In a world plagued by stripped-back indie experiences grasping to evoke an element of nostalgia, I can at least praise I and Me for attempting something wholly original for the puzzle/platforming genre. But what could have been a mighty stride forward disappointingly feels more like a half step.

It should be fun playing a game that puts players in control of Raziel and Kain one more time, but this 2D action adventure wastes the opportunity. Legacy of Kain: Ascendance has an intriguing story which is accompanied by good voice acting and a solid soundtrack, but its gameplay is repetitive and often downright messy.

Inspired by Turtles in Time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants certainly plays like a blast from the past. After Shredder's Revenge, you'll likely find its gameplay too basic, however, and it fails to impress in other ways, too.

If, like me, you love The Surge 2 and are after some additional content to draw you back into the game, you’ll enjoy your time with its Kraken expansion but will be very disappointed with its short running time.

There are some brilliant retro collections available, but unfortunately Super Technos World: River City & Technos Arcade Classics isn't one of them. There are essentially only nine games here thanks to two being available in Japanese only and another two being different versions of the same game, and while there's some fun to be had, a lack of museum content and other features just makes for a disappointing package overall.

Much of the ‘action’ in the game… hints at excitement but never pushes the boundaries to make for really thrilling gameplay.

At the end of my time with MagNets: Fully Charged, I never felt the thrill I get from the very best video games, or even pushed through the rough to find a diamond. I found a game with limited appeal, repetitive gameplay, basic mechanics, and a pointless attempt at a story. It’s never a bad game, but it’s never a good game either. I remain indifferent and somehow, that is both the best and worst thing I can say about any game.

It’s clear that love has been put into the making of Fallen Knight, what with its attractive character designs and duo of campaigns, each with their own twist. It’s just a shame that the gameplay doesn’t quite hit the mark. Once you’ve unlocked a decent range of skills you can have more fun with Lancelot and Galahad, but even then the clunky controls and awkward parry system will frustrate.

A body cam horror game, ActionCam: Supernatural Case is atmospheric enough and contains some decent puzzles and scares. It's rather simple and over way too quickly, however — and it also has terrible voice acting.

While some will no doubt find enjoyment in beating up goons in Stay Cool, Kobayashi-san!, most will find it overly repetitive and a tad too obscure. With its basic combat, small pool of enemies and often unfair bosses, there’s little here to pull Stay Cool, Kobayashi-san! out of mediocrity. Its saving grace is that it’s relatively cheap, so you won’t feel too let down by its short running time should you decide to take the plunge.

If it’s boobs you’re after, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus will provide more than your fair share, but if you’re wanting actual gameplay, it doesn’t deliver anything you won’t find better done elsewhere.

At its best, Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted delivers the kind of jump scares and edge-of-your-seat tension the series is known for. But, minus a VR headset, it’s not a great way to experience Five Nights at Freddy’s, even factoring in the bonus games and the additional lore it imparts. Given that you can get the first three Five Nights games on Nintendo Switch in their original, superior incarnations, it’s hard to recommend Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted to anyone but FNAF completionists.

Credit where credit’s due: considering this is made by just four brothers, Quantum Error aims high, which is admirable. The execution is simply not there, though. This is a game that simply tries to do too much, and as a result feels messy. If you’ve got a lot of patience and really like the idea of being a firefighter caught in a horrifying situation, you might get get something out of Quantum Error. Most, though, will just encounter frustration.

With its charming 2D graphics and unique premise, My Night Job truly is a game full of character. Unfortunately though, character is not enough to make the game fun or sufficiently engaging to play in the long term.

There’s a good game in Chocobo GP somewhere, hidden between the balancing problems and microtransactions. Hopefully one day it’ll be able to emerge, free of the troubles that are bringing it down. Until then though, it’s hard to recommend. If you don’t mind forking out for the game and then a Battle Pass or two down the road you might get some enjoyment out of it, but you’ll have to be committed to the grind, and fairly patient with the gameplay. Perhaps give it a try first – a free Lite version is available so you can at least get a taste of the action without spending any money.

The game’s multiplayer mode, each player using one Joy-Con, is the game’s prime redeeming feature and is a heck of a lot of fun in its own right. But weighed down by a middling-at-best single player mode, no matter how quirky it attempts to be, Zarvot’s trying, polyhedral antics don’t justify the price of admission.

Maid of Sker isn’t a terrible game, but it is a disappointing one. It has the groundwork of something that could be wonderfully scary: a foreboding environment and a chilling soundtrack make for a formidable atmosphere. There are also some freaky setpieces that further set the tone of this horrifying world. But that’s where it ends; the rest of the horror comes from the poor game design. Hiding from a blind enemy for the 50th time is nothing but frustrating, and the decision to rely on an archaic manual save system is one which only damages the game further. Maid of Sker’s premise had potential, but sadly it’s mostly lost amongst less than stellar mechanics.

Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back has a degree of retro appeal and may even stir up fond memories if you were around for Bubsy’s first outing. But it’s so unremarkable that it never really manages to get its claws into you.

In the end then, Soul Axiom on Xbox One is a missed opportunity, devoid of a soul itself.

It’s hard to find reason to keep playing after a couple of hours.

Ultimately, We Are The Dwarves is jack of all trades, master of none. The game includes strategy, stealth and action elements but none of these mechanics are particularly well implemented.

At the moment, Dungeon & Dragons: Dark Alliance is just too rough around the edges to recommend, but some will be able get enjoyment out of it if they can work past its issues. As ever, it’s fun battling your way through dungeons with friends, collecting loot as you go – especially once you’ve powered up your characters and learned some new moves. But until the camera has been tweaked to give you a better view, enemy AI has been improved and bugs have been quashed, the action will always be accompanied by an element of frustration and disappointment. It might be a good idea to wait for a patch or two before jumping in, basically.

It has moments of fun which means it’s probably worth dipping in if you’re a hardcore dino-fan, but there’s little here to make it stand out. And given the potential of the game’s scaly antagonists, that’s a Jurassic disappointment.

As a whole ,there isn’t much to the core gameplay in terms of variety or depth… At $4, Dustoff Heli Rescue is too expensive for an experience that can be replicated for free on mobile.

For fans of the side-scrolling beat ’em up genre, Chipmonk! is likely to be an interesting curio. After all, how many other games allow you to take control of warrior chipmunks battling against a range of other animals? It does feel rather dated though, very much taking inspiration from the true classics of the genre and not having ambitions to further them in any way. The result is a game that will be a hard sell for many, especially if they’re not instantly drawn in by the animal shenanigans.

I was pretty disappointed with Nidhogg 2. After a few hours of playing I don’t see myself going back to it any time soon. The weapon changes and graphic changes were enough to turn me off. Although the game can be fun to play for a few minutes at a time, all of the extra additions were just a little too much. I’ll stick to playing the original, I think.

Despite having cool atmosphere and unique ideas, Typoman: Revised‘s puzzles and platforming leave a lot to be desired.

Described as “a British Twin Peaks” on its Steam page, The Isle Tide Hotel falls desperately short of its promises. It has some interesting moments, sure, but the overall storytelling just isn’t good enough to ever truly capture your attention. This certainly isn’t Wales Interactive’s worst game – there’s still a lot to like – but with its premise of a mysterious cult holding so much potential, it’s perhaps one of the most disappointing.

Lumo 2 is very much a sequel a Lumo. This retro-inspired adventure packs in plenty of variety, but its platforming is frequently frustrating, especially in areas where the action has an isomentric viewpoint, and its lack of hand-holding can leave you a little bewildered. Some will have fun with it, but it's a missed opportunity to meaningfully improve on the original game.

There’s nothing waiting for you apart from harder, more infuriating puzzles, and unless you’re an actual masochist, I don’t think you’ll find much fun either.

Planar Conquest… probably isn’t going to sit well with you unless you’ve already amassed a serious number of hours into these types of games before.

Challenging you to make your way up a mountain, Baby Steps is likely to be one of the most divisive games of the year. With its hands-off approach, you're left to find your own fun as you ascend, and struggle with the simple act of walking. Ultimately, it just feels a little too aimless and punishing for its own good.

After some updates, Redfall may well become a Game Pass must-play, whether you like to play alone or with others. But right now, while you can have fun with it if you grit your teeth and give it some leeway, it's very hard to wholeheartedly recommend. While some issues here are likely to persist even once the title has been polished up a little, such as the world feeling too empty at times and skill trees being underwhelming, it's the technical problems that are the stake to Redfall's heart.

Had the developers made one or two slightly different decisions, Sir Lovelot would earn a place in my heart. Instead, I tore through the game in two hours – though this could be extended if you want to find all the hidden items and secrets. I felt deflated after every level. Like a jilted lover, Sir Lovelot did not perform.

If you can't resist feeding some coins into a Fast & Furious: Arcade machine whenever you visit an arcade, you might appreciate being able to play it at home in the form of Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition. For most, though, this barebones port will feel too light on content to feel worthwhile.

If you’re a huge basketball fan then of course you’re going to want to buy NBA 2K20, warts and all. But you should probably ask yourself, “do you need to?”. If you just want to play basketball, NBA 2K19 does the job nearly almost as well – and you can pick that up for peanuts if you don’t already own it. NBA 2K20‘s MyCareer is a huge disappointment, and other modes have had minor improvements at best. All you’re really paying for is roster updates, WNBA and the opportunity to buy more VC. If that sounds like a good deal to you then jump in, but it really shouldn’t.

Everything a retro collection should be, but the games it includes mostly haven’t stood the test of time.

Ultimately, its value depends on your patience and capacity for high repetition. For me, I wasn’t terribly keen on The Deed: Dynasty, but I can see these developers heading in a promising direction, and I hope to see more of what they have to offer in the future.

Ultimately feels padded out and by the end of the game I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

If you love classics like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon and long for the arcade cabinet experience of the past, Kung Fury could be what you’re looking for, but its short length, frustrating mechanics and lack of variety really hold it back.

There’s a bit of a budget feel to WWE 2K Battlegrounds, thanks to its shared movesets and story presentation. Despite that though, it’s actually quite endearing to play, and it’s easy to have fun with it. Get a friend or two to play it in local multiplayer with you, and it really is a blast. It’s just a shame that so much of its content is locked away, forcing you to either grind for it, or fork out yet more cash to unlock it quickly. It really puts a downer on things, especially on Switch where if you’re playing outside of your home in handheld mode chances are you’ll be blocked from earning in-game currency.

TRON: Catalyst gets off to a good start, promising varied gameplay and a neat time-loop mechanic. The trouble is, it soon devolves in a dull affair with way too much repetitive combat, and the time-loop mechanic is mostly wasted.

I’m sure that it will find a small audience and fanbase because of its premise, but for me, a lack of overall presentation, a litany of technical pitfalls and average at best gameplay means it’s best to avoid Troll and I – just as you would Troll’s apparent stench.

Often [A Bastard’s Tale] ends up feeling like less of a game based on skill and timing and more on just blind luck.

There are good ideas in Super Dungeon Bros, such as the inclusion of challenges, the Call of Duty-esque upgrades, and the team-work centred dungeon-crawling. Where it falls down is at the basics: good, satisfying combat and challenging gameplay.

For all of Aqua Moto Racing Utopia’s light sense of fun and nostalgic reminiscence of past games like Wave Race 64 and Jet Moto, the act of taking to the waves is unfortunately tarnished by some frustratingly aggressive AI and a general lack of polish.

Panda Love bears little worth. It’s hard to justify paying the small fee for it on Wii U seeing as how you can play it for free online.

Textures looks incredibly stretched and muddy even on the highest setting and animations are clunky and stiff.

The difficulty [of Shiny Gauntlet] is often too much to bear and rarely encourages you to come back and try again.

Even though it’s arrived nine years later than planned (it was cancelled and later resurrected due to the 2011 Japanese earthquake) this is a step back for the Disaster Report/Zettai Zetsumei Toshi series. There are a few highlights, but Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories has so many rough edges, broken mechanics and frustrating, counter-intuitive elements that it’s anything but memorable.

As slick as Solar Shifter is when it comes to its style it just can’t be recommended when it comes to the gameplay. It’s a shame as the Xbox One could really do with some solid shoot ’em ups to help fill up the online store.

The obviously Hitman ‘inspired’ gameplay does start to get to you after a while, in an annoying fly-on-your-shoulder kind of way.

It’s clear that Saint Kotar has tried to draw inspiration from the likes of Broken Sword. From the way its exploration works to its dark themes and eerie environments, it really wants to be a point and click game worthy of cult status. That’s highly unlikely to ever happen, though. While interesting at times, its story is too poorly told to ever be truly enjoyable. And the ugly visuals, awful voice acting and budget interface mean most players are not likely to stick around.

Transformers: Galactic Trials is one of those games that has some good ideas but fails to execute them successfully. While the racing action is basic but fun, its on-foot sections are terrible, and there are other issues, too. And so, while it looks fairly nice, has plenty of unlockables and its roguelike elements add some variety between runs, it's ultimately impossible to recommend.

It’s a tough game to sit through – and not just in a “it deals with challenging subject matter” sort of way. It’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re having someone’s gross beliefs about their twisted ideology shoved down your throat. Its initial premise had me hooked at first, but the bait-and-switch of subject matter does not make for a pleasant experience.

The idea of developing your own ninja is a great one, but here it relies on you engaging in action that feels borderline broken at times, sucking all the fun out of the process.

Inspired by comedic boxing games such as Super Punch-Out!!, Leftovers KO! looks great but unfortunately it's just not that much fun to play. You might get some enjoyment out of fighting its foodstuffs if you have a lot of patience, but otherwise you'd be best to steer clear.

Funk of Titans feels like a free game you’d download from the app store to kill a few hours and then delete the same day.

Creeping Terror isn’t a game devoid of any good moments, but it’s one where they are so sparsely placed that it feels like you ended where you started, with the same questions. The 3DS just doesn’t have the chops for a true horror experience, and Creeping Terror isn’t immune to that.

Ultimately, Dying: Reborn is a halfway competent puzzler, but a failure as a horror game.

Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot really should not have been a standalone release; at the very least it should have been bundled in with the superior Wolfenstein: Youngblood. There are glimpses of potential here, but it’s lacking nearly everything that makes Wolfenstein fun. Gunning down Nazis in a virtual reality mech might sound like a lot of fun on paper, but the reality completely misses the mark.

Overall, Party Hard is not a game you need to play. There are some fun moments, sure, but predominantly it is boring, which is a cardinal sin when it comes to serial killers.

While Super Racing GT Turbo SPEC promises a fun arcade racing experience with its colour visuals and top-down viewpoint, it ultimately disappoints thanks to providing little excitement and having a serious lack of content and features.

Road Rage is like one of those terrible low-budget straight-to-video movies that occupies the shelves of your local supermarket: you know it’s rubbish but you can’t quite help but be bemused by it.

If you really like twin-stick shooters, and you were a fan of the 1997 original and desperately want to see how they’ve changed the ending, then maybe, just maybe, there is something here for you. Otherwise, get your rage out of the system another way.

It has some good ideas and interesting features, but it doesn’t feel polished enough to impress. Basically, it feels like it needed more time in development.

Whatever magic was left lost in the early 2000s, doesn’t resurface here through CTU. You’re still better off buying a used copy of Swat 4.

Solving the obscure puzzles of Scholar's Mate can be troublesome enough, and so when you also add in a pursuer and limited stealth mechanics, you're left with an experience that is generally unrewarding and frustrating.

It’s debateable whether most players will have the patience and persistence to see Do Not Open through until its end. It’s a shame, because the premise here is interesting, and the puzzles themselves are mostly clever and fun to solve. The entity is its downfall, an ill-conceived obstacle that’s relentless and a little bit broken. Rather than make Do Not Open scary, it makes it needlessly frustrating.

If you gel with Yuoni‘s brand of hide-and-seek horror accompanied by basic storytelling you might get your money’s worth. Making your way through the game’s levels is likely to take you four or five hours the first time, then you unlock a harder mode which holds the game’s true ending. You’ll need a lot of patience though. The repetitive gameplay simply fails to engage like it should. And even worse for a horror game, it’s just not scary at all. Ultimately, Yuoni is a disappointment.

Unlike its protagonist, Groundhog Day: Like Father Like Son shows little interest in forging its own identity. If you’re craving a return to Punxsutawney, rewatching the movie is a far more rewarding choice.

It may be cute and colourful, but that's practically all that Tamagotchi Plaza has going for it. Essentially a collection of minigames, the activities on offer here are mostly dull and repetitive, and as there are no tutorials they are fairly inaccessible to younger players. One or two of the games are somewhat entertaining, but certainly not enough make this a title worth recommending.

The few interesting ideas Zombeer has with regards to art-style, setting and voice talent, are all squandered due to an overall lack of presentation and polish.

It's not a very polished game, and mechanically it's underwhelming. It's a shame, because there's plenty of content in the package, and throwing vehicles around bumpy dirt tracks should be a lot of fun. But it just isn't for the most part.

Don't let its disarming visuals fool you – Formula Legends is a pretty serious racing game at its core. The problem is, the racing on offer isn't all that fun. Add in a lack of game modes, and you're better off picking up any of the recent official Formula One games – they're more accessible and have features such as multiplayer, after all.

As fans of LEGO, LEGO Brawls should have been the brawling game of our dreams. But unfortunately, it’s nothing but a massive disappointment. Collecting minifigs is fun, and creating your characters even more so. The actual gameplay, however, is monotonous, repetitive, and ultimately devoid of any real depth. LEGO Brawls is impossible to recommend, then. Even to the most ardent LEGO fan.

Ace of Seafood is not completely awful, but there’s no ignoring the plethora of issues that plague the experience.

With a running time of around ten hours, it speaks volumes that Arc of Alchemist still manages to outstay its welcome. Chances are you’ll be bored of it within two. Even its bosses aren’t noteworthy. If you do somehow manage to find yourself fond of the game, there’s New Game + so you can start again and maybe try a different party, but god knows why you’d want to. Arc of Alchemist isn’t the worst action RPG I’ve ever played, but it’s crushingly dire, and not worthy of your time or money.

It has good intentions and elements of suitable design, but it’s mostly fluff.

While Attack of the Earthlings is aiming to be more casual than its counterparts, its gameplay really is too simple to be interesting for more than a few minutes. This, mixed with the criminally awkward and slow animations, makes the game little more than a chore, broken up a few some decent jokes.

I did not enjoy my time with Bookbound Brigade, but I do say that with a heavy heart. I really wanted to like the game. It has a lot of character and some nice work has gone into its visual design. But its problems are insurmountable and ultimately you’re left with a game that’s too frustrating and filled with too many issues to ever be fun to play. At least Bookbound Brigade tries some different ideas on for size. They don’t fit, but at least the developer tries. Isn’t that what counts? “It’s not the winning, but the taking part.” Sadly, nobody’s a winner playing Bookbound Brigade, and there’s nothing to celebrate by taking part, either.

So, should you buy Evil Inside? Probably not unless you’re really desperate to be reminded of P.T., or truly love jump scares. Though even then, the fact that it’s only an hour long should make you think twice. On the balance of things it’s not a terrible horror game, but it brings nothing new to the table at all. It tries to mimic P.T. but is inferior to it in pretty much every way. Even worse, you have to pay for the pleasure.

Don't Mess With Bober has a humorous premise, but its gameplay isn't all that enjoyable with stealth sections that ultimately rely on trial on error. It's also very, very short.

A game of extreme peaks of troughs. At times it’s dreadfully boring; other times it’s wildly exciting. It doesn’t want to make your life easy, but then throws so much resources your way that being downed is trivial. It looks great, but it has a lot of bugs that will only make you able to view the game as ugly. Like Marmite, Generation Zero will dramatically split opinion. But it’s not just a matter of taste – Generation Zero‘s glitches and ill-implemented mechanics are just as much to blame.

Bar some buggy controls and slightly mediocre gameplay, it might have been an enjoyable blast of nostalgia… But Starfighter Origins flaunts its influences so brazenly that it’s difficult, no matter how much I tell myself that it was made by a small team of indie devs, not to compare it to those giants of the genre.

If Cubikolor was about half its asking price on the store, then it may be worth picking up if you’re looking for a new brainteaser to sink your teeth into. As it stands though, there are plenty of other games available that offer a better and broader challenge – and in some cases, at a much cheaper price.

The whole time you feel you are playing through a disjointed connection of apparitions that tie a loose story together, all a bit too far removed to create any meaningful attachment.

If Overpass‘ events were a bit shorter, if you felt like you had more of a connection with your vehicle, if you didn’t get stuck so often, then it would actually be a decent game. As it stands, however, it’s rarely fun. Playing Overpass just made me angry, and I don’t like being angry. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall, repeatedly. It’s frustrating beyond belief. Why would you want to pay to introduce that feeling into your life?

That’s really the problem here – Detective: Stella Porta Case is just too rough around the edges to really stand out. To say this is a solo dev project it’s a commendable effort, but it doesn’t make for the most fulfilling experience as a player. It’s janky and barebones, and the frustration of figuring out each crime’s timeline outweighs any satisfaction you might feel from cracking the case.

Ultimately, Tennis World Tour 2‘s new timing-based shot system ruins what could have been a decent or even good tennis game. It makes gameplay so unpredictable, and not in a good way. If you plan on buying Tennis World Tour 2 just to play exhibition matches as your favourite professional players, you might get some fun out of it thanks to their boosted stats making things more lenient. But career mode will be unbearable for most, requiring either an obscene amount of skill or an inhuman amount of patience. AO Tennis 2 remains the best tennis game available right now, so just stick to that.

Monster Jam: Crush It! is crushingly disappointing, taking the recipe for what should have been a simple yet enjoyable game and then failing to add even the most basic of ingredients.

Krinkle Krusher is a simplistic and generic tower defence game that is made worse by its use of its imprecise physical controls.

After two decades in development hell, Captain Blood has finally seen light of day — but it probably shouldn't have. Its controls and gameplay are rooted in the past, but its problems stretch far beyond feeling a little old-fashioned.

Monumental isn’t a bad game. It’s just a badly made game. I think that somewhere in here was a really genuine idea at heart, and looking at its page on the Steam store, that is so obvious. The world design is actually pretty nice but the game itself is plagued by buggy mediocrity and dull audio design. I wouldn’t recommend Monumental, but I think something amazing could have come from it. Clear away the bugs, dust off the boredom and you might have had something worth playing here.

Ultimate Fishing Simulator has its share of flaws, but it’s the constant grind that really sinks this game.

What Lies Beneath features frustrating puzzles, confusing voice actor swaps, and all around unnecessary changes – but still manages to squeeze in a bit of interesting storytelling.

While it has a decent chiptune soundtrack, there's little else positive to say about Terrifier: The ARTcade Game. The gameplay here is overshadowed by most side-scrollers of recent years, making it a massive disappointment. Art the Clown deserves better.

On the whole, Umbrella Corps is very much a missed opportunity. Light on content, unbalanced, and rough around the edges, it has some good ideas but they are drowned by its issues, making for an experience that is rarely fulfilling.