Overall, Hey Pikmin retains a lot of what makes this series great. The terrific character and art design, fun flinging action, and lovable Pikmin and wildlife all work well on the small screen. However, anyone expecting the surprisingly unforgiving nature of the main series will be shocked at how simple this is in comparison. That might not be a terrible black mark on Hey Pikmin, but it’s a little disappointing.

If anything, it's a lovely game to relax to--even if you're forced into a slow pace.

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comfort to be found in the simple mission goals, but it’s impossible to ignore how repetitive they are--and how outdated they make Resurrection feel in practice.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