This movie trivia game offers consistent multiplayer fun despite its limited feature set.

Come to Short Peace for the variety of content, stay for the imaginative and masterful animation, but leave Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day at the door unless you're in desperate need of something to pass the time.

I'm left with mixed feelings about Bravely Default II. There's a lot to like and a core that's still fun and engaging. But the removal of some key quality-of-life features gives this experience a lot more friction than the prior games. I've loved the Bravely Default series for letting me feel like I'm 15 again--with all the time in the world to grind out a full set of level-99 characters--while still respecting my time by recognizing I don't actually want to do that. Bravely Default II asked me to put in the tedious work and lost some of the series' identity in the process.

Brunswick Pro Bowling proffers dry simulation fare that only a big fan of professional bowling could love.

Still, for all that Bleeding Edge gets right, it really feels like the game's "early days." It’s missing crucial staples of competitive games, like ranked play, which allows you to invest the experience and keeps people playing, long-term. I'd like to believe Microsoft and Ninja Theory will keep tweaking and expanding the game so it can compete with other competitive multiplayer games, but right now it feels like a temporary multiplayer fix for players looking to break up the monotony, rather than the next esports obsession.

Colosseum has a few fun moments, but they're mired in dull hack-and-slash gameplay that isn't compelling or rewarding enough to make the game worth playing.

It gets the job done, but NASCAR 2011 is a better reminder of the great old NASCAR games than it is a good game in its own right.

There’s comfort to be found in the simple mission goals, but it’s impossible to ignore how repetitive they are--and how outdated they make Resurrection feel in practice.

The hokey storyline, complete with bad B-movie live-action scenes, makes the whole thing feel campy and fun, and what Maximum Chase might lack in longevity it makes up for with sheer craziness.

Despite various minor improvements, Mega Man Star Force isn't significantly different than the GBA Battle Network games.

Overly basic combat and puzzles keep Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken from taking flight.

Redeemer teeters but never topples over the line into drudgery. For what it's worth, the added mechanics do at least introduce a variety of options for dispatching the legion of enemies Vasily faces in his bloody rampage toward vengeance for his fallen temple.

When it's working properly, Dominion Wars still just ends up feeling like a really slick series companion rather than like a full-blown strategy game.

Virtua Tennis is too easy and inconsistent to entertain you for long.

Considered as a whole, Ultra Smash does just enough to get by. At moments it shines and at others it frustrates, but mostly it just coasts.

Danger Zone is the beating heart of a concept in search of a full-fledged game to pump life into. While it won't satisfy your lust for chaos the way the Burnout games once did, Danger Zone provides enough thrills to make you want that hypothetical successor more than ever.

The old magic of Crash Mode rises to the surface often enough for Danger Zone to be a fun diversion, but this excitement is ironically muted when the game decides to turn up the intensity in its later levels.

Still, Song of the Deep's mix of combat, puzzle-solving, and exploration generally lands somewhere around "fine," even if it waivers between aggravating and enjoyable in the process. And although the game tests your patience more often than your skill, its engrossing world and excellent story keep the experience afloat through it all.

Ereban: Shadow Legacy sits in a weird place for me. As a stealth game, it rarely challenged me, reducing protagonist Ayana into a one-trick pony that could sneak past any target with the same shadow merge skill every time. But as a platformer, Shadow Legacy incorporates some entertaining puzzles that grow increasingly complex and rewarding to overcome. I never quite managed to connect to Ayana's journey against the autonomous overlords planning to doom an entire civilization, but I had a lot of fun slinking up walls and exploding out of the darkness, striving to time my jumps with the movement of a windmill and the rotating shadow it was casting. Those nail-biting moments are the ones that stuck with me, not the dozenth time I slunk past an unsuspecting droid.

Ratatouille is a sufficient, if unfulfilling, platformer.

Despite its faults, Little Hope can't help but remind me of the reasons I love Supermassive's take on the modern narrative adventure game. The studio is masterful at producing tension through gameplay as simple as a well-timed button press, and Little Hope is a high-water mark for the studio's technical proficiency. While the story and character work are uncharacteristically lackluster, Little Hope still manages to offer a solid foundation for Supermassive's future.

Uniqueness is one of Zanki Zero's biggest selling points, but its myriad ambitions and ideas aren't enough to obscure the elements that don't work as well. While the novelty of the game, its interesting story, and engaging exploration do a lot to carry it, it falters in some crucial spots that drag down the whole.

Prey is a game of uneven pacing and uninteresting characters. It opens with a poignant, thought-provoking premise, but fails to follow through until the end, when it claims a revelation it doesn't quite earn. Its gameplay falters out of the gate, eventually maturing into something worthwhile, if a bit familiar. As an homage to System Shock it's competent and at times even enjoyable. However, Prey fails to distinguish itself, and next to immersive sim contemporaries such as Dishonored, it feels stagnant.

Interesting online modes salvage this derivative street racer from total mediocrity.

Eternal Strands is a straightforward action-adventure game. The physics-based magic system adds a lot of fun and satisfyingly strategic energy to Brynn's regular run-ins with colossal enemies, but smaller threats rarely rise above being a tedious hindrance. And although the history of the world is interesting to uncover and conversations with Brynn's party members a regularly lively delight, the actual moment-to-moment story beats don't feel all that compelling. It's a shame that Eternal Strands' lows drag parts of its experience down, because the narrative and gameplay have clear highs that would excel in a game that wasn't holding them back.

Despite some nagging issues, Slow Down, Bull is charming, with plenty of good messages to share for the whole family.

Dinner With Friends tastes like reheated leftovers.

Yonder is beautiful and relaxing, but only up to a certain point. It's great for the first few hours, wandering around and discovering new sights, but the world ultimately leaves you wanting more depth and personality to explore.

Has some short-term appeal, but over time it makes you feel like a glorified exterminator, tediously eliminating an endless stream of generic monsters for no real reason.

The UI is still an unintuitive mess, the story is still laughably bad and impossible for new players to avoid, and finding players to join my Crew frequently took far too long. And while the driving mechanics and general visuals have undoubtedly improved, they still haven't caught up to other, better racing games like Forza and Need For Speed. As a result, The Crew as a whole remains a lackluster experience, even with its monster truck half-pipes.

It's a shame the wrestling isn't up to par in WWE 2K14 because the elements surrounding it are so interesting.

In Harvest Hunt, the stakes are real, but the scares aren't. There is tension in the game, but it doesn't rise to the heights it wants to due to a central villain who can't pull their weight. That places a figurative ceiling over its best moments, but it does have bright spots. I appreciate its rustic, askew art style and interlocking roguelite systems, which give me an objective worth hunting down in a folk-horror world that at least looks, and in some ways, plays, the part.

Given Second Son's greatness, I had hoped for something more than a time-waster, but this Infamous has no bite.

While it seems like it's missing a lick of paint to make sure that its aesthetics are as strong as its mechanics, it's still a smart step forward and a good example of how we can pay homage to the beloved works of others with originality.

For anyone who grew up loving professional wrestling, be prepared to be swept away in a tide of nostalgia. If only the core action could have been as compelling.

Invizimals wows for a while with its augmented-reality visuals, but the limits of the technology and some baffling design decisions soon shatter the illusion.

While it seems like it's missing a lick of paint to make sure that its aesthetics are as strong as its mechanics, it's still a smart step forward and a good example of how we can pay homage to the beloved works of others with originality.

Track & Field holds up fairly well and makes for some good, albeit short-term, fun.

With far more technical issues than normal and large chunks of recycled content, Madden NFL 21 feels more like an update than a brand-new game.

Warhammer 3 opens strongly. The narrative hook of the prologue sinks deep and the raft of tweaks to the strategic layer and tactical battles are all welcome. But it can't sustain the early momentum. The endgame objectives feel like a distraction, even though they're the main point, and serve only to diminish the entire campaign. The factions all have different reasons for wanting the endgame MacGuffin, but none of those motivations make a difference to how the campaign plays out. They're all trapped in the same Chaos Realm, going through the same motions, in pursuit of the same unsatisfying win conditions. In the end, Total War: Warhammer 3 is a good game--there just isn't a good reason to see it through to the bitter end.

While it seems like it's missing a lick of paint to make sure that its aesthetics are as strong as its mechanics, it's still a smart step forward and a good example of how we can pay homage to the beloved works of others with originality.

With its limited depth, Brave Soldiers can't hold its own against more technical fighters on the market, and the tedium and lackluster presentation of the story mode won't give anyone who's not already a fan of the series much of a reason to become one.

It's very short, so even novice adventure gamers won't have much trouble finishing it in a few sessions.

Wheelman offers plenty of movie-style thrills, although it's hamstrung by terrible on-foot gameplay.

This block-busting platformer has plenty of quirky charm, but the action is too simple to be interesting for long.

For its new locations and weapons, the turbulent waters of Maine are a satisfying compliment to Fallout 4. But where Far Harbor succeeds in delivering more of the same great gameplay and oddball characters that made the main campaign such a joy, it can't muster an interesting story.

AWE is the story of expectations not quite meeting reality. It's exciting to see Alan Wake become a full-fledged addition to the Control universe and to catch up on different aspects of Remedy's growing universe. But this feels much more like a taste of what might come in future games than a strong addition to what's been built in Control. AWE is a missed opportunity for Remedy to really embrace Control's deep weirdness, and it's a missed opportunity for it to really expand on the story of Alan Wake after so much waiting. It's the unfortunate side effect of the idea of a shared universe--in teasing the next installment in the growing story, AWE doesn't do much to serve the story it's already in.

This survival horror game trades typical zombies for a pack of sadistic children, but its compelling premise and creepy atmosphere only partly make up for the mostly bland gameplay.

Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions includes some great games, but that's not enough to make it a great compilation.

Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption is an ambitious game that brings something new to an increasingly popular style of action game.

There's some interesting gameplay and a rewarding challenge to be found in Strength of the Sword 3, but you're going to need some serious patience to get the most out of this game.

With only minimal improvements to a well-worn formula, the Harvest Moon series is starting to show its age.

It over-confidently asserts twists and conundrums, without doing enough to earn your investment in the outcome of your decisions. If a moving story is what you're after, steer your ship back to the shores of the Commonwealth.

What is present in this collection ends up feeling like a disjointed ride through the latter half of Mega Man's history, an area with plenty of lessons to learn, but not always ones you're meant to enjoy. Seen as half of a whole, with the first Mega Man Legacy Collection, however, and you do have something resembling a fascinating compendium of games, albeit with a lot more to skip out on in its second half.

Sk8land looks slick and controls like a Tony Hawk game should, but its skate park designs are weak and its story mode missions lack creativity.

Cities XL 2012 merely adds some new buildings and maps to the otherwise identical Cities XL 2011.

Curious George may be squarely aimed at a younger audience, but even they will likely tire of its overly repetitive minigames and extremely simplistic platforming.

At $15, NES Remix is a pricey piece of packaged nostalgia. For me, playing through these mini-challenges and unlocking new stages and new games was an enjoyable whirlwind tour of some of my fondest gaming memories. But then again, I've been on this vacation before.

For its new locations and weapons, the turbulent waters of Maine are a satisfying compliment to Fallout 4. But where Far Harbor succeeds in delivering more of the same great gameplay and oddball characters that made the main campaign such a joy, it can't muster an interesting story.

Bionic Commando has some enjoyable moments, but consistent fun always seems just out of arm's reach.

Life is Strange paints an excellent, vivid picture of a young woman's struggle for acceptance and justice, but trips itself up by trying to make things gamey.

A number of frustrations diminish the fun, but you'll still have a reasonably good time with this Force-powered adventure.

What is present in this collection ends up feeling like a disjointed ride through the latter half of Mega Man's history, an area with plenty of lessons to learn, but not always ones you're meant to enjoy. Seen as half of a whole, with the first Mega Man Legacy Collection, however, and you do have something resembling a fascinating compendium of games, albeit with a lot more to skip out on in its second half.

There's a great role-playing game here, but it's hiding behind a terrible interface and clunky combat.

The thrill of pulling off a flawless assassination as you smoothly sneak off with valuable artifacts is what makes these types of games worth playing. But its detractors--cliche writing, unsophisticated AI, and arbitrary quests--culminate to an experience that feels like it's stuck in the past.

Breach delivers some excitement, but its generic online first-person shooter action and a number of performance issues prevent it from standing out from the crowd.

If you're set on playing the original Age of Empires, this is far and away the best way to do so. That said, real-time strategy is a very feature-heavy genre. While this is the tightest the original AoE has ever been, it’s still sluggish and stripped-down compared to almost any modern offering.

In the end, Disney Dreamlight Valley still managed to captivate me thanks to its wonderful cast of characters and their magical worlds. The cozy life-sim concept allows you to gather, farm, and build at a leisurely pace. Unfortunately, I was also disappointed by the decision to have a real-time sync feature and an unclear progression path that’s compounded by repetitive tasks. The quests that you undertake aren't skill-based either--they're patience-based, so to speak, as any mistake made when unlocking biomes or spending materials can be downright exasperating. Two concepts clash here: the delightful and whimsical themes that spark the joy of your inner childhood, and the frustrations of time management as you experience the monotonous daily grind as an adult.

Curious George may be squarely aimed at a younger audience, but even they will likely tire of its overly repetitive minigames and extremely simplistic platforming.

Once you get over the whole rewriting-the-end-of-the-movie thing, Scarface: The World Is Yours is a competent but usually uninteresting action game.

Cute, colorful, and boring.

On the lively and intriguing battlefields of Brink, technical deficiencies and design issues can be as deadly as enemy soldiers.

Victorious Boxers isn't awful, but it's hampered by a lousy control scheme. Sure, you can play it with a standard controller to make the action a little smoother, but even then it's just an average experience.

Saints Row reins in the absurdity to a fairly significant degree but still manages to indulge in some of the chaotic action and silly hijinks the series is known for. Its story is simple and fairly predictable, yet spending time with its diverse and well-rounded characters makes it worth seeing through to the end. It's a shame the gameplay isn't quite as progressive, opting instead for out-of-date mechanics and level design. Combat is decent, and the story missions are enjoyable when at their most over-the-top, but there's too much bland filler in between. Rebooting the series made sense, yet in many ways, Saints Row is still stuck in the past and struggling to live up to its legacy.

Cute, colorful, and boring.

Super Soldier presents a bland-looking world with a bevy of mechanical problems, but beating down foreign aggressors still delivers patriotic fun.

The lack of gameplay depth and the game's frequently erratic difficulty make it tough to recommend to anyone who isn't absolutely desperate for a game about big trucks.

On the lively and intriguing battlefields of Brink, technical deficiencies and design issues can be as deadly as enemy soldiers.

In a sea of clearly defined morality systems, Unrest proves that sometimes the best waters consist of infinite shades of gray.

Brilliant shoot-outs are dulled by maddening side missions in this inconsistent add-on.

Here again, there's humor and occasional pathos to be found in The Yawhg's brevity, but it's just not very moving to be told that you were a strong leader, or that you never found love, in as many words.

Last Day of June's brevity is its saving grace, buoying up a story that isn't done any favors by its gameplay loop. There is undoubtedly potential in a game that allows you to alter past events to reshape the present, and Last Day of June shows glimmers of promise; however, it also ruins the emotional impact of its most important event by forcing you to repeat it so many times.

Forgoing the sort of melon-twisting substance that has seen many code-cracking gamers pull their hair out in favor of a pick-up-and-play puzzler with plenty of Pixar-flavored appeal, MouseCraft is usually a fun little romp. Much like that block of Muenster in the back of your fridge, though, it's a game you'll likely forget about a week after you buy it.

Sci-fi trappings don't make the repetitive gameplay in this dungeon crawler feel any less dated.

This side-scrolling shooter has its moments, but it never rises above being a quickie port of a handheld game.

It's short and it's frustrating, but you'll still have a reasonably good time with this force-powered adventure.

The story in this first episode is captivating enough on its own terms, but in context of being yet another story of human nature in the face of a zombie menace, it’s territory that’s been tread far too many times before.

Fruit Ninja Kinect is sweet, but it doesn't last long, and you'll soon want something a lot more substantial.

While there is fun to be had in F1 2009, it's a long way from being a faithful reproduction of the pinnacle of motorsport.

This satirical shooter is fun, but it never takes advantage of the potential of its parodies.

First-person shooter Xotic sure lives up to its name with surreal, fast-flowing gameplay.

Where Telltale’s Walking Dead stories prior have typically hinged on the sanctity of humanity in those facing unspeakable trauma, Michonne’s humanity already hangs by a thread, and In Too Deep does comparatively little to rebuild or cut away at that thread. In light of having a kind of protagonist we’ve seen far too little of in gaming, Walking Dead: Michonne can and should go to narrative places we haven’t seen before.

Pigs and puns are the highlights of this otherwise routine take on an old formula.

Brilliant shoot-outs are dulled by maddening side missions in this inconsistent add-on.

Takes the basic concepts of the original arcade game and adds a few gameplay elements that, ultimately, don't fit together all that well. The game plays well enough, but anyone accustomed to the simplicity of Dig Dug might turn their nose up at this one.

Mafia: The Old Country is at its best when things slow down, letting you take in all the sights and sounds of Sicily. Like previous Mafia games, it nails the look and feel of its real-world counterpart by investing heavily in the details. Unfortunately, generic gameplay and dated mission design hold Mafia: The Old Country back, making it feel like a relic of the early 2010s.

Championship Manager 2008 ultimately fails because it doesn't seem to know who it's aiming at.

The colorful presentational coating is tasty, but unfinished features and rotten artificial intelligence keep Heroes of Annihilated Empires from reaching its potential.