Manor Lords has a strong start, but can't shake off its Early Access feeling. [Early Access Provisional Score = 80]

While it has downsides and requires various quality-of-life fixes, No Rest for the Wicked has great potential to be an excellent blend of ARPGs and Soulslikes in 1.0. [Early Access Provisional Score = 75]

If the lack of story is a sticking point for you, you can always opt to play with friends. There is a co-op mode with a maximum of 4 players, and a crossplay option was announced to come with the release of the game as well. After the full release, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be pitching this to my friends as a weekend activity.

While Enshrouded is a dingy, medieval survival game with endless fog, it has a bright future. From the sheer amount of things to do, to the creativity in building and the fun of surviving in single-player and multiplayer, it’s a game with something for just about everyone. Despite the hiccups I experienced and my reservations about certain elements, this is a strong start for Enshrouded‘s EA period.

In short, if boring is one word to describe the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 campaign, “fine” would be another, and only if used generously. If you only buy CoD to play the single-player, don’t spend $70 on MW3. You’ll regret it. [Campaign Review]

You know when something looks weird or sounds off, and you can’t help but scrunch your face up and squint your eyes? As if it’s an involuntary response out of pure confusion? That happened repeatedly as I played Immortals of Avevum. The ideas and love that went into developing this are plain to see, which makes the middling-at-best end product all the more disappointing.

My time with Aliens: Dark Descent was so fun at the start. When I realized I was having more problems with technical bugs than alien bugs, I started feeling iffy, and then the soft-lock was the sour cherry on top. I wouldn’t put this quite in the same vein as the infamous Aliens: Colonial Marines because there are still a lot of great ideas and mechanics here. But it’s disheartening to see something so fun ruined by glitches. My recommendation is to read how others feel and wait for updates. I don’t know whether my issues will be common or isolated, but I sincerely hope it’s the latter. If it’s the former — oof, game over, man.

In the end, my experience playing The Lord of the Rings: Gollum was disappointing. A creative take on the character's journey interested me prior to its release, but the core concepts should also fall in line with what we've come to expect from the current generation of games. Outdated and plain bad mechanics simply mean that this title, much like the Balrog, should go back into the shadows.

Those who played Deliver Us the Moon may find something more to love here, but I had a hard time coming back to the Red Planet between sessions. Knowing I would spend my time with bland characters only to walk around empty space stations before being sucked back into the narrative melodrama ultimately proved as cold as the vacuum of space.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the bulk of Gungrave was developed in the mid-noughties, because despite the passably-AA-of-late-PS3-era graphics, it’s practically identical to its predecessors, both in terms of gameplay and level design. And to be kind to the earlier entries in the franchise, they were verging on unwieldy 20 years ago. Basically, nothing has changed between them, save a graphical overhaul.

The game feels like a regression from Supermassive's previous work. The Quarry was a refreshing return to form for Supermassive, but The Devil in Me and the overall lackluster quality of the rest of The Dark Pictures Anthology make me think that this IP may be out of ideas.

Re:Verse is a rare, but colossal misstep from Capcom that reverses momentum after a solid run of recent games.

New Tales from the Borderlands is a vapid vision of its remarkable predecessor, bogged down by exasperating choices from beginning to end.

This 15-hour trip through humanity's end of days will leave you envying the dead.

The great things that Elex 2 brings to the table are overshadowed by what a buggy, buggy mess it is.

Babylon's Fall is a baffling game that lacks any distinct vision, both in terms of gameplay and artistic design.

Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires can't make up for the shortcomings baked into the Dynasty Warriors 9 framework. Maybe Dynasty Warriors has just gone on too long; there are only so many ways to tell the same tale and upgrade the basic gameplay. Dynasty Warriors 8 understands the process, but that game came out eight years ago. Time marches on while it seems Dynasty Warriors marches backward.

King's Bounty II is an incredibly mixed bag for me so far, but I have hope that the story might get a bit more interesting. The open-world feels more like window dressing, however, and certainly pales in comparison to some of the other "living and breathing" worlds out there, even if it does look absolutely gorgeous. Still, it's the kind of experience that might pay off in the long run, so I can only wait and see.

Foreclosed is, simply put, a sometimes broken, always flawed game. I want to see its presentation applied to another project, and perhaps even from this team. It's just, in this state and with these design decisions, I can't recommend Foreclosed for anything other than its comic book look. While we're in the midst of a cyberpunk revival that may eventually challenge zombies as a most common subgenre, I find there to be many better options for fans of this kind of setting and story.

I can really only recommend Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed to diehard fans of the series. It doesn’t have any gameplay or quality-of-life improvements that its 2014 sequel introduced, and as a result, it feels like a relic of the past. While there are some emotional moments in the game’s story and the cast of characters can be fun, the gameplay is a chore to get through. It's just disappointing that this is such a barebones remaster.

This flashy remake of Abe's sequel is gorgeous to look at, but it rarely captures the excitement or feeling of the Oddworld forebears.

Balan Wonderworld tries to be an homage to nostalgic platformers from the PS2 era, but it forgets to be a good game in the process.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town is a surprisingly dull and lifeless farm-sim that's a shadow of its storied self. We’re left with caricatures and a game that shows only the slightest hint of recognizing what makes a fun gameplay loop.

For RBI Baseball 21 to launch in such a poor state with MLB The Show going multiplatform is like seeing your favorite team sit on a pile of cash as a division rival forms an all-star team.

White Wolf's venerable Werewolf: the Apocalpyse RPG gets another try as an action game with unfortunate results. On some level, it’s almost worth playing for the same reason bad sci-fi and horror movies are worth watching, but that’s definitely not a recommendation.

XIII makes a return as a remake of the 2003 original. It's a game that should have stayed in the past where it belonged. The bottom line is that this remake isn’t a very good experience.

Based on what we've seen so far, Godfall's incredible visuals and stylish combat hold real promise, but its progression system is in question. There is an amazing foundation here with one of the most gorgeously detailed game worlds I have ever seen. [Review in Progress]

Marvel's Avengers is the most broken gaming experience in 2020, and even if it was polished, it would be severely flawed.

Despite a legitimately innovative and satisfying control and trick system, Skater XL just feels incomplete.

Summer in Mara looks lovely right away, but the shine wears off quickly amid a long list of issues, both fixable and sadly, not fixable.

The campaign's variety in gameplay style, squad loadouts, and setting are all meant to serve as introductions to the online multiplayer suite. I'll be diving into more multiplayer over the next week as currently, there aren't enough reviewers playing to regularly populate lobbies.

Much like the zombies that threaten the world, Daymare 1998 is a sluggish and ugly take on the Resident Evil formula that's best avoided.

As it stands, Predator Hunting Grounds is nothing more than a hollow representation of the much-beloved franchise. It's a game desperately trying to keep up with today's trends of intricate leveling systems and loot-box rewards, but its gameplay and visuals hold it back years.

For the seventh consecutive year, RBI Baseball has put forth a buggy, messy game for sale, and I genuinely feel bad for most everyone involved. I worry about the sports gaming fans that pick this up because they love baseball and don't know any better. I feel sorry for the developers who probably wish to be working on a different series. I feel some self-pity for taking the assignment, but I guess I was going to be stuck inside anyway.