Bland visuals, rehashed game play, and constant bugs and minor irritations completely overshadow the core Heroes experience. These criticisms, along with the game's complete lack of new ideas, makes it the weakest entry in the long running series. Might & Magic: Heroes VII is best avoided and forgotten.

Gearbox have gone slightly astray with this DLC, it's certainly not on the same level as their previous effort.

Knack is not at all indicative of the PlayStation 4's potential. The gameplay and the storytelling are banal even by last-gen standards.

This is a game that feels like an expanded tech demo.

Beenox is capable of making a decent Spider-Man game – in fact, they have made two already – so the culprit here is surely that this game was rushed out to coincide with the Amazing Spider-Man movie release.

War in the North, by being a blunt object of a hack-and-slash game with a facile story and an aversion to genuine characterisation, adds itself to the long list of Lord of the Rings games that just aren't Lord of the Rings games.

Mars: War Logs has big ambitions, but it feels like it was rushed out the door – perhaps due to budgetary constraints. The makings of an impressive game are here, unfortunately it just doesn't hold together particularly well.

A very short game with a fairly original visual approach. Foreign Legion is a fun-ish third-person shooter but unfortunately lacks enough content to get you hooked.

Rodea the Sky Soldier has the odd interesting idea, but numerous gameplay problems betray its troubled development.

If EA plans to get a firm share of the Kinect exercise market they'll need to invest a bit more time in creating a more user-friendly experience.

But all this said, the game is only US $15, and although hugely infuriating at times, still manages to offer up several hours of cerebral entertainment. Bonus points should be awarded if anyone can play the thing through to the end without turning off the background music, which has clearly been lifted from an elevator in a Disney building somewhere, or not pausing to reflect how inappropriate and darkly sadistic it is to caption each death screen with numerically catergorised examples of what deceased children will never experience.

Admire Spiders for their ambition, but as with its prior efforts this is again a case of reaching too far and spreading too thin. The result is a game that feels incomplete despite its comparatively short length for the genre.

A tedious and somewhat repetitive brain training game. Interesting and exciting GUI but the content really feels like a let down.

Bombshell is a broken, boring action game with a tin ear for humour and action that rarely rises above tedium.

Front Mission Evolved is at its core an uninspired third-person mech fighter that throws out the tenets of the series, a move that may turn off long time players. Mech fans will find it lukewarm at best and the rest of us are left to wonder just who the game will appeal to.

Ryse definitely looks the part, but the gameplay simply isn't up to scratch. It feels unfinished, or like a hardcore title whose mechanics have been dramatically simplified for the Xbox One TV crowd. Thumb down.

Sniper 2: Ghost Warrior is a well presented game, but its lack of variance quickly diminishes any entertainment and turns it into a chore.

1954 Alcatraz fails to deliver. There is a lot to like, the narrative and setting are exceptional, but the constant shortcomings of almost every other aspect of the game quickly saps enjoyment and replaces it with frustration and disappointment.

War Chest is an incredible disappointment given the strength of the series to this point, and the exciting licences within.

There are hints of a great game buried under the decaying leviathan that is Call of Cthulhu, but they are interspersed with the detritus of too many disparate or poorly executed ideas that those hints feel more like broken promises than unrealized ones.

An also-ran in a stacked genre that somehow further lowers the stock of the most overused enemy type of the past decade, All Zombies Must Die! makes both a bad case for its title and as a game in general.

Berserk has its moments – the Berserker Armor is absolutely hilarious, and getting to play as Zodd is awesome – but a few glimmers of amusement aren't enough to save it. The game doesn't have a lot to offer anybody – newcomers to the series will be left in the dust, long-time fans will be turned off by the clumsy adaptation, and anyone looking for a decent action game should grab a copy of Nioh instead. It's likely this will end up as just another forgotten footnote in the series' troubled history of adaptations.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a wonderful idea that fails to deliver on almost every level. While it can be breath-taking to look at, it is a tedious chore and needlessly unforgiving. I applaud Patrice Désilets and his team for attempting something new and fresh, but great ideas alone do not make for great games.

What few good points Dungeon Punks has are ultimately overshadowed by some atrocious design choices. Golden Axe was a bit before my time, but if this is what that game was like, then it does not seem like something we need to resurrect.

We've come to expect mediocre games derived from motion pictures, but Terminator Salvation is about as bad as it gets.

Deadlight could have been something great. Unfortunately, it's as mindless as the zombies it features.

A great-looking game let down by poor storytelling, repetitive gameplay and cheap, frustrating puzzles and traps.

A largely uninteresting game populated by awful characters that is a chore to play, NeverDead deserves to spend eternity alongside those infamous Atari 2600 ET cartridges, or perhaps digesting forever in the belly of The Biggest Loser's loser.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is a formulaic third-person co-op shooter that fails to meet the grade. Where the game does try to be different, it frustrates gameplay and pulls the uniform score downward.

Armikrog is a game that has had obvious care and exacting attention given to its visual design and animation… at the expense of almost everything else. A bland and woefully short game with asinine puzzles and an unresponsive interface, it’s beautiful but that's about it.

Some will be satisfied that merely having Duke's name attached to the box equals a safe punt. Those suitably enamoured in this respect may possibly be content long after the end credits roll. However, casting a critical eye to this title reveals serious fundamental flaws that Duke, by the mere virtue of being Duke, cannot possibly fix.

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is a maddeningly repetitive experience and should be avoided at all costs.

Do yourself and the industry a favour and seek out the original.

It's a shame that so much of Little Deviants is so difficult and (literally) painful to play. There's a handful of games in it that really work, and a further set of minigame concepts that could have been pulled off if they hadn't been bogged down in unnecessary control complications.

Ever wanted to wave your arms around to the polyphonic ringtones on your phone? Me neither. Welcome to the world of Wii Music.

I honestly believe that the team at Spiders wanted to deliver the very best game that they are capable of producing, and sadly I think that is exactly what they have done. The Technomancer is not a bad game, but it is devastatingly mediocre.

A classic RPG that you will either love or hate, and there are no two ways about it.

Ubisoft may have been overly optimistic with their chances of entering the arcade football market. The concept of Pure Football is solid, but ultimately it needed a lot more work prior to release.

Both Deathly Hallows titles are a disappointment, and it's abundantly clear that there was never enough quality content to fill two instalments from the outset. Again, the poor collusion between a game studio and official licensing channels has produced a weak platform to support such a vibrant fantasy as Harry Potter.

It's a nice attempt, but ultimately falls short of the entertainment we'd expect from such a title. In a market saturated with similarly designed games, this one does little to stand out.

It's a cynical release, devoid of entertainment, that should be avoided at all costs.

Agents of Mayhem fails as caretaker of the Saints Row dildo-torch, with passable gameplay and characters the only vague upsides in its a repetitive, bug-ridden sandbox.

Wario's hyperactive pace has been excised and his games expanded, which only highlights the dearth of compelling gameplay therein. A thin offering whatever the price, Game & Wario will only appeal to those with anterograde amnesia, and Pictionary fans.

Many elements of MilitAnt's core design are flawed, so it's no surprise that the game as a whole is pretty dire.

Only the most ardent Sonic fans need apply. For the rest of us, some good gaming memories should just remain that: memories.

At the end of the day, it is frustrating enough for New Zealand sports fans and gamers that rugby and cricket titles are so few and far between, and that they will never be made on the sort of budgets that Madden or Pro Evolution Soccer enjoy. To then be presented with such a cynical, half-hearted effort as Rugby World Cup masquerading as a legitimate contender with a full-retail price tag only adds insult to injury.

Battleship is one part generic and one part simplistic. The link that binds the two parts together is exasperatingly cumbersome, and that's probably the biggest problem with the game. It starts out fun, but quickly gets repetitive: The same old story.

If the Lost Planet series still had any devotees, they'd probably be disappointed by this third installment's padded and passionless offering.

MXGP 2 is a great example of how to take promising ideas, and then squander them all with terrible execution. There’s a decent motocross game in here somewhere, but it’s buried by technical issues like a fallen rider under mud.

By taking elements of iconic 90’s horror staples, Invader Studios have resurrected a Frankensteined horror experience that is far less than it’s borrowed parts. From the glacial pacing to the ponderous in-game action Daymare 1998 rather than invoking terror instead delivers tedium.

It's unacceptable these days to see the framerate just about crawl to a halt in every cut-scene shown between levels, and it's certainly unacceptable to charge full retail for what would barely pass muster as an XBL or PSN release.

New Carnival Games is a rainy weekend hire at best.

It's a muted, ungainly piece of work, the bare minimum for a ridiculously inflated price tag.

The very definition of shovelware, Transformers Prime is a woefully undernourished release that damages both the Wii U and Transformers brands. A budget downloadable than a full title, it's debatable if Prime should have even seen a release on handhelds, let alone Nintendo's flagship console.

Given the game's simplicity, one can rightly wonder why this title carries a recommended retail price typical of a game stamped with the Nintendo brand. Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise makes one thing glaringly obvious: it's time for the Wii U.

A clear attempt to cash in on 49 years of Bond goodwill and the gaming ignorance of many of the Christmas-present-buying public, 007 Legends is a game that belongs in the previous generation, but even then it would have been tough to recommend.

It's not bad as a bundled freebie, but it struggles to justify its 800 Points (approx. $13) price separately. There is very little game here to keep you occupied.

Being released just a year after the first Saw game has resulted in an uninspired and recycled title, bringing with it the sense that this is just another shameless tie-in rushed out to capitalise on the license.

A poorly produced game with little to offer any Tony Hawk fan.

Daylight incompetently piles on the clichés and delivers an experience that is far more likely to induce boredom than anything resembling fear.

Xotic is terrible in most respects and unremarkable or flat-out boring in all others.

Syberia 3 is an utter failure. It is the only game I have played in the past few years that I found no joy in at all, and the few things it gets right are almost instantly overshadowed by a mountain of irritation and frustration. To have this game wear the title of Syberia feels like a cruel joke, or a case of mistaken identity. Avoid.

Kung Fu Rider is essentially a terrible example of what Move can offer. Whatever you do, don't judge Sony's new motion sensing hardware on this title.

Add Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse to the list of licensed games that fail to deliver an experience that challenges, entertains and stands apart from its source material.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 is a shocking game in every respect. It's not even bad-good. Avoid, or ask for your money back.