The Callisto Protocol is one of the year’s biggest letdowns. It is joyless, contrived and feels unfinished, as if the studio rushed it out prior to Dead Space Remake’s launch on January 27, 2023. Like Black Iron itself, I can’t help but feel the project was abandoned at some point. It feels so wrong for a game that looks and sounds this great to be so devoid of spark and quality control. It’s fitting that after traversing every tight nook and cranny, the only feeling left once the credits have rolled is that of having life squeezed from you.

King’s Bounty II is a game where it takes forever to do anything. I averaged maybe 2-3 short battles for every hour of gameplay – perhaps 20 minutes of fun for 40 of drudgery. All this is doubly frustrating because somewhere under all this crap is a pretty solid strategy game. I just wish that King’s Bounty II would stop jerking me around and just let me play it!

All in all, Isle of Siptah is an interesting addition to Conan Exiles, even in Early Access. A beautiful and varied map helps create a very intriguing place to explore, and the game does eventually open up from hordes of skeletons to werewolves, giant alligators, and even a dozen different bosses. Due to the large MMO-like scope of the game itself and short review time, I was able to beat most of the normal content but never got to the stage where you discover all the secrets of the maelstrom and find out if you can control the huge Kraken in the sky – but if you’re a big fan of Conan Exiles and want more than just dominating a scorching desert, give this expansion a shot and I’m sure you will be able to find out. [Early Access Provisional Score = 75]

It’s been awhile since a game repulsed me. Not in a gruesome or transgressive way, just in a way that’s unenjoyable thanks to frustrating controls and its unfunny execution. Don’t get me wrong, it’s clear in its intent and you’ll know how you feel about it early on. However, it’s very unappealing and is a reminder as to why these sorts of games are better as experiments rather than full releases. If you like overcoming frustration, maybe you’ll find something worthwhile. I don’t.

While Peaky Blinders: Mastermind has some style and a novel approach to puzzling, it's not enough to properly engage. It definitely clicks at times, and there are moments where solving a problem makes you feel like a meticulous planner. However, there aren’t the eureka moments you’d expect from better puzzles nor mechanics worth mastering in replays. It’s hard to recommend and it’s only for a niche of Peaky Blinders fans who want an average puzzler with a lot of dull micromanaging (if they even exist).

While Terrorarium comes with a delightful morbidness and some style, it’s not engaging to play. Escorting the Moguus loses its luster fast and becomes frustrating. There’s a repelling quality to the game that can’t be saved by its comedy or art. Terrarium feels more akin to a tool, something to introduce game students to puzzle design. Maybe it works fine for someone who wants to learn design, but I can’t stand playing the game itself beyond ten minutes at a time. In theory, it’s a wacky puzzle. In practice, it’s an unfun slog.

Overpass is for a certain type of sadist, and it’s been awhile since a game made me want to stop playing it as quickly as possible. It might have its polish and intent, but the mechanics they serve are frustrating. Perhaps everything I mention makes the game all the more interesting, a game that isn’t for noobs like me and something that would sit comfortably between Surgeon Simulator or Getting Over It. But this makes for a niche game that will bug anyone else. I get the appeal, but it’s simply not fun.

Bannermen’s appreciation of genre greats can be easily seen through the cracks in its shoddy construction. However, in between a single faction with a small, uninspired roster, bland story and writing, and very few options in terms of tactics and strategy, it’s tough to recommend. As rooted as it is in the genre’s past, it’s nowhere close to mastering what made RTS titles of yore great, ultimately being just a flimsy, soulless imitator.

An interesting concept is let down by some pretty glaring gameplay flaws.

I really hate tearing down games because nobody sets out to purposefully make a bad game and people put passion and effort into Nobunaga’s Ambition: Taishi, but not only does this game fail on its own merits, the fact that this is the 15th entry in an acclaimed series makes it even more disappointing. The way it tries to hide its lack of depth is almost insulting, and not even a decent character system can save it.

Dynasty Warriors 9 suffers from a lot of issues, most stemming from the terribly implemented open-world. Assets are reused, it’s buggy, repetitive, bloated, empty and bland. These shortcomings are made all the more painful by the obvious potential this game had, and how fun the base combat can be once players waded through all the other nonsense.

Way of Redemption is all there technically and functionally, but it’s empty and short on content. Every moment spent playing, the obviousness of it being an attempt at a forced e-sports success hangs over the experience, which is pretty dull to begin with.

Inmates had ambitious intentions and a few good ideas, but these were not executed well at all. Fear and thrills were extinguished by the questionable shaking head effect and the game’s puzzles remained overly simplistic and did not feel challenging or rewarding to complete. In addition, I encountered a number of bugs that stopped me from progressing, at points. While this game may be attractively short for some, I cannot recommend the experience.

The Long Journey Home had so much promise but Daedalic forgot to make it playable. They focused on the big picture, on the huge epic universe, without realizing that it’s the small stuff that’s important.

Level design is cramped and unfair, the controls are imprecise, the interface is from a completely different genre of game and is extremely cluttered and unhelpful, and the whole thing is just painful. 2Dark is extremely frustrating, extremely badly designed, and extremely not fun. I’m glad it wiped my saves. Avoid.

Story can’t be the thing that carries a video game and story is all Eisenhorn: XENOS has. A character as powerful as Gregor Eisenhor, with a great voice actor in Mark Strong, and an epic story deserves more than a glorified version of a mobile game. But brainless combat and mechanics, crummy audio, and unacceptable bugs keep this game to no more than a book promotion.

Combine awful PC controls, unstable framerate, uninteresting fourth grade humor, and game-breaking bugs and it becomes another indie game that should’ve only been an internal experiment.

Umbrella Corps is a big game from a major publisher in a popular franchise in that franchise’s anniversary year, and it’s both awful and dead on arrival. Now I see why Capcom didn’t tell anyone that it came out.

The Technomancer is not grossly bad, but it feels cheap and is deeply mediocre. It’s a cheap game, and worse: it’s no longer a cheap price. As I said in the first paragraph, I can’t think of a reason anyone would want to buy it over any other game in existence.

Battleborn ended up stretching itself too thin by trying to include too many modes.

As a tower defence shooter hybrid, Excubitor has the potential to be an adrenaline-charged, strategic masterpiece. However, a number of aspects have let the game down and this left me feeling disappointed.

Depicting the horrors of an asylum with animated pictures was a tender touch to sensitive imagery. Even the 3D animations conveyed moments with care. But the story is confusing and painfully disappointing and the translation errors make matters worse. So I can commend LKA’s efforts, but I can’t recommend The Town of Light.

Bombshell isn’t the worst game I’ve ever played, but it’s among the most dull and uninteresting. From its cheesy, late-90s alien blasting plot to its absolutely repetitive action, it’s tough to pull out any redeeming qualities. Even assuming its bevy of technical issues get ironed out, this one still isn’t worth your time.

Overall an immense disappointment.

Bedlam is a neat concept that has managed to result in a game that’s utterly bankrupt of creativity, polish, or fun. It’s a game that went so wrong at every turn that it makes you just feel bad for its developers. There’s nothing here but a bunch of half-hearted references and wistful nostalgia for old video games, both of which you can get plenty of for free on the internet.

Fire is a sweet, innocent adventure with a very kid-friendly style, and it hurts me to kick it in the teeth. But I will. Behind those innocent looks lies a very basic adventure, with no story, no dialogue, no characters, no personality, and no satisfaction.

If you haven’t guessed it already, Raven’s Cry is quite blatantly unfinished.

There’s an interesting blueprint here, yet the execution lacks the finesse to elevate it beyond the sum of its parts.

There may well be a half-decent game lurking beneath the facade of tired jokes and nods to RPG tropes and stereotypes, which Citizens of Earth then insists of portraying anyway, however it’s far too caught up in its own bravado to realise it.

There is fun to be had in five minute bursts as a distraction from doing work, but then that’s what I bought the phone version for. Don’t buy it. And there’s no multiplayer either, in case you were wondering.

Haunted House: Cryptic Graves is an atrocity.

It’s just a buggy mess with some potential hidden away amongst the basic visuals and sparse structure. If you really want a police simulator then the Liberty City Police Mod for GTA IV offers a far superior experience.

Yes, things look prettier. But scratch the surface to plumb the depths as the saying goes, and Sins of the Fathers Anniversary Edition’s flaws become that bit more glaring. The polished aesthetics may well be enough to sway those avid nostalgia hunters, but I can’t be sure that new players will be at all interested.

As such, if you're hankering for a truly excellent side-scrolling brawler, your money would be better spent on that instead and not this effort which seemingly places a premium on lewd college humour above anything else.

In its current state I have a hard time recommending AR-K to anyone. Sure, the humour is good and the world it creates is pretty interesting, if lacking in detail, but the technical and presentation issues really hamper the first crucial moments.

4PM claims to be an experimental title yet it’s as by the numbers as they come.

Long term Magic fans will want to avoid Magic 2015 to avoid utter frustration, whereas newcomers should look further into the Duels of the Planeswalkers’ back catalogue for a more appropriate and fulfilling platform for inauguration.

With more time and more polish Stained could be a perfectly decent little platformer. As it is, though, it's hard to recommend even at a stripped-down price.

Three Dead Zed just isn't good enough. As mentioned earlier there are a ton of more expertly crafted platformers on the market, and you just do not need to put time and money into this boring and quite frankly, amateurishly developed title.

It’s a shame that Infamy devolves into such juvenile practices as there are some nice flourishes on display – for instance, the hand-drawn aesthetic lends a quaint, homely feel to adventuring that feels refreshing in light of the grandeur that western RPGs typically strive for – yet it’s impossible to root for a game that makes such a critical misstep.

Granted, Pixel Boy’s premise is hardly conducive to a rich backstory and mythology, but there’s really no personality here to lure you back in.

Water Park Tycoon is a slow paced, dull and simplistic sim.

For all Croixleur Sigma can be quite challenging - particularly towards its Story Mode’s end or within Challenge Mode - no real skill is needed to succeed, and it’s lack of variety and intrigue make this feel like a wasted journey west.

I would like to note that there is nothing wrong with RPG maker, but Steel and Steam simply does not transcend the criticisms that those tools for early developers receive.

There are some half-decent ideas here - particularly the evolution of the hospital - and some fairly decent jump scares, however Daylight is too often too keen to rely on tropes that have been far better served elsewhere.

It's dreadful.

With the amount of great action games on the market there is simply no reason that you should give Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z a try. It is a shoddily made, awful mess.

It’s not a particularly good advert for the brand, or the MMO. It’s way too pricey for what it is, and it’s got very little replayability. Coupled with the fact that there are plenty of games on tablet that do what it’s trying to do so so much better (The tablet port of XCOM, for example) that, really, this looks incredibly amateurish by comparison.

If there’s one good thing I can say about Post Master it’s that it actually works. It’s not buggy, it doesn’t crash, and there is actually a game, of sorts, there to be played. I suppose the music's alright too. But all in all, it’s a sorry excuse for a game.

Rambo: The Video Game is clearly a cash-in, but one that makes little sense, with little relevance.

NaissanceE could’ve been a neat game but Limasse Five should’ve just stuck with making a cool artistic world and left the actual gameplay at home. I may have then complained that there wasn’t enough game in it, but at least I would have actually enjoyed it.

Zombie Tycoon II has a neat premise. Who doesn't want to control a rampaging horde of the undead? It's a shame then, that it doesn't really do anything worthwhile with the concept.

As such, Tank Operations cannot be recommended over other modern strategy titles of varying scales, or even retro titles – such as the previously mentioned Panzer General series – which are easily available through the likes of Good Old Games.

X: Rebirth will get better over time, and anyone who’s open-minded enough to look past the ‘X’ branding and see the ‘game’, may even find many hours of entertainment.

If you’re into in-depth management of a park then Adventure Park may be for you, but for everyone else the design problems, unattractive menus, misplaced priorities, and numerous other flaws adds up to a tedious experience. Worst of all though, Adventure Park is bland, lifeless and lacking in both character and imagination.

Unfortunately for Blood Knights, taking established systems and watering them down just leaves you with a diluted mix that tastes nothing like what it's trying to imitate.

Journey of a Roach attempts some nice ideas and is pretty cute, but altogether isn’t a particular good or enjoyable adventure.

All in all, Agarest Generations of War is pretty bland, generic, and average. Factoring in pure gameplay, there are plenty of better JRPG to sample, and, hopefully, a brighter future for the genre above and beyond what this PC port would illuminate.

In defence of Crafty Studios, they have been proactive in patching, but Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny seems a long way off of being playable quite yet. Save your nostalgia, start learning the German language, and pray to Cromm that things turn around quickly.

Face Noir tries its best to be a compelling Raymond Chandler-esque film noir detective adventure and falls flat on its noirish face. The story is boring, characters are either bland or straight-up racist, acting is mediocre, writing is worse, cutscenes are mostly static photos, and the puzzles are a string of “find the important thing the designers have hidden” moments rather than any genuine brain-teasers.

So many times during this review I quit the game just because I couldn't be bothered to solve a puzzle, only to realise I had to keep playing to give it a fair shot. My opinion would start to sway a bit more positive, then I quit again for the lack of care. Which says everything about Magrunner: Dark Pulse really.

The combat is dull, the graphics are boring, even the heroes – the games' big selling point – are totally underwhelming. Not to mention ridiculously expensive for any extras. It's free to try, but it's not really worth the bandwidth either.

As a curiosity project for fans of the genre, I can only say that I’m glad Lords of Football exists; but as a full-price release it’s not something that can be readily recommended.

Scaling itself back for a more "pure" co-op experience just doesn't work for this franchise that benefited so greatly from borderline parody. For that reason alone, The Devil's Cartel is an awkward one to recommend.

Bland, boring, and turgid to the last - look to Tropico 4 for a fine example of micromanagement, or instead XCOM Enemy Unknown for turn-based kicks: Omerta: City of Gangsters deserves to be thrown in a trunk and taken "someplace up state."

Aliens: Colonial Marines is a slap in the face to anyone who put the game on their Most Wanted list at any point since 2007. It’ll be remembered for a long time, but for all the wrong reasons. What a shame. I just feel sorry for those who bought the Season Pass… since there probably won’t be a Season now.

I tested the Xbox 360 version of Omerta, which controlled fine. The 360 versions of Tropico both had decent performance, and the same is true here. As well as working smoothly on a technical level, the actual control scheme is well-thought out. It’s clear that Omerta began life with both platforms in mind instead of console being tacked on as an after-thought.

As usual, all objectives revolve around causing mass genocide and protecting painfully annoying innocents. If you were looking to buy this game for the online multiplayer experience, don't bother. At the time of writing, it seems nobody across the world wants to punch with friends.

What saves Dungeon Gate from being a total frustration-filled write-off is the one innovation the game has: Dysan’s ability to scan and turn himself into every single person, animal or creature in the game, and then use their powers and even upgrade each form.

Given the pedigree of Ron Gilbert and Double Fine Productions' past works, a lot of people will be understandably excited by the prospect of The Cave. On paper, it sounds appealing, with its variety of characters and plethora of reasons to replay. It looks charming and, at first, the humour hits the spot. Problems lie with its inability to give you any great reason to replay it. It's just all too disappointingly shallow.

007 Legends is rushed, short, frustrating, and wastes several interesting scenarios. It's at best slightly above average (several bits in Moonraker), but largely painfully average or excruciatingly below average.

It's unfinished, it doesn't communicate vital information to the player very well, and – let's be honest here – it's all more than a little repetitive. Every level just feels like you're doing the same things over and over again. There's fun to be had certainly in the building and exploration departments, but it could've been handled with a lot more care. This isn't a game, it's a tomb.

The combat hits an enjoyable, if uninspired, rhythm at times, but really, Clan of Champions does nothing new, confining you to small, cookie-cutter environments and not even having the good grace to polish your loot.

Right now the small player population is seriously harming what makes Ravaged stand out, but even when you do end up in a big battle on a fresh map, its best attributes are lost underneath layers of niggling issues that just prevent it from being an enjoyable experience.

Hoodwink is true to its title, since it's barely a game.

It's never satisfying to condemn any game but it's hard not to with Inversion. There are glimmers of nice ideas within, but the water is too muddied to see them clearly. All that's left is a bunch of mechanics that we've all seen before, and better implemented elsewhere.

If you look at it as an action game, then it falls at almost every hurdle. Aiming is jerky and hard, and the controls are too complex to engage in fast-paced combat. However, if you look at it from a simulation point of view, enthusiasts of mech-games certainly have something to get excited about at being in the cockpit of one without forking out the £200-odd for the previous game.

The game feels more like a web browser game than a console feature.

Without the nostalgia factor, it's just a very short and dated experience with a glimmer of the wonder that once gripped the arcade world. That's really not enough to compete with what's out there now.

If I've come across as harsh or bitchy in this review, that's because the game genuinely angered me whilst playing it. Not only was it boring and a chore, badly written and animated, and full of glitches, but it just seems so lazy.

Even relatively minor things like the inability to jump will grate, let alone more major concerns such as the control system. What could have been something rather special is simply a scattering of nice ideas, awkwardly actioned.

Those who've played the first game will either not want to touch another AZMD or be supremely disappointed at the sheer amount of regurgitated content here. Newcomers will likely get frustrated with the emphasis on grinding and repetitive game play.

Even without comparing it to previous games, it's still mediocre at best. If I had one word to describe Wrecked, it would be unnecessary. There are enough arcade racers out there, and some of them are actually pretty decent. This one; is not.

Blades of Time never matches up to the well-executed time mechanic it so readily deploys.

I had hopes for Yesterday, but they were beaten out of me during its absurdly short playing time. I got actively angry at the game at several occasions just because of the leaps of non-logic I was supposed to take.

The intelligent use of horror, intensity, and most importantly, subtleness has gone. While this game is only a diversion until Resident Evil 6 arrives, Capcom have done an amazingly awful job. Resident Evil used to be the trendsetter, the series everyone looked up to, now its identity has been de-constructed in a major way.

An utterly rubbish game.

I was particularly looking forward to Stronghold 3, so much so I requested the review months ago, and I still find it difficult to believe that Firefly have so spectacularly fouled things up.

Despite all the many, many problems the game has, Spellbound still programmed in the ability to stir soup. Soup your character can't actually use. They actually took development time out from dialogue, story, characters, quests, content, graphics, combat, and all the other essential RPG elements they screwed up to give your annoying shepherd an utterly pointless animation. That just blows my mind.

In a year that has seen plenty of top-notch sports games, this is arguably the worst of the lot.

In a year that has seen plenty of top-notch sports games, this is arguably the worst of the lot.

It promised a light-hearted take on one of the world's most serious sports and it never gets anywhere close to showing that. Poor character designs, terrible mini-narratives, and a broken fight system make this a waste of time and effort. Fans of MMA might satisfy some blood lust, but for everyone else, it shouldn't even register on your gaming radar.

It promised a light-hearted take on one of the world's most serious sports and it never gets anywhere close to showing that. Poor character designs, terrible mini-narratives, and a broken fight system make this a waste of time and effort. Fans of MMA might satisfy some blood lust, but for everyone else, it shouldn't even register on your gaming radar.

If you've just come from a literary binge of A Song of Ice and Fire, or just had a marathon of HBO's high production TV show you might be tempted by the lure of Cyanide's A Game of Thrones - Genesis. However if you're that invested in George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy universe you're likely to be left pretty angry, whereas newcomers like me leave feeling just dazed and confused.

A lack of ideas and poor design just won't cut it in a year that sees Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare go head-to-head.

Bodycount has been pinned as the spiritual successor to Black, but this couldn't be any further from the truth. The latter was full of quality at the end of the last generation's lifespan, while this title whimpers to a halt in a key point of 2011's gaming calendar.

Ultimately though I found myself sat in front of my computer, scratching my unkempt beard and trying to answer the question: who is the game for?

This can't be the same developer that made the last two games. That team must be off doing Dead Island or something. There were germs of good ideas in here, and it is possible to play it through to the end, but the criticisms and frustrations will overwhelm any fun you have doing so.