Spot-on Wolfenstein atmosphere combines with gleefully vicious weaponry to serve up a tasty smoothie of good old-fashioned Nazi-frying. It lacks in the new idea department, but it has fun aplenty.

A positive example to other developers, that better things are possible if you merely put in the effort.

Don't force us to play the minigames to expand the already-uninspiring campaign. It's sloppy game design, and it drags Bee Movie Game even further into the mud.

Minecraft Legends has good ideas, but it's ultimately held back by the decision to root its strategy action around a central hero. With a limited field of view, few command inputs, and uninteresting AI, Legends fails to generate compelling combat cycles or opportunities for creative thinking.

Despite the re-hashed ideas, there are more than enough unique tweaks to the formula to warrant giving Gyromancer a spin.

Jumpship's debut is a fantastic sci-fi tale with an intense atmosphere and wonderfully touching narrative, even if there are a few puzzle and movement frustrations.

Between the excellent new controls and the already superb gameplay under the hood, The World Is Yours is one of the best games on the Wii these days.

This Cowboy RPG generally doesn't mosey too far from the old dusty trail, but when it does (hex battles, spurs and... well, that's all we can think of) it's a good thing.

Sometimes Nintendogs + Cats can feel like homework, and other times it can be a sweet little distraction where you spend time with adorably well-realized puppies and accurately uninterested cats.

Okay, the story isn’t winning any Pulitzers, but Kirby Squeak Squad will certainly please the kiddies, yet may only whet the palate of those aching for the next great side-scrolling throwback.

Steep looks stunning and offers plenty to do and see, but unfortunately gets repetitive too quickly.

Fortunately, it's easy to detach yourself from DarkStar One's story and immerse yourself in the moment-by-moment excitement of traversing a sometimes-hostile galaxy in a hot-rod of a ship.

For $5 there's enough fun to be had with Young Thor to justify the price, but if you need your games to be highly polished then you'd best look elsewhere. The combat is extremely uneven, and the controls can be imprecise at times.

The co-op heists of Payday 2 hijack new-gen, bringing with them a gym bag full of updates and DLC, but also some familiar problems. Great for newcomers, but non-essential for seasoned criminals.

There's not much longevity there, but it's a good ride while it lasts. The gigantor multiplayer matches should keep you and your friends emptying clips for a good while though, and that's exactly how it should be.

To analogize from another sport, UEFA is Anna Kournikova to "Wnning Eleven"'s Martina Hingis; one of them is knockout gorgeous with decent enough skills to hang around but never dominate, while the other may not be so easy on the eyes yet consistently wins championships.

If you can overlook the control issues and often totally uneven difficulty (the second boss should under no circumstances be way easier than the first, in any game, ever), and turn a blind eye to the asinine plot and characters, Shank does have its moments.

Possessor(s) takes a good story idea and builds its world well, then stretches it far too thinly over a mundane, buggy, and depressing Metroidvania template that just isn't fun for far too many hours. The story's decent, but so many similar games are demonstrably better.

Tales of Xillia 2 is a frustrating brew of boring JRPG tropes and needlessly repetitive busywork. Don’t let this be the first Tales game you start with.

Even if it doesn't revolutionize wrestling games, WWE 12 is the best wrassler around and mixes things up enough to not feel stale. It owes much to SmackDown, but everything it borrows is still great, just slightly used. If you wanted a completely new wrestling experience, wait for the next challenger to WWE to give it a shot (and probably fail).

Disney Infinity 2.0 tries to do too many things, and ends up not being very good at any of them.

Despite the addition of women players in HUT and tweaked mechanics like last-chance puck movements, NHL 23 barely feels it's changed from last year's offering. It's a fun but all too familiar hockey experience.

Battleborn mixes the FPS and MOBA genres to produce a game that oozes character and original ideas. Just don’t expect to love it straightaway.

The basic mechanics of Pokemon remain largely untouched – it's still catching, battling, and training as you remember it – and while that may be enough for many devotees, Generation 9 is a tougher sell for those who need more of a reason to engage with the series, impacted as it is by technical issues, mechanical oversights, and a lack of vision. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet should have been a bright and bold entry that sets the series up for future expansion, but an attempt to modernize while staying loyal to the past hasn't really succeeded in doing either one – and the headache doesn't help, to boot.

Sometimes Nintendogs + Cats can feel like homework, and other times it can be a sweet little distraction where you spend time with adorably well-realized puppies and accurately uninterested cats.

Tomodachi Life finds fun in the most mundane of activities, thanks to quirky style that makes hanging out with digital friends surprisingly engrossing.

The game's foundation is utterly unique, hypnotically compelling, and seriously scary in weird ways horror games don't normally pull off, and if it had been more polished I would have given it a higher score. It really is an unfinished game, though, and its problems are not minor annoyances. I really, really enjoyed playing the game for most of its humongous play time, but it also brought spectacular bouts of frustration.

Far Cry New Dawn might be a spinoff game, but it’s sure to have a lasting impact on what we think of when Far Cry comes to mind.