Since it’s a multiplayer-only title with exactly one mode, Hunting Grounds was clearly banking on the strength of its premise. Failing that, there’s just not much to it, and players will have seen everything there is to see after just a few matches. Maybe we should take this as a signal to stop trying to make Predator games a thing — if this didn’t work, I’m doubtful that anything will.

It's too bad that by over-complicating everything, Touch the Dead gets this simple formula so very wrong.

With its relatively small menu of uninspired puzzles and cast of irritants, One Against All fails in its attempt to capture the Layton magic.

I would have rated Don’t Knock Twice a little higher if the weird dwarf bug hadn’t forced me to switch to a television, but even setting that flaw aside, there’s not much special here. As a haunted house simulator it delivers a few high-quality scares, but never really challenges the player with its mysteries or makes them feel involved in the story. It’s creepy enough for anyone looking to be unnerved as Halloween season creeps closer, but that’s all it has to offer.

In its current state, it’s about 15 minutes’ worth of gameplay stretched out into a bland, lifeless four hours, and it faux-finishes with a blank stare when the content runs out. I hate to see something so promising get rushed out the door when it is so clearly not ready for prime time, but it is what it is. And it’s a shame.

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 may not look fantastic and certain mechanics shouldn't have been resurrected along with the rest of the game, but Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded succeeds at being a brief bit of naughty fun—and since it never aimed any higher, that definitely counts as a win.

Dynasty Warriors 9 is a complete mess. The open-world elements like crafting, hunting and finding landmarks don’t fit with the story, and the technological sacrifices made to include them ensure that the mass battle sequences are nearly non-functional.

While Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 may be the ultimate modern sniping experience, it also offers a clear sign that sniping games may soon go the way of flight simulators, in that it’s only possible to make engaging ones set before technology makes the human factor obsolete. One unlockable in the arsenal are ‘DARPA bullets’, which are prototype in-flight auto-correcting projectiles — and yes, they’re real. Simply point a laser at a target and the bullet strikes it dead-on, every time. The player isn’t forced to use these bullets, of course, but as technology barrels forward, the concept of a man in a ghillie suit crawling through brush with a rifle strapped to his back is going to feel anachronistic, and will likely survive only as nostalgic looks back at the history of violence.

Crimson Dragon is clumsy, frustrating and often downright hideous. I realize that the Xbox One's launch lineup was pretty underwhelming, but even those new owners desperate for software to play on it should keep Crimson Dragon low on their lists.

With top-tier writing and characterization, Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory does its series proud.

Topatoi Episode 1 delays its payoff for too long, and in the end exists mostly as a suggestion of a game that might be good to play when (and if) it makes its way to the PSN store. Add the fact that the characters of Topatoi lack any of the charm or personality of your typical platformer cast—their in game models look a little revolting even—and it's a hard game to recommend.

Perhaps, someday, the WH40K universe will offer experiences as compelling as its fantasy brethren. Until that time, players looking to scratch the WH40K itch would do better by dusting off a last-generation console or firing up Steam and buying Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. It’s a pretty charming third-person action game that, while a little long in the tooth now, satisfies the urge to mow down bad guys by the thousands in a much less frustrating format.

Just a decent sci-fi story mixed with some rather unambitious gameplay. Nothing is done gratingly poorly, but neither is anything done with any sense of innovation or panache.

Bright Memory looks fantastic and the action is strong, but there’s just not enough actual game here to recommend it. As interested I am in seeing a full-length version, I can’t say this taste is worth the price when all it has to offer is six rooms and a couple of hallways’ worth of content.

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.

Myst III has so much going for it, in that clearly much effort was put into the plot, the acting, and the richly detailed pre-rendered graphics. But the whole experience never gels into an enjoyable game, and the world of Myst, while scenic, feels too static to be captivating.

Galaxy Warfighter was good for about an hour of play, but to just got too repetitive after that. I kept going through mission after mission hoping for a new boss or an enemy that would keep things fresh, but that hope faded as I kept flying the same missions for what felt like endless waves.

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.

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.

As it stands, the framework of a promising tycoon game flickers beneath the strobe lights, but it struggles to justify the cover charge. Moments of satisfaction are undercut by clumsy onboarding and a lack of personality, leaving the whole experience feeling flatter than it should. Unfortunately, Disco Simulator hints at a better party than the one it ultimately throws.

Almost nothing in Fable Heroes seems well-designed or carefully thought out. Its incoherent visual design is wrapped around a poorly-tuned beat 'em up with an obfuscated progression system, spiced with lousy mini-games. The total absence of story or even silly dialogue is likely to put off fans of the flagship Fable games, and without that draw it's difficult to see why anyone would bother. One or two interesting ideas poke through, but Fable Heroes is a failure.

Despite the dated graphics, Criminal Girls: Invite Only manages to impress as an entirely competent retro dungeon crawler. It does run out of steam before the end with some amazingly pointless backtracking and a storyline that devolves into a typical harem snoozefest, but the overall experience? Still worth it, overall.

Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia is a perfectly functional game, but those unfamiliar with the IP should probably watch or read the series instead — the lack of depth and content makes it hard to recommend to anyone except perhaps for the most hardcore of fans.

The difficulty, along with an unimpressive combination of uninspired aesthetics, unnecessarily long load times, and a generic feel, make the game, as its title suggests, a disappointingly alien experience.

Without the kind of stage this story requires, all players are left with is an amusingly iconoclastic oddity, worth trying out, but not falling in love with.

With nothing to recommend it, I say toss this disc into the cracks of Mount Doom and be done with it.

Although it was originally released for PC in the fall of 2015, The Park feels like a quick tech demo for virtual reality headsets more than a full release, and even if the content were presented in VR, everything about it is so bland that it wouldn't be effective anyway.