I mean that on two levels, as it's a solid action platformer, but it also has a lot of untapped potential that players may be disappointed to discover by the time they're through.

Overall, Dark Void was a definite disappointment, but at the same time it's completely playable.

This is a disappointment for me, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 is a game that I was truly rooting for this year. I have enjoyed the previous entries in this series and this one had the potential to rise up and make a name for itself among other powerhouse titles. Unfortunately performance issues and a weak story plague what is at its core a good game, built on solid mechanics. I feel that with time this could grow into the game that was originally anticipated, but the question will be whether bad blood is already present. If not this game, then perhaps the next one will take this foundation and truly grow it into a game that I can wholeheartedly support. Until then, go into this one with realistic expectations and enjoy the combat for what it is.

A lot of the puzzles require precise placement, and the controls, using the d-pad or analog nub, are a bit inconsistent.

So let's add it up: a story that's virtually impossible to follow, grind-heavy gameplay that consistently leads nowhere, and frustrating combat. I'm not saying that it would've been better off in Fantasy Hero: Unsigned Legacy never got localized — more games are always welcome, no matter how bad they may be — but at the same time, I'm not not saying that either.

As the headline suggests, only pick this up if you are a hardcore fan and know what you are getting with Soldier’s Soul.

The game should take you anywhere from 6 to 10 hours to complete, depending on your willingness to see every nook and cranny of the game. You also are privy to two endings in the game, and thankfully the game saves right before your final decision so you can witness both endings without necessarily taking another trip through the game.

As it stands, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered is a tough game to suggest for everyone. Playing through the game alone works perfectly fine, you’ll still get a pretty good experience provided you are willing to put up with the repetitive nature of the action combat and revisiting dungeons over and over. And the online multiplayer component works well too, I had no real issues connecting with other players, no problems with lag or disconnects. But the core co-op experience feels decidedly empty and does a poor job of echoing back to the experience I had with the original game, so much so that I leave the game a tad disappointed overall.

While the graphics have come along as expected, there just isn't any substance to make ESPN NBA 2 Night 2002 worth your time.

Arguably, there are other classics that should have been included, but it's an excellent sampling and a nice blast from the past if you're interested in walking down memory lane.

While the options are bigger this year, I thought last year’s game felt more complete in overall game play.

It had a chance, but the rushed nature of the product, the dismal production values, the lack of variety, and the odd privatization of gimmicks over fundamentals make the game a failure in pretty much every regard.

It's nice to see another shooter where shooters are not, but Platypus only incorporates bare-bones play which can't figure out if it wants to be hard or easy.

It's immediately obvious that a great labor was undertaken to create and maintain the art style throughout, but it's marred immediately by lazy game design that neither finds any synergy with the art nor shows any pride in the product.

Like a cowboy at a punk concert, it’s awkward and really doesn’t belong.

Not the title to bring soccer to the greater masses; it only insults those who enjoy the sport.

Do I think that Micro Machines is a must play experience for everyone? Absolutely not. It’s a OK attempt at modernizing a somewhat niche, but well-loved 8-bit game, and that certainly won’t be for everyone. And unfortunately, modernizing that experience doesn’t work out too well, especially the heavy online focus that is too reliant on other players with a community that already seems dead on arrival. But still, the more I played, the more I enjoyed. Once I felt that I had some level of skill when it came to turning tight corners and lining up kill shots on opposing players, the overall experience with Micro Machines certainly improved. I don’t think I’d suggest picking it up at full price, but it certainly might worth it at a discount in the future.

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.

The controls aren't as specific as a fishing game's controls could be expected to handle.

Seven Sorrows succeeded in bringing back the nostalgia of the arcade franchise, but the game just feels all too familiar for a present day purchase.

Rule of Rose is more of a semi-interactive storybook than anything else, and everything that it does right in storytelling and atmosphere is completely nullified by boring and horribly broken gameplay.

There are definitely areas that the game could see some serious improvement, but overall, I'm not entirely disappointed in this old school revival attempt.

While the options are bigger this year, I thought last year’s game felt more complete in overall game play.

The controls are decent, but FPSs just don’t seem to work the best on the standard GC controller; That C stick is just too tiny.

Contrast may be great to look at, but when it comes down to it, what really matters is whether it can accomplish the fundamental task of keeping things moving forward without breaking down very often. And on that front, to be brutally honest, it fails, making it worth a download if you have PS+, but probably not much more than that.

I think the game does offer some unique things to whole 3rd person action cover system, but at the same time I have a hard time thinking of it as something really fun to play.

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.

While Spiderwick Chronicles didn't turn out to be a pile of trash, it's far from special and doesn't warrant a second glance in just about any situation.

Aladdin isn't breaking any new video game ground, but it's a fun, colorful experience, even though it's several years old.

There's nothing so terrible about it that you'll regret ever having picked it up — there are no Jesus Bynum moments, in other words — but it's doubtful you'll have much fun playing it either.

I can't decide who's at fault here. Is it Sony for including 3D power and no way to control the camera? Or is it the fault of these game developers that insist on developing 3D games that obviously need camera control?

Is it a deep, engaging experience? No, of course not. But on the flip side, Damascus Gear: Operation Tokyo features giant robot battles. What more do you need?

I think if you're already an established Dynasty Warriors fan, then you'll probably love what Strikeforce is doing for the series. Likewise, if you were a fan and fell off the wagon at some point, this is a great game to jump back on with. Finally, if you've never played a DW game before, or if the series hasn't held much appeal, I think Strikeforce can even be the game for you.

Everything else gets repetitive pretty quickly, which has to be expected from a game based on redneck jokes. In small doses, that's great. I support mean-spirited humor on almost every level. But because the game's two focuses, driving and trading, are so shallow the humor is the only entertainment left.

The dialogue is enjoyably sarcastic, and it blends in political commentary in an impressively unobtrusive way, getting the point across without feeling like it has to slam you over the head with it. It’s still not funny enough to make it worth your while to play A Knight’s Quest, though. There are numerous games that do the same thing but in a much better, more interesting way, and you’d be better off playing any — or all — of them than wasting your time and money here.

Having the games and the movie on a single Blu-ray disc is probably the only missing "feature" of the Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience package, although I understand the reasoning behind splitting them up.

I would be lying to say this game is a pick up and play FPS, but finding your niche will only take a half hour or so of tweaking and trying controls schemes before you find the one you like.

If you have played the series before, prepared to be under whelmed as no real new tactics or specials have been added this year.

An average strategy title. The simple action and battle elements will turn off hardcore strategists. But the strong story and entertaining characters will keep you from popping the disc out.

Handing on your car feels a bit loose which allows you to lose control of your car far too easily. This is only exacerbated by ridiculously aggressive A.I. once played on any level besides easy.

All of which leads to the last definitive statement I can make about Farming Simulator: it's perfect for the Vita. Even if the game has its roots on PCs, its structure — the lack of a story or difficult controls to remember, the ability to save your game at any point in time — lends itself extremely well to handheld, on-the-go gaming. Other games obviously make better use of the system's features, but I can't think of many that seem like they were so tailor-made to be played on the Vita.

Bright Memory: Infinite will also leave you wanting a lot more if you’re the kind of person who likes lengthy video games. I was able to finish it in just over two hours, and that was with me running into some challenges in the boss fights, which means a more competent player will be able to finish it in under two. Even as someone who liked the game, that’s a pretty tough value proposition. But if you’re just looking at it from the perspective of how much fun you’ll get out of those two hours, then Bright Memory: Infinite becomes a lot harder to beat. It crams everything it can think of into that short runtime and is dripping with style for every second of it. I can see why it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it certainly is mine.

The only real down side is that none of it is really original, which gives veteran racers a been-there done-that kind of feeling.

A game that can help me unwind and that I am able to play in front of my kids is a winner in my book.

I guess the question is, does Painkiller have any merits? It kind of does: again, if you don’t mind repetition and just want to shoot demons, it gives you every opportunity to do that, and you’ll get some big honking guns in the process. But if you want anything deeper or more substantial, you’re not going to find it here.

I definitely think Skater XL is worth checking out, more so on the PC for the mod side of things than the console version at the moment. But if you’re not opposed to challenging yourself and seeking out your own fun with a responsive, unique physics-based control system, then I think you’ll still get some enjoyment with the current release of the game. Ideally, future updates will flesh out the experience even more, and based on the early access process prior to release, it does seem as if developer Easy Day Studios is committed to Skater XL for the long haul.

Because the game is such a chore from beginning to end and all points in between, it feels more like you’re trapped in a world that should be a whole lot more fun than it is. Summer in Mara will try to suck you in with promises of being all charming and delightful, but all it takes is a few minutes (and a few hours after that) to reveal just how empty those promises are.

Bottom line for Pokemon fans is: try before you buy. You'll either love it or hate it.

MM surprised me with it’s slick graphical engine, solid game play, and involving depth and appeal. One thing that makes MM stand out is the fact it’s more of a futuristic sport, than a plain old kill and destroy storyline.

Even though the mini-games are too common and unnecessarily repetitive, and the random cartoon nudity isn't worth the effort, the wonderfully insane dialogue and characters are worth taking a trip to Larry's collegiate adventure.

Fans of games like Blazing Angels and Crimson Skies will feel right at home with Dogfight 1942, while players of more in depth simulations like Ace Combat or others with more involved controls might find it too easy.

The disappointing sequel keeps the open ended play of the original, but the menial chores and lacking play mechanics could make any samurai give up on their career path.

It's much deeper than I would have expected from a current age Musou style game, and I highly urge people who aren't usually enamored with the Dynasty Warriors series to check this out, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Unless the online side gets a serious fix soon there's little reason to play unless you have a dedicated group of friends that really love old-school MK. And if it doesn't get fixed soon there won't be much of an online community around to support it when a fix does happen.

While the PS2 seems to have helped improve the visuals ten fold, From Software wasn't able to work out the gameplay kinks to round everything out.

A very fun and gritty game with lots of charm to boot.

Overall, I believe that South Park: Snow Day is quite a great time. It offers good replay value with changes to the game once you complete the main campaign, encounters seem to change when you replay levels, and it just offers a lot of that fun roguelike/roguelite feel we’ve come to enjoy from other titles. I genuinely believe that for the price point, get your friends together and I think you’ll enjoy yourselves a ton. It’s a very well put together game, and I don’t believe we encountered any bugs in our playthrough other than maybe some collision issues in terrain. It’s just a very solid title, I don’t really have anything negative to say other than perhaps its length. Tyler and I managed to finish our first playthrough in roughly 4 to 5 hours, but again, it offers reasons to replay it, so I don’t particularly see that as an issue. Absolutely great release from the team at Question and from publisher THQ Nordic.

It's kind of sad that Victorious Boxers Revolution was botched so badly. Given that the series was a somewhat obscure anime contemporary to Fight Night, and the source material being one of the better cartoons I've seen, seeing the Wii title being so bad is a shame.

Sure, I could only bring myself to play School Girl/Zombie Hunter in small doses, and as I was playing all I could think about was how stupid the game was. But if you want mindless action that you won’t have to think about very deeply — and that you probably shouldn’t think about too deeply, for your own mental well-being — then this game will deliver that in spades.

There's so much about this game that falls flat, and so much that feels like a quick cash-in attempt using the band name attached, that I can't suggest picking this up, certainly not at a full price point.

If you don’t care about the various characters that make up The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology, you’re just left with a 3D platformer where you move at a crawl and you’re constantly getting stuck in frustrating stealth sections. That may be fine for fans, but for everyone else, I have to imagine it’ll be a non-starter.

Crown Wars: The Black Prince is a competent tactical RPG that fits squarely within the confines of its chosen genre, so if you want more X-COM-likes in your life, and don’t mind feeling like you’d get the same experience playing any number of other, similar games, you could do worse than checking it out.

Unfortunately, Murdered: Soul Suspect falls flat when it comes to the core mystery-solving mechanics found in its gameplay, and unless you’re really invested in the storyline, most will see little worth in seeing this story through to the end.

The colors are drab, and the textures really are bad enough to make you wonder if you're really looking at Doom on the SNES.

It's a cute game, with monsters that would make excellent stuffed animals, but the execution is too childlike for adults and not intuitive enough for children.

At this point, this is a game that will appeal to fans of the high score and dunks as A.I. and defense did not really show up this year.

Given how long it’s been since I played the game from which this draws such a heavy influence, it’s quite possible that this was how the original Road Rash games played as well. But even if it wasn’t, Road Redemption is such a reasonable facsimile that it makes me feel like it’s a possibility, which seems like an achievement in and of itself. That doesn’t make it a great game (or even a very good one, or even one you should consider buying unless you have a desperate need to relive the ‘90s), but it does make Road Redemption a perfect successor to the games it’s trying to emulate.

Fares no better than the sum of its mediocre parts. And while the effort put forth by developer Amuze can be considered admirable, it doesn't help the fact that Redemption ends up demanding the very thing its namesake promises.

The game should take you anywhere from 6 to 10 hours to complete, depending on your willingness to see every nook and cranny of the game. You also are privy to two endings in the game, and thankfully the game saves right before your final decision so you can witness both endings without necessarily taking another trip through the game.

It’s that disconnect between idea and execution that makes BigFest such a frustrating game to play. Almost every step of the way, you can see what the developers were trying to do — but you can also see where they fell short. If that gap didn’t exist, there’s a good chance this game would be worth playing…but it does exist, which means that you can probably skip it.

All in all I really enjoyed Maximum Pool, far more than the offerings provided in the last couple of years. It's easy, fun, and online. What more do you need to know?

Bedlam has a unique concept with pretty good nostalgia and a decent story. It’s a shame to see it fall victim to consistent game crashes, framerate drops and other game breaking bugs.

Robotech Invasion is about the fight against the Invid, and that puts the game in competition with every other futuristic shooter instead of playing to the strengths of the series: big robots that switch into planes and fire scores of side winding missiles.

It may not be long, but it doesn't need to be, either, and it tops it all off with an abundance of style.

With all of that, I cannot recommend Anthem to anyone at launch. There is simply way too much bad to allow for the good to truly shine through. The endgame content is really good, but the boring grind and unbelievably shallow story on the way there do not justify a $60 purchase.

The objectives are just too mundane for most people to care. Everblue 2 will only please you if you absolutely love treasure hunting.

Game play can be summed up in one word…repetitive.

Overall this just feels like they took one step forward and then two steps back.

It may borrow some obvious elements from much better-known (and, frankly, probably better-made) games, but if you give it a chance, Beasts of Maravilla Island should be able to win you over with its charms.

I can’t say that Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is a bad game. It’s a solid attempt at recreating that Suikoden experience, and I can appreciate that someone out there is still trying to keep its spirit alive in some manner. I think, and hope, that a sequel will ideally work out some of these issues and make for a better showing, but if you absolutely want to capture the feel of playing through a Suikoden title again, then Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will likely be right up your alley.

One more game in an ever-growing collection that makes good on an extremely old formula. It's not too hard or too easy. For kids, it seems just right.

Definitely worth picking up for the folks that already know they like these games, and if you have any worries about how the Move will control a title like this, I think this game will put those worries to rest.

Despite its small annoyances, Secret of the Nameless Kingdom is a blast to play, for gamers and fans of the TV series alike. It never gets boring, but also doesn’t get too difficult.

Unless you’re dying for achievements or are a fan of the films, there’s no reason to buy or even rent At World’s End. Instead, leave it to the films to do all the work for you, it’s easier and costs less.

I don't feel like it's portable friendly, and while I'd give Chrono Trigger a pass on that because it's a port, Black Sigil has always been in development as a handheld game of some kind, but the end result doesn't feel like it.

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.

It easily hold ground with EA and Sega, but offering the same options, with dated looks and sounds may turn off most fickle gamer.

It’s definitely got heart, but it needs a lot more than that to make it worth recommending.

Overall, Backbreaker has a couple good things going for it with the physics of the Euphoria engine, the team customization, and the unique POV when on the field, but the actual gameplay really sets this one back.

There aren’t many games that look as cared for as Trüberbrook, and it would be so nice if you could embrace the game in a way that feels like it justifies the incredible amount of hours that must have gone into it. The unfortunate fact, however, is that this game may have been better served if even a little of the innovation that went into making it had shown up on the gameplay side.

While you might not get as much life out of this as you would your typical Call of Duty or Halo title, I think it's a unique game that really should be experienced by anyone with a passing interest in the Light Gun genre, and I definitely feel like it's worth checking out.

Overall, I think you’ll find Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness to be a serviceable RPG in a time when serviceable doesn’t quite make the grade.

The implementation here is nearly a complete waste, considering the richness of the universe involved. Lousy controls, sterile and anemic environments, and weaksauce driving environments all pull down the good work done in the sound, character graphics and new footage departments.

But if you find yourself hungering for a new experience, I think Way of the Samurai 4 can certainly fill a bit of that need. Just be prepared for a little lack of refinement along the way.

I can't foresee Silent Hill: Book of Memories winning any Game of the Year awards, nor should it, but if you're in the mood for solidly reliable horror on the go, this should be more than enough to scratch that itch.

The game looks really crappy for a 2D title on any console, and plays exactly the way you think it would.

Some people will be happy with this release, but I feel it’s a game that desperately needed more time in development to deliver a feature-rich package that this franchise deserves.

For a niche audience, Skull & Bones may be a GOTY contender. But for everyone else, it’s hard to imagine the appeal. Skull & Bones is a grind-heavy game with not a lot of payoff, unless your idea of payoff is being asked to grind some more. You’d think that a game that spent 11 years in development would have more than just one idea repeated ad nauseam, but the evidence here suggests that’s really all there is.