It's also rather unpolished. But while the game may not make a very remarkable first impression, it does have some strong gameplay elements that give it some real substance and help make it deserving of your attention.

Its basic design makes it very easy for players to pick up and enjoy, though die-hard fans of the genre will find it frustrating at times.

The logic is complex, and the pacing is manic, but if you commit to the concept, the experience is undeniably exhilarating.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the versions of NHL 07 not made for the next generation of consoles offer little in the way of new content.

Killing foolish earthlings was more fun the first time, but this sarcastic sequel to last year's inventive action game is not without merit or amusement.

Team Sabre may not be realistic, but it's packed with explosions, wild gunfights, and quite a bit of fun--though it's also extremely frustrating at times, due to a limited save system coupled with some excruciatingly difficult gameplay.

SingStar Abba is a good addition to the series and a heap of fun to play, provided you like singing as a female Swede.

Mary-Ann reminds me a lot of Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer, a girl known primarily as a victim. It's only until the movie Fire Walk With Me that we know just how much was going on behind the eyes of that idyllic photograph we saw of her every episode. In Tell Me Why, our clearest, enduring image of Mary-Ann Ronan is the dead woman whose childrens' lives were destroyed after her death. Finding out everything beautiful, intelligent, and loving that was going on behind those eyes is the most powerful thing in Tell Me Why, and matched in how her life created two strong, empathetic children who knew her well and didn't even realize it. There's a lot of empty disengaging space to be filled in in this game, but with a little patience and sympathy, what it does provide you is worth the effort.

Fairly well done but generally unspectacular--while it has its good points, its overall lack of original features or design elements is unlikely to leave a lasting impression on real-time strategy players.

For as long as it lasts, Stranglehold delivers a satisfying, if somewhat derivative action game experience.

It's an expansion that leaves a lot to be desired, only because there’s enough fertile ground to support a full blown game.

Golden Abyss is full of disappointments. The action set pieces are great, but there's too few of them; the voice acting is exemplary, but the narrative doesn't do it justice; the touch and motion controls work well for some actions, but they ruin others. For every moment of enjoyment you have, something comes along to spoil it. Despite its problems, though, Golden Abyss still succeeds in delivering some intense, entertaining action and combat.

And that's just what Labo is at the moment: a great tool for creation, rather than for playing.

The game hits a lot of fantastic cinematic highs, and those ultimately lift it above the trappings of its familiar open-world quest design and all the innate weaknesses that come with it--but those imperfections and dull edges are definitely still there. Ghost of Tsushima is at its best when you're riding your horse and taking in the beautiful world on your own terms, armed with a sword and a screenshot button, allowing the environmental cues and your own curiosity to guide you. It's not quite a Criterion classic, but a lot of the time it sure looks like one.

Kill la Kill IF is clearly designed for fans of Kill la Kill who are looking for more ways to enjoy the characters, music, and battles of the anime series. Each fighter behaves as they do in the anime, and the excellent voice actor rewards provide a nice incentive to keep playing even after you've mastered every character. However, as a fighting game, Kill la Kill IF doesn't deliver the expected harmony of offense and defense. And though campaign battles that are beyond the one-on-one formula are an awesome addition, the traditional arena fighting game mechanics aren't designed to adequately handle multiple opponents. The campaign's startling revelation is a fascinating turn of events for Kill la Kill's story, though, creating a new and intriguing interpretation of one of 2013's best anime series.

If you're already a Magic expert, this is an acceptable way to get in a few games online with friends, though you'll likely find the inability to create your own deck to be a pretty major drawback. If you're a Magic neophyte, you'll get more out of this experience.

The gameplay might not be anything special, but The Simpsons Game delivers more than enough laughs to make it worth a look.

It's the kind of expansion that gets you imagining what else this world and these characters are capable of, which is the best kind of disappointment you can have.

I enjoyed my time with We Are OFK. Even for a visual novel, the storyline can feel a bit too on the rails at times, but Itsumi, Carter, Luca, and Jey's journey is poignant in its relatability and powerful in its narrative exploration through music. This is best expressed in the interactive music video segments, especially when they allow you to fully lose yourself in the song and respond to the vocals, rhythm, or accompanying visuals in your own way. It's a good opening track for OFK's career, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the virtual group.

Between its overall solid presentation, and its gameplay that keeps you guessing, this is one game that's worth taking a look at.

While I was left dissatisfied by the narrative conclusion of Hell is Us, its journey to that point was pleasantly engaging. It was refreshing to not just follow a quest marker through a story, but also a relief that I was never spun around for hours on end wondering where I needed to go next. This balance is what made traversing Hadea and experiencing all the horrors it contained a rewarding one, making each new step feel earned rather than routine. It's backed up by an imperfect but engaging combat system that's only let down by some shallow enemy variety and imprecise control, but never to the point of outright frustration. If Hell is Us is developer Rogue Factor's first stab at a new type of third-person action game and although it's less revolutionary than the initial promise might suggest, it is one that still managed to stay surprising until the end.

Gemini Rue is an intriguing adventure game with an excellent story that outshines its basic puzzle-solving.

Dragon Marked for Death is a polished experience that draws on a lot of existing genre sensibilities, but with a heavy focus on aspects that make for a good co-op experience. The classes are thematically coherent and entertainingly distinct, and the levels are just varied enough that gliding through one for the first time is always aurally and visually pleasing. The unbalanced single-player experience is a big sticking point, but if you have friends who are willing to take up the Dragonblood mantle with you, then there are few action platformers more entertaining.

Cosmic Top Secret's very existence and ethos makes it special in the realm of gaming. It's conceptually brilliant and heartwarming. Arguably, it's still worth fighting the game's mechanics just because Trine--and you, by proxy--deserves to know the truth and hear every angle of these peoples' captivating story firsthand.

The Hong Kong Massacre is a game with a specific goal--to capture the feeling of an over-the-top John Woo-style slow-motion diving kill shot, and it succeeds. The game's faults are washed away whenever you leap out of the way of a bullet and quickly take out the person who fired it. It's a game that sticks with you when you're not playing it, as you think through different approaches to the room you died in last time. You'll fail frequently, and the repetition can wear you down, but it's hard to resist the temptation of bursting through a window and perfectly lining up three kill shots.

In a genre as close to utter desolation as the space combat sim, even a plucky little space shooter with more heart than technical prowess like Space Interceptor can prove to be a breath of fresh air.

Harold Halibut's world and the people that inhabit it were literally crafted by people that cared about him and his story. And while that story struggles under the weight of its ambitions, the human touches on every part of it are evident. Those are the heart and soul of the game, and they imprinted on me too.

Though the story is weak and the design of the game favors certain characters, Extraction is a good Rainbow Six game that rewards you and your team's ability to adapt to deliver a compelling gameplay loop.