Beyond remains a unique experience, even as the tools implemented in its creation have become commonplace. It's filled with concepts that are immediately odd and illogical, but if you accept them on their own terms, they add up to a fascinating if unconventional tale. Beyond remains an imperfect experience but is still compelling for what it accomplishes.

NHL 21 is a fantastic ice hockey game that pushes the series forward with an enjoyable, engaging story mode in Be A Pro and a flashy, arcade-style way to play with HUT Rush. The new skill moves are a welcome addition to the mix to give players new ways to be slippery and keep defenders guessing, but the best part of NHL 21 is its solid foundation thanks to its excellent controls and presentation package that is getting even closer to mirroring a TV broadcast.

An interesting take on a classic concept, but as with many reinterpretations of canonical standards, it isn't better than its source material.

It focuses on something far more interesting than buildings: people. This makes for an enthralling combination of city building and role-playing, with enough personality, activity, and variety to do justice to both genres.

An excellent, well-put-together action adventure game that most fans of the genre should be able to enjoy and any Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan will love.

Silent Hill 3 isn't so much about gameplay as it is about creating a disturbing world and immersing you in it, which is something it does very well.

Though the actual battles in Impossible Creatures aren't all that great, the game's offbeat premise, good looks, enjoyable campaign, and open-ended design make it both distinctive and recommendable.

There really isn't much to Medal of Honor Allied Assault Breakthrough that you haven't already seen before, and it's definitely not a product that will make people go out and buy Medal of Honor Allied Assault if they haven't already.

Siren's dreamy, unsettling experience is ultimately marred by tedious trial-and-error-based design that makes it best suited to survival horror fans with a good store of patience.

As video games go, Sheep Raider is neither spectacular, nor challenging, nor interesting.

While there are more available wrestlers and more custom edit options in this new game, there isn't much that is actually new, improved, or different when compared with the original release.

Improvements have been made to such an extent that this latest release stacks up well against the pedigree established by the console versions of the franchise.

Still lacks some of the finer details of the sport as well as some features that are being offered by the competition, most notably online play.

Comes with a new coat of paint and a new gameplay mechanic, but at its core, it's still the same old Puyo Pop.

The game may not break much new ground, but with near-perfect visuals and addictive gameplay, NFL Blitz 2001 is major football fun.

Surge is far from perfect, but none of its problems are deal breakers. They're minor bumps that come from an otherwise inventive, exciting new entry in a packed sub-genre. It bucks the trend towards creative bankruptcy, adopting some fresh ideas and layering those together with aesthetics, tone, and play to create an inspired adventure.

While it does have some minor issues, Control streaming on Switch is impressive. Even a few rooms away from my WiFi router, the game always handled well, and I was able to fight through battle after battle with the Hiss with nothing more bothering me than a less-than-optimum frame rate. This isn't the most beautiful-looking version of Control, but it's also nothing to sneer at, and it's boosted by the opportunity to play such a big, technically demanding game on a handheld system. Venturing through the Oldest House on the Switch mostly feels great, and this is a solid, convenient way to experience one of 2019's best--along with all its DLC--if you haven't already.

The latest entry in Capcom's ambitious role-playing series sets out to hunt monsters, but only manages to shoot itself in the foot.

Grand Ages: Rome is yet another generic city-builder set in ancient Rome.

Remember Me is a good game loaded with intriguing ideas; here's hoping that its sequel, should we ever have one, rides these ideas to greatness.

On the surface, this is a simplistic horror game with a claustrophobic atmosphere and plenty of creepy moments. The straightforward puzzles and unusual visuals give it wide appeal. Beneath that there are secrets to uncover and the subliminal pleasure of playing as the monster. For those that want to probe deeper there are angles of art and psychology to ponder. Stacked up like the rickety tiers of a gothic building, Layers of Fear proves aptly named.

Crisp visuals and legions of enemies struggle to invigorate the lackluster Serious Sam 3: BFE.

A lazy porting job hinders Bully's classic classroom hijinks.

It's the battles themselves that make the most forcible argument for spending 25-plus hours with Final Fantasy Type-0, for it's in the combat arenas that Orience truly comes to life.

Though The Getaway's combination of driving and on-foot shooting sequences is occasionally entertaining, and the production values are impressive, usually the game just isn't fun--in place of almost every gaming convention The Getaway boldly tries to defy, it offers a significantly worse alternative.

Yet DC Universe Online tips its hand early on; in all too short a time, it stops offering any real surprises, remaining approachable but never wading too far from the shallow end of the pool.

Even if the technical hiccups get fixed in a patch, though, the Wonderful 101 doesn’t stand the test of time. Remastered or not, I constantly felt like there were missing steps or if I was figuring things out too slowly to keep up with the hyperactive story and its multifaceted gameplay. What’s more, the transition to the Switch, even with its touchscreen capabilities has only exacerbated the game’s core problems. There’s a great concept and the good combat mechanics we know Platinum can achieve in there, but you’ll need a lot of patience to find them.

It's light on new features, but NBA 2K8 is still a solid basketball game if you have yet to make the leap to the new generation of consoles.

Omega Five may not be brimming with content, but what's there is visually dazzling and packed with challenging action.

RacePro is an incredibly in-depth racing game that's also an accessible and enjoyable driving experience.

It's a shame that Anno 2205 takes the game so far into the future and does so little of substance with that premise. Not much has changed from Anno 2070, and what has is almost always worse. Anno 2205 still has a sturdy core of satisfying city planning and construction, but so much has been cut out as to make the game barely worth playing at all.

Certain aspects of the 06 game have definitely been improved over its forebear. However, the gameplay didn't keep up its end of the bargain, so it's a case of two steps forward and two steps back.

This is a JRPG layered atop a tactical strategy game layered atop a murder mystery, and somehow, the resulting structure holds up reasonably well.

This enjoyable turn-based strategy game has plenty to offer solo players and online skirmishers alike.

Despite feeling somewhat formulaic, this installment of Ys still provides a bunch of challenging, old-school hack-and-slash action for devoted thumb-warriors.

This budget-priced bonus pack features several additions to the original game, but it also exists as a playable, stand-alone product--albeit one that isn't as interesting on its own as it is when combined with the original.

Overlord: Raising Hell may be the most feature-rich version of the game yet, but an unpredictable frame rate, sluggish controls, and a clunky camera detract from the minion-controlling fun.

MLB Bobblehead Pros wastes its cute arcade baseball premise on shoddy pitching and fielding mechanics.

Full Bore's bluesy music is catchy, the animations are equally charming and unsettling, the puzzles are often fun to solve, and there are hints of a good, dark mystery behind the greater plot.

It's crude and blunt, and its name may not turn many heads, but underneath its blood-soaked surface lies immense potential. It is also free-to-play, so there's no reason not to leap in and bask in the chaotic frenzy with your personally crafted weapon in hand.

Thanks to its rock-solid execution, Thrillville delivers an enjoyable batch of minigames in a lighthearted theme park environment.

This console and PC trip through the Wardrobe is a mostly run-of-the-mill action adventure that might hold some measure of appeal to fans of the film, but not so much anyone else.

Tokobot is a charming and entertaining platformer, and its only major setback is that there isn't more of it to go around.

Eating the brains of the living to form a massive army of the undead is extremely satisfying, often hilarious, and, unfortunately, almost painfully brief.

The expansion to last year's excellent shooter differs very little from its predecessor, in terms of plot, and heaps on more of the same tense tactical combat we've come to expect from the franchise.

The game's high level of challenge can lead to some proportionally satisfying victories against all odds.

Though it too often strays into an underdeveloped and unsatisfying combat system, when it sticks to adventure, it's quite successful.

Though the game isn't perfect, it is a wonderful accomplishment on the part of the developers, and it is simply very fun to play.

Could have benefited from a better interface, but at its core, Battlegrounds is still a good game.

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground gets most of the Tony Hawk formula down, but the parts that stray from that formula are the parts that don't work out so well.

It may be about garbage, but Trash Panic is not rubbish: It's an innovative puzzler that rewards patience, planning, and those looking for a healthy challenge.

As far as the Tales series is concerned, there’s no overestimating the value of familiarity, which is why "comfort food" is a term often used to describe it.

There’s much to do in this fun, but strictly offline fighting game.

Hitman Go VR feels unnecessary. It's an excellent puzzle game, but it's already available on a bunch of different platforms where it plays very well; the non-VR versions will be enough to enjoy everything Hitman Go has to offer. Solving its puzzles is as satisfying and enjoyable as eliminating a target without getting detected, but the VR version shouldn't be your first choice to experience them. [VR Tested]

Cars 2 is a colorful and varied racer that's a lot of fun to play with friends and family.

It's a well-worn cliche at this point, but if you're a fan of RoboCop, then you'll find a lot to love in Rogue City. It's chock full of Easter eggs and manages to capture the look and feel of the first two RoboCop movies with excellent attention to detail, even getting Peter Weller to reprise his role as the eponymous hero. More than anything, it does a tremendous job of making you feel like RoboCop in its best moments. Combat is shallow because of this devotion to authenticity, but it excels when you're able to fully personify the relentless killing machine. It missteps when moving away from this, resulting in some dull firefights, yet these failings are mitigated somewhat by its embrace of a well-rounded RoboCop, regularly breaking away from the action for more nuanced moments of crime fighting. Rogue City might not be for everyone, but at least it's not RoboCop 3.

Zero-gravity combat and some interesting twists make Shattered Horizon a unique, if somewhat limited, multiplayer shooter.

Burdened by clumsy controls and predictable artificial intelligence, Tenkaichi 2 is a game that can be loved only by forgiving DBZ fans.

Mount & Blade has some innovative ideas, but still needs a lot of work.

The essence of Team Sonic Racing is good; its handling feels tight and smooth, drifting has a good flow to it, and the items are fun to use, as are the tracks to race on. It doesn’t bring much new to the genre, but it delivers where it counts. The racing is fast and fun, and the team aspects offer enough of a change to the formula to make Team Sonic Racing the endearing arcade racer it is.

Though not nearly as enticing as some of its downloadable predecessors, Claptrap's New Robot Revolution still provides hours of enjoyable mercenary mayhem.

It's not the revelation that Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light was--it's a bit too glitchy and dated to herald it a new classic, in spite of the welcome addition of four-person online play.

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead is a certainly flawed but also intriguing attempt to make a video game out of a premise that seems not to be conducive to this medium. Crouch-walking around a monster for several hours should've probably been a worse experience, but it proves to be a sound idea that may have been a cult classic if it only had more attention to detail.

An evolutionary step above what Stormfront did with "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," and players who appreciate that brand of brute-force, hack-and-slash gameplay should find in it a great-looking and enjoyable, if somewhat familiar, experience.

The pure charisma of LocoRoco Cocorrecho will win you over, though the game itself is over before you know it.

Taken as a tightly cropped slice of the action, Blade Symphony's arena duels showcase some stunning character designs, downright poetic combat maneuvers, and exciting combat mechanics. But that's only a small piece of an unfinished and rather sloppy whole. This multiplayer fighter looks, feels, and actually is incomplete in spots, which puts a real damper on the few bright elements that make it almost worth the fuss.

When Mothergunship is firing on all cylinders, it's a satisfying and thrilling shooter where it really counts. With an incredibly fun and never uninteresting gun-crafting mechanic, it certainly goes a long way with its clever hook and an endless flow of enemies to gun down.

Some blemishes exist, most prominently in the tuning of the encounter rate and how world travel is handled, but genre and series fans will find it easy to like this otherwise well-crafted adventure.

Mercenaries 2 is filled with bugs and glitches that are unacceptable in a retail release. Even if it were possible to overlook the broken elements, you're still left with abysmal AI, repetitive mission structure, unsatisfying weapons, and a huge world without much to do.

It's a familiar formula, but Justice League Heroes offers something interesting by blending dungeon-crawling convention with comic book heroics.

Friendly controls and a wealth of customization options make Worms: Battle Islands one the most accessible Worms games to date. But it doesn't really offer anything new.

Dark Sector lacks the compelling storyline that it alludes to early on, but offers plenty of enjoyable combat nonetheless.

Off the Record provides as much entertainment as last year's Dead Rising 2 because it's almost exactly the same game.

Endless Ocean is a unique game that will strike a chord with some and fall flat with others.

The game delivers genuinely solid gameplay, which is sure to please those who're seeking nothing more than a visually efficient, effectively designed shooter.

Big, complex, and definitely not for a casual player seeking a little light entertainment.

On its own merits, this expansion is a reasonably good deal, but it's best suited for the hard-core Disciples II fan who wishes to play every single official scenario for the game.

Acclaim Studios Cheltenham has produced a polished, high-quality racer that makes impressive use of the PS's aging hardware set.

There's a ton to do, and it lasts for a respectable number of hours.

It's a great game and definitely worth purchasing if you didn't already buy Blitz 2002, but Blitz 2002 owners may wish to rent this one first to see if the changes are meaningful enough to them to warrant another purchase.

Some sluggish racing gameplay and a lack of any real depth beyond the game's offline multiplayer component and slightly taxing career mode mar the experience enough to prevent Eve of Destruction from living up to its potential.

A great game that fixes a lot of the little problems with the 2002 game and adds a couple of nice features.

This is a technically competent add-on that feels like it was designed to latch onto a growing co-op trend and to plug a gap in the game's multiplayer repertoire because the market research said to, rather than something designed with some real heart and soul behind it.

It front loads its best content, only to fade in quality as the hours roll by. Star Wars Battlefront's skin is beautiful, but its legs are shaking, and threaten to buckle with time.

With only a select few events, no discernible difference between each car's handling, and a simplistic driving model, Need for Speed Heat does stumble into repetition during its final few hours. It's not quite a rip-roaring return to form, then, but this latest entry puts the Need for Speed series back on the right track.

There's a lot to like about EA FC 25, from the overhauled tactics to the chaotic addition of Rush and a few welcome improvements to Career mode. It's not a resounding victory, however. The on-field action has stagnated, maintaining its quality but also plenty of its flaws, while changes to Ultimate Team feel antagonistic in their design. In the near future, issues like input lag and its propensity to crash will hopefully be fixed, but the same is unlikely to be true for its long-standing problems. At the end of the day--to borrow common football player lingo--there's fun to be had with EA FC 25, especially if you enjoyed last year's game, but rather than taking a significant leap forward, it's content to settle for midtable form.

A New Beginning's fantastic visuals and enjoyable story offset its glaring translation and voice-over flaws.

At first it's great to engage with Housemarque's tried-and-tested designs again, but Matterfall never manages to build off of its promising foundation, and it even mishandles one of the studio's longest-standing mechanics: dashing. There is still some fun to be had, and it's easy to appreciate the technical artistry on display, but factor in inconsistent controls and long load times, and it's easy to grow frustrated throughout the Matterfall's short campaign.

Super Dragon Ball Z doesn't have the depth of the serious fighting games it patterns itself after, providing an experience that is hardly any more technical than certain past DBZ fighters, and without the exceedingly over-the-top charm that has been a series hallmark.

Along with crowds of evil creatures, you'll have to contend with an often-cumbersome battle system and some odd design choices that rob much of the adventure of its luster.

The wholly original cut-and-paste visual style of Amped 3--combined with the manic, increasingly crazy energy of the story mode--make it easier to forgive the oft-repetitive and occasionally plain gameplay.

NBA Live 18 is a welcome return for EA's basketball series, but doesn't come close to matching the greatness of NBA 2K11 or 2K16.

Dementium is a handheld mixture of Doom and Silent Hill that is about as scary as a game played on a 3-inch screen on the bus can be.

This challenging, often-hilarious platformer provides a huge shift in the usually strategic Disgaea series.

Broken Sword 5's second part is noticeably shorter, coming in at fewer than five hours when compared to the first part's six, and its linear nature diminishes the joy of exploration. Nevertheless, Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse is a solid installment in the nearly 20-year-old franchise, delivering a captivating story with great characters and loads of good-natured humor.

It's a lot of fun to paint the town red in this black and white open-world game, but the weak stealth elements limit your options.

An average shooter that doesn't offer up more than a handful of satisfying thrills throughout its single-player and multiplayer modes. You'll certainly play worse FPS games in your lifetime, but you'll also certainly play better ones, too.

Even when its flaws are obvious, Chasm is a well-crafted adventure, and during the more than 12 hours I spent playing through my first time, I got lost only once.