The repetitive hack-and-slash gameplay has nothing in common with the earlier incarnations of the series and will surely alienate the Fallout faithful. Meanwhile, the newcomers to the Fallout universe aren't likely to be sucked in by the uninteresting and flat characters nor the nonexistent story.

I write this review with a fair bit of sadness. This can and should be a good title, and despite all the difficulty I had, the interesting premise of Loading Human kept drawing me back in. The story, true 360 degree movement and ability to manipulate almost every object in the space provide a cool experience — the mechanics are just too nauseating — literally. Only the most devoted players with iron stomachs might be able to suffer through in hopes of seeing light at the end of this virtual reality tunnel.

I was ready to love Days Gone, and in some ways, I still do. It didn’t love me back, though. If SIE Bend had cut the length by a third, cleaned up the technical problems and had more variety in level design, it could have been one of my favorite games of all time. It’s tragic in hindsight, because I can feel the love and passion flowing through it. Unfortunately, the shared appreciation of our homeland pales in comparison to the astoundingly long list of problems on display here. It’s heartbreaking, but only homesick Oregonians like myself need apply.

Cognition fails not from a lack of execution, but from a lack of imagination.

What is disappointing about Musashi is that I expect more from Square-Enix. The company seems to be mired in a bit of a rut as of late, and churning out average, if uninspired, games like this one doesn't seem to be a good way to get back on course.

J&M was released on Earth Day, and includes information on two nonprofit organizations aiming to preserve the world’s oceans. Between that and its jubilant presentation (aided by a bouncy main theme that briefly fooled me into thinking that the game would be much more enjoyable than it turned out to be) J&M is too well-intentioned to get angry at. Unfortunately, I imagine most players will be too bored to be persuaded by its important message.

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.

An essentially generic nature is why Grandia Xtreme winds up being such an empty experience overall.

I’m fine with gut-wrenching violence if it’s taken seriously or if there’s a point to be made, but Rise & Shine’s over-the-top carnage is constantly being interrupted by some of the laziest and most ill-timed humor imaginable, all in service of a message that isn’t particularly original or insightful. These uncomfortable tonal shifts would be enough to tarnish even a good game, but the frustrating and underwhelming Rise & Shine isn’t worth putting up with it.

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.

While the story may be uninspiring and some mechanics don’t quite stick the landing, I found myself returning to Shadows Awakening mostly for the amusing stories of the puppets. Even so, the characters alone can’t carry the game — maybe fans of this IP will be happy to jump in and will find the mediocre gameplay enough, but for those like me, it’s hard to recommend this title as a starting point to the Heretic Kingdoms world.

Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart is both too similar to and too different from its parent series to hold my interest. Trying to “fix” the lackluster battle system with more minutiae has only made it less tolerable, and worse, I just don’t care about these characters anymore. I’ve played worse games—far worse—but Hyperdevotion Noire has lost the soul of a franchise I once loved.

The first half of War Tech Fighters is a light, silly ‘blow everything up and look cool’ sort of thing, but the second half is weighed down by developers who apparently felt the need to offer a ‘real challenge’ that wasn’t necessary or welcome.

Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story offers an interesting Chinese-themed ghost experience and there were moments when I could feel my heart race while trying to escape the deadly spirits chasing me. However, those chills are dulled by excessive backtracking and slow progress — and in the end, those were scarier.

Frankly, I think HunterX would make an much better side-scroller with linear progression than the subpar Metroidvania that it is — I may come back to it after a few more patches and when my frustration dies down, but I really can’t HunterX right now, especially with so many other better titles to choose from.

A game like Half Past Fate: Romantic Distancing is courageous for presenting a story that confronts our real-world pandemic rather than providing escapism from it. The setup of the narrative and the overall tone befits its ambition, but it’s ultimately unsuccessful in offering significant takeaways or in-depth character studies due to its surprisingly brief length. If it were twice as long it would have likely had twice the depth, and probably twice the score.

There’s no denying that Riot: Civil Unrest is earnest in its attempt to bring game mechanics to a complex, weighty topic, but ultimately it fails to execute on its ambitions, delivering neither a satisfying strategy game nor a novel exploration of its chosen topic beyond its evocative and memorable art style. And as we’ve learned from political movements throughout history, enacting lasting change is about more than presentation.

Dull, mediocre games… well these games are like a painter's palette filled with nine shades of gray. There isn't much to work with, so the end result is as lifeless and flat as a Midwest landscape study in wintertime.

It's a shame that Strider eventually grinds down into such life-sapping monotony because it starts off reasonably strong. The controls are sharp and responsive, and cutting enemies in half while dashing around at lightning speed feels damn good.

Hardcore item-management fetishists might find some joy here, there’s simply not enough balance or content for Phantom Crash to stand on its own, much less measure up to the competition (I’m looking at you, "Armored Core 3").

To see a series falter so badly after years of doing everything right is distressing.

While I can imagine how Portal may have inspired the team to expand on its concept, in the end, all I wanted to do was play more Portal.

Dead Rising was never a great game — it’s perverse and didactic in equal measure, and an exciting concept delivered with almost no artistry or craft. Why not put in a little extra effort to fix it, rather that just running it on superior hardware? The sequels offer a clear roadmap for the experience that Dead Rising could have been, but apparently Capcom had no interest in following it. It’s too bad, because even as a budget title, this reissue is just too rough to recommend.

Nights of Azure’s a disappointing game for sure, but it’s not exactly awful—the mindless combat is balanced by the tremendous art and sound design, and despite the negative tone of this review it’s not offensively bad at anything it does. It’s just aggressively bland and tough to recommend when the action’s too toothless to keep players engaged.

This underwhelming finale to the rebooted Doom saga would be limp enough when judged on its own merits, but the fact that the developers went back and screwed around with what made The Ancient Gods, Part One work so well is criminal. This expansion is more Doom Eternal, which should be a good thing, but turns out to be the weakest and most disappointing that Doom Eternal has ever been.

It’s tough to see Etherborn as anything but a misguided project and a missed opportunity. It’s frustrating to play without the ability to look around, the story has zero weight or impact, and apart from some wonderful visuals, it’s got little to offer.

Retro players starved for a Shinobi-like title who also relish mastery through repetition will surely see this as the perfect opportunity — just be sure to get anything other than the Switch version. For everyone else, Ganryu 2‘s try-and-die learning curve is repulsive, and the trial-and-error design harshly punishes the player for every little mistake. It’s one of those rare titles that I do not wish to go back to.

After Burner may be spiritually true to Sega's seminal 1987 hit, but game design has progressed by leaps and bounds since then. Cleaving so closely to its dusty, outdated forefather hurt more than it helped, I'd say.