For that matter, I don’t know that I’d quibble too hard with anyone who looked at the damsel-in-distress and the obnoxious characters, shrugged, and wanted to play anyway. The game practically asks the question, What if Danganronpa were a romance novel? — and if you’ve ever wanted to see how that plays out, Collar x Malice offers an intriguing answer.

I personally preferred the standard controls found on the PS2, PS3, and 360 to the Wii controls, which felt a bit too imprecise to work effectively.

By not providing more details on where to find the items needed to progress fully, however, it just becomes an exercise in frustration and drags down what could have been an above-average title.

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.

Redout 2 is specifically designed for people who need to master every track – anyone who stops short of that probably won’t enjoy it too much. It’s meant for people who want racers to challenge them, so if that’s what you’re after, this is a game you need to play.

From the moment the second level zips by, Squares makes it clear that you'd better have some insane reflexes right off the bat, or not bother playing. I'll take the latter - no matter how nice the game's aesthetics might be.

It's the bugs, the lousy camera, ... and absolute necessity to adjust all of the gameplay sliders to find that decent game that shoots the overall score way down.

While I think Shattered Dimensions looks great (it really does), the substance found here is lacking. Combat is a little bland and repetitive, and stage design doesn't really allow for so much web slinging as it does web-zipping, by having edges or platforms that you can shoot across instead of literally swinging through a city, town or open area.

To me the stale dated visuals, boring audio, and updated game play features didn’t win me over this year, and if more gamers are like myself, this game may fade faster that the Detroit Lion’s franchise.

While I think Shattered Dimensions looks great (it really does), the substance found here is lacking. Combat is a little bland and repetitive, and stage design doesn't really allow for so much web slinging as it does web-zipping, by having edges or platforms that you can shoot across instead of literally swinging through a city, town or open area.

Overall, the PlayStation Move controls and abundant features of Brunswick Pro Bowling make it good enough to consider, it just lacks polish compared to the competition.

Essentially, I never found myself enjoying The Crew 2. It’s not broken or busted in any major way, but I kept hacking away at the progression in the hopes that something would click and make the core game fun, but that never happens. It’s remarkable how similar in design the game is to the original, and how little feels improved upon outside of the visuals and the number of events to compete in.

A game that can be somewhat fun in multiplayer, boring in single player, and for the money, you can buy numerous superior titles that will keep your attention far longer than this game will.

UFC Personal Trainer isn't a great video game, but it is a pretty damn good workout. It'd be downright fantastic if it had better body tracking abilities, and if the voice controlled menu actually functioned correctly most of the time.

An amazing game, until the point where the initial impact of the pretty visuals wears off. What's left is a very average playing mission based driving title with not much in the line of long term replayability.

Battle Archives Vol. 1 does a graceful job in proper organization and presentation, and the ports are arcade-perfect --although they may lend themselves to a better appreciation for today's game mechanics. Unfortunately, the online multiplayer included in the Japanese release is sorely missed for the U.S. title, and that deeply lessens its value.

The edgy style, giant boss battles, big guns, and third-person dino-mauling bits certainly show that Propaganda Games have a lot of respect for what the franchise has meant to its fans, but at the same time it seems they either played it too safe or didn't let it sit in the oven long enough.

Underneath the visual flair is a gameplay system that’s neither arcade nor simulation based, and never manages to excel in either.

This is not my favorite of the series so far, and after the excellent releases we had with Harry Potter and Clone Wars, I'm a little let down by this one.

No matter how hard it tries, Abzû just isn't Journey.

A bland, average racing title. A shame, since there definitely was the potential for so much more.

In short, the expansion feels sort of like the modern Castlevania standby in "Richter Mode" wherein a jaunt with a new character involves a far simplified gameplay mechanic. However, the relevant thing to remember is that Demons of the Badlands not only simplifies the gameplay--but also the area it's in.

Once the novelty wears off, you're left with a mediocre game memorable only for its unique control scheme. Don't get me wrong, it's still worth playing - just not at full price.

All in all, Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn doesn’t come close to being my favorite in the series. It feels rushed, lightweight, and not something that indicates a three year gap in time between titles.

In other words, your $50 is better spent elsewhere.

The game has remained basically the same with some minor additions. Is it worth the purchase? Only if you are content to live in the 32-bit era for another whole year.

Another flaw with the game is it's lack of A.I. I'm not talking about the computer controlled characters, but rather the unfairness that occurs throughout any standard 4 player match.

The weak song choice and length of the songs kill the game for casual fans or those trying to find out what it’s all about.

I personally preferred the standard controls found on the PS2, PS3, and 360 to the Wii controls, which felt a bit too imprecise to work effectively.

If you simply want a racer that doesn’t do anything beyond the bare minimum, it’ll do, but if you want anything more than that, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

While I appreciate the idea of The Broken Mask, the flaws in the game unfortunately overpower the enjoyability.

A disappointing sequel. The effectiveness of the mission design is effectively neutered by the poor play balancing, pulling the rug out from under the player before the game even begins.

Where MOH Vanguard takes a sniper hit to the head is the game play department, which feels a bit loose and unpolished.

In short, the expansion feels sort of like the modern Castlevania standby in "Richter Mode" wherein a jaunt with a new character involves a far simplified gameplay mechanic. However, the relevant thing to remember is that Demons of the Badlands not only simplifies the gameplay--but also the area it's in.

While Restricted Area has some bright spots in terms of innovated ideas, you just can’t help but get that old, been there done that feeling while you are playing. The lack of any real plot will not help matters much more.

To be sure, I think it's neat that Q*Bert's developers decided to bring the classic game to a generation who've probably never seen it outside of being a side character in Wreck-It Ralph a few years ago. And I'm grateful that they didn't try and give it some insane makeover, a la Bomberman. But they also didn't demonstrate why the game had to be reborn — sorry, "Rebooted" — for the modern era, when everything about it makes it clear it probably should've stayed in the past.

All in all, if you have the time, patience, and the will to endure the technical issues, you may find the bits of this game that makes it unique from games like it. Divinity II isn't going to set the world on fire, no matter how many dragons you can transform into, but it is a worthy look if you enjoy quest oriented RPGs.

The novelty of kicking your friends from their bike in the heat of a race won't last forever, so once that aspect of the fun wears off so does any urge to hunker down to a night of ATV Quad Power Racing 2.

In the case of Super Destronaut DX 2, you get the Platinum after finishing 10 (out of 25 total) levels and hitting a fairly low score in each of the five arcade modes. Unless you’re the most dedicated Space Invaders fan ever, there’s really no reason to keep playing after that — and, really, there’s no reason to even pick it up in the first place.

Even by taking the plots from two films, the game is somewhat short, and definitely on the easy side when played on the default difficulty. The multiplayer is fun in bursts, but it's not going to draw players away from the big guns that are currently popular, so I can't imagine it having much of a community past the first few months of release.

Think of it as the cheap seats at a game. If you know what you are getting into and have plenty of friends who wanna throw down with you online, then yes, the game does play a fun addictive game of arcade NHL action. If you are looking for a single player experience or will only play online sporadically, then the answer is an emphatic no.

It provides an adult style of gameplay with but set in a non-adult world that most parents could find little to complain about. However, for the older gamers out there, Neopets won’t serve as more than a passing distraction at best.

Overall, the game is on the short side, but the difficulty and having one life will help you time last. For a digital only game, it’s not too bad if you’re a diehard fan. Otherwise, you may find yourself getting easily frustrated.

Choro Q stutters at the starting grid with its most obvious flaw, the game play just is not riveting. As mentioned before it is the sense of speed that kills the game.

I would dismiss Treehouse Riddle, however, because it’s just not that interesting a game. It too often feels like you’re just doing puzzles for the sake of doing puzzles, and, as other games have shown, there’s ways of making that a lot more interesting than it’s done here.

I can't give it as good a grade as I'd like to because of the installation issues, and it's not an original concept but it still manages to be a fun little game.

As a complete video game entertainment package, it's rather mediocre. It's a niche aspect of racing, and the whole game revolves around controlling and uncontrollable car.

I’ve almost certainly played worse games than SpellKeeper. But that’s hardly an endorsement of what it has on offer. If you just want an inexpensive, forgettable puzzle (sorry, “logic”) game it’ll do the trick, but you could definitely find much better things to play.

Because PUSS! is so odd, it feels like calling it “good” or “bad” is missing the point. This is the kind of game you should play when you really want something totally different, and you want your senses assaulted the whole time you’re playing. It is what it is — and even though I’ve always hated that phrase, it’s the most appropriate way to describe PUSS!

It’s more of a half-assed sequel to an excellent game that only fans desperately in need of more Dave Mirra need to check out.

The game really is very simple. Perhaps it’s too simple for the majority of Soprano fans. It’s definitely too simple for the serious gamer.

For all of the polish on the visuals and the movement design, Damsel is sorely lacking in gameplay and level design. Stages start to feel similar, then diverge a little, then ram back into similarity over and over. It’s here that the game starts to show its seams–feeling more like a mobile game than an actual console game. Level designs are short, difficult by way of oddly placed items, and a bit irritating.

Even if you give the artistic style the chance it deserves, the game play and combat system are unsatisfying at their best and annoying and tedious at their worst.

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

While it's definitely not quite terrible, it's also not content-filled enough to be worth a purchase unless you're really desperate for a puzzle game.

And that’s really disappointing, since, based on its looks alone, it feels like Itorah should stand out more. Unfortunately, all the effort here went into those visuals, and once you get beyond those, you’re left with a game that’s not very fun to play.

Need for Speed is pretty disappointing. There [are] elements of the presentation that work, and it’s clear they were trying to evoke the feel and look of NFS Underground. But the actual execution is lacking, with performance issues, lackluster events, an empty map with useless sub-events, and a forced online mode that certainly doesn’t feel necessary and lacks almost all of the bells and whistles found in other online enabled racing games.

In small doses, it might work — which takes me back to that caveat above — but as a sit-down, console experience, Neon Chrome just feels a little lacking.

The touch controls are awful. It’s hard to manipulate the camera. It’s hard to move the board/cube around. It’s hard to move the game pieces. Basically, whatever Unlock the King 3 wants you to do, it constantly gets in your way of doing it. And that, more than anything else, is why it’s impossible to recommend it. Even if Unlock the King 3 were the simplest, most straightforward game imaginable, it would still be a constant chore to play it. Couple lousy controls with gameplay that’s not all that interesting or intuitive, and you can see why — whatever the platform — it’s probably not worth playing.

It’s basically just like every other Doodle God game, only with more things to combine than ever before. If that’s your thing, you’ll be happy with what’s here, but if it’s not, be aware you’ll get very, very bored, and fast.

I really liked certain parts of Blood but absolutely hated others.

Without question, an average game. The lack of moves, so-so CAW mode and other deficiencies certainly don't appeal to wrestling fans of either the Smackdown or AKI camps.

As far as I'm concerned, however, no matter how interesting the concept may be, the fact the gameplay doesn't measure up makes Project Root a non-starter. Or, to be more specific, the fact that the developers didn't choose to include any checkpoints at all in a game that involves massive levels and constant death makes Project Root a non-starter for me.

Unfollow has a clearly good core with interesting writing, but doesn’t have the spine needed to hold it together in a way that feels great. I struggle to recommend it, as the $20 price tag is a bit much for 3 hours of okay gameplay, but if it looks interesting to you, I think you should give it a shot.

Unless you really enjoy half-finished stories, Paratopic never really builds on its great aesthetic to be a game worth playing. It may aspire to bring you back to the late ‘90s, but given how disjointed it all feels, it never achieves its goal.

At the end of the day, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare delivers on all its promises: it’s loony, hugely accessible, and has plants and zombies locked in warfare.

The game does offer some good thrills and hours of fun, but just may get repetitious before it's all said and done.

The addictive qualities of "Z" are still there, but the passing years have made the underlying gameplay of Steel Soldiers boring, old and passé.

The endless running lacks decent timing, the rhythm is pretty arrhythmic, and the two halves just never feel like they gel together.

If you can play this game with your eyes closed (figuratively speaking, of course), it's not a bad game. Good timing will yield good hitting numbers and building a team can be fun.

Lack of online play, so-so visuals, and familiar gameplay doesn’t really bode well in the end.

It's not going to evoke strong feelings in you, and it generally seems to exist just so other games can seem way, way better and way, way worse.

Though the game offers four playable characters, there was only one instance I felt advantaged by my chosen character's skill. For the most part, each character feels just like the next, the biggest difference being the shift in dialog during cutscenes.

FFT4HoL revives an old-school design with a new aesthetic, but which misguided aspects of that design come along with it will divide the line between appealing and off-putting to players.

None of this is to say that Jurassic World Aftermath Collection is bad, it is simply “fine”, but at launch when held up against the likes of Horizon: Call of the Mountain and Resident Evil Village, fine is not enough to keep me invested. Aftermath honestly feels like a proof of concept, not a full-fledged game, and that is definitely a disappointment for something I was pretty excited about at first.

If you do pine for the days where Battletoads and its ilk were kings, I Am The Hero will scratch that particular itch. If, however, you’re already not predisposed towards the genre, I can’t imagine there’s anything here that would change your mind.

There’s no question that RE: Code Veronica is a dated title. The third release of the game is just a port and only for people who have never played it. All others need not apply.

Kudos to Gorilla Games for their effort with Hannah Montana Music Jam, but in the end the product is just bogged down by the adventure mode and a significant amount of mini-games.

There’s nothing extraordinary about the game but it will give fans a place to beat each other in friendly way.

Basically, the newest Tak entry is a substandard platforming/brawler hybrid that just doesn't manage to do anything for me.

The Maw is a game that will probably appeal strongly to the younger set. For the rest of the populace, the game's lack of substance will make enjoying the world that Twisted Pixel Games worked hard to create so much harder.

Unfortunately despite the novel approach, the execution of this racer fails to create a classic.

While the story is decent enough that it’s not hard to imagine it could’ve been much more memorable with better translation, in this state, it’s not really worth your time.

While the music and visuals are still up to the standards of Q Entertainment, the game has undergone a severe downgrade with the new control scheme.

All of this adds up to a pretty good sequel – or, at least, it would if the game was in a finished state. Eventually, presumably, the developer will get around to fixing its game-breaking bug, and once that happens, then the game will deserve a much higher grade. For now, however, in its broken state, tht makes it impossible to recommend Star Wars – Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.

I feel the humor falls a little flat, and while I found plenty of stuff to laugh at with Costume Quest, the adventures of a little matryoshka doll named Charlie hasn't done much for me.

While not quite in the same league as an "F-Zero," "Wipeout" or "Extreme G," Tube Slider is enjoyable for a bit.

I feel the humor falls a little flat, and while I found plenty of stuff to laugh at with Costume Quest, the adventures of a little matryoshka doll named Charlie hasn't done much for me.

Infernium seems like the kind of game you’ll either love or you’ll hate. Either you’ll adore the way it mashes together a bunch of different ideas, or it’ll frustrate you to the point of wanting to never see the game again. I definitely fell in that latter category, but it’s a mark of how distinctive this game’s vision is that I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who sees it the other way.

It suffers from a number of technical glitches and performance issues, which is just kind of sad given the game is 15 years in the making.

Basically, the newest Tak entry is a substandard platforming/brawler hybrid that just doesn't manage to do anything for me.

The clumsy combat engine and the somewhat frustrating platforming elements keep Getting Up from being nothing more than an average video game.

An average game with some inventive ideas.

Visually, the game is crisp, but looks to me like a glorified flash game.

Much like its predecessor, Caveman Tales almost certainly isn’t worth paying extra just to play on your Switch, but also like its predecessor, if you can live with the price you’re getting a perfectly tolerable time-waster in return.

Toy Soldiers: Cold War feels just a tad bit hollow to me as a game.

I mean, taken in isolation, it's not a bad game. The levels are quick and concise; it's literally just a matter of letting gravity do the work for you, and strategically killing a few monsters along the way. The levels are also procedurally-generated, which means every playthrough is different. Beyond that, different heroes have different strengths, and you can upgrade characters along the way. Rounding things out, the characters — to say nothing of the game world in general — are adorable without being too cute. The thing is, Vertical Drop Heroes HD doesn't exist in isolation, it exists in a world where other games do the same things, and do them better.

If someone asked me if I would buy this game I would have to say no but I would rent it as it is worth playing. It is just not worth the $60 price of admission.