Aegis Defenders is disappointing because it had potential, and I still think that potential exists. There is satisfaction to be found in setting up its towers and combining them in interesting ways to make bigger and better turrets. And its loop of exploring, defending, and upgrading is alluring. But the game never meets your expectations. Whether it's the nonsensical narrative, the frustrating combat, the numerous bugs, or the simplistic platforming, Aegis Defenders stumbles more often than it excels.

Awful gameplay.

Akiba's Trip has a bizarre concept that might turn a few heads, but once you strip away the promiscuity, there's little left to keep your attention.

Inspired by a number of popular sc-fi properties, Dark Matter held the promise of offering an appealing mash-up of Metroid-style gameplay and Dead Space-like scares. While it mostly gets the mood right, due in no small part to its slick lighting and audio work, its other elements barely range from subpar to serviceable.

Omerta feels like nothing but work, and dull, repetitive work at that. It's certainly not a success, but a soulless, bland, incoherent experience that frequently frustrates with its inability to capitalise on a handful of good ideas.

Recycled environments, mediocre gameplay and the absence of online play cripple this disappointing top-down adventure.

Neither a groundbreaking VR experience nor a strong dungeon crawler, The Mage's Tale ultimately squanders its potential. It offers a couple of high points--some jokes do hit their marks from time to time--but there are so many problems, and there’s so little of substance to drive the experience forward, that The Mage's Tale feels more like a shallow experiment than a reason to get excited about VR.

Knack's downfall is that it focuses entirely on combat, but doesn't offer enough variety or depth within its system to compel you onward.

Getting pounded in the face with a real dodgeball might be more fun than this postmodern rendition of the schoolyard sport.

Though Storyteller's premise might be creative, its repetitive puzzles and lack of challenge quickly make the game feel stale.

The whole thing is just so dull and tedious that it captures all the worst qualities of a road trip, but none of the exciting ones.

It would make sense if the addition of loot were in service of guiding people to spend real money on better guns, but even then the stats are so meaningless it would take a lot of convincing. There's some surprising fun to be had stealthily infiltrating enemy compounds and playing with friends, but Breakpoint is still a generic and distinctly sub-par game. It's essentially every Ubisoft open-world game rolled into one, failing to excel in any one area or establish its own identity. Breakpoint is a messy, confused game and a ghost of the series' former self.

An emphasis on style over substance defines Hell Yeah: Wrath of the Dead Rabbit, though unfortunately even the stylish aspects have serious problems.

It was an interesting mix of action back in its day, and it's still interesting today. Unfortunately, even the three-player online play can't make up for the PlayStation 3 version's terrible, touchy control.

It's not zombies you need worry about in the painfully dull The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.

Unbound Saga is one brutally boring brawler.

These flashes of satisfaction aren't enough to hold up a game that’s mediocre at best and vexing at worst. Together with a host of minor annoyances, they add up to a long, dull stint with a bad game from a great franchise that deserves far better treatment.

Here's the thing: lack of accuracy in the controls is the whole point of Surgeon Simulator. That is the joke. However, when it comes to the difference between fun and frustrating, it's a matter of degrees. Playing Surgeon Simulator on PS4 is like listening to someone stumble through the telling of what could have been a hilarious wisecrack.

Terrible AI and repetitive action makes 0 Day Attack on Earth a frustratingly difficult grind.

An interactive murder mystery that could use a lot more mystery. Go buy a five-dollar paperback detective novel ... it'll probably take you longer to read the book than to solve this game.

This dull and unpleasant action game is in desperate need of a tune-up.

Stranger is one of strangest games of this year. Or any other year, for that matter.

There are so many problems with Will of Steel that it's hard to know where to begin in terms of describing them, but trust us when we say to spare yourself the frustration and avoid this decidedly lackluster game.

A limited online community and a myriad of bugs hurts Fray, a turn-based strategy game.

Mario's latest athletic endeavor lacks the sort of skillful competition that could have made for a compelling challenge.

This bot-filled sequel delivers all of the mind-numbing monotony we've come to expect from the Dynasty Warriors franchise.

Stilted controls and awkward action give Cocoto Platform Jumper a musty, old-school smell.

The racing is pathetically underwhelming, the crashes are so painfully halfhearted that they might as well not even exist, and a wide variety of graphical glitches and collision problems turn the whole thing into a serious mess.