If you're simply looking for pure shooting and explosions and don't mind the game's relatively small scale, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando can still be a decent option. Its large scale set pieces are something you rarely see elsewhere, and the satisfying gunplay makes blasting through hordes of zombies genuinely enjoyable. Beyond that, however, Toxic Commando mostly shows its flaws. Both its level design and core gameplay feel monotonous, dated, and lacking in excitement.

Romeo Is A Dead Man is unmistakably a Suda51-style production, defined by its highly distinctive visual flair, outrageous premise, unconventional storytelling, and willfully eccentric design choices. If you're drawn to that offbeat, cult sensibility—prioritizing experience over pure gameplay and willing to tolerate its many baffling decisions—this absurd take on Romeo and Juliet may offer a uniquely strange kind of enjoyment.

Code Vein II once again delivers a distinct anime-style Soulslike experience, but poor optimization and a lack of polish ultimately undermine what makes it unique.

Netherworld Covenant shows plenty of smart ideas in its combat, but for a roguelike, its build variety and environmental diversity fall short. The narrow, repetitive progression quickly leads to fatigue, even when the core loop shows promise.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord - War Sails adds surprisingly little of real substance. With the Nords in such a weak state in the current build, naval battles amount to little more than pirate-hunting, leaving the whole expansion feeling rather flavorless.

Football Manager 26 delivers the biggest overhaul the series has seen, pushing toward a more modern presentation with improved visuals and UI that clearly aim to welcome new players. But those sweeping changes come with a cost: missing features and an overwhelming number of bugs make it a frustrating experience for longtime fans.

I have no doubt that the systems introduced in Pokemon Legends: Z-A could shine brightly in the future of the series, but for now, they're just not quite there yet.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 feels more like a case of unfulfilled potential than an outright failure. While its main story offers a serviceable core, other elements like combat and quest design often feel dated.

Engaging with Dune: Awakening often feels like being in a relationship with someone deeply volatile. There's an undeniable allure, something about it can fully draw you in and make the experience almost intoxicating. But then, like clockwork, come the unpredictable explosion moments of inexplicable frustration where you're left feeling punished for things beyond your control.

Blades of Fire is an ambitious and refreshingly unconventional title. While its developers clearly lacked the resources to polish every aspect to perfection, it remains a bittersweet experience. Its creative spark and unique ideas are inseparably tied to its design flaws, making it a game that's easy to admire, but just as easy to be frustrated by.

Despite its various balance and design issues, Elden Ring Nightreign is still an intriguing experiment from FromSoftware. The fusion of roguelike elements with the Soulslike formula feels as naturally complementary as survivor-likes expanding on gear-driven systems—full of potential by design. While it's clear that the studio lacks deep experience in this particular coop genre blend, Nightreign could have gone further.

The Rewinder 2 still offers a decent amount of fun, but it may end up disappointing fans of the original. By significantly scaling back the signature "Rewind" mechanic and failing to make the new Zelda-style combat and puzzle elements truly shine, it loses much of what once made it stand out. Without a strong identity or sharp edges, it struggles to compete with more polished titles in the genre.

The Precinct is genuinely fun, but its padded progression ultimately weighs the experience down with repetition and tedium. If you're simply looking to indulge in the fantasy of being a cop, this is arguably one of the best options out there right now. But as an indie title, its limited content clearly isn't built to sustain the kind of long-term play you'd expect from something like GTA.

South of Midnight offers a unique lens into Southern Gothic culture, with strong atmosphere, engaging folklore, and compelling storytelling that successfully highlights the charm of a niche cultural space. However, as a game, even its excellent music and presentation can't fully compensate for the underwhelming gameplay experience.

Sniper Elite: Resistance may win you over with its solid level design, but beyond extending the experience of Sniper Elite 5, it struggles to offer any compelling reasons for recommendation. The game ends quicker than expected and doesn't leave much of a lasting impression—aside from some potential laughs in the invasion mode.

Where Winds Meet feels like a jack-of-all-trades in the martial arts world, dabbling in swords, spears and staffs, but never truly mastering any of them. The game's strengths are often undermined by its weaker elements, leaving it as a competent but unremarkable martial artist. There's no denying its skill, but that makes its shortcomings all the more disappointing.

Slitterhead is a unique blend of horror, action-adventure and time-loop mechanics, showcasing some intriguing concepts. However, it struggles to fully realise its potential due to various limitations. The creativity is commendable, but the execution is poor.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure impresses with its stunning visuals and exceptional soundtrack, featuring detailed environments and rich expressions that significantly enhance immersion. The game excels in world-building, suspense, and narrative pacing, offering an engaging and unpredictable experience. However, the early segments struggle with their connection to the original, and the emotional arcs feel somewhat underdeveloped, lacking the depth seen in the first installment's character relationships.

Just Dance 2025 delivers a fresh dancing experience with plenty of trending hits from today's streaming charts. However, the rest of the game feels like more of the same — a predictable outcome for a series that has fully embraced the Games as a Service.

EA Sports FC 25 has stumbled through another year in a lackluster fashion. If last year's conservative approach could be attributed to the series' rebranding, this year's lack of ambition is inexcusable. Moreover, the widespread controller bugs and various other issues at launch make it hard not to question EA's commitment to the franchise.

Enotria:The Last Song is not without creativity or design potential. However, for an inexperienced development team, creating such a large-scale Souls-like game may have been overly ambitious. Poor balance, a wildly inconsistent difficulty curve, and the overwhelmingly negative combat experience overshadow the game's more impressive features, such as elemental statuses, skill build slots, and gear-switching mechanics.

Star Wars: Outlaws is so monotonous that it fails to leave any lasting impression. In 2024, a merely mediocre game is unlikely to satisfy players, especially one with as many flaws as this. Despite focusing on stealth gameplay, the issues with the levels, combat, and mechanics make it hard to truly enjoy the experience. Ironically, the only saving grace is the strong and well-established Star Wars setting, which serves as the game's last shred of dignity.

Compared to other FPS games, XDefiant offers limited initial content and significant balance issues, and even its most distinctive skill designs aren't particularly innovative. As a result, after a few hours of exploring different factions, game modes and maps, players may find it hard to stay motivated to grind for characters and weapons once the novelty wears off, leaving only a sense of endless fatigue.

If you enjoy turn-based gameplay and get a kick out of dodging attacks and outmanoeuvring enemies, The Land Beneath Us might be worth a try. Its innovative design, with a four-weapon system mapped to directional keys and Helldiver-esque command combinations, is both creative and quite engaging. Unfortunately, the levels are rather monotonous, with few surprises throughout the game, and the overall content is relatively sparse.

For fans of detective games, Between Horizons is well worth a look. It builds a solid sci-fi world, offers a flexible story and many different endings, making it a unique and replayable detective game. However, the adventure part of Between Horizons seems to lack highlights.

A tower defence game with a mix of gameplay elements, Outpost: Infinity Siege definitely stands out. However, a deeper dive into the game reveals a disconnect. The main problems stem from a design approach that's too limited and doesn't meet the actual needs of the player.

The team behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III seemed uninspired and directionless, which probably led to the release of a game in 2023 that perhaps shouldn't have been released at all.

Immortals of Aveum has a unique magic-shooter gameplay, and many skills to go along with it that help the player fight a gorgeous and fluid battle. But other than that it's pretty mediocre in terms of both plot and level design.

Playing Shadow Gambit feels like peeling an onion - as I progress from the outer layers to the core, taking down enemies in the city, and each achievement is small, often mixed with discomfort and bitterness.

The gameplay, story and design in Exoprimal will make you feel fresh and excited when you first play it. However, the existing gameplay makes it challenging for players to sustain that freshness for an extended period of time.

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code falls short and ends up being mediocre. This game neglects the elements that made Danganronpa successful, such as well-written characters, engaging storytelling, and unexpected plot twists.

Park Beyond is a disappointing amusement park simulation game. A large number of bugs and complicated controls ruin the gameplay experience.

In Alien: Dark Descent, unfair mechanics, overly difficult challenges and numerous bugs have ruined what could have been a decent game.

Dordogne is a beautiful and artistic game that takes me on a journey through the picturesque countryside of France with its unique art style. However, it leaves me with some regrets due to its mishandling of storytelling.

Redfall is a letdown. Arkane Studios' signature immersive simulation and level design are nowhere to be found in the game. Instead, their typical poor shooting experience, lack of polish, and rough performance issues are present in the game, which is a little too rebellious.

The design concept of Beyond the Long Night is excellent and full of new ideas, but the difficulty is a little too hard. This may have discouraged players before they had a chance to immerse themselves in the game. If you are a player who likes the challenge of high difficulty bullet hell games and can tolerate repetitive looping levels, then you may enjoy this game.

If you're a fan of Route 96, then 0 Miles might be worth playing. This game focuses on telling the story of the popular character Zoe from the original game and features many small gameplay segments that blend narration and gameplay. Additionally, it brings back many classic characters from the original. However, the plot isn't very engaging, and the main rhythm gameplay is lacking. The game's attempts to express political views throughout are somewhat naive. As a result, it's difficult to consider it a great adventure game when evaluated independently from Route 96.

The Rally Raid maintains the consistent performance of the Horizon series and aims to emulate rally racing through its weather, handling, and track design, providing an outstanding racing experience. However, beyond the racing experience, this DLC falls flat. The absence of distinctive scenery and insufficiently detailed roadbook creates a disappointing impression from the outset. Additionally, the lack of authenticity in the racing culture and the lacklustre storyline of subsequent events are unacceptable.

Apart from its unique supernatural style and art design, there are hardly any highlights to be found in Mato Anomalies. The plot is disjointed and the storytelling is confusing. The combat and exploration elements are not well designed, and there are a number of problems that detract from the overall experience. Playing the game can be quite an ordeal.

Although the current Company of Heroes 3 is not perfect, and the designers at Relic Entertainment have had some bad ideas, the fact that this game has made it to the third title, to be honest, is enough for us old fans of the game to cheer and get excited about.

Souls of Chronos is a fair JRPG in a small package, with a good story and detailed writing. Unfortunately, due to the size of the game, almost all of the systems seem a little sketchy, and it's hard to say which part shines.

If you are a fan of both One Piece and classic JRPGs, then One Piece: Odyssey is not bad. It has restored the original plot well and has built vivid characters. However, the experience of playing it may not be a pleasure due to some outdated design.

As a space-style "farming" game, "IXION" presented a cold space world and the space station "Tai Kun". It is not only home for players, but also a carrier for exploration and advancement. The experience of wandering in space with home is quite unique. But beyond this, "IXION" did not bring more surprises to the players. The imperfect details, fast pace in the early and mid-term, and some unreasonable difficulty settings make players easily frustrated.

Compared with the previous episodes, The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me doesn't seem so special, old problems are still there. what's more, its selections and plot are bad, which may greatly affect players' experience. Therefore, I think it is the worst episode of the series so far, and it's not a good end to the first season.

The experience of playing Gotham Knights is dull. mediocre plot, hollow open world, equipment system in a mess, the fun of multiplayer mode is also limited. Although this game did not give me any strong negative feedback during playing, I still do not recommend players to buy it. After all, you can have many better choices at the end of this year.

The DioField Chronicle is hard to bring any player the expected experience, except the combat part is quite passable, the other systems either too simple, and the storyline is full of trouble. It is hard to imagine what kind of state of mind the staff was, making such confusing work.

As a survival game, Grounded has a good story and gameplay, but only if you can accept all kinds of bugs and terrifying spiders. The game creates a mini world that allows players to explore driven by curiosity, and there is some guide missing when the player is exploring. The difficulty of the single-player mode seems a bit unfriendly, reducing the fun of the player experience.

It's hard to find much fun in Serial Cleaners. Although its gameplay is creative, the actual effect is not gratifying: there is more negative feedback than positive, which constantly consumes players' patience. Although the four protagonists have their characteristics, they have never really completed a mission together, and many plot highlights in the game have been wasted in vain.

Steelrising is a mediocre game just like Spider's previous works. Although subtle innovations in combat make dull combat a bit more fun, the linear map design with bad side quests still make the gameplay experience boring. But then again, Spider's courage is admirable, and its game production ability has obviously improved a lot, but there is still a certain gap between Steelrising and other excellent souls-like games

The pros and cons of SD Gundam: Battle Alliance are very obvious. The flexible use of anime memes and sound tracks makes this game satisfaction for anime fans. But the questionable battle system, and the weak cultivation gameplay, let this game worse than previous Gundam series games.

Soul Hacker 2 is a traditional JRPG that you can easily spend hours on, but also mediocre in every aspect. Although the classic training system has enough depth, and the turn-based system also involved some minor changes, the interest of the combat system is still limited. A lot of looting content improves the playability of the game, however the looting experience is monotonous and boring.

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is difficult to be a good FMV game. The tedious plot, boring detective gameplay, and many unnecessary misleading information make playing it almost a disaster.

In a whole new 3D world, Touken Ranbu Warriors is more expressive than the original game. The numerous mini-theaters of socializing dialogues can satiate players' penchant for coupling and make the look of "Touken Men" more vivid. Set in the Warring States Period, the main story allows the "Touken Men" to meet their former masters and engage in amusing conversions, but the story on the whole seems mediocre. The substantially simplified Touken combat style allows the players not adept at action games to enjoy the fun, but this also makes the combats lacking in playability. The highly repetitive levels and lack of characters differentiation make the gaming experience very tedious.

Salt and Sacrifice is a bad combination of Souls like, Metroidvania and Monster Hunter, making it feel chaotic.

As a small-scale game placed there for warm-up, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising performs moderately well. This game features a small part of the world in Eiyuden Chronicle. It appeals to players with the elements of town construction and resources collection and also a somewhat interesting customized side-scrolling action and combat style. However, its combat system has certain drawbacks in details, the main quest is encumbered by its mediocre and incoherent structure, and the terribly translated Chinese texts make it difficult for players to understand the story.

Featuring a black and white image style and a pure cold weapon combat system, Trek to Yomi creates a unique experience in the style of swashbuckler films. The abundant sense of various details in the game scenes, dynamic weather effects and unique mode of composition all make the game screen look cinematic. However, the overly monotonous enemy behavior patterns, as well as the increasing swarm of monsters in the later game levels, are making the fun of combat quickly decline. The bland story, together with some too far-fetched understanding of Eastern culture, makes the quality of the game storyline less than ideal.

Brave's Rage gives me conflicting feelings. You can experience creative with real-time card battles, but there is a lack of fun in deck building and exploration, which is a pity.

Syberia: The World Before continues the adventures of Kate Walker with a very delicate storytelling technique. It has a lot of clockpunk-styled mechanical puzzles, with a wide variety of patterns in puzzle solving with great fun. However, its storyline and characterization are hardly satisfactory, and the dialogues and CGs are not set up with any "Skip" options, making the gaming tempo seem very draggy. The fixed camera that does not allow the player to rotate freely causes many problems that affect the experience. The poor localization is even more deadly for this text-dependent storyline-based game.

Ghostwire: Tokyo has a unique "modern ghost" cultural setting, but the tedious open-world design dilutes this feature, leaving the gaming experience repetitive and monotonous. The boring battle experience and dull main storyline will down its rating from "worth a try" to "not very recommended". Of course, for players who love Japanese "oni" culture and various urban legends, or who don't feel repulsed by checklist-based open-world games, this game is still worth watching.

Model Builder, thanks to its handy operating system, excellently reproduces the modeling process from assembly and coloring to stickers addition, and its user-friendly prompts make it easier for players to learn it. However, the small number of models in the game will be used up by players soon and they are forced to do tedious repetitions. Certain problems in system disassembly can be often very annoying too.

The Far Cry 6 DLC "Pagan: Control" extracted the settings of Far Cry and implanted them into "Roguelike" gameplay. Player will play the Pagan Min, who was the villain in Far Cry 4, and return to Kyrat. The familiar maps ans scenes, the unique narrative perspective and the missions imbued with fantasy elements give you a quite fresh feeling. However, the DLC is very repetitious in terms of gameplay and the in-game rewards are very limited, which gives you a strong feeling of fatigue and kills your desire to start new game.

Despite its flaws, the superior picture quality and solid basic experience still give ICARUS a lot of potential. The level-based mission design makes ICARUS significantly different from traditional survival games, but it also makes most of the player's efforts in vain. If its mission rewards are more generous, the items unlocked in the space station have a wider range of uses, and the settings of character growth system are more reasonable, then I believe that players will also have a better gaming experience than they do now.

If you're a fan of the Resident Evil series, you'll probably also enjoy Lady in Tomb. The game's blend of traditional Chinese culture and puzzle solving is fun, but the poor shooting feeling and monotonous enemy design make the combat experience not enjoyable.

Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut has improved the graphic of the game greatly. The newly added Iki Island brings new stories and challenges, and further extended the story background. For players who have already cleared the game, playing the Director's Cut version is still an unforgettable experience.

Twelve minutes is a puzzle game with the theme of time loop. Although the scenes are rich in details and the art design is attractive, the mediocre gameplay and bad ending ruin everything the game has come before.

NBA 2K22 maintains the consistent quality of the series, but some of the old problems of the previous game and the unchanging game mode also makes the game experience lack of surprise.

FIFA 22 has improved the feel and smoothness of actions, but there are almost no changes in the game mode and gameplay. The reduction of stand-alone content makes it not very suitable as the first FIFA entry for newcomers.

Settlement Survival feels "mediocre", it completely abandoned the idea of adding new elements to the game, but instead put a lot of effort into polishing the basics of survival simulation games, showing the most basic charm of these games thoroughly. If you are struggling from no good survival simulation works to play, Settlement Survival is a good choice.

Lumione is exquisitely designed and has a high level of controlling precision required. With its fast-paced levels and various kinds of stratagems, players have no time to rest and are always subjected to a full range of high-intensity tests. As for whether this "suffering" experience is a challenge or torture, it varies from person to person.

In general, Vaas Insanity is not very playable. After experiencing the limited content, what is waiting for the players is the monotonous content that will no longer attract them. Considering that the next two DLCs will also use the "Roguelite" mode, it is a bit worrying. Of course, only from the experience of the first round of play, the quality of this DLC is actually good. The expressiveness of the scene and the design of some levels are very imaginative. For players who want to know more about the story behind Far Cry 3 or are interested in the villain "Vaas", this DLC is still worth playing.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition is a reset without sincerity, the picture has been significantly improved compared with the original version, but the poor modeling, behind-the-times operation methods, and many BUGs are a constant detriment to the experience. Almost all of the enjoyment I got from the game stemmed from the gameplay of the original itself.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl contain a variety of classic designs, enough to make people feel the charm of the Pokemon series. For players who have never been involved in the Pokemon series, it is a good entry game. However, from the perspective of long-time fans of the series, the current form of this work is undoubtedly unqualified and disappointing.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Pokemon Shining Pearl contain a variety of classic designs, enough to make people feel the charm of the Pokemon series. For players who have never been involved in the Pokemon series, it is a good entry game. However, from the perspective of long-time fans of the series, the current form of this work is undoubtedly unqualified and disappointing.

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story is the first attempt by Riot Games to make LOL more like a role-playing game. Although some of the torturous designs at the UI and enemy distribution significantly reduced my experience, the final quality of the game was quite acceptable, and the story around Ruined King was well complemented. If the developer can follow up in time to solve some annoying problems, I think the game experience will be improved to the next level.

"Maneater" is a true evil genre in the game industry. But it's just like most B movies, bloody scenes and repetitive shots will inevitably make people bored.

Nekopara Vol.4 should not even be called a game. It's not that interesting and diverse compared to visual novel, and a meaningless gameplay is boring.

At the moment, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure is a unique work that is entertaining and enjoyable. Because of the relaxed and lively BGM and the fresh and lovely graphics, players of all ages can feel the charm of the game. However, the story is really naive and won't stand up in reality.

Godfall is a typical game that make you scream when you watching its trailers, but make you sleepy when you actually playing. Its gorgeous art design and outstanding graphics are indeed commendable. But in other parts, it's very boring.

Although Miles Morales inherits the excellence of the previous work, it's not a satisfying finale for PS4, both graphics and contents are not satisfying enough.

The pathless is a beautiful game, running around and fighting with every BOSS is enjoyable. But the world is so empty and lack of interaction that might make you feel bored soon.

The classic Super Mario Bros. is getting refreshed because of this game. Even though the core gameplay remains unchanged, Super Mario Bros. 35 create some new multiplayer strategies. But those strategies doesn't always make you feel happy or enjoyable.

Playing Marvel's Avengers is just like chewing gum, it tastes sweet at the beginning but plain in the end. The story of the campaign is fun and the superheroes are vivid. But the repetitive missions, worthless loots, and tons of bugs will eventually let you down.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a perfect simulator but a terrible video game. There is no doubt that hardcore sim-players would enjoy it but most casual gamers won't. Flying a plane is hard to learn and dull to play.

Comparing with other battle-royale games, Hyper Scape is really fast. But at the end of the day, it doesn't unique and fun enough to impress me.

Ever Forward is a refreshing puzzle game but doesn't stand out.

Warriors of the Nile is a intense and interesting turn-based strategy game. But sometimes luck can destroy a flawless run, the game turns out to be more difficult to beat.

Crysis Remastered might be great on other platforms but definitely doesn't stand out on Nintendo Switch.

Melee weapon combat system feels good and intense. Beside that, the number of heroes makes the game relatively content light, and the PvP matchmaking is problematic and frustrating.

Despite the game have a great combat feeling and create tons of fun on looting, it's such a pity that Wolcen: lords of mayhem remains buggy and broken. After a four-year development, the game still looks like being in ALPHA test, obviously, not everyone can stand it.

Although it doesn't stand out compared with other zombie games, Zombie Army 4: Dead War has its unique skill tree, weapon upgrade system, and combo system, which make the game fun enough to play.

Kunai is an impressive 2D action game. It follows the classic Metroidvania design, which offers a great adventure of exploration. But this is just a taste that won't last long.

Sigma Theory is a cold war spy game and it seems fun at first sight. But only after a few hours, the gameplay becomes repeated and I start to get bored.

Shenmue III is a fan-based classic JRPG that you may love deeply or alternatively makes you feel frustrated. Although most of its game mechanics are out-dated in 2019, I do find some joy in terms of getting along with those vivid characters and living in the vivid world. At least I hope Suzuki could finish the whole story of the franchise one day.

Black Future '88 is a challenging platformer that features a huge variety of weapons, characters, and skills. But the gameplay is too repetitive and it gets tedious very quickly.

For the first time, this franchise shows some impressive sniper experience and the weapon system is interesting. But with the mediocre graphics and storyline, as well as some noticeable bugs, it's not so satisfying to play the game for a long time.

Need for Speed: Heat is a decent racing game but it has a serious balancing problems in the police chasing segments.

Rich man series have existed for more than 30 years, it is obvious that Rich Man 10 wants to "be modern", which means that adds online gameplay and gets sped up, instead of "stay retro". As a result, the game just goes half-and-half and let every fan be disappointed.

Monkey King: Hero Is Back is a fan-based action game that brings back a lot of classic plot of the remarkable original CG movie. However, the gameplay is far from decent, and it looks out of date.