The premise of the Project Zero series, quite literally having to face up to your fears to catch them on camera, is ingenious. Furthermore, at its high points, Maiden of Black Water showcases a generous amount of the very peculiar and likeable Japanese horror atmosphere. However, the experience suffers from imprecise and slow controls, making for frustrating maneuvering through the rather samey surroundings of the haunted Mount Hikami. Add to that the large amount of terribly dull and boringly angst-ridden notes that most of the narrative is related through, and you have a game that, unfortunately, doesn't quite live up to its potential.

However, once you find your flow – and the right path – it's fun to sweep through the world, whether you're chasing the game's big bad or poking around the many, many secrets that lurk around every corner of the spaceship Atromitos.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows is not a bad game, nor is it fantastic. It follows the same recipe as the series’ installments have done for a few years now, where we’re served a story full of intrigue, power struggles, and a revenge motif. The main characters, Naoe, a nimble ninja, and Yasuke, a powerful samurai, provide varied gameplay experiences, but does not quite let the player live out the full fantasy of being either. It’s unfortunate that Ubisoft does not unleash the full potential of finally having an Assassin’s Creed game set in Japan.

Tales of Xillia 2 feels like not much more than a repeat of the previous game. You'll spend most of your time walking through familiar environments you already explored thoroughly in the previous game.

Chaotic, frenetic and often clumsy, Battleborn is a game that has a lot of flaws in its core design. Still, we can't quite stop playing, mostly thanks to the great cast of playable characters, as well as the game's addicitve progression system.

Phantasy Star Zero is a nice game that adds little new. It's easy to get a feeling that the whole product is quite old. All thought it works quite well, it prevents the game from being memorable.

Anger Foot promises and delivers shooting/kicking action at a furious pace. You don't have to sprint through each level, but the experience feels both more alive and more rewarding with the music at full blast and max pressure on the W key. If you are a fan of "speedrunning" and shooting games, this could be right up your alley. Lots of trial and error to sweep through levels as quickly and perfectly as you can. For those who don't like doing the same things over and over again, Anger Foot can quickly become tiresome. There are just a bit too many levels and far too many hopeless boss fights here. The convoluted solution for changing shoes - which gives you various advantages - is also extremely frustrating, but perhaps the developer can do something about that eventually.

Fe is a visually beautiful game that also delivers atmospheric audio pieces, but that sadly does not fulfill the promises of a truly great 3D platformer.

Among all the tactics games I've enjoyed in recent years, Persona 5 Tactica stands out as the least interesting. It has the potential to become something more, and the idea behind being able to knock down enemies to get new attacks is a good one. However, there is too little else here. The game quickly becomes repetitive, and the campaigns offer far too little variety.

This is pretty much a low-budget version of Gears of War, but enjoyable enough for what it is. Only buy if you can play in coop mode with real human beings, though, because the AI of your squad mates is just dreadful.

Agents of Mayhem is a lot of fun to play in the first few hours, and the gunplay and movement systems are addictive. Sadly, the story is rather dull and there is little offered in terms of immersion, which makes me wish the game offered more to keep me interested in Seoul and the admittedly charming characters in the long run.

Though this is a solid finale for an enjoyable trilogy of adventure games, it does feel a bit like playing through the final five hours of a good game that is exactly five hours too long. The freshness that the series initially offered is gone, replaced with predictability and a certain staleness.

Destiny: Rise of Iron follows in the footsteps of its expansion predecessor. It maintains the already polished gameplay and desire for better loot, but the continued lack of depth, both in characters, story and general mission structure, stops Rise of Iron from becoming the game-changer The Taken King became one year ago.

Man the Guns unfortunately brings more confusion to fleet manage than before. On the upside, the great new oil mechanic, the new focus trees and the US Congress mechanisms are mostly welcome additions to Hearts of Iron IV.

Dead Rising 4 has obvious flaws. It is not a great technical game, has a lot of bugs, and it does not run as well as a lot of other games on console. It still manages to entertain with it’s humor, but it is a flawed game.

Immortality lacks the satisfying detective work found in Her Story and Telling Lies, instead opting for randomness and an almost complete lack of control as to what part of the game you're wanting to explore. The story itself is enjoyable to piece together, but finding each piece is a frustrating and deeply repetitive process.

Styx: Shards of Darkness is an entertaining adventure that offers challenging stealth in vertical environments packed with obstacles. While there are plenty of possibilities and Styx has many tricks to avoid being spotted by guards, it’s hard to shake the feeling that this could have been so much better.

A mediocre platforming game with some good ideas and a great amount of charm.

It's a fun game, but it never reaches the heights of the original. There is no real structure to the game, and the variation in what you get to do is minimal. Chasing orbs is only fun for so long.

Quotation forthcoming.

Flawed in so many ways, but it still manages to engage and entertain. Jane Jensen-fans will find much to enjoy here.

Quotation forthcoming.

Fire Emblem Engage drowns a solid and entertaining tactics game under layer upon layer of boring filler nonsense that does a very good job of ruining the experience.

Dead or Alive 6 has a lot going for it – solid combat mechanics and an incredible tutorial mode being the elements that stands out the most – but overall it feels a little too bland and lacking in content to stand out in the sea of great fighting games of yesteryear.

The Flame in the Flood dares to be a different survival game. Instead of focusing on killing zombies, the goal is to survive by eating, drinking, and sleeping. Sadly, there's not much more to it than that. Being different alone does not make a game great, and this is no exception.

Age of Empires IV is fundamentally a true AoE game, but sadly, it's very little else. There are no bold chances taken here, no great additions or revolutionary changes. And that, after so many years, is disappointing.

A beautiful and relaxing game that is over too soon, and is too bare bones to encourage replaying.

Ghost of a Tale is a charming and often funny experience surrounding an adorable mouse and scary rats, but the simplistic stealth mechanics are not enough to keep the initial surge of excitement going for more than a few hours.