At the end of the day Vertigo seems to be a decent core idea for a game wrapped in a lackluster package. There have been other successful games in this genre but for me, Vertigo doesn't live up to that legacy.

Nairi: Tower of Shirin is a beautiful-looking title, but finishes feeling rather rough and unfinished. There are plenty of puzzles to enjoy, but the script takes some strange turns and I can’t help but feel like there should have been more to the story.

While Nemesis DLC adds some interesting twists for for endgame, it ultimately doesn’t seem to justify the add-on’s asking price. Stellaris overall already offers hours of interesting and engrossing grand strategy gameplay, but this addition doesn’t add much to what was already there.

There is simply no way to play this game comfortably while turning and moving forward.

With a bit of restraint and more focus on the types of relational challenges that it does well, Metrico would have been an easy recommend to fans of the fringe. In its current state, it's an aggravating equation that produces unhappy results.

Crash Team Rumble feels a bigger-than-average swing for the series, but one that — at this point — ultimately misses. That said, there are updates on the horizon, but I’m worried that it won’t be able to break away from more unbalanced characters and a general lack of content. Maybe Crash Team Rumble will end up like Fall Guys or Rocket League and go free-to-play at some point, but as it stands I’d have to recommend waiting for the game to bulk up a little before diving in.

Transformers might be a good purchase for crazy, obsessive fans of the license (like me), but for anyone who demands rich play experiences and balanced design, this is one of the few times that Optimus Prime has failed to complete his mission.

There is inspiration underlying this game; it's just too bad the promising first thirty minutes wind up buried under hours and hours of mediocrity.

Rage is a beautiful, totally decent first-person shooter with some driving elements thrown in to spice it up a bit. Based on it's developer's pedigree, the fact that it's not more than that is exceedingly confusing. There's really no obvious attempt at innovation here minus the marrying of Doom to Twisted Metal.

Overall, Dusty Revenge feels like a game that needed just a little more time and polish. If the combat could be tightened, interface bugs fixed, and load times could be reduced, this would be a solidly enjoyable title. Perhaps patches will be released to address these flaws, but as it is, Dusty Revenge takes a shot at 2D brawling and misses the mark.

There are a lot of good things going on in Winter Ember. Its ambiance is strong, the freedom to move through levels in multiple ways keeps progression interesting, and the stealth mechanics are solid. However, these positives are consistently overshadowed by performance issues, clarity issues, or weak combat. I enjoyed sneaking around with Arthur, but unfortunately, Winter Ember still has a way to go before it can be considered an easy recommendation to stealth fans.

Despite being frequently infuriated, I probably would’ve pressed on and rolled credits had I found a single element that captured my attention. Unfortunately, Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl is a serviceable beat-’em-up at best, and any real enjoyment will come solely from nostalgia and callbacks for fans of the IP.

Auto Age is a fascinating misfire, making one weird mistake after another. This talented group of developers generate a wonderful setting and engineer great control mechanics for exploring a world, and then cram it all into the most ill-fitting genre possible for the foundation they’ve laid. I don’t know what convinced them to aim so low with their concept, but Auto Age: Standoff is an experience that’s only a shadow of what the intro and tutorial suggest it should be.

Attack of the Earthlings is by no means a bad game — its personality and anti-capitalist, anti-human stance works, and the ideas underlying the mechanics are well-thought-out. Unfortunately, the execution, lack of optimization and muddy presentation undermine a title that was already going to struggle in a genre well-stocked with plenty of superlative examples.

Without a story or even a philosophy to fall back on, Ovivo is forced to stand on its gameplay, its art, and its music. At times, those all sync up and produce a flowing, memorable meditative experience. Mostly, though, the zooming and fiddliness get in the way of the art, or the dull bits of the art get in the way of the experience. For a truly minimalist and meditative experience, ditch the game and just grab the soundtrack.

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

Uppers is a tough game to recommend. As much as I love the settling and style, the gameplay, writing and progression path leave much to be desired. It also becomes repetitive within just a few stages, and even showboating for the girls adds nothing to the package. It’s a shame, really. Uppers gets the style half of the experience right, but it really should have spent more time on the fundamentals.

While there’s nothing terribly wrong with The Alliance Alive, there’s nothing particularly right with it either. Those who want some JRPG gristle to chew on will find it adequate, but anyone who missed it last time can skip it without regret this time, too.

Scribblenauts Unmasked has a mildly diverting quest mode, but everything else about it is so sloppily constructed as to be borderline unplayable.

I left Whispering Willows with the nagging feeling that it could have been elevated if the devs had added just a few more levels, a few more powers, and a few more story twists to bring it to a satisfying conclusion. In the end, I was... haunted... by the wasted opportunities.

For those who thrive solely off of the thrills of putting points into stats and watching numbers go up, Hexyz Force leaves little to be desired. For the rest of us, Hexyz Force has equally little to offer.

The game, like a movie trailer, provides various disjointed snippets of action without delivering the complete picture.

Although several of its elements still need some work, I like what Project Root is trying to do overall, and I appreciated the effort to blend non-traditional elements into the shmup genre. There's a lot of potential for the free-roaming shooting, leveling-up, and dual-layer combat, but none of it is quite there yet.

Maybe this DX is redefining film grammar for videogames. Because in this case, director's cut means the same damn thing, complete with glitches and issues of the first game.

Efforts to align Moon Diver's classic gameplay with an environment 20 years removed from its progenitor have only done it harm. The greatest shame is that the game did not fall victim to the caprice of an indifferent natural order; Moon Diver is betrayed by the deliberate adaptations of rational designers.

It feels strange to say, but Space Crew is the rare example of a sequel that feels like a step backwards. I appreciate that it’s less punishing, but with fewer elements to manage and less variety in the missions, it could pass for a prototype of the game Runner Duck made two years ago. Too much of the formula has been stripped away and this overly-simplified experience suffers for it.

This is the first installment of F1 since the reboot of the real-life competition, but it is also the first installment I’ve played that does not feel like a worthwhile reboot in the slightest.

Moero Chronicle H generally gets the basics right, but that foundation is undercut by repetition, a lack of nuance in the combat, and a botched translation that makes it tough to care about anything that’s going on. It delivers a ton of fanservice, and the core is at least competent, but it doesn’t even attempt to reach beyond such an unambitious goal.