Pentiment strives to exist somewhere between a history book and historical fiction, not quite committing to a detailed look at history or fulfilling a narrative arc. This is a detriment to the game's conclusion, dampening my memories of the game save for the stories of individual characters. I retain a soft spot for the wise Illuminata and her conversations with Andreas about literature and religion, and I have a parental fondness for a young peasant girl who I watched grow from a gurgling toddler to a young woman. Witnessing their lives play out is a narrative delight, only enhanced by the creative use of Pentiment's different fonts to better convey a person's societal station or education. But limiting how much time the player actually has to engage in the game's best parts hurts the overall experience too much.

The ruins of a time long forgotten will always darken the horizon, and there'll be a part of you that wonders what more there could have been before you find yourself shunted to the next life goal in a long series of life goals. That feeling is unfortunately hard to shake, and it's a shame that there's not as much to the world of Portia as first appears.

Even if The Ascent was fully functional and balanced in a way where building up a character to become the ultimate Indent warrior felt great, there's the fact that so much of the game is designed to feel like servitude. As you climb the superstructure housing all of Veles, you serve a progression of masters, and the payoff for the game's central mystery--where did the mysterious group running Veles suddenly run off to?--isn't nearly enough to offset the hopeless grind. Your bosses insult you when you go on your task, ignore you when you've done well, and provide no rewards for success. For so much of the play time, The Ascent feels like, well, an uphill battle.

Though shallow and flawed, Body and Brain Connection has some neat minigames that engender a satisfying sense of progress.

There are plenty of good trivia questions, but this is a flawed port of the classic board game.

At a time when open-world games sometimes overstay their welcome, Just Cause 4 is at the other end of the spectrum, where you wish there was more to experience because it has so much going for it.

Alpha Protocol's astounding intricacies are tarnished by bugs, clumsy gameplay mechanics, and rough production values.

The ruins of a time long forgotten will always darken the horizon, and there'll be a part of you that wonders what more there could have been before you find yourself shunted to the next life goal in a long series of life goals. That feeling is unfortunately hard to shake, and it's a shame that there's not as much to the world of Portia as first appears.

Even if The Ascent was fully functional and balanced in a way where building up a character to become the ultimate Indent warrior felt great, there's the fact that so much of the game is designed to feel like servitude. As you climb the superstructure housing all of Veles, you serve a progression of masters, and the payoff for the game's central mystery--where did the mysterious group running Veles suddenly run off to?--isn't nearly enough to offset the hopeless grind. Your bosses insult you when you go on your task, ignore you when you've done well, and provide no rewards for success. For so much of the play time, The Ascent feels like, well, an uphill battle.

Time is something Hogwarts Legacy and its repetitive quests, dull open world, and monotonous combat often do not respect, from its slow opening to its insistence on introducing new systems to juggle just for the sake of it. It's a bit of a shame that these parts couldn't coalesce in the same way that its presentation and respect for its universe does, because Hogwarts Castle persists as a delightful puzzle box to explore from the moment you step foot in its doors to the last day of term. There's equally delightful moments during some of the main quests, specifically those that balance puzzle-solving and combat in ways that challenge your understanding of the spells you have in engaging ways. But these moments are so spread out between much less interesting filler content that it will likely take some of the most dedicated Harry Potter fans to justify seeing the entire journey through.

While the crafting is robust and an essential part of your experience with My Time at Portia, the other integrated systems--relationship management, dungeoneering, animal husbandry, and farming--aren't as engaging, fleshed out, or vital by comparison.

Might & Magic Heroes VI: Shades of Darkness is a harsh challenge, but not often a fair one.

The pieces are in place for a fine adventure, but Rainbow Moon's shallow mechanics have limited appeal.

It's disappointing that Aliens: Dark Descent gets so much right about its setting, only to falter in each of the more critical areas that are meant to hold your attention. Its detail-oriented focus in presenting a richly authentics and atmospheric setting will be welcomed by anyone familiar with the franchise. Smaller mechanics that put emphasis on the terror that Xenomorphs exude add a suitable layer of tension to both exploration and combat, making each more distinct than their initial make-up would suggest. But it's a squad that rarely feels like a personable unit of people that you desperately want to keep alive, fighting for a cause in a narrative that is so easy to tune out well before the halfway point. There's a lot of good in this attempt to make Aliens something fresh and interesting again, and that might be enough to encourage you to see it through. But there's also just enough to potentially derail you entirely.

A game that's confused about where its heart lies, leaving you with a smattering of mildly entertaining dogfights and bombing runs interwoven with long bouts of boredom.

Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time weaves a complex and captivating tale, but the combat doesn't pull its weight.

There comes a point when it feels futile to push yourself to play over and over again in the hopes that you'll somehow learn new tactics in the face of such limited options.

This is a game that tries to straddle the line between arcade action and sublime simulation and never succeeds at either. PES is at its best when it's selective with its realism: here's hoping next year it can go back to doing what it does best.

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.

It's an entertaining adventure game, but its ambitions to incorporate a meaningful diversity of role-playing options fall disappointingly flat and feel inconsequential. Mage's Initiation is a fair appropriation of a hybrid formula that I was happy to consume, but its shortcomings made me more eager to revisit the series that inspired it for another run-through.

Though occasionally enjoyable, this Force-powered sequel is a mere apprentice to its superior predecessor.

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

There's not much to Defend Your Castle, but it does have some entertainment value.

It's difficult to recommend Total War: Rome Remastered to anyone who didn't already play and love the original game as the series has significantly evolved for the better over the past 18 years. A new lick of paint and some quality of life improvements aren't enough to make this remaster an appealing option for newcomers when better Total War games already exist. That's not to say it doesn't deserve its place either. At this point, Rome: Total War is unaccommodating on modern hardware, so this remaster solves that issue with an improved and updated version of the original game. It might not stack up against its contemporaries, but Total War: Rome Remastered is the best way to play a series classic, warts and all.

Though occasionally enjoyable, this Force-powered sequel is a mere apprentice to its superior predecessor.

It's a shame that NCAA Football '14 has the same problems the franchise has been burdened with for years. The on-field action is tight and rewarding, but everything else is sloppy at best.

A game with really high highs and really low lows. Ocean Descent and The London Heist are great introductory VR experiences that I think everyone should try, whether they're into games or not. Their biggest downfall is that they're both really short. Scavenger Odyssey, on the other hand, just made me motion sick. Overall, its a collection of novel but insubstantial tech demos.

Transformers: The Game is a big, loud, shallow action game that severely lacks in content.

As a remake, Resident Evil 3 not only falls short of honoring its source, but it also doesn't quite stick the landing as a standalone horror experience. Even without taking into account the original game, or its predecessor, RE3 struggles to keep up with its pace amid a clashing of elements from survival horror and standard action. While it has a strong start and gives its principal villain some great moments, this truncated retelling of the concluding game from the original Resident Evil trilogy doesn't do it proper justice.

Despite the Amiibo additions and gamepad Bowser games, as well as a delightfully bright and colourful aesthetic, it's hard to ignore just how similar this game is to its predecessors. But even if you could overlook it, the fact remains that even with some fun minigames in tow and a good group of friends to enjoy it with, Mario Party 10 just doesn't have the depth or the challenge to hold your attention for long.

Though an enjoyable addition to the series, Mario Party 9 is much too familiar and predictable.

Though it runs out of steam quickly, Everybody's Golf VR is fun while it lasts, and there are satisfying goals to chase for a time. Everybody's Golf VR's best feature is its assortment of customization and accessibility options, though, as they allow both golf newbies and veterans to curate their desired experience and just enjoy playing a round.

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

There's something to be said for Chulip's abject weirdness and purposefully awkward structure, but they don't translate into a rewarding game experience.

Like the sprint cars it features, this budget-priced racer gets the job done but isn't much to look at.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has a lot of promise, but nothing in this game works out nearly as well as you'd hope.

A once-great helicopter combat sim is still pretty good, if you don't mind the déjà vu.

While the racing is solid, it's tough to recommend Hot Wheels Ultimate Racing when so many other, similar games on the PSP offer more bang for your buck.

Our characters might not have grown closer together, but A Way Out's forced co-op is worth it for the few standout moments it provides.

It's a new direction for the well-regarded series, but Circle of Doom isn't nearly as good as you may have hoped.

Sunless Sea is an ambitious work that attempts to capture the sheer kinetic thrill of discovery in a bottle without the inevitable entropy of player completion depleting it, and falls well short. The promise of lengthened replayability only makes the methodical pace a joyless grind at times.

It's easy to imagine how Super Lucky's Tale would be the highlight of a younger kid's weekend, but it has little to offer anyone looking for an enjoyably challenging 3D platformer.

Just another languid translation of the exact same game you've been playing since the days of the Dreamcast. Sudden Impact is pretty much on autopilot in every aspect of its execution, presenting just the bare minimum to make a playable UFC game.

Buried under the layers of poor visuals and rough control, there is indeed an engaging, playable game.

Chaos Theory is the highlight of the three single-player campaigns in Splinter Cell Trilogy HD, but technical issues and the absence of multiplayer really disappoint.

It's easy to imagine how Super Lucky's Tale would be the highlight of a younger kid's weekend, but it has little to offer anyone looking for an enjoyably challenging 3D platformer.

Verdun somewhat succeeds in its lavish goal, but its road to glory is lengthy still. Until then, it sits on the edge of the line, waiting for the rallying cry.

The Blue Dragon franchise's penchant for blandness continues in this adequate but uninspired sequel.

Short, unbalanced, and somewhat unattractive.

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]

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind feels light and disposable. It's a largely enjoyable brawler throwback that plays well and accurately captures the spirit of the original old-school Power Rangers. The vehicle segments can be frustrating, but the larger issue with MMPR is that it's ephemeral. Like watching an episode of Power Rangers on a lazy afternoon, you'll have a little campy fun and then immediately forget about it.

Control issues and other frustrations make this a very disappointing version of the classic game of adventure on the high seas.

Rhombus of Ruin adopts a smart approach to VR and executes it with humor and confidence. But it could have been longer and deeper, more challenging and surprising. Like the story, the gameplay is superficially enjoyable but barely has time to develop, and because you’ll know all the puzzle solutions by the end, the campaign doesn’t offer much replay value.

A big, loud, shallow action game that severely lacks in content.

The ability to alter terrain isn't enough to save Fracture from becoming the latest run-of-the-mill shooter.

It's just a shame that the game forces you to spend so much time bogged down in its clumsy interface, when all you want to do is build a better zoo.

By evening out the presentation and focusing the story, New Vision transforms the Eureka Seven series from painful to playable.

Does it live up to Wii Sports? Not a chance. But that doesn't stop 1-2-Switch being an entertaining minigame collection--just make sure you've got enough willing friends to maintain your own fading high.

This short flight of fancy has its charms, but it gets stale fast.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD just about nails the feel of vintage Tony Hawk, but it's a lean package that fails to capitalize on that foundation.

The writing, the story, the characters, and the ways in which your actions have an effect on the world are all enthralling. I wanted answers to the mysteries presented, since the heroes and villains of these tales are captivating, and the payoffs, by and large, are worthwhile. There are a lot of excellent old-school isometric adventure games in Weird West's DNA, but not enough new-school polish for it to be something great.

This short flight of fancy has its charms, but it gets stale fast.

Bomberman Land's single-player adventure is a dud, but the multiplayer battle mode is a blast.

NASCAR 08 is a decent racer, but it feels like a classic example of a game where the developer put in limited effort because of the lack of competition.

As it stands a little over a month after launch, New World offers a solid PvP-focused, player-driven MMORPG experience that has long been missing from the genre, albeit one seriously held back by outdated quest design and a lack of interesting endgame content. Whether that changes in the months ahead remains to be seen, but for now, New World will likely only appeal to those who crave PvP and wish to paint the map of Aeternum the color of their chosen faction, repetitive questing and lack of content be damned.

With a terrible plot and an unforgiving difficulty level, Radiant Dawn is best left alone by anyone but the most hardcore of strategists.

I enjoyed wandering the stereotypical video game worlds of Mindseize and dispatching its well-deployed inhabitants. It does enough with encouraging exploration and enemy variety that it kept my mind engaged even if, thanks to the uninspired narrative and character development, my heart just wasn't feeling it. Generic Metroidvanias may be increasingly common these days, but I have to admit that the formula still works.

Every aspect of Mafia III's writing--from the dialogue to the mission descriptions--is excellent. The obvious care and craftsmanship that went into its narrative elements should serve as a model for all other triple-A titles. The gameplay, however, just can't live up, and repetitive missions and technical problems drag the experience down further, turning a game that could have been truly great into one that has to settle for "fair."

There are so many little moments in Outlaws that I love. However, the unexciting space combat and unrewarding syndicate-relationship tracker don't add anything meaningful to the experience. And neither does Kay, who feels like a protagonist without a meaty narrative arc. The game has some successes when it comes to gunslinging or sneaking--both of which are aided by a superb soundtrack and incredible sound design--but Outlaws does too much of what it does poorly, and too little of what it does well.

This soccer management sim is fun for a while, but it's too simplistic and flawed to keep you playing until next season.

At World's End isn't a bad game, but its dull, repetitive combat and uninspired mission structure prevent it from being much fun.

Silly costumes are not enough to cover for repetitive gameplay in this formulaic platformer.

Though Mafia III's campaign contains quite a few memorable moments like that bayou shootout, they're buried under a pile of repetitive filler missions and underserved by dated gameplay, which adds little to the standard sandbox shooter formula we've seen in dozens of other games. And worse still, the game suffers technical blemishes from start to finish.

Fire Emblem Warriors doesn’t radically change the formula of the two-decade-old Warriors franchise, nor is it concerned with attempting to do so. At best, it's a decent vehicle for Fire Emblem's characters, a chance to flex their muscles in a new venue without the limitations of turn-based combat holding their abilities back.

Meager difficulty diminishes much of Heroes of Ruin's adventurous charm.

Though Mafia III's campaign contains quite a few memorable moments like that bayou shootout, they're buried under a pile of repetitive filler missions and underserved by dated gameplay, which adds little to the standard sandbox shooter formula we've seen in dozens of other games. And worse still, the game suffers technical blemishes from start to finish.

A game that seems stuck in an uncomfortable middle ground, harboring more intricacy and challenge than the Gauntlet pedigree implies, but too bare-bones of a package to stand tall next to the action role-playing games currently competing for your time.

Digimon Survive is a misshapen DNA digivolution. Most of the game is this great visual novel, which starts slow but eventually tackles some intriguing themes that are interwoven into one of the most mature Digimon stories ever told. Sometimes the characters can be a little one-note, but each manages to carry aspects of the story in compelling ways, and I wanted to keep pushing through Digimon Survive to unravel each person's history and ultimately learn why and how they had been transported to another world. But, at the same time, Digimon Survive is regularly dragged down by tedious tactical combat, and it negatively affects other sections of the game too, like exploration and Digimon evolutions. It's not enough to ruin an otherwise great visual novel, but it does put quite a damper on the whole experience.

Its ambitions, coupled with the outright charm of the world, are certainly more than many RPGs offer, and very few as visually dazzling as this. Secret of Mana remains an adventure worth taking, as long as you're prepared for a bumpy ride.

A passable but unexciting racing game that substitutes the finesse of the other Tony Hawk games for simple and scattered action.

Coded Arms: Contagion is a by-the-numbers first-person shooter that does nothing poorly, but nothing particularly well, either.

Even though it gives you a chance to revisit one of the best RPGs in years, The White March Part 1 ultimately feels like a missed opportunity to expand that greatness into new territory.

It's a shame that EA Sports decided to make such a big deal out of the Madden anniversary this year. Putting that big "25" on the box cover ramps up expectations and may well make a standard baby-steps Madden sequel seem more disappointing.

Leedmees offers a fun twist on the Lemmings formula but bites off more than it can chew.

The structure and new ideas in A New God are promising: Despite my frequent frustrations with its physics and many of the puzzles, I had a decent time barreling through all these puzzles without having to discover them on a huge map. But it's hard to ignore how haphazard it felt, the trepidation I experienced trying a solution I knew would work only to have it go wrong for reasons out of my control.

The structure and new ideas in A New God are promising: Despite my frequent frustrations with its physics and many of the puzzles, I had a decent time barreling through all these puzzles without having to discover them on a huge map. But it's hard to ignore how haphazard it felt, the trepidation I experienced trying a solution I knew would work only to have it go wrong for reasons out of my control.

While the stylistic appeal of science fiction schlock may be niche, The Deadly Tower of Monsters has silly sights that effectively recall the iconic parts of the works that inspired it, if not much else.

The structure and new ideas in A New God are promising: Despite my frequent frustrations with its physics and many of the puzzles, I had a decent time barreling through all these puzzles without having to discover them on a huge map. But it's hard to ignore how haphazard it felt, the trepidation I experienced trying a solution I knew would work only to have it go wrong for reasons out of my control.

Like Owlboy and Iconoclasts before it, CrossCode is the latest in a long line of longer-gestating labors of love that emerge with varying degrees of cohesion. The best thing that can be said about CrossCode is it doesn't feel at all dated or clunky on the other end of a prolonged development time. The biggest knock against it is that CrossCode can and often does wind up feeling both bloated and inspired simultaneously.

The huge assortment of characters, stories, costumes, and other aspects of Dragon Ball lore cannot hide how shallow and uninspired the fighting mechanics are.

They say beauty is only skin deep, and in this case, there's definitely a lot of roughness under the surface.

H1Z1 predicates itself on eliminating the more random factors seen in other battle royale games, and it remains a competent execution of the genre. The game has its intense moments and exhilarating firefights; the thrill of besting 100+ players is very much present. However, the incoherent gameplay elements overshadow the better moments, and the lack of variety in both map design and weapon selection makes H1Z1 lose its appeal rather quick, especially in the genre it spearheaded.

The problem with most of the game is that it's all been done already, and was done better by the last three games in the franchise to hit the system.

Ghost Recon's shooting gallery action is shallow and repetitive, but it still manages to provide some entertainment.

It's not quite a keeper, but it's an improvement over the original.

Though the novel camera feature fuels some goofy fun, DanceMasters only holds lasting appeal for dedicated dance fiends.

Prinny's second heroic adventure features great boss fights, but cheap deaths and lousy controls make this journey extremely frustrating.

The highlights of Etherborn are undoubtedly its inventive puzzles and its constellation of small, compelling worlds. But with just five chapters, its brief runtime feels lacking, and it left me wanting for more puzzles to solve. Etherborn attempts to compensate for this by unlocking a new game plus mode after you've completed the game, which lets you dive into the same worlds once more. This mode is largely similar to the original one, the only difference being the crystalline orbs, which are located in harder-to-reach places.