While it's packed with old-school hack and slash action, Blackwind's lack of variety and lackluster mechanics leave a lot to be desired.

Dead Age 2 tries to rise above other games in the zombie survival genre, but while it does some things well, it does others quite poorly. Scavenging for supplies and building up a base are highlights, but having to talk to or fight with other groups to complete those tasks means one must always trudge through the bad stuff to get to the good.

Despite the flaws, something about Chernobylite feels like it's primed to enjoy cult classic status. Troubled but daring games are often the subject of smaller but passionate fanbases, and Chernobylite is nothing is not daring. Several of those gambles don't payout in the end, but the journey is always a weird one, even if not always an exciting one.

Conan Chop Chop is the video game equivalent of running in place. For every fun inclusion, there is another aspect that feels left behind.

Destruction AllStars is a fun game to watch and play. However, the slow pace of progress and lack of tangible goals limit the motivation to continue playing. The funneling towards microtransactions for progress and paywalled single-player content is frustrating. That's not to mention balance between AllStars is sorely in need of work. The good news is all of these issues can be fixed. The bones of a really great online game are here.

Fans of classic arcade games will almost certainly be eager to jump into Arthur’s sluggish boots again for another romp through this classic adventure. For those on the fence, the best approach may be to download the original game in Capcom’s Arcade Stadium and see how it feels. Resurrection captures everything about Ghosts ‘n Goblins, warts and all, with little to no compromise.

In 2020, Mafia 2 is a game greater than the sum of its parts. It shows its age in several areas, and though flawed, it still has its merits.

Into the Pit is a retro FPS/roguelike that's far less than the sum of its parts. It's got great action, but everything that surrounds it is questionable.

While the game had its high points, there’s a lot of unexplored potential on the table. I found it hard to care about the people of the world, frequently becoming bored. I couldn’t buy into the story and immerse myself into the game as I’ve done with other games. Atlas Fallen isn’t a bad game — it’s just not an excellent one, either.

Ultimately, there is a great game somewhere in Rust Console Edition. Mixing its social aspects, which allow you to approach and talk to anyone, with such a formidable survival experience is a neat inclusion that makes for some of my most memorable moments in a genre game. However, with an unforgiving logged-off state and other players constantly murdering and looting you, it feels impossible to imagine having a fully equipped save for any real length of time — at least not within dozens if not hundreds of hours in the game.

Retrosoft clearly understands the kind of game it wanted to make in RetroMania, and aesthetically, it succeeds. Gaining the momentum in a match that's in full swing, and keeping it until victory, is exhilarating. But as of now, RetroMania perpetuates aspects of pro wrestling that are better left in the past.

Rogue Lords needs a lot more polish before I could feel comfortable recommending it. The UI's messy, the pacing is off, and it makes itself hard to get into, with overcomplicated mechanics presented in obscure, difficult-to-interpret ways. I like its atmosphere and the glee it takes in letting you be evil, but if I wasn't reviewing it, I probably would've dropped Rogue Lords after the first hour. There's fun to be had here if you can push through it, but like a lot of Eurojank games, it doesn't feel like it's entirely finished.

Outriders: Worldslayer is an admirable attempt to breathe new life into a solid but flawed experience. It succeeds mostly in making the problems more apparent.

Hot Garbage was assumed to be aimed at players who have seen the whole game by now, but it ends up playing best for those still scanning the alien world.

Astor: Blade of the Monolith is an evocative and charming hack-and-slash adventure with plenty of bright ideas but sub-par mechanical execution.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground is a tough, roguelike strategy game not without its rough edges. But there's a fair amount of fun to be had for fans of Warhammer.

Steelrising neither reaches the heights of the best Souls-likes nor sinks to the lows of the genre's worst, and it can't hide its flaws with next-gen shine.

The Force Unleashed on Switch is a good port of a rather dreary game by today's standards.

Forgotten Fields is a flawed, sometimes frustrating experience, but its best moments are authentic and relatable enough to still make the journey worthwhile.

Life is Strange: True Colors might feature grown-up characters, but it's evident the franchise itself still has a bit of growing to do. Deck Nine tries and ultimately fails to tell a story of emotional healing at best. At worst, it treats difficult topics with a flippant callousness that suggests it doesn't quite understand how to deal with these emotions to begin with, let alone tell a meaningful story about healing and moving on.

WRC 10 is a fun and packed experience. If you're a newcomer, you'll need patience. In your early hours, you’ll feel overwhelmed by the game’s lack of aid, and you’ll definitely need to check a YouTube tutorial or two to get going. It’s a more hardcore experience, that's for sure, but even then, its campaign mode pulls you too far away from the central experience. However, once you begin to familiarize yourself with the racer, it offers up an addictive and brutal experience that’ll have you memorizing corners like never before. And there is something here for even those who often dabble in more casual racing games.

Monster Harvest wanted to follow the basic format found in the award-winning Stardew Valley while adding unique monster-catching and RPG mechanics found in Pokémon, and it succeeded in doing so. The issue is that those baseline mechanics from the farming sim genre lack the depth and nuance you'd want to see for Monster Harvest to really be found among the greats, while also failing to capitalize on the new mechanics by making them lackluster and borderline boring.

While the bones of a great battle royale are here, there’s just not enough meat on ‘em at present.

Hot Wheels Unleashed gets its racing and assortment of cars so very right, but the way you go about unlocking more content is unfathomably restrictive and leads to frustration.

Empire of Sin has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it's buggy and full of odd design choices, never really reaching the heights it sets for itself. My only caveat would be to keep an eye on patches and feedback. If the developers stick with it, Empire of Sin could evolve into a comeback kid. Wait for a sale if you're desperate for mob action, as it's not in great shape currently.

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Complete Edition is a nostalgic trip down amusement park lane that feels every bit its age.

Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance is not, by any means, a good game in the traditional sense, but still proves that multiplayer and great visuals can go a long way to making something fun anyway. In the same way that a bad B-movie is still entertaining, Dark Alliance somehow feels a bit more charming because of some of its glaringly bad AI and design issues.

#Blud is a hard game to like. Mechanically, it’s plagued with issues that I hadn’t seen in an indie game since 2013’s Ittle Dew. The story is hard to love, too. It’s easy to blame all its faults on the inadequate game that surrounds it, but #Blud’s story is fully capable of undermining itself. That said, if you take the game as it is and ignore those problems, you’ll find that #Blud has plenty to give back. Whether you’ll find this exchange worthy, it’s up to you.

Fairy Tail is an occasionally charming game for fans at best, and an incredibly repetitive RPG at worst.

Snack World works as a tasty, but not entirely satisfying, appetizer, with too much filler and some strange balancing choices.

Taken on its own and within a bubble, AEW: Fight Forever certainly provides a unique flair for those who like pro-wrestling games. Sadly, when considering other wrestling games, such as WWE 2K23 and Fire Pro Wrestling World, it falls short of the mark. This isn’t Le Champion; it’s Le Chump-ion.

Nintendo Switch Sports is a great way to satisfy any urge to play motion control games. Unfortunately, it doesn't make any effort at being more than that.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles Remastered recreates the original's flaws, and like before, it's best enjoyed as a multiplayer-only game.

Madden 23 unfortunately delivers another lukewarm experience that isn't saved by its new key features.

Despite all of those missteps, Forspoken skirts by on the merits of its traversal, combat, and upgrade systems. It won’t win any awards come the end of the year, but it's a decent podcast game, the type of title you can play while consuming other content in the background, all without feeling like you’re missing too much.

Kirby Fighters 2 is a kid-friendly fighting game that holds rather limited appeal.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a charming if tedious RPG that probably shouldn't have been an RPG.

We Were Here Forever has some good ideas but stumbles into unbalanced puzzles that leave one player standing around and sounding like Darth Vader in their walkie-talkie.

Observer System Redux is a prettier, smoother version of a good game, but its setting and characters are so grotesque and dark that it can be hard to get through.

In full, Lake doesn't quite reach the highs I experienced when I played it in part earlier this year. The story gets in its own way with narrative threads that compete for time and ultimately leave none of them with a satisfying conclusion. While the game is beautiful and its central mail carrier gameplay is as strangely enticing as it seemed all along, it's the people of Providence Oaks I will not miss.

If you're a big fan of Harry Potter and Quidditch, you'll definitely have some fun with Quidditch Champions. The game has huge potential, but I fear that it may be a multiplayer that doesn't last long. All in all, it's worth trying while it's free for PlayStation Plus members, but maybe not if you need to pay full price.

If you are really passionate about World War II shooters, are a dedicated Sniper Elite fan, or just really need to shatter some vertebrae with bullets, this could be worth a look. For everyone else, it’s probably better to set your sights elsewhere.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game returns, and while it has flashes of fun, it sometimes struggles to feel up to date, even as a remaster.

Naruto x Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections is built on the solid foundation of Storm games that came before it. But it fails to truly set itself apart. Between the lack of innovation, numerous issues at launch, and average story modes, Naruto x Boruto ends up feeling unfinished. While the fighting is fun in its own right, this game still needs a fair amount of polish.

The faithful remake of this light-gun classic only serves to highlight how bare bones it is by today's standards.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake attempts to be a lovingly rendered throwback to the licensed 3D platformers of the early 2000s. It's hard to argue that it fails on any of those counts. As a modern game, though, it feels antiquated in ways that hold it back. Not everything needs to reach for the stars, but The Cosmic Shake would have benefited from some fresher ideas.

Deceive Inc. will live and die by its player base and so far, it's not doing too hot. It's a shame, too, since I'm such a fan of what the game has going on mechanically. The thing that's ruining the experience for me is something that's not technically a failure of any of the game's mechanics, but rather, a failure of those playing the game to grasp its concepts. Unfortunately, it seems like when you give players guns, they're inclined to shoot them regardless of whether or not it's in line with their objectives. Because of this, however, so much of my time with Deceive Inc. was spent in frustrating matches that stood in direct opposition to what I found enjoyable about the experience.

The presentation of Blue Fire is clean and elegant. It’s clear a lot of care and love has gone into the lore, writing, music, and overall design of the game. But sadly, the actual mechanical parts don’t quite hang together. There are a lot of interesting ideas at work, but they just can't elevate Blue Fire above a curiosity. Coupled with the bugs, I’m hesitant to recommend it to anyone but the most ardent of platforming fans.

What makes NBA 2K24 all the more frustrating is that at its core, it’s a perfectly competent, if not exceptional, sports game. That’s especially true when compared to contemporaries such as FIFA (soon to be EA Sports FC) and Madden. Not only is the open-world adjacent MyCareer mode fun, but new modes such as Mamba Moments and the time-warping myNBA Eras also give you tons of mileage. But to get the absolute most out of it, you’re forced to pay extra. And that’s a hard pill to swallow.

Sable’s premise is novel, if not entirely new. Its minimalistic gameplay, at times, helps sell a more personable experience. Regrettably, the minimalism cuts both ways as Sable’s barren world betrays the game’s emphasis on exploration.

Necromunda: Hired Gun is an enjoyable dive into the grime of Warhammer 40,000's most corrupt city. But all of the incredible atmosphere in the world can't hide its rough edges.

Killer Klowns is a faithful adaptation, but nostalgia cannot compensate for lacking features that other asymmetrical horrors do better.

Blacktail tells a wonderful fairytale in a storybook world, but not all of its breadcrumbs lead home.

Sniper Elite VR is not a great game. It is fun from time to time, especially at the beginning, before the novelty of exploding a Nazi spleen in VR wears off. But this is not an experience I can recommend to anyone other than serious fans of the Sniper Elite series, or someone hungry for a PSVR shooter.

Layers of Fear is difficult to recommend to anyone but hardcore franchise or genre fans. Newcomers might as well play this package over the originals seeing as they’re the definitive versions of each game. It’s a shame that a definitive version of a Layers of Fear game still doesn’t receive high praise. Layers of Fear 2023 feels like it wants to be a more substantial remake, meanwhile being too afraid to go the extra mile. If Bloober Team took the time to radically change the titles, along with further fleshing out its frame narrative, we could have had something special.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 is accessible to casual players, but it sneakily removes the depth Rot3K veterans might expect.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated hits you with nostalgia, but that's not enough to carry it forward in 2020.

Lords of the Fallen is a satisfying action RPG and a remarkable soft reboot of a franchise that nobody thought had a future. There’s so much more soul here than the 2014 original, along with plenty of depth for those who want to engage deeply with its systems. This includes the fully malleable customization, in which classes can equip any gear once the stat requirements are met, essentially morphing mid-playthrough. It’s unfortunate that a genuinely great game is sullied by a severe lack of polish.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate brings new visuals and some new bits and bobs from the original release, but it lacks the punch of some other entries to the series.

Battlefield 2042 wants so many things that it succeeds at almost none of them. There's a good game buried beneath it all, but you'll wade through a lot of sludge to get there.

Madden NFL 25 truly brings the sports experience to life due to its impressive visuals, enhanced presentation, new commentary teams, and improved physics from the BOOM Tech system. However, this is about all the new standout features Madden 25 offers, as all game modes' core mechanics remain the same, leading to a disappointing experience that makes it hard to justify the hefty price tag.

Charming presentation and interesting investigation mechanics can't make up for the underwhelming story of Duck Detective: The Secret Salami.

Mystery Dungeon DX gets the story right, but ultimately fails to deliver on everything else.

I’d call Redfall a decent to good co-op experience (high 7, low 8) that’s got a bad single-player game attached for free. Anyone who jumps on this for an immersive, weird Arkane Studios solo run – if you’re looking for Prey or Deathloop, now with vampires – is going to walk away not just disappointed, but bitter.

Aragami 2 has lots of potential but falls into repetition, some odd story choices, and frustrating online play.

Corruption 2029 is a competent tactical game that leaves you wishing it had spent just a little more time in development.

Live A Live takes too long to settle into its RPG groove, making it a missed opportunity on too many fronts.

There’s no use avoiding this fact: An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs is ultimately a meme game, though Strange Scaffolding has done an excellent job on the writing. Packing a brilliant sense of humor, that fact is only made more prominent by the deliberately low-effort presentation and enjoyable dialogue. However, those merits get significantly bogged down by tedious gameplay design, one where progression relies on endless fetch quests with little variety. You won’t need long to complete Dog Airport Game, which offers a four- to five-hour campaign, but if you plan on sticking it out, do so in short bursts.

Gord shows a lot of promise and is certainly enticing for those who like the genre. Unfortunately, it also needs a few improvements and tweaks, namely with unit behavior and pathing, to lessen any frustrations that you might experience.

Edge of Eternity has heart and Midgar Studio should be proud of what they’ve achieved for a small indie team. I just wish I liked it more. Thanks to an uninspiring story, lack of overall polish, and some uneven visuals, the final product simply can’t match the developer’s ambitions, making this a hard game to recommend. If you’re curious to dive in, there’s still plenty to like. With a versatile combat system, colorful environmental design, entertaining side content, and old-school design, JRPG fans may find something to enjoy here. It’s on Game Pass at launch, so if you’re playing on PC or Xbox, you could always dip in that way, but otherwise, you’d be better off looking elsewhere.

Jumpship's debut mixes grand sci-fi and familial drama in a more cinematic take on PLAYDEAD's earlier titles to mixed effect.

Saints Row 3 is mechanically the best the series has ever been, and narratively the worst it's ever been, leaving this born-too-late remaster a mixed bag.

Bright Memory Infinite's tight gunplay is simply spread too thin to make up for an otherwise uninspired experience.

Martha is Dead's failure to stick the landing leaves a sour taste in my mouth. The narrative and mechanical ambitions don't coalesce into something greater despite some interesting mechanics throughout. It attempts to tell a careful story about mental health but eventually devolves into cliched story beats and emotionally manipulative moments that serve no other purpose than to shock you.

Back 4 Blood comes after a decade of L4D-likes and from the studio that made the timeless original, but it fails to capture the same magic even as well as some prior imitators.

Starship Troopers: Terran Command tries to capture the campiness and action-packed thrills of the movie, but it falters just like the invasion of Klendathu.

That’s not to say Saints Row doesn’t have redeeming qualities, but its memorable moments are so few and far between. It delivers what is expected from a typical action sandbox game, but only at the bare minimum. Most of what Saints Row has to offer has already been done better elsewhere. If you’re looking for an open-world game with silly fun and over-the-top action, then maybe it's worth taking a trip to Santo Ileso. Unfortunately for most, this reboot struggles to provide anything unique that makes it stand out from the crowd of similar games.

Those Who Remain won't stay with you for long, but with some good scares and a story that twists more than I expected, it's a decent horror story for an evening.

PixelJunk Raiders is almost a good game and certainly isn't horrible, but its best bits, the roguelite systems and some tough melee battles, are still better done in other games in the genre, and those games aren't built around saving survivors who behave more like statues.

Dice Legacy is just too shallow and too reminiscent of other, better games. It's just far too simplistic to have any kind of real replayability, and since your first playthrough will be done in four or five hours at most, that leaves little to play for. Sure, the game does try to extend its replay value by offering different starting conditions and rule restrictions to try to get you to play it again, but it's the same meta every time with no real variation. There's no shortage of good roguelikes out there. Crack those open instead. You'll have a lot more fun that way.

Hokko Life is a farming/life sim that tries to make a name for itself but fails to stand out in a genre of more compelling titles.

There may never have been so promising a game so completely destroyed by launch bugs as Wolcen.

Dustborn is an interesting game for people with an acquired taste. It succeeds as an art project but fails in many regards as a video game.

Astria Ascending wants to be so many things, and perhaps that’s part of the problem. Instead of trying to be mature or recognizable, it should focus on its unique qualities and develop them into something interesting. Whatever the case, it’s difficult to recommend Astria Ascending. There are dozens of other RPGs to give your time and money to, but if you’re curious about this one anyway, I’d strongly suggest waiting for a sale.

Sure, being able to take it on the go sweetens the deal ever-so-slightly, but that's hardly worth it when it looks and plays like an absolute mess. Even the best-looking version of Crysis still doesn't hold up as well today, simply due to its outdated gameplay mechanics.

The Fridge is Red ultimately fails to conjure up the scares and often impedes its own momentum, even if there are flashes of compelling horror to be found.

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack is a novelty game, and like most novelties, it's shallow with short-lived appeal. It doesn't offer enough variety in songs to make an easy recommendation, and it certainly falls short with its adventure modes. There are better rhythm games on Nintendo Switch for the same price or less.

For a time, the beats of nostalgia carry this remake, but eventually, the goggles fall off and its dated gameplay is laid bare.

Crime Boss tries to stitch together a bunch of procedurally generated, samey content with a few Hollywood faces and call it a video game, but ends up not being much of anything at all.

Could it be improved over time with updates? Absolutely. The previous game has a long history of improving implementations and walking back on changes. As a fan of the series, this regrettably feels par for the course. However, a new entry should have a strong start and not be equal parts fun and frustrating. It could be fantastic in a year if not less, but right now it’s just squandered potential.

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind's gorgeous aesthetic and solid puzzling are no match for its lack of depth, emotion, and substance.

Retreat to Enen is a game built around meditation and mindfulness that muddles its message in a world of contradiction and imbalance.

For me, Outcast: A New Beginning was really a tug-of-war between “it’s fun,” and “it’s driving me crazy.” While some features stood out to me, like the jetpack and weapon modules, they really couldn’t make up for the lackluster characters, a map that was just too big, and bugs that ruin the experience. Fans of the franchise may want to give it a try to compare to the classic experience as it’s undoubtedly a step up in terms of mechanics. However, it’s not necessarily something I would want to play again myself, which lowers my rating for the game overall, and honestly, restricts me from recommending it to others.

Despite flashy visuals and a relatively entertaining story mode, One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows's fighting mechanics are shallow and unsatisfying.

It feels like the PC port of Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders could have benefited greatly from a bit more remastering. It seems like a game that had some fine ideas back in the day, but both genres it tackles have moved on to bigger and better things in the time it has been away.

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.

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.

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.