Soul Sacrifice is a decent action-RPG for fans familiar with this type of game, but for newcomers, there’s very little that will impress or feel particularly interesting. It’s the very definition of “fine.”

Despite delivering an impressive playground that captures the spirit of America, The Crew struggles to build out a worthwhile game experience around it, resorting to frustrating missions, insipid storytelling, and off-putting microtransactions.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has its heart in the right place, delivering that Star Wars fantasy that is sure to please fans of the franchise. But putting aside the lightsabers and Wookiees, Fallen Order is too often unsuccessful in implementing ideas from better games, and ends up seeming like a pale imitation in comparison.

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.

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.

Gotham City might never have looked better, but Gotham Knights’ gameplay repetition and lack of length to the main narrative might deter all but the most hardcore Batman fans. Co-op adds a fun layer to all the crime fighting, and every character feels truly different from one another, even if the combat system takes some getting used to. Overall, there is a solid core here that hopefully can be built on in the future.

Dying Light 2 Stay Human’s enhanced parkour and intricate level design make for some of the most fun you can have moving through a video game world, and the hand-to-hand combat is simple but effective. Most impressive is the sense of scale and gravity that makes leaping between rooftops feel so death-defying. Unfortunately, its story wallows in post-apocalyptic clichés and misanthropy, and its choice-based narrative often drops its most interesting plot threads.

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.

While certain elements will appeal to DC Comics fans, there simply isn’t enough substance here to make Scribblenauts Unmasked worth a purchase—the gimmick wears off way too quickly.

The passion behind Citizens of Earth is undeniable. The execution, unfortunately, lags behind other indie titles that take inspiration from essential gaming classics.

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.

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.

If it came out a few months ago or a few months later, Immortals Fenyx Rising might have stood out more. But the problem is that it’s coming after a gauntlet of better Ubisoft products without doing much to improve upon the formula. Sometimes, it actively works against itself in what it’s decided to steal from Breath of the Wild, too. However, its surprisingly engaging story and a late-game trek up a mountain save it from being entirely lost to history.

While Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons occasionally succeeds in tugging at the heartstrings, there’s a heavy-handedness that runs through a good portion of the drama—and that’s off-putting. The unique controls take too long to get used to (considering this is only a three-hour experience), and the puzzles are simple and repetitive. The aesthetics are definitely pleasing, however.

There is a strong core of characters and story bedrock laid down in Mass Effect: Andromeda, but between questionable design choices, boring missions, and glitches galore, it’s hard not to view BioWare’s journey to a brand new galaxy as anything less than mission failure.

Objectivity is an illusion. Perceptions and subjectivity prevail, powerfully influenced by expectations both personal and cultural. Culturally, we want the Great Gaming Renaissance, and we look to indie games to bring it to us. I want to love Skulls of the Shogun for all that I see it can be, but I have to like Skulls for all that it is. Part of that includes being boring.

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.

Project Cars 2 may do a great many things exceptionally well, but it’s hard to look past the mountain of gaffes that quickly pile up on and off the track. Racing, after all, is about results, not potential.

NBA 2K15 delivers a solid core basketball experience, particularly with MyCareer mode, which features real-life NBA player voices. But the game ties too much of the experience to its shoddy online component, which sabotages the experience—and even makes the game literally unplayable at times.

As a farewell to the characters and settings of the original Corpse Party, Corpse Party: Blood Drive is a flawed, frustrating adventure that strays too far from what made its predecessor so beloved. And yet, at times, it still shows signs of brilliance—enough that at least hardcore fans of the franchise can find joy amongst the relentless torture.

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.

Maquette's core concept of puzzle solving in recursive environments is undeniably neat. But despite the handful of wow moments it enables, developer Graceful Decay ends up squandering much of the idea's potential due to pacing issues and rough edges.

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.

I don’t think Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is devoid of value, but I certainly don’t think it’s something to rush right out and buy—unless, as an Xbox One early adopter, you’re content with a passable platformer that possesses a handful of quasi-memorable moments to tide you over until Titanfall. And for anyone jonesing for a platformer, Max represents only a quick, short-lived fix.

Atelier Lydie & Suelle: The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings is another solid chapter in the current era of Gust’s franchise about heroines drawn to alchemy—and that’s said in both a good and a bad way. If you’ve enjoyed previous Atelier games for what they’ve been, then twins Lydie and Suelle are ready to take you on another adventure of crafting items, fighting monsters, and uncovering the secrets that hang over their homeland. However, if you’ve been hoping for some real progress or change in the Atelier formula, that recipe, sadly, remains undiscovered.

Donut County isn’t really bad at what it sets out to do, but its ambitions are so meager that you can’t help but feel the concept hasn’t been explored to the fullest extent. This is indie game design at its most disposable. I’d be shocked if anyone is still talking about—or even remembers—Donut County a year or two from now.

While the Dynasty Warriors style of gameplay appropriately sits front and center in Fire Emblem Warriors, the lack of genre melding with an RPG is disappointing. Players will enter into each battle with plenty of chances to smash buttons and oggle at Fire Emblem characters destroying one another, but the heart of the tactical RPG franchise doesn’t make a proper appearance. Too bad, too, because this might have been a wasted opportunity to really experiment with the musou genre.

As much as I'd love to heap praise on ZombiU for a smashing debut on a console that needed a good proof-of-concept, it ultimately comes off as a game that tried to get there the easy way-and failed. I applaud Ubisoft's desire to bring fear back to the genre while leveraging the Wii U's unique capabilities, but I wish they could've found a way to do so that didn't require so much needless pandering.

The potential from a reunion of the original three Disgaea protagonists is betrayed by the lackluster execution here. The core strategy is still enjoyable—though several holes are evident even in that aspect—but the disappointingly subpar story, packaging, and writing aren’t worthy of the Disgaea name.

In trying to break free of Tomonobu Itagaki's considerable shadow, Team Ninja crafts a tepid take on Ninja Gaiden that satisfies no one.

If Minecraft on the PC is the video game equivelent of LEGO, then Minecraft on XBLA is Duplo. It's a perfect introduction to the game and its experience-but it won't take long for you to outgrow it and want the real thing.

Derivative and beset by astounding technical problems, Days Gone is a rare misfire among Sony’s first-party efforts. While the core fantasy of surviving in a world overrun with infected occasionally shines through, Bend Studio doesn’t deliver nearly enough compelling moments to justify the long slog it takes to see this mediocre story through to its end.

In trying to break free of Tomonobu Itagaki's considerable shadow, Team Ninja crafts a tepid take on Ninja Gaiden that satisfies no one.

A solid comedic core cannot save what becomes tedious gameplay as you move through the 10 different dimensions of the Multiverse. Throw in the mind-boggling lack of online multiplayer for a suite that clearly could have benefited from it, and Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse should only appeal to fanatics of the FOX animated sitcom.

Umbrella Corps’ intentions are clear, but this target was missed due to an apparent disregard for the game’s core feature.

Bavarium Sea Heist runs into a lot of the same problems as the previous DLC packs for Just Cause 3. It confines you to the new super vehicle you acquire, nullifying Rico’s grappling hook and parachute, and is already over by the time you start getting warmed up. At least here there’s a little more story than before, but it’s not enough when comparing this to the main game.

Every time Star Fox tries to do something out of its space-combat comfort zone it fails. Star Fox Guard sadly continues this tradition of games that make you go “meh” when Fox and the gang step away from their Arwing cockpits.

ImageEpoch attempts to try something quite different with the Japanese RPG genre, and while a lot of the game suffers from missteps, poor gameplay decisions, and terrible writing, Time and Eternity’s anime-come-to-life visual style makes it an experience that feels unlike anything that’s been released in recent memory.

Another misstep with the TMNT franchise leaves me wondering if anyone will ever make a good Turtles game again. As is, Mutants in Manhattan works, but it’s just terribly boring.

A great idea that falls apart in the implementation. It’s a deeply promising game that dies by a thousand small cuts and a handful of big ones. Still, Trion has built a solid foundation, and they’ve made it clear that they’re in this for the long haul, dedicated to growing and improving the game over time. And, you know, I genuinely hope they pull it off.

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.

Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash takes Nintendo’s adorable mini helper robot and throws him into a mediocre side-scrolling platformer that’s too easy, too frustrating, and too below the standards of either its hero or its publisher. There’s some good here, but it’s not enough to raise this one above being an average experience.

While a welcome break from the tired retreadings that define most games, Murdered: Soul Suspect finds itself in a precarious place where narrative value, above all else, is of chief importance. But while the deadlike denizens of Salem might sound right for this sort of game, the absence of compelling characters keeps what’s otherwise an interesting idea from landing any staying power.

For every great thing Bound by Flame does, it messes up critical gameplay components like the combat. There’s this sense that the game can’t get out of its own way, and only die-hard high-fantasy fans that aren’t afraid of getting torched by a budget title should check this one out.

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.

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.

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.

ModNation Racers: Road Trip features impressive creation tools integrated with a moderately enjoyable game. But with no online multiplayer and a single-player mode that becomes quickly frustrating, you must decide if the creative aspects are enough to keep you satisfied.

As a side project to the main series, Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z offers an interesting shift in tone and a main character with a lot of promise, but the combat and puzzles feel too rote and unpolished to deliver on the strong potential of the concept.

There’s some strong core gameplay to Hyper Light Drifter, but not much else. Unfortunately, no amount of nostalgia is going to make up for that.

Cleverly designed combat may make up for the general content deficiency and lackluster story, but those interested should definitely do their research before diving in.

ReCore has an enjoyable first few hours, but quickly hits an impassible wall of unending item collection, laboriously slow loading screens, and puzzles that are more focused on wasting the player’s time than providing a challenge.

Easily the most disappointing Assassin’s Creed title ever. Aveline had the potential to be one of the best Assassins yet, but poor character development, simple mission design, and a far-too-short adventure left me wanting more in all the worst ways.

Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 convinced me that a Dynasty Warriors–style trip through one of manga’s more infamous worlds wasn’t as good an idea as I once thought. While I still see a lot of potential in the concept—and in this game itself—this effort’s underdeveloped and disappointingly average.

Defenders of Ardania was a nice concept, but poorly balanced execution and a tired, unoriginal story keep this from being anything special aside for maybe some Tower Defense diehards who have been waiting for something to come along in the genre.

Urban Trial Freestyle is, at its very best, a poor man’s Trials Evolution. It feels very much the same, but it lacks the personality and host of features that its source material possesses.

This is not the Kinect game you've been looking for. A cute array of mini-games and a decent length main campaign could make this a fun party game with a Star Wars theme, but if you were looking to finally feel like a Jedi, you might want to stick to the bathrobe and flashlight a little while longer.

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.

Fans of the SpikeTV show will enjoy having a chance to relive some of the battles they've seen on TV and the bonus DVD is nice, but when compared to other entries in the fighting genre, the Deadliest Warrior franchise comes up a little short and won't satisfy people looking for a deeper fighting experience.

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.

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.

London 2012 has a few standouts among its 45 or so minigames, but the vast majority are far too forgettable and repetitive to keep your attention for more than a few hours.

While its refreshing combat offers a different kind of strategy-RPG challenge, some ridiculously punitive design decisions sabotage a good deal of the potential fun in Natural Doctrine. Considering the experienced pedigree of the developers involved—they count Patapon among their previous works—that’s simply inexcusable.

Solid dungeon crawler action is held back by monotonous game play and a cluttered loot system, but most of all a price point at $40 that is more than double the PSN price for virtually the same game.

Serving as little more than a proof of concept for the Wii U controller’s NFC technology, Pokémon Rumble U is a boring, pointless game that should just be chalked up as another failed Pokémon spinoff.

While there’s plenty to love about the original Secret of Mana, this remake manages to kill off most the game’s charm while failing to modernize the parts of the game that actually need updating. Awkward animations, impenetrable menus, slow combat, and repeated random crashes add up to a game that, with 25 years of technological improvements under its belt, may actually be worse than the original.

Lara Croft remains a poor choice that never fit for the GO-style that was established with Hitman GO last year, even if you can find a bit of fun in the short, simple puzzles.

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

This is a great story and new character, but he should have just been included in the game in the first place, not a $10 Day 1 add-on.

EA Sports UFC 3 feels like one step forward and two steps back. Striking is more realistic than ever, but submissions and the ground game remain convoluted. The new G.O.A.T. Career mode has flashes of brilliance, but bogs you down in menus while losing the human side of fights. As well, Ultimate Team just feels like yet another cash grab. There is a decent core in UFC 3, but it needs a lot more time in the gym to become champion material.

Like an archeological dig. Somewhere under the dirt lies the broken pieces of a fantastic game. EA and Maxis are working furiously to put Humpty Dumpty together again, but in the meantime, we have a game that’s equal parts entertaining and frustrating. Sporting a fantastic user interface, great graphics, and an interesting concept, SimCity has an astounding level of potential. But in its current state, I can’t recommend it to any but the staunchest series fans.

It's certainly not a waste of time, but Mad Riders just has too many flaws to really justify itself as a proper racing game. Stick with whatever version of MotorStorm you currently own.

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.

Some solid action can’t cover up the fact that Rise of the Dark Spark feels horribly rushed, with massive splotches of shoddy design and a poor plot evident from the opening cinematic to the end credits.

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.

Where the original Hyperdimension Neptunia showed so much potential, its sequel falls flat on its face in most ways.

Yakuza 0 takes it back to where it all began, but a mildly interesting setting and story don’t quite make up for the game’s more tedious elements.

The math for Dollar Dash to be fun is there, but the numbers don’t add up. One crucial variable was unaccounted for: other interested parties.

Adr1ft is a game in love with space. It finds seduction in the void, and inside the debris of a botched reach for the unknown. I’ve never before seen space above Earth portrayed by such convincing beauty in a game. Alas, it is at the service of an unbefitting journey mired by clumsy movement and contrivances more heavy-handed than the story behind the disaster.

The core gameplay mechanics in The Devil’s Cartel seldom fall short of base competency, but they never really rise above it, either. With almost no combat variety, wonky cover mechanics, and cringe-worthy writing, it’s the sort of mindless, throwaway shooter you’ll have forgotten a half-hour after the credits roll.

Any excuse to return to the world of Just Cause 3 is welcome, but by the time you just start getting warmed up and comfortable with the new weapons, gear, and enemies, this new chapter is already over and you’re left asking where the rest of it is.

It’s hard to find something as generic as Special Forces: Team X appealing when online multiplayer shooters are a dime a dozen—and that’s all there is to this game.

A bundle that embodies the worst grinding elements of popular RPGs with a lackluster match-three gameplay mechanic. This version of Puzzle & Dragons tries to use the gold standard that Super Mario Bros. represents in order to bolster the façade that this is an interesting, worthwhile gaming experience. It’s not.

Aside from some moments of classic Ratchet & Clank humor, Full Frontal Assault fails both as a tower defense game and as a means to hold fans of the franchise over until Insomniac delivers a new mainline title.

Book of Spells is a decent proof of concept for the Wonderbook's augmented reality technology, but the rest of the experience fails to deliver anything memorable or worthwhile, quickly collapsing into an endless parade of gimmicks and dull, overly simplistic minigames.

While Natsume seems to have some legitimately good ideas for where they want to take their spin on the Harvest Moon series, too much of what’s been put into The Lost Valley feels awkward, underdeveloped, or unnecessary. While series fans will be able to find fun in some of what it offers up, you can’t help but wish that the development team had focused on the quality of the features they implemented, not the quantity.

Unfortunately, a few bits of clever design simply can't make up for the fact that Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor fails on the most fundamental of levels. First and foremost, a game is meant to be played, and Heavy Armor's unbelievably inept Kinect controls make that a far more difficult prospect than it has any right to be.

NBA Live has had a tough time escaping the shadow of NBA 2K—and that trend continues with NBA Live 15, which doesn’t deliver believable player movement, shooting, or gameplay flow. The “Big Moments” mode shows the potential that the series might be able to execute in the coming years, but right now, it’s like a .500 team trying to compete with a playoff juggernaut.

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.

Knack, while conceptually interesting, never rises above being an OK platformer without any real positive memorable aspects, but plenty of frustrating ones. If you’ve ever wondered what a tech demo turned into a full-fledged game would be like, Knack is—or very much feels—like that.

The issues, large and small, just pile up, and The Order ends up feeling like a game where plenty of manpower went into making sure it looked good—but no one bothered to check if it might actually be any fun. Outside of its admittedly superlative visuals, The Order doesn’t do a single thing well. Not one gameplay element stands out as superb—merely mediocre or substandard.

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.

Regular Show: Mordecai & Rigby in 8-Bit Land sounds good on paper, but it falls apart in execution. Between uninspired level and art design, a rash of irritating issues, and less playtime than your average movie, there really isn’t much value to be found for fans of the show—let alone anyone else.

Contrast offers one of the most interesting gameplay gimmicks in recent memory, but the lack of engaging puzzles and interesting levels prevent the concept from being put to good use.

Colossatron features a noticeably more punishing microtransaction model than Halfbrick’s previous efforts, and the gameplay isn’t inherently fun or varied enough to disguise the lengthy grind required to advance.

Babel Rising may have a following on mobile devices, but the gameplay and presentation just don't translate well to a gaming console.

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.

I love difficult games, but The Flame in the Flood didn’t test my resolve—it tested my patience. A stellar look and an awesome soundtrack made me want to love The Molasses Flood’s first release, but with so many technical setbacks, I could hardly even stomach my time with it. I won’t be returning to the flood.