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.