Opus is a small-scale experience, and I find that to be totally appropriate. While the story didn’t end on the strongest of notes, I enjoyed the ride and thought it was not only a positive experience, but a great fit for the Switch. However, I was only tolerating the telescope portions in order to find out where the plot was going, so basically half of this game was a wash. Since the entire thing can be completed in two hours or so, it’s not too hard to put up with actually searching for Earth, but fans of small games and indies should expect to show up to Opus for the narrative and nothing else.

The best thing I can say about Team Sonic Racing is that kids will probably love it, although that’s damning praise considering its predecessor. Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed was a wonderful title offering both nostalgia and gameplay, easily giving Nintendo’s efforts a run for their money. Sadly, while Team Sonic Racing can boast improved driving physics and a solid team element, nearly every other aspect of the experience is a step backwards.

I am Future targets the fans of slower crafty games. Gathering resources, dismantling objects, farming, fishing… it all comes together to make a non-rushed title, and while I wanted to like it, it just didn’t click. Quests ended up feeling like chores, and the story wasn’t exciting enough to make up for the lackluster gameplay. Overall, I am Future offers a pleasant starting loop, but it never evolves into anything bigger.

The fact that they didn't take advantage of advancements in modern game design and usability keeps Elliot Quest from being anything more than a too-faithful tribute to a flawed game.

My Friend Pedro seems like it should be wall-to-wall adrenaline-fueled gunplay and spectacle — and it is at times — but it’s too frequently dulled by stretches of tedium, switch-flipping, misplaced platforming and visually bland environments. With that banana on board, it could (and should) have been so much more.

Indeed, Fullmetal Alchemist 2 has proven to me that its parent anime is a good show. But I've yet to be convinced that Fullmetal Alchemist 2 is a good game.

As underwhelmed as I was by Fallen Order, I hope that its inevitable success will encourage EA to do more with this franchise, since it makes a powerful case for the resonance of Star Wars — if this mediocre casserole of concepts yanked from superior titles didn’t have the license attached, I doubt anyone would be talking about it.

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

Though Trufflepigs is not the game I was expecting, it’s still a generally pleasant and engaging experience. I loved getting to know Beth and Adam, but the plot is incredibly uneven and feels unfinished. Had I gone into the game thinking it was centered only around Beth and Adam, I would have enjoyed it far more. Sadly, the missed opportunities of the heavily-advertised ‘murderer’ plotline left a sour taste in my mouth.

Frustrating puppet mechanics aside, Shadow Fencer Theatre is enjoyable for an afternoon thanks to its unique premise and visual novelty, but after putting my time in, I’ll forget it exists until the next time I have friends over.

I hoped The Red Lantern would grow on me with subsequent playthroughs, but, unfortunately the opposite was true due to the technical problems, design issues and repetitive dialogue. Those looking for a trip through Alaska or wanting to revisit bittersweet memories of traveling to Oregon, might want to check it out, but anyone on the hunt for a narrative-driven roguelite should skip it.

In choosing to re-create Wings exactly as it was, warts and all, the developers have revealed that on a fundamental level, Wings was always more wart than it was game.

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is just kinda there. It makes some nice nods to earlier installments, but the stealth isn’t as slick as it needs to be. It features a lovingly-rendered Baghdad, but doesn’t have enough interesting things going on in it. The narrative it offers is largely unnecessary, and considering who Basim is in the overall mythology of the series, that is tremendously disappointing. The only thing Mirage excels at is reminding long-time Assassin’s Creed fans of days gone by.

These characters deserve a bigger canvas on which to tell their tale.

Ghost Song is filled with genuine human beings who fight fiercely for each other’s happiness, and it’s a tonal balance I almost always find lovely. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t seem to realize that decent action alone would have been a sufficient accompaniment to it. Regardless of the superfluous RPG trappings, Ghost Song offers beautiful sights to be found within its mysterious halls.

Viking Squad is one of those games with occasional highlights — pecking enemies to death with an ostrich does have its moments after all — and a slick exterior that’s undercut by not quite getting the basics right. In this case, a diverse and interesting combat system would have gone a long way towards making this voyage way more worthwhile to embark on.

Mars or Die‘s design is beautiful and the RTS and Tower Defense elements work fine, but there’s just not enough here to recommend it. Once I’d finished the tutorial, and all that was left was to get through slightly harder versions of the same fights until credits rolled. It has some good bones for a better game to be built on, but in its current form, this title feels empty and incomplete.

Incredibly high production values can't mask a central lack of compelling gameplay.

There’s nothing here that rises above serviceable. Omega Strike offers tight controls, satisfying platforming and combat, and one of the most forgettable metroidvania worlds I’ve ever encountered. It’s cute and I’ve played worse, but it never manages to rise above the crowd.

At fifty dollars, and with significant locked away on the disc from the people who paid for it, it's the biggest rip-off since Crackdown, and shouldn't be purchased by anyone for any reason.

While a good effort is made, nothing in the game can match the inspired lunacy of Metal Saga's opening minutes.

Xeno is charmingly strange thanks to its bizarre enemies and low difficulty level — it was a breeze to play through. It feels skeletal, however, and only those who wonder would happen if a three-story Maus tank battled a Rhino made of rocket launchers should give it a serious look.

Saw II: Flesh and Blood is certainly a huge improvement of the first game in the series, but by no means is it perfect, or even especially good.

The developers had a full year to get this game ready for consoles and bring it up to the level of current RE titles. Instead of doing that, they shifted the graphics from 3D to HD. What a waste.

Submerged: Hidden Depths is the definition of wasted potential. The setting is a rare treat that deserve to be experienced, but the world is too empty of significant content and the gameplay is too straightforward without any challenging aspects. This ocean might be quite beautiful, but it’s far too shallow.

I think most disappointing for me was how Transmission lost a great opportunity to expand on the concepts "Battle Network" was built on.

So, with the fixes now applied to the pre-release version, is Logos worth playing? It’s a solid experience with plenty of beautiful environments to see, but the repetitive nature of combat punctuated with unfairness puts a damper on the whole experience, as if the disastrous launch month hadn’t made it damp enough already.

Despite all the rough edges and problems, I am impressed with Edge of Eternity‘s ambition. The developers have some grand dreams on display here, but the fact is that a lack of polish and too many ideas stuffed into one package leave Edge of Eternity an overcomplicated, unfinished product.

For players willing to put in the time to learn its subtleties, Onee Chanbara Origin has great combat, and sundering my way through crowds of zombies simply never got old. That said, there’s just not enough here to make it feel like a complete experience. While the game certainly displays everything that made the franchise into such a long-running success, I can’t help but feel that this anniversary celebration should have offered more to its fans.

After the credits rolled I sat in my dim room feeling like a betrayed lover, staring at the title screen with empty eyes and worn down by exhaustion. Disbelieving and frustrated, I once again expressed a wish: blue pill, please.

On the whole, I found Plantera 2 to be a refreshing antidote to the carefully-composed setpieces of the average triple-A experience. Instead of dutifully following orders from an off-screen mission-giver in a vast environment, the scene is given over to the randomness of a million buzzing objects, allowing the player to hunt for their own rewards at their own pace. It’s the kind of thing that’s ripe for updates and refinement — and given that they’ve already added a few more Steam achievements since I started playing, it looks like the devs agree with me!

F1 2015 is enjoyable enough and gives gamers a refreshing break from the usual car porn and Vin Diesel simulators, but in its effort to make the title as realistic as possible, Codemasters forgot about the casual gamer—the one who only has a few hours a week to play, and who doesn't want to be bogged down in endless laps when a quicker option would suffice.

At its best, Storm is a curiously relaxing, tranquil, and almost meditative experience. At its worst, it's an irritating and cumbersome exercise in physics-based frustration which only gets less enjoyable as the puzzles ramp up in difficulty. It may have a fresh, vibrant aesthetic, but the actual gameplay doesn't match up to the potential it clearly has.

A textbook example of a game that wasn't ready to be pushed out of the nest. What could have been an exceptional game founders in mediocrity because of an artificial timeline.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is relaxing and pretty, and spending time exploring its rain-soaked metropolis is almost worth the price of admission by itself. It is also, however, a disappointing game that fails to fulfill its own potential with a repetitive combat system, too much checklist-ticking busywork, and an undercooked main storyline that fails to live up to its promise and contains no notable secondary characters. Ghostwire: Tokyo isn’t a bad game — it just feels like it could have been so much more.

Although rough around the edges, Dead Trash is exactly what it sounds like — a dumpster fire of suspenseful moments, shooting, and post-apocalyptic death everywhere. For those who are feeling nostalgic and need something short and edgy, Dead Trash might be the ticket as long as expectations are tempered.

Trauma Center's developers need some serious interventional design therapy before the series's prognosis degrades beyond hope of recovery.

Grime is a game of gaping contradictions. It is one of the most visually striking releases of the year… and also one of the ugliest. It’s one of the most imaginative games in some time… and also one of the most generic. For all of Grime’s talk about chiseled stone, the experience feels like a half-finished sculpture – occasional details reveal tantalizing glimpses of the creators’ vision, but it’s largely an indistinct blob.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! is a tough one to recommend, especially after having a superior experience with the previous installment. The difficulty settings need more work, the radical change in theme goes underused and there aren’t enough twists in the gameplay formula to keep things feeling fresh. At the end of this meal, the tiramisu has been skipped and we’ve been served a bitter coffee instead.

Aesthetics aside, there's a certain level of patience and stubborn belligerence that will probably be needed to best Kung Fu Strike: The Warrior's Rise, even on Easy difficulty. The target audience, those that love old school brawlers, would probably be happiest here, but the sharp difficulty will certainly turn off anyone looking for a casual affair.

Genesis Noir stands out as an unique experience in the current landscape. There’s no argument there. However, for all of its gorgeous art, daring concepts and oblique storytelling, the gameplay and interaction required to succeed in this medium ends up failing to connect and doesn’t engage with the player in ways that feel significant.

What we can learn from Into A Dream is that ideas alone are not enough to carry a game to greatness. I can truly feel the passion put into the narrative and I do acknowledge that the story, in isolation, hits its mark. Sadly, everything about how the game is built fails to meet the same standard and severely undercuts the power of the script.

It's shame that the ending is so inadvisably abrupt, opting for a limp 'shock' finale rather than a satisfying closure that would have sat so much better with the game's slow-burning narrative.

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.

Unto the End first appears to be an attractive cinematic platformer that gets a lot right with rich atmosphere and simple graphics. However, it’s ultimately let down by the darkness of its environments, irritating trial-and-error gameplay and an overcomplicated combat system.

Guacamelee! 2’s penchant for self-deprecating humor often functions as an acknowledgement and dismissal of its own issues. Why yes, it is awfully convenient that I’ve suddenly been pulled into an alternate timeline in which I must save the world in roughly the same manner as my last go, but no, Guacamelee! 2 doesn’t stop being an uncharacteristically halfhearted rehash just because the writers scored a few easy laughs from it.

For once gamers can honestly believe the hype. Dante's Inferno lives down to expectations in spectacular fashion

A fine 2D platformer, but a rather undistinguished and disposable specimen.

Just a competent JRPG. How could it not be, considering how much it liberally lifts from its betters? Looking at it with a purely analytical eye, this Frankenstein’s Monster of a game has haphazardly pieced everything needed to make it stand among the giants it aspires to be, except the most critical of requirements—a spark of life.

Time Machine: Rogue Pilot is interesting for its plot and its sense of danger and momentum. These things aren't exactly groundbreaking, but for seven dollars, it's decent (and different) enough.

While the gameplay mechanics are a blast, the level designs are so questionable as to make me wonder about Croteam's reasoning.

I was once again left disappointed, unfulfilled, and betrayed.

A game about toy-car-racing with a unique although not spectacular racing system that chooses to imbed this racing, like an egg, inside a pretty bland and lifeless RPG that features toy cars that yell at you for coming into their house. It's not for everybody.

I certainly didn’t have a bad time with Tasomachi — the environments are gorgeous, and exploring the towns is entertaining for short stints, but there are many other platformers that are simply more successful in their mechanics, storytelling, and polish. This might be a viable choice for younger players or those desiring low-stakes play, but for everyone else, there are better options.

It’s a challenge to give The Fabled Woods an appropriate score. The game has merits as a focused project that is not afraid to deliver something exactly as long as it needs to be, and the current state of bloat in the game industry makes me hugely appreciative of this fact. On the other hand, I can’t say that The Fabled Woods made a lasting impact on me, or even provoked much thought — it’s a decent experience, but little more.

It’s an unusually well-paced roguelite that offers hour-long runs with enough skill involved so that it never feels like randomness is blocking a player from having a good experience. Without those terrible bosses, I’d consider Ed-0 a bold experiment that paid off impressively — but it does have those bosses, so I can’t think of it as anything other than a tragic failure.

A game so dominated by the derivative is hard to recommend, especially on a platform that includes Resogun, Luftrausers, and Velocity 2X, all of which bring a fresh take to one of the least fresh genres.

Supposedly Wonderful Future is all about looking at a complicated what-if scenario, seeing how every new invention has the possibility to both help and hinder humanity, and then coming to a decision that everyone can live with. Then, it’s suddenly about a man offering truly idiotic reasons for wanting to kill himself before watching him do it. It’s a terrible ending to an otherwise fascinating, thought-provoking experience.

When conditions are favorable, there’s so much to like about Windbound. The combat was a blast when the character had enough energy, and I had a fantastic time taking a grass canoe and transforming it into a six-hulled behemoth that sped me across the waves. It’s just unfortunate that every moment of joy has to be sifted out from a pile of annoyances and frustrations — the developers had a beautiful exploration experience within their grasp, and they diluted it with some of the harshest survival mechanics I’ve seen in ages. These are all simple balance issues that I’m sure could be patched out, but for now, Windbound just isn’t the game it deserves to be.

Firebreak is a new direction in expanding Remedy’s connected universe, but the art direction and aesthetics can only do so much of the heavy lifting when the other aspects aren’t bringing as much to the table. The end result doesn’t stack up to the source material that inspired it, and to this Remedy fan, it could and should be so much better.

Both the humor and the flight mechanics are poorly implemented, and that provides too much of an obstacle to the success of the game.

SimPocalypse is an easy game to learn and can be used to introduce new players to the sim management genre because it has a clear tutorial and simplified mechanics. On the other hand, the repetitiveness of the battles and actions builds up quickly and the replayability is weak. While the developers have come a long way since launch, I can’t shake the feeling that SimPocalypse has yet to reach its full potential, especially in the late game when many choices seem pointless. Hopefully the developers are still listening to feedback and working to improve the experience.

As a whole, Adam's Venture Chronicles is a flawed game that appears capable of so much more.

As time goes on, I grow more intolerant of the extreme eleventh-hour difficulty spike found in so many games. Mushroom 11 begins wonderfully, with some striking 2D background art and a bounty of inventive puzzles in its earlier levels. I want to recommend it for that, but the unfortunate truth is that too much of my time with Mushroom 11 was spent writhing in fury.

When friends are available, Octafight offers quick matches with fast and fluid action, and a variety of modes, stages, and weapons that add an unexpected amount of variety and freshness. However, potential buyers should beware — this added lifespan is only relevant to those who have someone to play with.

As a way to quickly level up a new character’s combat abilities while working towards weapons to help them with the main campaign, Hellraid is successful enough. Unfortunately, there’s no real depth to it, and after a few times through I felt like I’d seen everything it had to offer. There are worse ways to spend a few hours, but this content is probably best enjoyed by die-hards looking for an excuse to boot up Dying Light one more time before the sequel drops.

The crucial fear-factor is missing, the sense of fight, flee or die that makes survival horror so effective.

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.

Ultimately, Pure Pool is exactly what its name suggests, for better and for worse. Players that buy into its fascinating shot presentation may find it enough to overlook the otherwise-flat experience. For everybody else, it will likely be an all-too-quick scratch off the eight ball.

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 finished Later Daters in less than two hours and wasn’t sure that I experienced the entire game. After doing some follow-up research I discovered that this release is only the first half of the full experience. It’s good to know more is coming later, but this content is just too brief and the chapters offered don’t come to any strong conclusions. Unfortunately, this brevity hurts Later Daters in its current iteration. I suspect a full review of the entire game would be positive, but this ambitious visual novel simply feels incomplete at the moment — I suggest anyone interested wait until later this year when they’re able to experience the narrative in its entirety.

Players who can put up with the clunky action/RPG elements will find that Deathtrap offers a great tower defense experience. The enemies are fascinatingly grotesque, the maps are well-designed and the art evokes are steampunk gothic horror aesthetic that’s a pleasure to behold. It’s almost a great tower defense game, but in this case, less would have been more.

The game's real mistakes were made at the design level, and that's a pity, because it contained the potential to be a much better experience than it ended up being.

Gamers who absolutely need a quick, harmless Zelda fix can safely download it, but anyone else should probably take a pass on Oceanhorn.

I wanted to like Lifeless Planet. I gave it a fair shake and I even liked it until I got a grasp on everything it has to see and do — about 45 minutes. Past that, it’s just an exercise in running and jumping across boring vistas while collecting uninteresting audiologs to support the bloated, unsatisfying story.

J-Stars Victory VS+ doesn't look all that hot, offers inconsistent controls and camera, and features wildly unbalanced characters. While it was admittedly awesome to see Vegeta from Dragon Ball power up in a manner 100% authentic to how he is on screen, there's just nothing here for those who aren't already sold on the characters and franchises.

With its limited customization, uniform enemy AI, and ineffectual weapons, Cargo Commander tightly constrains the player's tactical and strategic options, no matter the mode. The game may be set in deep space, but Cargo Commander's gameplay feels like it's trapped in a box.

In the end, Kvark shows an enormous amount of promise. However, its disparate elements coalesce too late in the runtime and are ultimately overshadowed by the uninspired combat and indistinct aesthetic direction. That being said, there is a sense of momentum in the final stages of Kvark, and if the developers can focus on that quality and carry it forward, I have high hopes for their subsequent releases.

That Shelter is not a particularly convincing simulation of being a badger is no real sin—I doubt many people want to play a game about eating earthworms all day. The game's real failure is that it's not an emotionally compelling representation of parenthood. It convincingly shows that the cubs need their mother, but fails to convey the possibility that they can ever not need her.

The Club's greatest flaw is that it thinks it's a whole lot more revolutionary than it actually is. Despite the game's claims to the contrary, there's nothing new about any of this.

After wrapping Godfall, I was left with the feeling that it’s going to be a one-and-done. I can’t see myself doing its endless trials or repeating the endgame boss fights — it just doesn’t feel like there’s anything more to work towards. The graphics are great and the combat is enjoyable, but it gets samey too quickly and ends up as a typical next-generation launch game that will be soon forgotten.

To be perfectly frank, it’s unlikely that the developers will be able to address all of the issues that would need to be resolved to make Decay appeal to a wider audience. There are a handful of great ideas here, but the execution falls so wide of the mark that I hope the devs can take this as a learning experience and improve their next venture.

In a way, that latter ending fits Mars: War Logs best. It's a competently executed brawler-style RPG, with a political story at its core that actually has some potential. Irrelevant mechanics and sidequests get in the way of the game's best aspects, however, and Mars: War Logs never manages to focus on what's important.

Behind the Reflection 2 offers a few interesting twists to the HOG genre, but in the end the bugginess and lack of any kind of overarching theme keep it from standing apart from the crowd. That's not to say the game doesn't have its charms, merely that it never really does anything interesting with the bizarre situations it establishes.

I can't work up the energy to actively dislike the LEGO games so long as they're this innocuous and harmless, and spanning just over a dozen levels, LEGO The Hobbit doesn't waste too much of the player's time. But, with all of the most fitting licenses having been used up already, the LEGO spoof series is losing its relevance, and it's not a particularly good time anymore, either.

Final Fantasy III was fun while I played it, but now that the world's been re-harmonized and the credits have rolled, I feel no need to dig it out of my closet again.

Those hoping to see the franchise return to its legendary roots, or those (like me) who are just sick of the Final Fantasy XIII universe are likely to come away less impressed. It's nice that we've finally gotten the opportunity to play this game, but I'm not convinced it was worth the wait.

When I got over the controls I dug into the season, gradually evolving the skill of my team’s characters was well done, and improving my standing was addictive. I’d even say that winning a match of Thetaball is as gratifying as its peers like Rocket League or #IDARB. Perseverance will reward with Thetaball. It’s got a bigger hump to get over than most other games of its kind, but its base is solid — the dev just needs to zero in on the best parts of the game and start iterating.

I may be a novice when it comes to playing this type of game, but even I know there's more to a good RTS than this.

Even if its opinion is a little simplistic ("Drugs have short-term benefits and long-term consequences") and awkwardly included in the game, at least there's an attempt at a message, which is more than most games manage.

While Youngblood is a far more interesting idea than the ‘prequel with zombies‘ approach taken by The Old Blood, it still doesn’t have the “WOW” factor that makes the main entries so memorable, and the severe downgrade in protagonists doesn’t help. So while Wolfenstein: Youngblood is disappointing, it’s also just kinda there. At least it wasn’t so bad that it impacted my desire to play the next main entry in this series…

The Phantasy Star games are classic RPGs (yes, even the third one…which everyone seems to hate), and they deserved at least a little updating.

The one glaring error in Worms Blast is the overly complicated and sluggish (or, uh, worm-ish) gameplay.

GALAK-Z feels like a Steam Early Access game. The lack of content, repeating environments, glitches and bugs, framerate issues, and the final season of the campaign being listed as "coming soon" (yes, really!) scream that the work isn't finished.

The setting, urban art theme, and gravity-shifting mechanics give Sideway: New York plenty of opportunities to stand out, but it squanders all of them. Instead, Nox navigates bland levels and takes out repetitive bosses with a set of generic powers. With so much potential, it's remarkable that Sideway ended up being so ordinary. Unfortunately, that's the only remarkable thing about it.

While Paint The Town Red might be a more robust experience on PC, the Switch version feels almost like a tech demo in comparison, delivering a decent but too-shallow fighting experience that wore out its welcome after just a couple of hours.

Bartlow’s Dread Machine has a great set of bones. The concept and the core mechanics of being on rails are a great starting point, and the story (which I have not spoiled here) was surprisingly effective. However, the key phrase here is “starting point”. Despite its appeal, there’s a lot of polish that needs to happen before I would be able to recommend this one to shooter fans.

The Geo Mod engine provides mere window dressing to what is nothing more than your standard FPS, complete with big freaking guns and explosions.