The ads promise an epic tale of tragedy, sacrifice, and heroism that Halo 3 really had no hope in hell of ever delivering. More troubling, however, is the fact that after playing the game, I can suggest with some certainty that they promised a game that Bungie didn't even bother trying to produce.

I finished The Last Of Us Part II feeling depressed, but not for the reasons the developer might have intended — Naughty Dog is an immensely talented studio with resources that many devs can only dream of, yet their achievements in presentation are held back by a lack of mechanical evolution and uninspired gameplay. The Last Of Us Part II is a journey worth tolerating for the sake of what it gets right, but when it comes down to it, I feel exactly the same way about it as I did about the first one — I wish it was a book.

Fuzzy-headed narrative and thematically irrelevant auxiliary mechanics make Infinite feel sloppy even when it's working. Combat increases in frequency and decreases in impact after the Hall of Heroes, so for most of its length the game sinks towards a deflated ending rather than rising towards a climax. However, that slow descent starts from a great height, so there is still much to value in Infinite even as it drowns in its own shortcomings.

I'm sure some players will get a kick out of throwing each other into pits or causing chaos in a cat suit, but 3D World stands squarely in the shadow of other, greater entries in the series.

Persona 5 is periodically fascinating, but it’s unable to maintain the required level of interest and energy over such an extended running time. If it were half as long and cut out most of the repetition, it’d be a much tighter, more enjoyable experience. As it stands, adventuring with the Phantom Thieves sags way too often to be a heartfelt recommendation.

It's kind of insane that the spiritual follow up to Peace Walker and easily the most ambitious Metal Gear title to date somehow winds up as arguably the least interesting entry overall, but there it is.

After finishing the game, I can say that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was not what I expected. I thought it would be a good (but not great) practitioner of the Zelda formula hampered by unnecessary motion controls, much like Twilight Princess was. Instead, I got a game that's cripplingly hamstrung by its controls and even falters when presenting the basic Zelda recipe.

If Uncharted 4 played even half as good as it looked, it would be a masterpiece… but it doesn’t. In fact, for all its splendor and all the obvious care taken towards making it look and sound as good as humanly possible, it makes one cardinal sin that’s impossible to forgive—it’s downright boring to play. There are moments when it’s easy to get swept up the visual opulence and bombast, but then the moments pass, and it’s straight back to snarky comments and auto-climbing up mountainsides...But hey—it sure does look nice, doesn’t it?

In its current state, it feels like it caters too much to the twitch experts, and doesn't bend for the rest of us. A challenge that feels like a learning experience is welcome, but Bloodborne too often felt like it was kicking me in the balls and leaving me helpless to do anything about it.

To say that the camera in this game is atrocious is like saying being kicked in the teeth kinda hurts-it gives the person an idea about how bad it is, but it doesn't even begin to describe the agony in detail.

For players who just want more Witcher, there’s no doubt that Blood And Wine delivers. It has a whole new land to explore, there are tons of things to do, and there’s enough content to keep someone busy for dozens of hours. On the other hand, it felt to me like the entire Witcher experience had already peaked, so following it up with something that’s just not as good leaves things in an awkward place. The last ten minutes are absolutely worth seeing, but the hours that come before it? Maybe not so much.

In a game absolutely packed with embarrassing relics of the first Halo-silly Covenant vehicle design, the Spartans' ridiculous looking low-G jump existing alongside a modern physics engine, the return to one gun at a time-Bungie chose to fix only a multiplayer game mode.

Rather than the perfect end to a thrilling series, it seemed like the developers were afraid to take real risks with either the story or the gameplay of Gears 3.

Since Aria Of Sorrow is the third Castlevania in as many years, I'm also concerned that Konami is growing increasingly content to simply rest on their laurels.

Although it's possible to rattle off a list of bullet-point features that imply Assassin's Creed II is head and shoulders above the first game—more missions, more story, more collectibles and extras—I simply didn't find them to amount to much.

While I still call myself an XCOM fan and was thrilled to see the property return after so many years, I couldn't commit to XCOM: Enemy Unknown wholeheartedly. Although I appreciate the update for modern audiences, the game comes off as a bit undercooked and stumbles on things which should be airtight. On the other hand, it's still a very welcome addition to a genre that's gone a bit stale-just be prepared for a little probing when dealing with these creatures from another world.

It may be a lot more of the same, but it's prettier, smoother, longer, and filled with more stuff.

Yes, shooting hordes of zombies is fun, even more so with three other friends. But the game doesn't have anything to offer beyond that simple activity, and it most likely stop being relevant the moment someone makes a zombie FPS with a little more depth.

While it's widely considered one of the best Genesis titles ever, I'd say the appeal is limited to those who have a sense of nostalgia for it. I'm glad I tried it, and with a bargain price it's worth a shot to those who want to educate themselves on this piece of video game history, but I'm guessing it won't hold much appeal to new-school gamers unless they've got a local buddy to play with.

This is a studio that has created characters with moving arcs and developed stories that grapple with revenge, forgiveness, and even the nature of being. Here, it feels like all that ambition has died and been replaced with Gundam for Complete Illiterates. It’s a tragic regression, all the more so because here and there compelling stories and characters poke through. Alas, they end up buried beneath a mountain of anime tropes and JRPG platitudes. Monolith is better than Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and so are we.

What should have been a fast, flashy, light-hearted affair is somehow grim and joyless. There's wonderful content here, but unfortunately most gamers won't ever see most of it because it's locked away behind a series of near-impossible challenges.

For me, The Minish Cap has marked a point at which I seem to have become blasé to the brilliance of the series, at least in terms of its largely unchanging design foundations.

I can’t say that Okami will make it into my all-time favorites, but it’s memorable nonetheless. Exploring Nippon and meeting all of its goofy, painted inhabitants makes up for the repetition of combat, but it’s a shame that it didn’t quit while it was ahead — the excessive length and repetitive combat only served to dampen the things it got right.

I enjoyed my time with Battlefield 3's multiplayer, and I wish my thoughts about the game could end there. Unfortunately it also tried to force a totally unnecessary single-player game on me, and the browser interface looks like it came straight out of the 90s.

In closing, L.A. Noire's ambitions far outstrip its abilities, and it's a frustrating failure most of the running time. That being said, the shooting is exceptional, the occasional fistfighting is functional, and the foot chases are endearingly dynamic.

The action here will completely satisfy anyone looking for the kind of lighthearted, kinetic run-and-gun that was mastered several iterations ago, and my grievances with it are more of the intellectual variety than anything else.

I can talk about why the game is fun, but I can't lie and say the game is brilliant. Mario isn't what he used to be. There are glimmers and flickers of greatness in this game - moments where I felt the magic might almost be back. But it's not. Not yet.

The sad fact for Horizon, and every other open-world game like it, is that we now live in a post-Witcher 3 world. CD Projekt Red has raised the bar for this genre in nearly every conceivable way, and it is absolutely not enough to simply be another open-world game. The sidequests have to be interesting, the writing has to be engaging, the characters have to be memorable – just putting a good premise and great graphics on top of boilerplate content isn’t enough. At least, it’s not enough for this reviewer.

Looking a little deeper as someone who's been around the block, it's disappointing to see that so much of Shadow Complex feels utterly bereft of inspiration. It's certainly a job well done, but really, this job's been done before.

There are glimmers of clever moments caught in a sea of busywork here, but take away the shoddy controls and the obsession with layered math problems, and what are we left with? Someone’s absurdist thriller mystery that is so esoteric that it’s hard to care. Honestly, I can’t recommend Lorelei and the Laser Eyes to anyone other than the most patient and experimentally inclined players in the world. For everyone else, heed my words of warning — sit this one out.

If Nier: Automata had been more compact or structured differently, it would have been more effective, immediate and powerful. Instead, it’s a great idea stretched across too many hours of uninspiring content. Although I had affection for the androids and admired what the script ultimately revealed, this is one case where less would have definitely been more.

Playing Cuphead on the easier difficulty reveals that the game’s challenge level is the only trick up its sleeve. Take that away, and all we’re left with is an uninspired and monotonous run-and-gun that just happens to be the most visually-striking release of 2017. Yes, Cuphead’s presentation is magnificent — it’s just a shame that StudioMDHR couldn’t come up with an interesting game to pair with it.

In the end, Deathloop is a pretty decent ride with a fantastic sense of style and a lot of freedom for players to experience Colt’s story as they see fit. However, the overall experience is shaken by a surprising amount of bugs, braindead enemy artificial intelligence, lackluster PVP and by-design repetition as Colt works to piece together the mystery of Blackreef. I largely enjoyed my time, though I was very ready for Colt’s day to end as I neared the campaign’s finale, and it’s unlikely I’ll be looping back into the game for more any time soon.

Perhaps the greatest legacy of Liberty City Stories will be to serve as a cautionary tale. As the power of portables becomes more analogous to home consoles, developers will be well-served to remember that even though the screen may be smaller, it does a great job of magnifying flaws.

A fun game. But it is not as good a simulation of soccer as it could be. Too much of the gameplay feels scripted, and although you can pull off some beautiful moves, the unexpected occurs far too seldom.

The Doom I loved is in here somewhere, but it’s buried under excess, like a perfectly-seasoned meal that’s had a mound of salt dumped onto it. Perhaps any sequel to 2016’s extraordinary reboot was bound to disappoint, but this is one of those rare times where “more of the same” would have been the preferred option. I’d have taken the safe route over Eternal’s messy brand of overcompensation any day.

Crimson Skies does so much to propel itself above mediocrity that it seems strange that, though it succeeds, it doesn't capture the robust energy of its larger-than-life story in its gameplay.

While it does indeed take a few steps in the right direction, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings doesn't live up to its own ambition.

I generally enjoyed Shinobi: Art of Vengeance just fine. On the upside, the combat engine is fluid and satisfying to experiment with, and for the most part Shinobi: Art of Vengeance generally offers a reasonably good time. However, as a longtime series fan I expected an absolutely awesome outing, and it never quite hit the heights I was hoping for.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall has excellent writing which supports the whole shebang beautifully, but its sub-par tactical gameplay holds it back once the bullets and blades start flying.

The Final Fantasy VII Remake is a stellar production that kept a smile on my face from start to finish, but I have huge concerns about this project conceptually, and nothing about how Square-Enix has operated in the last fifteen years leads me to optimism. If given the choice to have a lower-scale, complete remake with the same gameplay and general improvements, I’d have taken that over this promising-yet-incomplete spectacle — the original was an important title for many reasons, and I’m concerned it won’t get the complete remake it so rightfully deserves.

Complaints aside, the uniqueness of the concept makes the game more than worth checking out.

Episode 1 is strictly for the fans. Anyone hoping that this expansion would explore some new gameplay elements or even improve on the old ones is up for a disappointment. It's good stuff—hey, it's Half-Life!—but it's the same stuff.

Lacks the cohesion, pacing, and spirit the others possess. All else being equal, those missing qualities put Jak II squarely at the rear of the pack.

Those who can't get enough of Red Dead's wild west action or zombies might want to give Undead Nightmare a spin. There's a lot of game here for 800 Microsoft points, and while it's rarely as compelling as the main title, there's still some fun to be had in watching John Marsten shoot zombies in the head.

NSMBW isn't unfun. It's uninspired. Like the games that came before it, New Super Mario Bros. Wii evokes concepts and imagery presented in its predecessors. Unlike those games, it makes no effort to expand upon any of those ideas.

I still hesitantly recommend Hollow Knight to anyone as partial to Metroidvanias as I am, but the experience runs far longer than its visual appeal does, and at that point it becomes just another Dark Souls wannabe. It’s solid, but it demonstrates how far we still are from puzzling out From Software’s master recipe.

Bully is the same product I’ve already consumed four-plus times before, and an interesting thematic twist isn’t enough reason to sing its praises.

Despite being something of a mixed bag from any perspective, there's no doubting the fact that even a middling Metal Gear game easily outclasses most of its competition.

And the compelling nature of the online game is thanks to the same simplicity that makes the single-player game utterly forgettable. Simple to pick up and understand, the game mechanics allow the player to concentrate on the strategies of the various online games and immerse themselves in an action-based flow.

Kojima seems to have recognized that he started running so fast that he forgot to tie his shoes, and thus Substance finally gives players the opportunity to more deeply explore the beautifully nuanced stealth engine that was so sorely undermined by his penchant for melodrama.

By far the worst thing about Driver is its inability to really draw me into its universe.

While the future of the game is anyone’s guess, at present Diablo IV is a solid, but strangely unambitious take that fails to bring much new to the table. By the end of my travels, I was more than willing to put it down and take a break — somewhere amongst all the grinding, Diablo IV had unfortunately ground me down as well.

Beating The Lost Age is going to require at least 30 hours (and more if the player wants to do all of the side-quests and find all of the hidden goodies) and maybe more if gamers aren't good at puzzles. There's nothing inherently wrong with a game lasting this amount of time (although it does seem long for a handheld RPG) as long as the gameplay warrants it. Too bad for The Lost Age that it shows all of its tricks in the first 12 hours or so...

Tomb Raider is a fine game, but something essential feels like it has been left out. Lara seems to have found the map, but missed the treasure.

Asgard’s Wrath 2 would be an enjoyable thrill-ride if it could only get out of its own way, yet every highlight was drowned out by missteps. Players new to VR gaming are likely to be quite impressed, but as someone who’s been into VR for a while, it’s tough to see past the problems and enjoy the parts that pop.

I'm always eager to see developers carve new territory in interactive narrative, but I'm not convinced that Her Story's format of chopping up bits of exposition and hiding them behind a nonsensical search engine mechanic is a major step forward for the medium. There's enough solid standalone writing to prevent it from being a waste of time, but I ultimately value Her Story more for its audacity than its success.

Carrying on the same kind of rough, unpolished quality into a sequel without any innovation is completely unacceptable to me, Star Wars or otherwise.

I can accept but no longer appreciate the conventions of the past that Soul Calibur III upholds and I look forward to a game that embodies the newer and more reality-based ideals of competitive fighting.

Looking solely at the gameplay, Great Big War Game delivers. On the other hand, there is more to a game than just the gameplay itself-appearances do matter. From that perspective, it's in need of a little help.

The way that Amplitude is structured lends itself more to good reflexes, the memorization of patterns, and concentration rather than simply a good ear for music.

After I'd seen the plot play out and was able to mentally put it aside, it became clear that the lion's share of the pleasure I derived from Bastion was of the technical, hack-'em-up kind. In that regard, I salute it. On the other hand, while my hands enjoyed the time I spent with Bastion, my brain and my heart were left untouched.

Ultimately, it feels as though Indy is having something of an identity crisis. On the one hand, the freedom and agency offered in the latter two-thirds of the world design and free-flowing combat embraces the character in a way that previous digital incarnations haven’t. On the other, stilted puzzle design and a stubborn resistance to its own structure, particularly in the early stages, holds Indiana Jones and the Great Circle back from true greatness.

But despite its graphical flair and fancy high-tech features, the hollowness and simplicity of the core gameplay ultimately left the experience feeling unbalanced and unrewarding.

Yes, Max Payne 3 may be a thrilling game, but the most shocking, slickly-produced, well-written cut-scenes in the world can't get a player to fully humanize a character who can magically heal from the same bullet wounds that explode his enemies into red mist.

Unfortunately for those sticking to the main route, Rise is a repeat of the 2013 title with less character development and several years' worth of mounting standards.

Despite how many technical and design issues it has now, and regardless of however irrelevant it may be in a few years, PUBG is revelatory, and will always hold a special place in my heart.

Xcom: Enemy Within is a decent expansion to a slightly flawed original.

Whether the story pays off is up to personal interpretation (for me, it did not) but putting that aside, Returnal’s general lack of persistence, enthusiasm for negative items, and heavy focus on twitch skill without options for self-regulating difficulty results in an experience that caters to a very, very specific type of player and coldly shrugs off the rest. With some rebalancing and a few tweaks, it’s not hard to imagine Returnal as one of the year’s best thanks to its fantastic controls, intuitive physics and beautiful graphics. But as it stands? My guess is that most people will abandon Selene to her inhospitable time loop long before the credits roll.

I appreciate what Witch Beam Games has attempted to do with Assault Android Cactus+ – they’ve created a game that’s accessible to almost anyone while simultaneously delivering a solid, twin-stick arcade shooter.

It truly bothers me that I had to spend half this review talking about loot crates and in-game economics. I would’ve much rather spent this space talking about the fantastic driving experience, the way the game can be tailored to any desired skill level with the bevy of options, the incredible car customization (when applicable), the beautiful graphics, the astounding attention to detail in the car models, and the sheer, unrelenting car-porn that Forza 7 provides. On the other hand, anyone who’s paid attention to this series already knows this — not much has changed, and the stuff that has changed like the VIP support, currency manipulation and the homologated career mode will leave longtime fans perplexed why this route was taken. Forza 7 is a fantastic driving title that can’t stop tripping over itself, and its majestic driving experience is overshadowed by a lack of new ideas and suspicious economic decisions.

Maybe it’s a slow burn and I need more time with it, but Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop is so unrelenting in its first act, it left me hanging my head in defeat. It’s a title with a lot of potential, but ultimately, the punishing, repetitive foundation it sits on isn’t enough for me to support continued playthroughs.

In a certain sense, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch seems to be exactly as advertised. The quality of the artwork is unimpeachable, just as one might expect from the studio that created it. Unfortunately, the beauty of Ghibli has been painted onto the unimaginative and poorly-executed design of Level-5. As a result, Ni No Kuni turns out as blandly as its name suggests.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is a frustrating game. I often found myself scratching and clawing through boring, MMO-like content for enough power points to progress to the next major plot event. However, the fact that I was willing to slog through it at all shows just how good this game can be when it hits its stride.

I for one think console gamers can handle a real tactical sim, but I suppose that in this increasingly competitive industry, taking even the slightest risk has become passe.

It's got a lovely fresh coat of paint, but underneath that Bravely Default is the same old thing.

My verdict is that Soul Calibur IV looks great, but isn't especially accessible to newcomers.

The Forgotten City is quite interesting as a new release that’s actually an enhanced and expanded mod that retains all of its key elements while being offered to players who might not be familiar with Skyrim. Despite the performance issues, it’s an adventure that will fascinate until the end, and the riddle surrounding The Golden Rule is one worth solving.

It might have been possible to deal with such a ridiculously bad setup if melee was limited to bosses and occasional encounters, but in a wicked bit of irony, the miserable perspective is paired with an insanely ludicrous amount of battling.

Like a fast food menu item, Champions of Norrath isn't going to be an experience for the player to relish and pontificate upon later, but it will serve excellently as a quick nosh for those hungry for mindless action.

The control scheme deserves high praise, as does the evocative portrait of outer space. What doesn't deserve praise is its cloying use of randomly generated content, lack of creative mission design, and generally awkward narrative ambiance.

A mixed bag that redeems itself just enough to be worth playing, Far Cry 2 serves as a valuable experiment in open-world first-person shooter game design, but one that is not quite up to par with what developers like Crytek and GSC have accomplished.

Except for the mentioned flaws it is spot on design-wise and and the enjoyable zombie theme and a tasteful art direction accompanied by a good soundtrack ranging from creepy keyboard-tunes to spot on wishy-washy mall muzak helps to propel a great atmosphere, which is just satirical enough to avoid taking itself too seriously.

An efficient (i.e. — boring) playthrough of Hitman 3 could probably be finished in a few hours for players who know what they’re doing, so the fact that I’ve spent more than 30 hours in six maps trying to master each one says everything about how much I love this series. However, despite how much I love Hitman as a whole, I can’t deny that the middling innovations and repeat rewards are starting to make 47’s adventures feel slightly stale.

For a time-rich audience, I can see Lords of Shadow being well worth the investment.

Red Faction: Guerrilla scores, and it certainly adds a nice twist on the established open-world game formula.

Even if it had made serious strides over Far Cry 3, even if the gameplay held true to the series's core, even if its story weren't junk, even if it had been put together perfectly, I would still find Far Cry 4 annoying as hell. It's not just that Ubisoft can't execute; it seems like they can't design anymore. To compensate, they've just slapped whatever crap they can onto an open world in the desperate hope that large portions will make up for the flavorlessness of the meal. Instead, I got sick of chewing, and longed for the days when Far Cry just shut up and let me shoot some guns.

Right from the beginning, Silent Hill 3 tells its story with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The all-important sense of pacing that the first two games had is completely lost.

Outer Wilds is rife with breathtaking sights and sounds, and at the very least, no one could accuse it of being unambitious. Mobius Digital may be a small team but, almost paradoxically, they achieve a remarkable sense of scope by keeping things modest. However, their work suffers from the glacial pace of progress and a hands-off approach to storytelling. My biggest issues – a lack of combat, direction, or material rewards – are obviously deliberate, bold choices on the part of the devs, and I commend Mobius for them while also chiding the cold, inscrutable product that resulted. I admire Outer Wilds, but I don’t love it.

It never feels as though it's doing much more than going through the motions, and as a result, neither did I. Lacking the joy and spirit intrinsic to truly inspired projects, inFamous may have painted by the numbers correctly, but technical success is not the same thing as creating a brilliant masterpiece.

I wound up bailing out on Star Wars: The Old Republic well before hitting the level cap, but not before digging into it more so than any other MMO I've played. Even if it is an unhappy marriage between two wildly different game types, the fact that it kept me hooked for so long at least counts for something.

Those interested in Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax for the fighting will be satisfied with what's on offer, but narrative fans curious about what happens to the gang before the next official Persona RPG debuts will likely feel burned. The story side is a tedious, thudding disappointment compared to the stellar stuff the series usually delivers.

The lack of ability to control the pitch in the air is incredibly frustrating.

If anything, Revival did more to ruin my memories of the old Street Fighter games, because I don't ever remember playing a Street Fighter title with controls as poor as this one.

I liken this year’s football shootout to musicians. In the current season, FIFA is like Madonna – aging but venerable, full of glitz and entertainment value, but ultimately lacking substance. Contrarily, PES is like a fiery independent singer, with minimal flash but much deeper soul where it counts most. In the end, both performers might put a smile on gamers’ faces, but FIFA’s bloat and wrinkles are beginning to show, especially with a younger, hungrier upstart nipping at its heels.

Monster Hunter Tri is most definitely not a game that will appeal to everyone, but it is by far the most polished, user-friendly and approachable entry in the series

There's nothing revolutionary to be found here—no innovative play mechanics, no stunning graphics. This is a rock-solid Nazi-blasting FPS, and nothing more.

At least the petty indignities of the multiplayer are optional and situated around gameplay that's solid and unique, if frustratingly stagnant. In the single-player campaign, however, it's impossible to escape the ham-fisted manipulations of the Assassin's Creed III development team.