I love a good nostalgia trip and I don’t mind a bit of pandering here and there, but Taxi Chaos takes it too far by essentially doing nothing more than replicating the game it was inspired by. Paying homage to one of the greats wouldn’t be an issue if it added its own ideas and flair, but there just isn’t much here that wasn’t already done — and done better — by Sega.

As a basic introduction to tactical RPGs, there are worse games to choose than Tears of Avia… but there are also so many better. However, with the amount of brokenness present in the content, I just can’t recommend it.

Were Clan of Champions a skeletal presentation piece designed to convince a publisher that these developers were worth investing in, I would give it extremely high marks. As a finished product that people are asked to pay money for, it's completely unacceptable.

With an interesting main storyline, creative enemies, and fundamentally solid gameplay, it's too bad that that Arcania: The Complete Tale's technical flaws prevent it from being a must-play. There aren't enough decent action-RPG hybrids for console players as it is, and Arcania isn't going to do much to fix that.

Wayward Manor may be the worst game I've played this year.

Nearly every aspect of its aesthetic was, paradoxically, both aggressively unpleasant and lazily innocuous. Its story switched between wild flights of hard-to-follow, drug-like fantasy and drudging resistance to do anything at all for long stretches of time. I’m certain that this work will connect with a very specific type of player, but it was like nails on a chalkboard to me.

It may have the right attitude and style for a VR shooter, but nearly everything is implemented abysmally. From its awkward controls and awful presentation to the fact that the whole experience lasts less than an hour, there’s no reason to invest time or money. There’s almost certainly a much better game lying within, but for now Grave should probably stay buried

Even if the game falls apart fairly quickly, and has bugs and interface quirks that make the main story borderline unplayable, it still deserves a measure of attention and admiration.

My only real complaint about the game is that there aren't any bonuses or historical materials giving props to the original game.

Every part of this game is terrible...Ace Banana frustrated me like few games ever have, and it’s rare to see a finished title that gets every important design feature completely wrong. Ace Banana manages it, though, and sinks lower than almost any game I’ve ever played.

Oh, and in a final note to developers: please don't put pictures of your children in the end credits of your video games. It's not like it kept me from giving Psychotoxic a bad review—I just feel kind of guilty about it.

When The Cleaner sticks to gunfighting and slow-mo sequences, it’s a winner, but the platforming and overly-long levels destroy everything it gets right. I want to adore this game and I was more than willing to meet it on its own terms, but it’s just asking for far too much — it’s frustrating to see how badly its flaws undercut the rest.

Anyone with a few hundred dollars and a couple of months of free time could build Gore Doctor for themselves. The only thing that it has to offer which didn’t come from the Unity store is the plot, and that’s so threadbare as to be nearly incoherent. As a sample designed to demonstrate how a variety of different assets can be assembled into a playable experience, Gore Doctor is functional. As something that people are expected to pay for and enjoy, it doesn’t clear the very low bar set to call something a real game.

As a side-story to the series, The Conspiracy falls utterly flat—so it's lucky that it fares much better as a game than as a spin-off.

Overall, Tamarin is an admirable attempt to bring back a type of game not widely popular in modern times. However, despite my love of old-school experiences, this sticks too close to its roots in the worst possible ways — this adorable monkey can’t save shoddy, outdated game design.

By keeping everything good about the game locked away until players cough up the dough, Real Steel can be dismissed as terrible.

Heavy Fire: Red Shadow is a head-scratcher. It does what it says it does and certainly contains an extended turret section that spans multiple hours with competent delivery from the development team. It’s also unpretentious, which is something I want to admire. That said, the results are tepid and this version, remarkably, feels like a step back from its already basic predecessors.

I could bring up a dozen more problems, major and minor, with the game, but what's the point? Montague's Mount doesn't have interesting puzzles or a structure that ties them into a coherent work about mental illness, despite its heavy-handed announcement of that intent. I respect the aim, but the execution is terrible.

When a game is as derivative and uninspired as this one, a rotten camera is just another nail in its coffin. Unfortunately, the film franchise graveyard won't let these monsters die.

Even with all these problems, however, I found the plot interesting enough that I'm definitely hooked. If by some miracle there is a The Cursed Crusade 2, I'd be interested in seeing the story wrapped up as long as this title's wealth of problems are fixed.

No matter how salacious things may get, Reflexions never loses sight of the sweetness at the game’s core – fundamentally, this is a game about a girl attempting to overcome her shyness and tell a boy how she feels about him. While I’ll be happy to get back to battling demons and ninjas when the next full entry in the series is released, I won’t say that this is a waste of the franchise or a disrespectful use of its main character – just the opposite, in fact.

I was just plain happy with Terrorist Takedown, and given the cost, and I think there are plenty of action game fans people who'll feel the same way.

This isn't great art, but it's clear that the developers love the subject of their game and OneChanbara is worth playing for that reason.

Utter crap.

A decent installment in a long-running series, but this reboot is perhaps a bit too authentic in that it lives up to its predecessors, but fails to exceed them. Since it's been over a decade since the series's fourth entry, the sights might have been aimed a bit higher.

No matter which aspect is touched on, I absolutely fail to see the point of Dead or Alive: Paradise.

With a lack of both polish and ambition, Dark will never be anything but an also-ran. As a budget title it's a passable entry-level stealth game, but there's not enough here to justify recommending it when there are so many superior games in the genre. When a game's best selling points are that the stealth is predictable and that the player is a vampire, something has gone terribly wrong.

With its bleak atmosphere and intriguing story, Dying: Reborn is an acceptable effort, bringing the escape room experience to consoles in an interesting, if often disturbing fashion. The PSVR version, while a little more viscerally effective, just doesn’t feel like a complete experience to recommend. Add in some weird glitches that make examining items in VR exceedingly difficult, and the result is the opposite of Resident Evil 7 – this is a VR-enabled game that’s much more satisfying when played on a standard television.

For a game that offers nothing but brawler-style combat (along with the occasional jump across a ledge), it's simply not acceptable that the fighting itself is such a boring experience.

For what it's worth, if I wanted a simulation of being crammed into a tiny, metal, low-tech claustrophobic coffin while people yell and attempt to kill me repeatedly while I struggle with basic controls, then Heavy Armor offers up quite the war experience. However, that's not what I was looking for, and I suspect that it's not something anyone else is after, either.

It takes a special kind of ineptitude to make a game about giant monsters incredibly boring, but Natsume Atari has managed to do a world-class job of it.

I mean, the game's already five years past being relevant, it would have killed them to take another six months to make it decent?

If it wasn't for the load times, I would be far more likely to recommend Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat to anyone that liked the television show and wanted a cheap game that called back to Bushido Blade. The gameplay has merit and there's a good selection of weapons to unlock, but I wouldn't want anyone to suffer through thirty second loadtimes for those occasional flashes of depth.

Past Cure isn’t terrible. It has a great visual style, and the combat manages to offer some thrilling setpieces. It’s the lack of a coherent story that really sinks it, though. The way the script gives only glimpses of the big picture before undercutting all the work it’s done right at the end is simply unacceptable. Perhaps a sequel could redeem this effort and let the developers figure out the story they want to tell, but that doesn’t let them off the hook for keeping the player so thoroughly in the dark this time around.

It may feel a bit out of place on current hardware, but viewing it as something of a "lost classic" from the last generation affords it a more appropriate context to be judged in, and a more comfortable one to be enjoyed with.

Alekhine's Gun stole from the best, but didn't know what to do with the spoils of its crime. The story is interesting and the levels are playable thanks to the source material being just that good, but it's missing the spark and attention to detail which made Hitman such a phenomenon. The copycat locations may look better than the originals, but the gameplay simply isn't there.

If the gameplay was incredibly fun, or the graphics fantastic, then perhaps playing basically the same mission over and over again for ten hours could have been bearable, or even mildly entertaining. Torrente, by comparison, was more like pulling teeth.

Umbrella Corps has a few interesting ideas up its sleeve, but that’s all it has. Whenever it attempts to put those ideas into practice, they’re shoddily executed and laughably inept for a tactical shooter that rewards almost no tactics whatsoever.

Unfortunately, its current form, Z-Run seems like the early access or beta version of something that needs at least another six months in the oven.

Something like Infernal: Hell's Vengeance might have gained a minor following during the last generation (and that's a big might have) but it simply doesn't have any place in today's environment. It's technically weak and showcases no forward-thinking in terms of design, and the conceptual side is just as stale.

The graphics are abhorrent. The models are ugly, simplistic, and repetitive.

From the dull as dirt level design to the ugly graphics to the obscene amounts of backtracking required to power up all the characters' attacks, there's nothing at all to recommend about the game.

It's impossible to tell where the fault lies with Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified. Did Activision force Nihilistic to rush it out the door? Did Nihilistic simply put out the bare minimum effort? Is this half-hearted experience exactly what Activision wanted? Regardless of the reasons behind it, what we've ended up with is a completely wasted opportunity to bring some heavy firepower to the Vita.

Weeping Doll isn’t much of a game, and at just an hour long with no hidden depth to necessitate a second playthrough, it’s overpriced at ten dollars. That said, as a first-generation console VR proof-of-concept, it succeeds more than it fails.

Apart from that absolutely baffling meat grinder at the end, I'd still recommend Escape to fans of the mid-list. 98% of it was an enjoyable spiral into insanity, and the project could certainly stand on its own even without being attached to the Dead Island franchise -- just be ready to slog through that final bit to see how it all wraps up.

I could almost recommend Doug Hates His Job as a cheap, quick palate cleanser between meatier experiences, but for just a few dollars more than what Doug costs, any number of better experiences could be had. It’s tough to make a case for purchase here.

Ghostbusters is an abysmal piece of garbage. It runs poorly, it sounds terrible, it has awful writing and it’s just a drag to play.

This minor disaster is a huge step down for the developers, Rebellion, after their fun-but-flawed Sniper Elite, and the "people-would-acknowledge-as-better-than-Gears-of-War-had-anyone-actually-played-it" Rogue Trooper.

Soda Drinker Pro is just a weird project by a weird guy, who somehow got people to pay for his inside joke. A little research shows this title was created in one day by someone who – wait for it – wanted a soda. Me? I just wanted to turn it off and walk away from it forever.

After playing Sneakers, I don't think the package declaring it's "Only On Xbox" is such a bright idea. They'd be better off keeping that sad fact a secret and quietly dumping all remaining copies of the game next to the steaming pile of "E.T." 2600 cartridges rotting in the desert.

Road Rage isn’t half the game that it wants to be, and it’s hard to understand how it was released in its current state. There are plenty of places where I was able to drive through level geometry and out into a blank void, causing a crash. Likewise, I frequently found myself clipping off of courses into walled-off areas, and because the developers neglected to include a method for resetting my bike onto the track, I’d be forced to restart. Racing superbikes in a crowded city with narrow streets is a terrible concept to build a game around, and Road Rage marries that terrible concept with awful execution to create something that’s far less than the sum of its questionable parts.

It's a bad game that needs to be reviewed so other gamers out there can avoid being sucked into the whirlpool of uninspired gameplay, bland graphics, and generalized mediocrity that colors the entirety of the title.

Amy should never have gotten off the drawing board and into production the way it is, and I genuinely regret that it didn't turn out better.

A horrible game manufactured with the creaky spare parts of a rusty genre along with fallen gears from the movie hype machine. This is the kind of game that's given away when you order a large pizza and get the second one for half price.

Afro Samurai 2 sports questionable design, is broken in many ways, and is generally unworthy of anyone's time or money. I wouldn't even recommend this to the hardest of hardcore fans of the series. Why the developers and publishers let this game hit the market, I'll never know.

Seen through a kid’s eye this game is very cool with its full compliment of squishing sounds and gun blasts. For adults, I suggest you look elsewhere for your entertainment.

Although the mechanics are nothing revolutionary, I will say that I appreciated the graphics for their old-school flavor and intense pan-Asian iconography.

Was it a time-suck for me? No. But for a few hours, it forced me to solve problems in a new and challenging way.

Although the implementation is very limited and the series of five missions can be completed in an hour or less, I greatly enjoyed taking the Hammerhead for a spin—doubly so, since I felt that Mass Effect 2's removal of both Mako and planetary exploration was a huge error.

While it may not be the right fireplace sim for film buffs or lit majors, Cozy Fire may be worthwhile for detail-driven fans looking for a little existential ascension with their fire stoking, and given the increase in agency over its competitors, may even let players learn something new about Themselves.

It Came from Outer Space was a good idea that just comes off poorly. The twisting, obstructed area design makes playing more difficult than it should be, the small number of buildings feels even more limited due to the palette-swapping, and the humor falls flat. Players who feel a desperate need for new Kefling action may enjoy this DLC, but nobody else should apply.

I would imagine that anyone who enjoyed the core adventure of Two Worlds II will find much to like in Flying Fortress, and although I wish that the level of polish was higher, I was able to get back into the zone even after all this time had passed.

Despite these minor flaws, Voodoo Chronicles: The First Sign fulfilled my criteria for a quality HOG handily.

Although I'm sure most players these days would say they're getting a little tired of seeing the undead shamble across their television screens, I can't think of anything out there quite like Containment: The Zombie Puzzler, and that's pretty high praise in and of itself. Toss in a survival mode and the fact that it's just $5 on Steam, and this unique project's new spin on the walking dead is a can't-miss.

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.

Elsword isn't the most polished game, but it does beat-em-up action quite well. Between the pets, the gear, the PVP, the costumes, and even the boss-rush modes, there's a good deal of content waiting to be plumbed by gamers that want a bit more action and skill from their MMOs. It's at least worth a look.

Although Cause of Death: Volume 1-The Maskmaker isn't the sort of thing that I'd want to play all the time or for long stretches, it suits the iPhone to a "T" and pleasantly fills little gaps in my day where other, more involved games wouldn't fit. It's sort of like a snack, really-a little morsel of romance-flavored cotton candy to tide me over when I don't have time for some triple-A steak and potatoes.

Without technical accomplishment or a compelling narrative, Natural Threat never rises above the crowd to distinguish itself in any meaningful way. There are better ways to spend time hunting pixels.

The final nail in the coffin was that the in-app store offers instant level-ups and level skips to help you "speed up" the game. I frown on this kind of stuff, and between this and the low production values, it was hard to shake the feeling that this title is perilously close to being just a money-sink in disguise.

The silver lining to this otherwise mediocre (at best) experience is found in the rich visual presentation. The giraffe is well animated, the art not unlike the average family CG animal adventure by Pixar or Dreamworks, and the backgrounds have depth and richness. Although I hate to make the lipstick-on-a-pig comparison, the graphics just don't make up for an otherwise lackluster mobile distraction.

It may not be entirely to my taste due to the fairly demanding time requirements—upwards of an hour per complete run—and a lack of selectable waves from the menu screen, but as a free addition to what's already an absolutely kickass core game? It can only be seen as a good thing.

Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile goes a long way towards resurrecting the feel of the franchise that Serious Sam 3 was so sorely lacking, and I can only hope that this pack indicates that the developers have course-corrected, ensuring more bombastic and overwhelming Serious Sam games in years to come.

Receiver has a neat idea at its core, but that didn't translate into an interesting game.

While people pinching every penny might want to hold off since this DLC such a quick play, those in the mood for a little eggnog with the Saints would do well to ring in this holiday Third Street style.

Even with the second-screen setbacks and the wonky in-game commentary, the Director's Cut of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is still the best version of the game.

While it's impossible for any game to convey the experience of the Vietnam War to players, Air Conflict: Vietnam's senses-dulling mediocrity manages to express just how pointless and destructive the entire endeavor was.

For everyone else, Go! Go! Nippon doesn’t go far enough in any one direction to be recommended as anything more than a pleasant diversion for a few hours.

I'm not going to offer any theories as to whether this whole thing should be legally actionable, but setting potential plagiarism aside, Abyss is a high-quality hidden object game more than enough content to keep anyone entertained.

As it is, Lord of the Mind is a great HOG for most of its running time, but the jarringly disappointing finale keeps it from being one of the classics.

What I can say is that the concept of rewinding and rewriting has much potential. If it delivers genuine variances based on player decisions, there could be many interesting outcomes, but it's too early to tell how much Effect the Butterflies will have.

In many ways, Marvin's Mittens is a perfect game for young ones. Its story, aesthetic, and mechanics are simple and inviting enough to remain engaging, but despite its younger skew, I found the game to be delightful.

With more polish, it could have been a great mashup. As it stands, it will only appeal to the small segment of players who love punishment, but to those less skilled, it's got nothing to offer.

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.

Fat Chicken doesn't really succeed either as a reverse tower-defense game or as a political statement. By clinging too tightly to a standard in-level economy that doesn't play well with its twist on the genre, Fat Chicken ends up with play that's overly constrained.

It's hard to fault the developers for not including a split-screen multiplayer mode, but that might have sent Disco Dodgeball over the edge of recommendation for me. While the fast-paced action of all-out dodgeball combat is consistently enjoyable, it would be even better with friends in the room.

The Bozak Horde isn't very large and doesn't offer any of the fascinating storytelling flourishes of the main game, but it's fresh and creative, with the developers doing a great job of showcasing their mastery of traversal and combat construction. Anyone who enjoyed Dying Light will find this a satisfying diversion for at least a few hours while waiting for the dune buggies coming down the line.

A gimmick can make for a classic game if done well, but High Strangeness doesn't develop its ideas enough to get there.

While Static didn't really work for me, it's short, it's free, and certain aspects of it are very much open to interpretation. I've been sitting on this one for a while due to a fear of misrepresenting a piece of art that I don't entirely understand, but I can still recommend that interested parties check it out for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

While the developers could have made a by-the-numbers vampire story, they've done something far more interesting, turning it on its head to creating one of the most delightfully absurd narratives I've seen in ages.

Although I liked the minimalist aesthetics and I'm open to interesting little projects like this, Three Fourths Home: Extended Edition didn't feel like it had much of a point. I'm sure that something about this content is very significant to its creator, but the problem is that it wasn't very significant to me.

Ultimately, Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviours may be too careful for its own good. For all of its accommodations to different types of play, this is a game that still leans heavily on the conventions of shooters past.

While the game is relatively short, it ends before overstaying its welcome and the difficulty in many stages means players won't be breezing through on their first pass. It also makes up for its brevity by providing strong atmosphere and an intriguing story. Despite the issues I had with it, it's worth seeking out every one of Mion's memories and uncovering how this little girl and her fireflies ended up in such a dire situation.

Its castle isn't worth exploring, nor are its mysteries worth examining.

Overall, CarneyVale Showtime offers striking presentation and promising core gameplay which is let down by some questionable design decisions, sometimes-poor controls, and a lack of accessibility options.

A fan of the hidden object genre who doesn’t mind a little extra padding will certainly find this to be a worthwhile entry.

While the visuals are appealing and the bots are full of life, I find myself a bit let down by the gameplay. It’s not precise enough to be a true ballet of blades as the title implies, and really, it’s too bad since the market has room for a top-down Nidhogg. On the other hand, it’s too precise to be a wacky laugh-with-your-mates brawler like Gang Beasts, which it could have done equally well. As is, it is a decent game within reach (in either direction) of being something much greater.

The most puzzling thing about Lost Castle is that it makes mistakes it has no reason to. The games that obviously inspired it have already solved its design problems — Rogue Legacy showed how to do an upgrade-based economy perfectly. Dark Souls‘ enemies have weaknesses and the player can defend. The devs rival Isaac‘s dizzying array of items and weapons, but nailing one out of three aspects isn’t enough to recommend it. There’s some quality stuff in Lost Castle and I genuinely hope it gets fixes for its flaws. But, as of right now, it’s a decent-ish co-op title that’s borderline unplayable alone.

While Dead Rising 2: Off The Record outdoes its predecessor in terms of raw playability and the amount of content it offers, it’s just not as satisfying. Both Dead Rising 2 and 3 understand that these are games are fundamentally about helping people in a terrible situation, and they’re richer because of it. Frank West’s jokey manner fits the sandbox mode well, but his detached, ironic worldview doesn’t land the way the rest of the series does. In the end, this effort feels like a minor sidenote before the series put the best pieces together for Dead Rising 3.