it needed to be a great co-op “zombie” game, including an exact blueprint in Outbreak, but Ubisoft’s obsession with keeping players grinding forever won out, making Extraction feel like more of an obligation than an escape.

Absolver can be rewarding for those that dedicate the appropriate amount of time and attention it requires, but its complexities can be hard to break into. Even when Absolver is mastered, the resulting expertise seems to have little impact on the competitive side of the experience.

Livelock is as generic a top-down shooter as you can get. The locations you find yourself fighting through, the enemies you take on, and the story itself come together in a package that works, but one which fails to inspire any semblance of fun.

While it doesn’t get everything it tries to do right, Battle Princess of Arcadias is still an enjoyable action-adventure that mixes some unique gameplay twists together with a serious level of beat-em-up satisfaction.

Star Fox Zero’s status as a love-letter to the past is solidified. While it does a good job channeling a lot of what was great about Star Fox 64, it fails to really build on it in new and exciting ways, and stumbles because of the Wii U Gamepad.

Knack II fixes many of the problems of its predecessor, delivering a fun action-platformer worthy of giving this series a second chance. The story is still a bit bare-boned, but the gameplay alone will be enough to keep you going until you see the end credits.

Sea of Thieves’ world isn’t completely lacking in achievement, thanks to its luscious visuals and excellent sailing mechanics, but it feels completely undercooked in terms of actual gameplay. Perhaps ironically, Sea of Thieves feels like the skeleton of a game rather than a fully realized experience. Rare promises that more content is coming, but judging on what the game offers now, it’s a journey not worth taking—at least not yet.

Plenty of diverse classes and tight combat makes up for a lack of game modes. If you already have Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, Deadliest Warrior is a fun expansion pack that offers a welcome change of pace from the main game if deathmatch-oriented matches are in your wheelhouse.

Mad Max’s inescapable, monotonous looting in a derivative open world can’t justify seeking the sparse instances of break-neck fun behind the wheel. Though there are moments that reach the level of Mad Max: Fury Road, they’re unfortunately too few and far between.

Pikmin fans hoping for the next evolution in the franchise will have to wait for another attempt, as Hey! Pikmin is an enjoyable, but vastly simple experience that doesn’t live up to its namesake.

While the writing is solid and the card playing has been notably improved over the first game, Poker Night 2 suffers from the same basic problem that plagued the original: a lack of staying power, thanks to the absence of competitive multiplayer and eventually repetitive dialogue.

Resident Evil Zero HD sees the return of a weird chapter in the Resident Evil saga, one that feels clunky and frustrating in its low points, but which also shows some uniqueness from the legacy it helped bring to a close.

A wonderful job creating the bleak and oppressive atmosphere of the post-apocalyptic world you find yourself in, the combat and character development leaves much to be desired.

World of Warplanes‘s is a decent game, but its ultimate undoing is its leveling system and its economy, turning what could have been a competent, if limited, arcade flight experience into an expensive trial that can only be overcome with time or money.

Smartly built, endlessly entertaining, and unexpectedly heartwarming, Dadliest Catch manages to turn an utterly ridiculous concept into one of the most surprising games in recent memory.

Heroes of Ruin is a pretty game by 3DS standards, with a compelling story wrapped around unoriginal combat, quests, and leveling.

It's great to finally have a portable Katamari as playable as the console versions, but we already saw this game seven years ago…and six years ago…and five years ago…and...

Another smash-and-collect game featuring everyone’s favorite building toy. This time around, it’s based on the new animated movie and offers many of the hilarious characters fresh off the screen. A little bit of fresh gameplay livens up this entry, but a few story and camera problems hamper the experience somewhat. Ultimately, The LEGO Movie Videogame is great fun and perfect for fans of the fantastic plastic.

Snake Pass is a competent and boldly innovative take on the classic 3D platformer, but the game suffers from an overly fiddly control scheme that doesn’t match the inviting, pick-up-and-play fun of the genre.

Darksiders III is a frustrating, awkward sequel to a series that’s charmingly stupid, but there’s a lot of fun to be had if you give up on getting good. Do yourself a favor and tone down the difficulty level so that you can enjoy the crazy character designs and ridiculous fantasy world that Gunfire Games has built. Fans will be glad that this underdog of a series at least got a third chapter, but if you’re new to Darksiders, you might want to start at the beginning.

Sega's $10 price tag is more than fair if you're interested in checking out this random collection, but I'd honestly recommend saving your digital dollars for the slightly more enticing Monster World, Golden Axe, or Streets of Rage collections. At the very least, all of those releases have matching themes and stronger value for your money.

The best Spider-Man adventure in years isn't quite what it should've been. Developer Beenox actually crams too much into the package, cluttering what could've been a landmark tale for Marvel's wall-crawler.

Shadowgate is, well, Shadowgate. If you know what that means, you’re probably keen on playing it. It’s not exactly a taxing title as far as computer specs run, so there’s really no issue for those who traditionally stick to consoles. But if if the name means nothing to you, either you’re about to be made a believer in the joys of brain-breaking puzzles or sent screaming out of the castle and back to the loving arms of Call of Duty.

Playing WWE 2K17 is as frustrating as being a fan of Dolph Ziggler: There’s a lot of potential there, but those in charge of the game just won’t let it shine.

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.

While the strengths of DmC‘s balletic combat aren’t entirely lost in Vergil’s Downfall, they’re decidedly diminished. The novelty of a new playable character and slate of abilities is largely negated by the fact that Vergil isn’t nearly as smooth, interesting, or fun to control as his snarky twin brother.

Though at times plagued by faults that might scare away some players, Silent Hill Downpour offers an absolutely engrossing experience-one that gives longtime fans true hope for the future of the franchise.

Gungnir takes some chances with the strategy-RPG formula, but many of these design decisions fall flat, and the story offers little of interest until about 12 hours into the game. It's a competent tactical offering, but not a particularly interesting one.

From a mechanical standpoint, Zoo Tycoon works quite smoothly, but a ridiculously low agent cap severely detracts from the game’s longevity.

An interesting spin-off to the main Mass Effect universe, only the most hardcore of fans will look past the repetitive on-rails game play and iffy controls.

Star Wars Battlefront II still tips more toward the causal side of multiplayer competition, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a fair amount fun to be had. That said, the game’s potentially pay-to-win progression model doesn’t do it any favors.

Battleborn is like a one-man band—there’s a whole lot going on, but the final product suffers due to spread resources. While lack of maps and missions may be resolved with DLC, the launch product comes off a bit shallow.

Way of the Passive Fist is a game out of time (in a good way). It feels like it would’ve fit right in alongside arcade cabinets from 30-years ago, with its cartoon color scheme and over-the-top soundtrack. But it’s got a modern twist that solves a lot of old-school beat ‘em ups’ biggest problems and delivers a terrific overall experience with a cornucopia of options to keep you coming back for more.

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.

The bigger a Batman fan you are, the less you’re likely to enjoy Telltale’s take on The Dark Knight. Combined with the obvious age Telltale’s engine is showing, this simply isn’t their best effort.

Fable still has some charming elements that have stood the test of time and survive in Fable Anniversary. But most of the game shows its age, so if you played Fable or Fable: The Lost Chapters the first time around, there’s little here to bring you back for more.

Battlefield 2042 brings the sandbox back to the series in bold and controversial ways. The new Specialist system might seem like sacrilege at first, but it opens up gameplay opportunities that weren’t possible in previous titles. The massive, well-designed maps offer plenty of room for experimentation and emergent stories, and the modes are a blast. And that’s just All-Out Warfare. Between that, Hazard Zone, and the expansive Battlefield Portal, Battlefield 2042 has something for everyone, without feeling like it’s stretched too thin. It’s a true evolution of the series, one that pushes back against a stagnation that threatened the series’ future. It won’t be for everyone, but for players who crave imagination and fun from their Battlefields, it will give them everything that they crave and more.

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.

Deadlight was a fantastic idea whose execution just didn't do it the justice it deserved. It's too short, its challenges too cheap at times, and it occasionally loses focus of what it wants to be-and yet, at the same time, Deadlight is also a surprisingly beautiful adventure through a world of chaos that does more right than it does wrong.

There’s no sugarcoating the fact that The Bureau lacks much of the refinement we expect from modern triple-A games, but anyone who looks past the flawed surface will find a game bursting with brilliant ideas. With smart, engaging tactical combat and one of the most compelling sci-fi narratives the medium has seen to date, this one’s destined to become a cult classic.

A solid, polished product that's a bit rough around the edges on occasion, but not so much that it takes away from the core experience, which is boosted by a solid storyline and robust array of online options that makes it one of my favorite entries in the series to date. If you're looking for an arcade racer with a lot of flash and the speed to match, give The Run a spin. It's great ride.

Mafia III’s main plot is one of the better-written stories I’ve played in recent game history. The problem is the gameplay is bloated with a lot of busy work and weak side content that detracts from this great tale.

There’s no denying that Lords of the Fallen has taken a huge amount of inspiration from From Software’s series of Souls titles, but it does so while also growing into a game that players can enjoy on its own terms. While faults both technical and creative keep it from being as enjoyable as it could have been, this is still an adventure that may be worth taking for those who love a real sense of challenge.

Enter the Dominatrix, as a new batch of downloadable gameplay content, is short, disjointed, and not especially challenging. As an entire experience, however, it’s an utterly fascinating look at what was left on the cutting-room floor in the making of Saints Row IV—and a must for any serious fans of the latest adventures of the 3rd Street Saints.

The nostalgia factor will drive many to want to purchase this, but numerous flaws, possibly covered up the first time around by childhood innocence, and a lack of extra features should have you waiting for this to go on sale first.

A frantic side-scrolling shooter reminiscent of classics like Metal Slug that may become tiresome in long intervals, but is more than enjoyable in short bursts.

The Legend of Legacy has nice character designs, beautiful backgrounds, good music, and some inventive mechanics. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay is repetitive and extremely shallow, the combat system is a slog with little character progression, and simple tasks like saving the game and walking from place to place are needlessly tedious. Without a good story or developed world to keep it interesting and no real way to improve your skills, there’s no reason to fight through to the end.

Disjunction deconstructs the stealth genre and boils it down to its simplest and most readable mechanics. Mix in a cool cyberpunk aesthetic and interesting if optional gadgets, and it’s a winning formula. Unfortunately, the game stops well short of fully mining either its trope-heavy story or stealth formula, leading to an experience that ultimately feels repetitive.

Entertaining at first, the repetitive grind of 60 cookie-cutter levels wears on you quickly in this Angry Birds clone.

Assassins Creed Chronicles: China offers some solid building blocks for this spin-off series, including beautiful art and decent stealth gameplay. The poor combat and sad attempt at storytelling, however, both leave far too much to be desired.

The new eagle powers are far more impressive than the wolf skills from the first episode, and although the story drags early on, it picks up nicely towards the end, ramping up to a hopefully fitting—and satisfying— conclusion in the final episode.

Sniper Elite III’s gory killcams and open-ended arenas succeed at making the act of sniping more involved and rewarding than you’ll find in most other shooters, but it struggles to flesh out a complete game experience around that one mechanic.

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.

A true Japanese role-playing throwback that successfully channels the classics of the past, Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time's challenging, strategy-laden battles and cast of expressive characters will help remind JRPG fans why they fell in love with the genre in the first place.

Some minor bugs and a lack of replayability can’t hold back Constant C, a puzzle-platformer full of memorable conundrums and surprisingly charming characters.

While Magical Beat’s mix of puzzle and rhythm-gaming concepts won’t be for everyone, those who appreciate such genres will find a unique, enjoyable conglomeration of the two that feels as fresh as it does familiar.

There are points where Guardians of the Galaxy is barely playable because of how terrible the engine is. Yes, the story at least has some heart to it, and at key points your decisions feel like they matter. But it mostly feels like Telltale was creatively backed into a corner with this property full of oddball characters, and the end result is far from the studio’s best work.

Adventure Time is, first and foremost, for fans. Love the show and a good platformer? This game's for you. Expecting more, however, will only disappoint.

A cartoonish, arcadey racing game, JoyRide Turbo has solid controls, a good sense of speed, and some interesting tracks and power-ups. Granted, it's too simplistic and easy to keep serious race fans engaged for long (unless their kids don't have to go to bed just yet), but it'll entertain anyone looking for a fun-but-stress-free Sunday drive.

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes might not exactly be the game that fans of the series were hoping for, but if you’re want to catch up with your favorite assassin and are willing to accept changes made to the gameplay, you should find plenty to like here. This is a surprisingly complex game and seriously goofy sequel-ish thing, made with obvious passion and an undying love for the gaming experience.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT finally brings Square Enix’s handheld “what if” franchise to the big screen, and the results are pretty fantastic for those who love chaotic, high-energy combat scenarios. Unfortunately, the game can be challenging to get the hang of due to a range of factors including class differences and controls, and there’s not much to do for those who prefer their gaming sessions solo. Still, for players who do click with this third Dissidia chapter, it’s a heck of an experience.

Yo-Kai Watch Blasters never manages to shake off that minigame feel, but its core gameplay, though shallow, is fun. Don’t go in expecting anything too deep (or expecting to go anywhere beyond the town of Yo-Kai Watch 2), and Blasters is an enjoyable enough way to pass the time.

Code of Princess is a fun and frantic action adventure for the 3DS, one that often provides plenty of excitement-but which, at other times, feels limited either in design or by the hardware it calls home.

High on Life continues Squanch Games’ propensity for skewering video game tropes, this time in the form of a first-person shooter. Unfortunately, a lot of the game plays like a first draft, and armor of detached irony doesn’t do enough to protect it from its many, many kinks. Roiland’s personal brand of gross-out parody and “oh, geez” improvisational humor is already starting to feel routine in video game form, but there are a few standout bits. Thankfully, there’s a pretty fun shooter underneath all the alien semen, though stiff animations and some buggy moments can make it look slightly underbaked. If you’re a fan of Rick and Morty (or, more appropriately, “Doc and Mharti”), then High on Life might just be the pickup you need—but it never fully develops any of its really good ideas into a satisfying final draft.

It’s an absolute feat that Nintendo was able to retain the trademark Animal Crossing charming feel without including many of the tropes that have been present since the series began back in 2001. That novelty, however, is fleeting, and after a few hours of play, you’re left with a shallow feeling that your work has gotten you nowhere. Even when viewed through the lens of “just a spinoff,” Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is disappointing.

Blue Reflection is a game that displays a heartwarming amount of beauty and grace even in the face of some tragically ugly flaws and mistakes. On a gameplay level, it never reaches the heights it wanted (or deserved) to, but as an overall experience, it feels like something special in a way few other games do.

I walked away from Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers surprised at how much fun I could still find in the game, even when playing on the less-than-adequate controls the Switch offers by default. Still, that enjoyment doesn’t change the fact that Capcom was off the mark on this release—we either should have received the game as a cheaper digital download, or as a more expansive collection.

Though the Atelier series might not be the epitome of Japan's RPG industry, I've always had a soft spot for its various chapters. Atelier Meruru isn't "epic," "intense," or "exhilarating"-it's charming, friendly, and fun, and it's not ashamed of it.

As a game—that is, a collection of loosely connected systems—it’s all very average, something that works but is wholly forgettable. Combat is more often than not a chore, the world is depressingly dull to look at, and the story feels like the last ingredient Square Enix threw in the pot, and at the very last moment no less.

State of Decay 2 builds upon Undead Labs’ original cult classic about surviving a zombie apocalypse, and in many ways, it’s bigger and better than its predecessor. In other ways, however, it’s too similar to said predecessor, resulting in an experience that often feels like it could have been deeper or more ambitious.

Song of the Deep isn’t a bad metroidvania; it’s just very basic. It doesn’t do anything particularly well, outside of maybe its endearing story, but it isn’t absolutely unplayable either.

Rise & Shine isn’t the deepest action-platformer you’ll ever play, but the tongue-in-cheek nods to the gaming industry at large, along with its stunning art style, will push you to the finish line even when the gameplay starts to let you down.

As a potential preview for what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain might do to revolutionize the series’ classic stealth-action, Ground Zeroes is an intriguing, bite-sized playthrough. As a $30 retail disc and $20 download, however, it’s a concerning, unwelcome step for game development—and it’s nothing close to a complete, finished product.

A lack of content and a failure to properly execute on some of the new ideas had me longing for the days when Mario Party games would result in brawls in my living room.

You’d be hard pressed to find an automaker willing to take an extra year to reset their car line much like Ghost Games did here with their second run on Need for Speed. What we get is a more focused and competent racer but one seemingly unwilling to risk standing out from the crowd.

Vampire: The Masquerade — Swansong can be a compelling experience, especially for those who are already familiar with the World of Darkness. Its RPG mechanics lend depth to an otherwise standard narrative adventure, as long as you can grasp their meaning. But wonky gameplay balance and even wonkier facial animations, not to mention some of the more overwritten and under-earned emotional beats, can make falling in love with its vampires harder to swallow than a mouthful of blood.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD looks good on the surface, but some particularly frustrating design and gameplay quirks can drastically cut down on the enjoyment.

This carny simulator's as simple as can be-but it's surprisingly fun and definitely helps bolster the Move's casual appeal.

If you adore Suda 51's design sensibilities or appreciate games that punish players, then Black Knight Sword might offer enough for you to enjoy your time with it. For everyone else, far too many other games are more worthy of your time and money.

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.

About An Elf is a game about an elf who wants to bring about the elftopia. It’s about Princess Dam, who may or may not be a psychopath, and it’s about a cat who wants to have half-cat, half-elf babies, and about another elf who pays Dam gummy bears to tell her stupid stories. It’s about going on an adventure to fantastical places and facing off against monstrous foes, and it’s about figuring out at times overly obscure video puzzles in order to beat those foes. It’s a story about love, and loss, and hope. And, in the end, About An Elf is about five to six hours long.

It may say “new” in the title, but there’s simply not enough to get excited about in Yoshi’s New Island. Fans of the original will probably be turned off by this inferior and all-too-familiar retread.

Atari’s Recharged series has produced some fantastic remakes of classic arcade hits, but that series’ latest entry, Breakout Recharged, is definitely its weakest so far. That’s less the fault of the dev teams or the work they’ve put into these releases, and more the core game itself, as the original Breakout could only receive so much modernization before becoming a totally different game. The result is that Breakout Recharged will satisfy a specific segment of players who can enjoy its more simplistic gameplay, while leaving most everyone else wishing there’d be more to see and break here.

Just Cause 4 has so many good systems in place, but it seems to have lost sight of what to do with them. While it’s a relatively decent game in its own right, it continues the series’ decline.

While it's aimed at the same audience as its silver screen counterpart, Brave: The Video Game seems to have been sprinkled with plenty of Pixar's age-spanning magic. Sadly, for most, its spell will wear off after a weekend or two.

The fun of this arcade classic remake fades quickly as repetition leads to boredom, but its unique objectives might make it worth looking into if you have some time to kill and cash to burn.

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.