The game's real problem is simply that it's boring.

Killer Is Dead is filled with Suda 51 eccentricity, but it struggles to stay relevant with inconsistent combat, a poorly told story, and some awkwardly sleazy moments.

Spyro continues his quest for mediocrity in yet another frustrating, unoriginal adventure.

When systems reach a certain level of complexity, they start prompting greater expectations. Why can't you set rally points to automatically ferry your newly produced units where you need them? Why can't you specify hotkeys for fleets or production centers? Why does everything need to be clicked in order to see what it's doing?

Could be entertaining as a novelty for short while, but stops short of becoming a game worth playing for any length of time.

The biggest failing of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is how familiar it feels. In fact, there have been other open-world games starring Spider-Man that walk a remarkably similar path.

A few bright spots prove that this clumsy, unsatisfying film tie-in could have been much better.

Awkward controls and other flaws make it hard to appreciate the innovative and devious puzzles in Open Me.

Even if you're the type of person who finds a picture of Calvin urinating on a Ford or Chevy logo utterly hysterical, you're likely to tire of Ford vs. Chevy's tedious racing mechanics rather quickly.

Overall, individual elements of The Callisto Protocol are just at odds with one another too often. The enemy design and melee-focused combat mechanics lend themselves to these incredibly tense and fun close-quarters brawls when you're only fighting against a couple of targets at a time, but the game regularly locks you into frantic moshpits or frustratingly difficult boss fights instead. And despite the vocal talent and mocap skill on display, The Callisto Protocol's story isn't all that interesting, save for an intriguing final twist. Some genuine horror might have improved the experience of this survival-action game, but The Callisto Protocol instead leans too far into absurd high-octane spectacle, dampening the tension and adulterating the narrative core of the experience.

The Xbox version yields mixed results: It makes numerous improvements but it also takes away some of the freedom offered in the PC version.

Lego The Hobbit proves that having plenty of variety in terms of objectives and gameplay mechanics doesn't make much difference if none of those objectives and mechanics are much fun, and that capturing the look of an epic quest isn't the same as capturing the feel of one.

Koei's apologists will find Warriors Orochi to be an affable bit of fan service, but everyone else should just stay far away.

This Final Fantasy-themed tower defense game is bland and uninspired.

Expectations for Metroid aside, Federation Force fails to make a case for itself in the end.

A slapdash porting job turns the Force into a farce in this Star Wars action game.

Little Town Hero finds some success in avoiding some of the complex systems and tedious menus that can bog down other card games and RPGs, but it ends up suffering for it. Keeping your card options limited allows you to approach encounters with clever instead of relying on luck of the draw, but the deck size is too limited to break the mounting doldrum of subsequent fights. And while I did get to know this town pretty well, that's because of how small and suffocating it feels as it refuses to push outside its own boundaries.

Tokyo Jungle's great concept and good sense of humor end up being little more than lipstick on a pig.

While the third-person shooter aspect of Harry's latest adventure can be fun, the game's story elements fail to live up to those of its literary namesake.

A few great ideas aren't enough to make Gods & Heroes more than an unexciting, by-the-numbers online role-playing game.

Despite YIIK's stunning art direction, kicking soundtrack, and occasionally interesting plot point, it suffers as a result of its clunky combat, tedious grinding, and poor puzzle design. Postmodern texts aren't always enjoyable--Wallace's Infinite Jest features walls of text that list every chemical name for prescription drugs under the sun, spanning pages upon pages at a time. However, Infinite Jest has substance. For the most part, YIIK doesn't.

Law & Order: Legacies is not about making you the detective or the prosecutor. It's about making you the most basic trainee; the one who sits in a small room watching recordings of professionals at work and answering rudimentary viewing comprehension questions. There is some vicarious pleasure in being carried along on a wave of correct answers, but seeing that wave continue undeterred despite your missteps is a disheartening reminder that you are an insignificant part of the proceedings.

Its enticing characters and their occasionally exhilarating abilities are undermined by the unsatisfying third-person shooting underpinning them. The game's three modes all attempt to stretch the already inflexible mechanics of each character in ways that make each one feel underwhelming, in spite of their more interesting ideas. Most of all, Crucible just doesn't play host to the coordinated teamwork it demands for balanced matches, forcing you to look elsewhere or gamble with the chance of being matched with players that complement your character choices. It's a game that fights itself at every turn, and ultimately is little more than a curious distraction from other players in this space rather than a true competitor for your attention.

This version of Proving Ground makes it pretty clear that the priority for the Tony Hawk series is not on this platform.

For all its attempts to honor Square-Enix's long-running series, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT stumbles far too often when trying to replicate some of the many core gameplay tenants of the series in the framework of its own game. While it manages to offer fun and responsive combat, along with an infectious charm throughout, it struggles to advance much from the previous Dissidia titles. With a story that's fed piecemeal behind arbitrary gating, several combat encounters that feel out of place, and unreliable online systems that don't function when you need them to, this online brawler isn't able to live up to the series that it steadfastly tries to celebrate.

This bare-bones movie tie-in is like a machine with synthetic rubber skin: it's not fooling anyone and you should stay away from it.

Even a merry band of adventurous thanes can't save this quest from ruin.

This simple minigame collection is for the birds.