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.