Despite these misgivings, Infinite Wealth is a fully packaged title that fans of the franchise will be talking about for years to come. Players will certainly be able to enjoy Hawaii as well as spend time in familiar spots in Japan. While I thought there wasn’t much that could be done in a post-dissolution world, the team crafted something that was riveting, built upon existing characters as well as introducing some fantastic new ones. I certainly will wait with baited breath to see what’s to come from the studio as well as what’s next from Ichi and the gang. While I’ve closed this chapter of the story, it’s not goodbye…it’s Aloha and certainly Bon Voyage!

To be sure, even with its bugs and glitches, there’s still a decent game to be found in The Lamplighters League. It doesn’t quite hit the highs it could, however, so if you’re enticed by the promises of XCOM-meets-Indiana Jones, be aware that performance issues mean it’ll never quite be as good as it could be.

It’s a very fun old-school platformer that manages to stand out even in a very crowded genre, and it’s definitely worth picking up.

It may not reach the highs of the previous Turnip Boy game, but it’s still fun in its own right, and it makes me eager to see what shenanigans Turnip Boy gets up to next (and what genres he’ll get up to them in).

It’s a dull, plodding slog that does a grave disservice to its source material, and you’d be wise to search out that source material instead of wasting a dollar or a moment on this game.

Naughty Dog did a knock-out job the first time and simply wanted to perfect it, so I would say they were successful.

In other words, Lifeless Moon spends way too much time telling, and not nearly enough time showing. And on one level, I get it: a small indie studio isn’t going to have the budget to show how a civilization on the moon fell apart. But at the same time, when you’re this good at creating an atmosphere, it can’t help but feel a little disappointing when the rest of the game doesn’t quite measure up.

The big drawback to The Lost Crown is that if you’re not already a fan of Metroidvanias, it’s hard to imagine anything here will suddenly make you a believer in the genre. It’s a well-made Metroidvania, to be sure, but there’s nothing here that breaks new ground. But if you grew up with Prince of Persia, that’s kind of beside the point. The Lost Crown shows that there’s still life in the franchise. Now, hopefully, we don’t have to go another thirteen years until the next entry.

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

It’s solitaire. It works fine. You get that little thrill at the end of the games when all your cards line up and fit nearly into their little rows. It’s not going to change your life, but as timewasters go, it’s perfectly fine.

Like any good puzzler, Train Traffic Manager is easily approachable, and it knows how to sink its hooks into you quickly.

If you go into Loddlenaut expecting anything in the way of stakes or drama or a challenge, you’ll probably be underwhelmed. But if you just want a relaxing, chill game that you can escape into for a couple of hours, it’s hard to think of a nicer, more pleasant way to pass the time.

There have been some great improvements that will elevate the game and I’m confident that when more voice their thoughts the devs will listen and make it better. Give Cookie Cutter a try! You won’t regret it.

My Little Universe is undoubtedly fine as a mindless mobile time-waster, but if you want anything beyond that, you should think about looking elsewhere.

Much like Dragon Quest Treasures last year, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is a fun entry point into a long-running series that doesn’t ask too much of players in terms of prior knowledge (though that surely helps). If you’re after a solid monster-training game with colourful cast of characters, it delivers solidly on that front.

All in all, this is a great remaster of a game from many of our childhoods. It is fun for the most part, has relatively okay replayability, and offers reasons for you to explore each area. However, due to the technical issues I ran into, it does hamper the experience. I think it’s a little hard to justify $30 for, so if you can find it on a sale, definitely do so. I think it’s a fantastic $20 game, even with the issues, because I’m sure Nightdive will fix it up. If you’re looking for a fun romp through a classic, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion has you covered, just be mindful of some of its hiccups and N64isms here two weeks into the launch period.

There’s a lot of this stuff that will just never make it to platforms like Virtual Console, so I’m happy to see someone out there doing the work to try and put these releases together despite the quality of original games. It also helps that nothing appears to have been mucked up along the way, each of these titles plays exactly as I remember, which is definitely the key when going back and doing these retro collections. So if you’re like me, and have any fond memories of these games growing up as a kid in the 90’s, then I’d say Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection is certainly worth a look.

While it certainly deserves praise for its ambition, and it can’t be faulted for not delivering a Rockstar experience on a fraction of the budget, it’s not too much to ask that game asking for your money to deliver more than this. If you can buy it on a deep discount and have no expectations – and, of course, you’ve exhausted everything else there is to do in Red Dead Redemption – it might be worth it, but otherwise you’ll want to give Guns and Spurs 2 a pass.

Murder on the Orient Express is proof that even if you mess around the edges of a classic murder mystery, as long as the core remains – and it does here – you can’t help but make a worthwhile game.

This is a destructible, semi-open world where you can run (er, roll) around smashing things to your heart’s content. That may not be enough to fully redeem Bang-On Balls: Chronicles, but it’s at least enough to make it fun in doses – even if it’s not as fun as I would’ve hoped.

All in all, Pinball M is off to a solid start, and while not every table in this collection utilizes a theme that I’m super into, the ones that do end up doing really well here. I’m super interested to see what other properties Zen attempts to tackle with this mature branded series of pinball, and I think Pinball M does just enough to differentiate itself from Pinball FX to make it worth checking out.

With all these complaints, you might think I hate Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, but I don’t. I mean, I don’t love it, but given such a huge, richly imagined world, it’s hard to be too annoyed with it. There are definitely plenty of improvements that would make it more enjoyable to play, but as it stands, it’s a perfectly serviceable open world adventure.

Arizona Sunshine 2 is leaps and bounds better than the original game. If the issues from that one put you off, then this one will bring you back for some good ol’ Fred destroying goodness. There some areas of the game that are not perfect by any means, but as I stated, small post release patches can fix those minor issues, and I am sure Vertigo is working on them. After experiencing the first game, I can safely say that playing the sequel was a way better experience overall and can recommend it to anyone with a PlayStation VR2.

Everything in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 comes back to how much you like Smash Bros., and how much you want to play a game that’s similar to it but ever-so-slightly different. If your answers to both of those questions is “a lot”, then you’re definitely going to want to check this one out.

Believe me, you’ll want to lose yourself for a while in subpar pool. Like grapefrukt games’ previous outings, it’s made for both quick gaming sessions and lengthy hours spent trying to get just a little bit better, and regardless of which way you approach it, you’re going to have fun.

Taken altogether, it adds up to a Mario game that doesn’t really feel like a Mario game. It’s an interesting look at a neat experiment, and it’s fun to get a chance to discover – or rediscover – a game that finds Nintendo breaking out of their comfort zone. It may not be a perfect game, but it’s an interesting one, and that’s enough to make it worth checking out.

I don’t want to spoil much about the experience here and just want to highlight that The Talos Principle II is a very well-crafted experience. From what I can tell, it’s a definite improvement over the original game, refining ideas and concepts in a way that makes this feel like the definitive experience for the series. It’s also nice that as a newcomer I had little issue in understanding the world, figuring out the puzzle mechanics, and learning the overall story across the dozen or so hours it took me to complete it. It might be difficult to find the time to fit The Talos Principle II into your gaming schedule considering how absolutely packed this year has been, but I think you’ll find it worth doing so.

It’s so close to being good, but its flaws make it almost impossible to recommend. It’s far better than it has any right to be or than its pedigree suggests, but it’s still going to be a letdown to almost everyone.