There’s a world of difference between pretty cute and worth playing. Fe does a tremendous job of the former, but as far as the latter goes, it leaves quite a bit to be desired.

I managed to have quite a it of fun with Ms. Splosion Man, despite her pushing me away and at times downright annoying me.

That doesn't mean the online play is perfect. In fact, many people have reported matchmaking issues and assorted glitches. Matchmaking shouldn't be a problem when playing with friends via invites (on either PSN or XBL), but when playing random players it's a mixed bag.

Start The Party! is a bright, colorful and well animated game. The visual style is a little on the wacky side, and there's plenty of comical voiceovers and sound effects all throughout.

While Zen Studios' ambition may be misplaced in what CastleStorm is, it's a welcome quality in delivering this "complete" version of their original game.

Given how nice it looks, I suspect that if you were to strip out most of Moons of Madness’ gameplay — such as it is — you would’ve been left with a very solid (if somewhat short) horror walking simulator. Instead, all you have here a somewhat scary horror game that manages to drown itself in a whole lot of pointless busywork.

A mixed bag—platforming and presentation are exceptional, making for one of the better games I’ve played on the DS. On the other hand, the combat and length detract so much from the overall package.

All in all, I think Urban Trial Freestyle is worth a look. It won’t top something like Trials HD, but if you keep your expectations in check you’ll have some fun with it.

Under the Jolly Roger is best described as so-so. As mobile ports go, I’ve certainly seen a lot worse, but if you want something deeper, keep looking (or, of course, just get Black Flag instead).

The problem with the game itself is that after you have Deathmatched for hours on end in the same somewhat small sized, but well designed stages, there is not much more to do.

Country Tales isn’t going to light the world on fire — and at $10, it’s more than a little overpriced — but if you’re looking for an easygoing time-waster, it does the trick.

I don’t know that I’d put it above other established franchises in the genre just yet, but if you have some affinity for Marvel and its characters along with Diablo clones, there’s certainly worse ways to pass the time than this.

The gameplay and story aren’t completely original and short. The game does look great and the soundtrack is extraordinary.

Digimon and card battle fans will find a comprehensive game in DCB, but non-fans could be turned off by the digital world.

Given that Through the Darkest of Times is built around telling a story, having obvious narrative problems — whether in terms of continuity, hamfistedness, or whatever — represents a bit of an issue. There are still some interesting ideas to be found here, and the setting alone makes it feel like few other games, but if you go in expecting something groundbreaking, you may find yourself disappointed.

Concept Destruction feels more like a really great demo or a proof of concept than a full-fledged must-play game. What’s here is good, but with a few big tweaks and additions this could have been great. As it stands, this is a fun way to spend an hour or so, but if you want more than that, you’ll just have to wait for the developers to flesh this out a little (or rather, a lot) more.

While this game is a little rough around the edges, what do you expect from an XBLA/PSN RPG game? If you like turn based, strategy type games and can overlook cartoony graphics, I suggest you pick this game up.

To spite the rough and buggy nature of Rust Console Edition at launch, it fills a certain void in the online survival genre on consoles and is certainly worth checking out for those craving a more grounded experience.

Old Time Hockey has all kinds of great ideas, and with a few more updates it might even get to a place where it lives up to what its creators intended to do. Right now, however, you're better off finding a way (legally or otherwise) of booting up Blades of Steel or NHL '94.

Give it a rental if you're thinking about picking it up, and try to play together with someone else to see what you really think about this one.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted takes Underground’s control scheme and slaps it into the Hot Pursuit series, which in the end, does not work.

With 20 characters, various training missions, and a surprisingly fun 2-player mode, there is a lot to be played in Kengo.

If for any reason, the whole online experience the game brings to the player is unparalleled, this is the reason to buy Fever over any of the competition.

It can be funny and disturbing while being challenging and clever. It's just too bad more care wasn't taken in making it available on a new platform.

Another concern I have for this series, is besides the new songs, outfits, duet modes, and a few new characters, the game is virtually the same as the previous two. With too little additions each time around, I begin to wonder where my 40 bucks is going.

Unfortunately, even if you think that’s a point in the game’s favour, all the funny interactions and oddball characters in the world can’t hide the fact that Penny-Punching Princess’ action is kind of meh. The game gets points for trying something new, but it would’ve gotten even more if that new thing had actually turned out well.

One very beautiful, but very difficult, flight simulator. Real life physics are tough, even with a slider bar that allows a bit of control.

Some hits and misses, but for 20 dollars, you get more than your money's worth here. Especially since they are all arcade emulations, and not ports from other systems or consoles.

Boss! tries its best, but unless you dressing up monsters in seasonally-appropriate attire is your thing, you'll probably find it to be a little lacking.

From a more objective viewpoint, however, there's no escaping the fact this is just a mediocre game that doesn't quite live up to its ideas.

While some of the gameplay concepts feel familiar, the theme, writing and setting really wraps it up well and makes it worthy of spending some free time with.

To get Sonic Colors: Ultimate’s fun gameplay on PC means putting up with graphics that are, at best, an eyesore. Given that there are plenty of other options for playing the game, it may not be a trade-off you want – or need – to make.

Wo Long exists at an intersection between Nioh and Sekiro, and unfortunately falls short of both and fails to establish an identity of its own. While I enjoyed my time with Wo Long, and had a fine experience, it passed from my mind almost as soon as I was done with it. I still sit and wait patiently for the day that From Software announces a follow-up to the perfection that was Sekiro, and an opportunity to try out Nioh 3 is something I would not pass up. Wo Long simply fails to impress in the ways those games do, and ends up planting itself firmly in the “Good but forgettable” category.

Some hits and misses, but for 20 dollars, you get more than your money's worth here. Especially since they are all arcade emulations, and not ports from other systems or consoles.

But the multiplayer modes suffer from severely limited interaction and only three maps for play. The most promising new feature becomes routine very quickly, so before you know it the latest experiment in Raccoon city is over.

Essentially, Killzone: Shadow Fall will impress you from a technical standpoint, but not so much from the actual gameplay.

It’s built around an engaging story that never outlasts its welcome – the story of a boy pining for his lost love has obviously been done countless times before, but the way it’s told here is nicely done. Further, it ties into an interesting mechanic – since the boy is collecting the soul fragments at the behest of a being called the Soul Collector, he has the ability to switch realities and see another world. This, in turn, makes the puzzles a lot more interesting, as you often have to switch back and forth to figure out what to do next.Obviously, none of this is enough to make Eternal Hope feel like it rises about its influences. But at the very least, it’s enough to help the game carve out its own tiny niche within the world of Limbo clones.

Still a high-quality brawler after all these years. Just don’t expect much that's new.

Ninja Reflex is another game for the party crowd, and if this is the big reason you own a Wii, then I can recommend the title for you. Otherwise you are looking at a rental until it hits the bargain bin.

While I'll admit that the track selection is lighter than I'd have liked, and that I really would have preferred to see a 60fps release, I still had a lot of fun with this game.

If you’re not a fan of those types of games, this won’t be the one to draw you in, unless you have some obscene love for source material. But as a DW fan, like me, you’ll get hours of enjoyment out of the face punching, body exploding ridiculousness that Ken’s Rage 2 delivers.

The presentation is brilliant, there are more teams..., new modes, and the slowdown has been fixed. Top all of this off with fantastic and engaging gameplay and you have a great soccer title that should hold you off for another six months when EA releases '07.

The games' poor communication system and load times keep it from being a more workable online experience. But its unnerving combination of comradery and isolation is sociable, scary fun.

A shorter experience keeps Death of the Outsider from reaching the same level of success that Dishonored 2 had, but the experience here is one definitely worth it. This is far more than simple DLC, it is a self contained albeit short game. My experience on PC was fantastic, running on max settings with no issue at all. Death of the Outsider feels like the first thing that Arkane made with the PC in mind, not an afterthought.

The battles should be more fluid and dungeons could be more unique, but ultimately the story and its characters carry .hack a notch above the standard RPG.

Despite how much I find myself enjoying the majority of the LEGO games, I find Harry Potter putting me pretty close to my breaking point. The series is incredibly formulaic at this point, and while I loved the magic and exploration aspects of the first Harry Potter adventure, this just feels like more of the same.

For the casual gamer, you may want to steer clear of this as the learning curve is nearly as frustrating as golfing in real life.

It's one of those games that will get old fast when played alone, but with a bunch of friends will stand the test of time.

As you can imagine, this gets pretty infuriating pretty quickly. One of the trademarks of any good horror narrative is that the antagonists always play by certain rules; when they don't — as is the case here — it becomes an exercise in randomness. While that may be truer-to-life, as Knock-Knock shows, it makes for a much less satisfying gaming experience.

Although Dark Age doesn't innovate much, it's the best and most viable MMORPG out there right now.

I’d probably recommend the original release, which is available at a much cheaper price across all platforms, and then maybe pick up the DLC on the side, instead of opting for this new Spacer’s Choice Edition. Ideally additional patches will get this version of the game to where it needs to be, but out of the gate this is not a version of The Outer Worlds I would recommend picking up.

I may be overcompensating the other way a little too hard when I say that it seems like a perfect fit for anyone who likes their games to be challenging. At the same time, tough, given what I saw between very frequent deaths, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a great match for anyone who doesn’t mind dying a bunch.

I think the problem is that even if Potata: Fairy Flower does a lot of things well enough, it doesn’t do anything incredibly well. Even if, as I said, it looks better than plenty of other platformers — and, for that matter, it’s got more competent gameplay and a more engaging story than many of its competitors — there are also plenty more platformers that do all of those things much better than this game does. If you just want something that’s good enough, it’ll do, but I feel like there are lots of other games out there that you should probably play first.

A title that seems to be suffering from a bit of an identity crisis this year. Unlike last year’s version, which was fully dedicated to being smash-mouth hockey fun, the tone in Hitz 20-03 is more serious and less consistent in its approach.

The number of options and unlockable goodies make it a very deep game, which will make it just the ticket for wrestling fans despite it’s shortcomings.

While I still prefer MLB’s game play, the wealth of options and visual flare that "MVP" is bringing makes Sony’s game a bit stale.

It’s got an interesting story and it’s set in an interesting world, but you’ll be spending a lot of time sidetracking into minute, extraneous details that make those bigger picture things difficult to see.

Even if Ys games are more action-packed than most other titles that fall within the very broad JRPG umbrella, Ys IX has less action than it probably should. Again, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that Ys IX is a bad game, because it’s definitely not. But it’s also not a great game, either, and given that we’re talking about a series that has produced a couple of those, that means Ys IX can’t help but fall a little short of expectations.

I'd expect a little better from the Persona Team, as I absolutely love that series, but I'm a little let down by what Catherine had to offer.

In the name of fairness, it should also be noted that Halloween Forever works like it’s supposed to. That may not sound like much, but given how many of those other wannabe-retro games have horrible controls — which, obviously, just add to the frustration level in games as hard as this one — it’s always nice to find one that doesn’t artificially increase the difficulty with floaty jumps or imprecise running. Is that enough to make Halloween Forever worth checking out? Probably not, unless you’ve got a thing for retro-platformers and a thing for Halloween. But if, for some reason, you were to compare this to every single other game of its ilk, Halloween Forever would definitely fall in the upper half of the list.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is a lot of fun to play when you get a full group together, as long as you can get everyone over the initial learning curve.

At the very least, you have to rent this one just to experience the 50’s B-movie hilarity.

It’s a love letter to gaming – as in, a love letter to almost every genre you can think of – and it’s designed to look like someone drew it up in a notebook, which only adds to the charm. It’s all over the place, but if you want something unlike anything else, this is the game you’re after.

A solid, if standard platformer if you have some appreciation for Scooby-Doo or if you're looking for a game for the kids.

Like many games before this one, moving from 2D into 3D can be a tricky proposition. For every successful endeavor there are countless failures. Luckily, Picross 3D manages to come into its own as a fun puzzle game, even if it shares very few game play traits with its older brother.

I wanted to love this game, I really did. The team at Gunfire Games clearly poured a lot of love and lessons learned into this game, and they were kind enough to provide us with 3 codes for Remnant 2 so we could get effective co-op testing in. Unfortunately, a combination of some mechanics pulling the game down, as well as one of the biggest years for new releases EVER lead to Remnant 2 falling behind and getting a bit lost in the shuffle.

I’d be lying if I said that Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory made me eager to check out more games in the series, let alone expand my horizons to see what else Digimon has to offer. But if you’re already a fan, I imagine that this game is competent enough and expansive enough that you’ll find all kinds of stuff to enjoy.

If you are looking for a good DS title to fit the bill until the next big thing hits store shelves, then Pac-Pix isn’t the worst decision you could make, providing you know what you are buying in the first place.

The Arcade mode and local 2P action is great, just what I expected from the game, and while the visuals could do with a little sprucing up in comparison to the arcade stuff I've seen, it's not that awful. Not quite as stylized as recent console fighters, but not bad enough that it put me off of having fun with the game. However, if you're going in for story/scenario mode and online play, neither is worth picking the game up for at the moment.

A must buy for fans of the "Fast and The Furious" movie.

The single player game doesn’t last all that long unfortunately, and some camera issues can definitely become an annoyance, but the game is still fun for a while.

Unfortunately the training sequence in the very beginning wastes no time introducing you to the biggest problem with Dawn of Fate: the controls.

The game is very linear and hopefully one day the EA team will expand this title with a bit more freedom.

Thanks to the graphical style, battle system and music, overall Lost Sphear is a reasonable attempt at bringing back the feel of the classic JRPG from the golden SNES era. It’s too bad they made some of the story choices they did, though if it weren’t for that, Lost Sphear would have been a much better game.

Personally, I enjoy the idea and most of the execution, but it doesn't live up to the previous titles (except maybe Rock the 80's), and it still has a way to go before it completely impresses me.

Is it a little rough around the edges right now? You bet. But with a virtually non-existent entry cost and some solid foundation to back it up, Dust 514 is worth checking out.

As you can tell, Circus Electrique has a lot going on. While it’s pleasant to look at and to listen to, the game also overwhelms you with information, and it doesn’t help that most of it is conveyed via very small text boxes with menus that aren’t super easy to navigate around. There’s a codex that keeps track of it all, but even so, the sheer volume of information (and associated info-dumps) is simply crazy. Which is why it’s hard not to wish that Circus Electrique had simply tried to whittle everything down to, say, half a dozen of its best ideas. If you’re after a dense game, this will deliver exactly that – but at a certain point, you kind of wonder whether it’s all worth it, and I don’t know that it is.

If puzzle games are your thing, this collection is worth it just for Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. It’s an excellent variation on a proven formula.

Severed Steel doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists in a world where Neon White (to say nothing of Max Payne and Superhot) not only also exist, but are much, much better options if you want this kind of gameplay. With competition like that, Severed Steel doesn’t quite match up.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is a present for fans of the series who are sadistic enough to find enjoyment in the constant failure, however SEGA has left training wheels to cultivate a new generation of fans. Perhaps in another 20 years someone else out there will recall their fond memories playing this series, whether alone or with friends. I just hope that this person will be able to play a version of Monkey Target that works.

If you want to reclaim some precious nostalgia from your past, in High Def, then this is the definitive version of Dragon’s Lair...bar none.

It may be disappointing to some that Battlefield 4’s single player doesn’t live up to a hill of beans, but what they did accomplish with the impressive multiplayer mode is something special that cannot be duplicated even by Activision’s mighty series.

There's a lot of content here if you enjoy the standard games and want to unlock everything, but not enough of a change here to sway non DW fans into checking this out.

Singstar '90s plays the same as the others before it, but it will come down to the track list preference whether or not you'll want to spend the money on it.

You don’t need a tonne of context to figure out that your goal is to use your cards to wipe out the monsters – and the game is accessible and intuitive enough that you don’t need much more than that to go on. There are some challenging battles the further in you get, obviously, but generally speaking this game is very easy to pick up. But again, if you want to play this on the Steam Deck, be warned that you’ll be missing a pretty major chunk of the game. It’s probably not the best way to be exposed to Last Kids on Earth for the first time – but so, Hit the Deck is still a pretty enjoyable deck-based battler, even with those shortcomings.

Area 51 is the antithesis of what first person shooter fans want. It is actually a better offline title than it is online.

While Scribblenauts Unmasked has all the elements of a Scribblenauts title, it doesn't have the same room for creativity — and that's probably what makes the whole thing feel a little off. Without room for imagination, all that's left is a game that tells you what to do. Admittedly, it's frequently superheroes doing the telling (and that may be more than enough for some people), but that doesn't make it any more fun.

While it is an improvement in almost every aspect from controls to options, it still isn't close to what fans of stock cars want to see from their beloved franchise.

In all of this, of course, I should emphasize that Letter Quest's core gameplay isn't all that bad. If you're like me, you'll get excessive amounts of joy out of playing a round or two and seeing all the crazy words you can come up with. It's easy enough to figure out, and the controls are a breeze.

I feel kind of bad criticizing a game for being too inventive and embracing its vision a little too much — but that’s exactly what I’m going to do here. I’m not going to begrudge Runner3 for going all in on the things that have made the franchise so enjoyable in the first place…but, at the same time, there’s a fine line between just enough and way too much, and Runner3 definitely crosses it.

It’s not a must-have ticket...[but] there’s enough new to keep fans interested.

It is a fantastic ride, to be sure, but a shallow, all-too-brief and ultimately unfulfilling one.

If you only own a PS2, Max Payne 2 is a worthy pickup, but those of you with a decent PC should buy that version instead. Trust me - it's easier on the eyes and the hands.

I have no doubt that some people are absolutely going to love Jusant – but it’s definitely not for me. If you’re a fan of climbing, you’ll find plenty to love here, but I found it all too frustrating to ever get lost in the game.

It’s always fun to see games mashing together genres you wouldn’t necessarily think go together. True, it’s even more fun when the mash-up works, but Vostok Inc. deserves kudos (if not necessarily a recommendation) for trying something new.

A good handheld shooter, but it's also a step back for the Gradius series as a whole. While the graphics are definitely a cut above the SNES Gradius III, the lack of difficulty and a weapon edit mode really knock the replayability down.

There aren’t many extras in each title and the two titles feel dated. But hardcore fight fans get a lot substance for a little cash.

There's enough content on disc to justify the purchase, but don't expect any massive gameplay improvements over what WWE '12 had to offer. But from a presentation or story mode angle, this is a huge step up from the previous game, despite the graphical and audio issues.