Disintegration’s core idea of blending a first-person shooter with a strategy game is neat, but it takes so many missteps that the promising concept gets lost. The action is repetitive, and the basic mission design is tired – you can’t even save the game mid-mission, which is particularly baffling. Amid the tedium, I had an occasional moments of fun in Disintegration, but those moments were fleeting.

The Outer Worlds is not at its best on Switch, since the visuals and performance take a serious hit on the system. The textures, framerate, lighting, and more have been downgraded to run on the hardware.

Golf With Your Friends captures the spirit of minigolf – you’re going to have some laughs, frustrations, and at the end of the day, not take it all too seriously.

Crucible isn’t a bad game, but it’s not a good game either. In the context of today’s hero-shooter environment, that makes it a lost soul, struggling to find a strong sense of identity. With time, perhaps Crucible can find reasons to stay on the menu, but right now the recipe is diluted and dull.

While you’re able to play through the story in a single evening, Aftermath gives you a deeper look into the Mortal Kombat universe as seen through the eyes of characters who aren’t typically stars of the show. When combined with three additional characters, Aftermath delivers a strong package for fans of the latest iteration of the bloody fighting franchise.

Several games offer players the chance to rewind time and pause the action, but I’ve never grown tired of this particular power fantasy. I appreciate Timelie’s stealth-based, tactical approach to time manipulation. But just as Timelie starts to hit its stride, I hit the credits. Timelie isn’t the most comprehensive exploration of time manipulation, but its bite-sized puzzles are a welcome distraction.

Like Dead Cells before it, Fury Unleashed is one of those roguelikes that is hard to put down, as you know the next run will only give you a better shot making more progress to unlock new comics, gear, and ultimately a better chance at taking down the final boss. It’s a hell of a lot of fun, whether you’re playing solo or co-op.

Monster Train is a pleasant, mind-blowingly addictive exercise that’s well worth your time, especially if you’re a fan of roguelikes, card games, and deck-building fare. Hours of entertainment await, often chained back-to-back like a crazy card combo.

Tightly balanced between resource gathering and fierce shooting exchanges, this dwarven mining expedition is a great time – especially with friends.

Minecraft Dungeons has a solid core, and I’d love to see where it goes from here. Hopefully, Mojang recognizes the fact that games with grinding don’t have to be as much of a grind. It would be great to have some kind of way to experience levels in a remixed format, similar to how Diablo III has rifts or Torchlight and Path of Exile offer more randomized maps to encourage replays. But Minecraft Dungeons’ current approach is simply replaying the same stuff over again, and just isn’t enough.

Maneater is an enjoyable hunt that satisfies in its shark mayhem and story of revenge. The action is a bit repetitive and chaotic, but the goofiness of the violence ends up winning out. This is the first shark game I’ve truly enjoyed. It has cult classic written all over it.

Pong Quest delivers fun and novel concepts in small bursts, but is weighed down by generic dungeon crawling, unbalanced abilities, and repetitive encounters.

Super Mega Baseball 3 could use some tweaks to its gameplay, such as the automatic triggering of small defensive animations to prevent your player from getting turned around on a routine fly ball or missing an easy tag, for example. But on the whole, it provides solid gameplay in a fun, stylish wrapper. Add in the series’ own touches, such as extensive customization options, cross-platform online play, and the abundance of co-op (online or off) opportunities, and you’ve got a game that makes an already-familiar sport stand out.

Deliver Us the Moon is an excellently made game that succeeds in story and atmosphere. The lunar settlement is a fascinating place to explore, and even though it’s just filled with holographic ghosts, you get a sense of how it was once thriving and what exactly went wrong. The experience starts out strong and ends strong; some of the middle ground is a bit repetitive, but the narrative is engaging throughout and makes the journey worth taking.

Moving Out has a charming sense of humor and the developers clearly went out of their way to make the game as accessible as possible. You can adjust difficulty in an impressively granular way, checking individual boxes to tweak the time you have to complete goals, make objects lighter, remove some obstacles, and more. That does make it easier to zoom past some of the trickier levels, but it doesn’t ultimately change the fact that moving furniture in the game is as fun as the real deal.

Sakura Wars is a hard experience to put in words, but that experience doesn’t come around often. It is a captivating ride, striking a great balance between its funny and heartwarming moments. Just like the struggling theater group, the performance doesn’t always come together exactly as planned, but it has so much heart and charisma to leave the audience wanting an encore.

Streets of Rage 4’s simple approach to combat and content is enjoyable in short bursts, but it doesn’t have the hooks to keep you coming back. This beat ‘em up feels like an homage to the ‘90s, but it’s also stuck in that era.

Streets of Rage 4’s simple approach to combat and content is enjoyable in short bursts, but it doesn’t have the hooks to keep you coming back. This beat ‘em up feels like an homage to the ‘90s, but it’s also stuck in that era.

Racing is a constant challenge. Each corner, opponent, and straightaway is a chance to gain or lose positioning at a bevy of different points on the track. I’m used to that cadence, so to introduce new wrinkles that evolve and deepen the experience on and off the track is exciting. It feels like a new take on speed.

Hunting Grounds treats the character and setting with reverence, which, as a fan of the movies, is easy to appreciate. If you’re looking for an authentic predator experience, this is about as good as it’s gotten. And fittingly, it’s perhaps best enjoyed the way the predators have interacted with humanity: drop in, enjoy the hunt, and get out while you can.

Smart mechanics, aggressive battles, and tight storytelling make this a strong new contender in the genre, even if the campaign's pacing sometimes misses the mark.

The XCOM series is well-known for its intricate turn-based action. Chimera Squad augments those systems with a few clever ideas, but some of the new systems don't play well with XCOM's existing foundation. The interwoven turn order and removal of permadeath are fun experiments, but they ultimately weaken XCOM's delicately balanced action. Chimera Squad is a neat standalone project, but it doesn’t stand as tall as the rest of the series.

It may look more modern, but Trials of Mana is a faithful remake outside of its combat tweaks – and that isn’t necessarily a good thing. But as a fan of the original, parts of this game are still charming. I adored the combat and boss fights (when my A.I. cooperated), and even with some of its repetitive nature and horrible voice acting, I didn’t want to put the game down. It’s a decent remake but not the fantastic one it could have been. This series has so much potential, I’d just love to see it fully realized.

A Fold Apart is a different puzzle game, and that’s a good thing. The concept is novel, and I like a story with some emotional pull, but it never moves beyond that. I can’t think of a puzzle that stood out over the others or even a moment in the story that was particularly poignant. It all comes together in a presentable package. Its creative folding-paper mechanic makes it worth opening, even if what’s inside won’t overly excite you.

This remake of a legendary RPG finds an impressive equilibrium between its past and its present, crafting a distinctive world and exciting combat system that feel modern.

Treachery in Beatdown City didn’t work for me, but it’s a far more creative and ambitious project than many of its contemporaries. Its subject matter is timely, and I enjoyed the attempt to reinterpret some of city life’s biggest problems through the lens of old-school games like Double Dragon. The idea of RPG-style menu-selected moves in a beat-em-up is very clever, even if the implementation here didn’t hit the mark. As it is, even with a lot of creativity on display, it’s just not a city I recommend visiting.

Bleeding Edge has plenty of potential and I had fun with it in my first couple of hours, yet lost interest in it quickly, as the battles alone weren’t enough of an allure to keep going. Like most living competitive games, there’s a chance Ninja Theory could greatly enhance the experience over time. For the time being, however, it’s entertaining for a bit and then it fades fast.

In Other Waters’ gameplay and story aren’t enough to fuel the exploration it demands, but its world building is commendable. Unfortunately, this makes it suited more towards amateur biologists and cartographers than those looking for a gripping adventure.