All of these issues in design and execution are really a shame, since they mean that Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory is not enjoyable for any amount of time. The dialogue is clever and witty, and I enjoyed seeing Alpha Complex come to life in videogame form, but aesthetics can only carry something so far. While I can’t recommend this iteration. there’s always the pen-and-paper version for those who need a fix.

Even if Bungie backtracks on some of these horrendous missteps, there’s evidence that the dev team is either flailing around without a clear idea of the experience they want to present, or even worse, they’re happy to offer the least amount of mediocre content possible until the player base starts pushing back. When free-to-play titles like Warframe and Let it Die seem monumentally more generous and offer vastly more entertainment value than a triple-A sixty dollar release built with a budget large enough to feed whole continents, it’s clear that something has gone horribly wrong.

For a title that’s ostensibly about surviving in the middle of a disaster, Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories is incredibly slow, incredibly boring, incredibly outdated and incredibly frustrating – it fails at both its human side and its action side, and ultimately has nothing to offer fans of either. For anyone interested in the concepts or subject material, I’d recommend either Disaster Report (PS2, 2003) or Raw Danger! (PS2, 2006) over this crumbling mess.

Dying due to confusing design rarely makes for good times, and this soured me on Stereo Aereo pretty damned hard. It’s unfortunate because I genuinely dig the overall aesthetic, and I definitely enjoyed the soundtrack. Even the relatively meager storyline has its high points. However, when the difficulty kicks into high gear, it all bubbles down into an overly busy, confusing and imprecise mess that I can’t wrap my head around.

Just a bad use of Ubisoft’s talent pool, and a worse use of gamers’ hard-earned money.

#killallzombies has no excuse for getting this so wrong.

With so many great cooperative experiences already out there, it’s impossible to recommend Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance — it shows little promise from the start, and somehow only gets worse as time goes on. This is one quest that even the bravest warriors would be wise to avoid.

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.

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.

Too much effort was spent trying to force loveable, quirky characters down my throat with all the believability of The DaVinci Code's plotline.

My advice to Team Soho would be brief: raze the series to the ground and start anew. This engine is long past its better days.

I'm all for interesting choices and humor when making a game, but the appeal of a one-trick pony like Divekick wore off after just a few minutes. Like, five. Perhaps people steeped in the fighting game scene or those with friends (and beer) nearby might get more out of it than I did, but I can't imagine that many players will find value in this drawn-out gag.

I do admit that I gleaned more than a few moments of guilty enjoyment from the experience, it's really just a terrible, terrible game that wouldn't be able to justify its own existence without the gleefully gratuitous content.

Mafia II is every bit as soulless and dull as its bland sociopathic protagonist

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

The gameplay lacks any redeeming qualities, and would have been behind the curve in the 16-bit era. Today, there's just no place for a game like this at all.

A lovely face paired with an empty head is a cliché, but I'm not going to waste a better metaphor on a game this dull.

If the words "the death of Aeris" don't bring a tear to your eye, then dropping $40 on Crisis Core certainly will.

My sense is that Azur Lane: Crosswave will appeal to established fans of the ‘moe’ subgenre of anime who will happily forgive the myriad problems, boredoms and irritations that will rise to the surface for everyone else. For those who aren’t ready to devote themselves to a seafaring waifu, Crosswave runs aground as soon as it sets sail.

To make an embarrassing story short, Splinter Cell: Essentials is a mess. For a series that leads the stealth genre and has worked hard to make itself more accessible and more polished with each successive sequel, an entry like this—even on a portable— can only be seen as a miserable failure.

Nearly all progress in game design over the last fifteen years has been ignored, and it shows.

Submersed is a tragic mess of mistakes, and in addition to everything above, it’s buggy. I had several crashes, textures sometimes disappear from walls if one gets too close, and I’ve fallen through solid floors. If it wasn’t already obvious that one solid setpiece can’t prop up a mediocre game, Submersed should be all the proof that’s required.

The Witch and the Hundred Knight isn’t a good game by any means. It has an impenetrable equipment system, lackluster combat with no other gameplay mechanics, and a story that only gets good if players consult an FAQ.

A whole lot of hot air and buzz with nothing to back it up.

This game is so weak and poorly constructed that I can't imagine playing it online with real people would make it any better.

Candle Knight might look like an average platformer, but the lack of story feels hollow and the lack of options in gameplay sap any mechanical satisfaction I might have had. With more polish and balance it would be worth a look, but in its current state it’s impossible to recommend.

The issues in Everreach snowball off each other. Poor controls and defensive options make combat tough. Limited resources mean little ways to mitigate the combat. Dying often means story beats can potentially be spaced far apart. Fixing any one of these issues would elevate the others, but in its current state, Everreach feels like a dogpile of bad decisions and insane balancing. Have the devs not paid any attention to design trends in modern titles?

So Transformers: The Game is just a complete mess, a game that succeeds in almost nothing that it sets out to do.