The combat in the game can be a blast at times, but the awkward control and super precision of the enemies often makes it more difficult than it needs to be.

Considering that Insane's graphics are fantastic and it has enough gameplay diversity in its numerous modes to keep people playing for hours on end, it's disappointing that the one of the most basic features of a racing game, its control, ultimately drags the game into the mud.

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

A polished, tried and true gameplay experience, that, while not necessarily the most innovative, is a heck of a lot of fun.

The sound is another area in which The Smoking Mirror excels. Although there isn't a constant soundtrack playing, haunting music often accompanies certain actions, much like the original "Tomb Raider."

I was hoping that Mario Party 5 would be better than last year’s effort. While certain aspects of the game are a move in the right direction, the overall game fails to please.

It’s a satisfying RPG with a steady pace and great gameplay. There are also plenty of sidequests if you want to pursue them, but it’s optional. One thing I really like are the raids which will happen on your little castaway village. These happen throughout the game and you can choose to participate in defending everyone from a monster raid. They’re also good for friendly competition with Dogi, and if there’s one thing I think Ys VIII does really well it’s things like this that keep things from ever getting too serious.

As funny as setting enemies against each other is, however, it doesn’t make Clash: Artifacts of Chaos’ combat any more enjoyable – which makes it pretty similar to the rest of the game. It’s awkward, it’s clunky, it never fully explains itself, and I strongly suspect that that’s the case whether you’ve played older Zeno Clash games or not.

I’d really like to love Prime Monster, because it ticks off so many boxes for me in terms of my personal interests. And it shows signs of being an inventive game. But showing signs of being interesting doesn’t mean actually interesting, and it’s hard to see how this game bridges that substantial gap without some pretty major changes.

All-in-all, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is probably the best game in the series with a nice selection of events, features and characters, and enough gameplay variation to keep fans occupied. It seems like it would have made more sense to launch closer to the actual Tokyo 2020 games, and it definitely has more replayability as a party or multiplayer game than as a single player title, but it’s totally worth checking out if Olympic-style titles are (or were ever) your thing.

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.

All in all, I Am Alive does most things well on paper – it's tight and succinct, priced as such, and it's a type of game we've yet to really explore (a gritty and realistic look at post-apocalyptic survival). Unfortunately, in spite of how cool it could have been, it ends up missing the mark by quite a big margin.

The controls are a bit hit and miss. For the most part they seem responsive, but there are a few platform style levels that will have you trying to snap your controller in two with frustration.

While not every event is a winner in Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the experience is a fun one that is easy enough to pick up and play for family and friends yet still competitive enough to hook players into upping their skills and going for the gold. If you’re a fan of the genre or the Olympics themselves, certainly consider checking it out.

The effort in style and ideas are evident, but working on the same engine, and just building on it just doesn’t do the series justice. Give the game a face-lift please.

The last disappointing aspect of the game is the full-blown price tag. At $60 I'd expect to get a hell of a lot more than 12 maps and 5 different classes, but that is exactly what you're getting here.

Mario Super Sluggers really doesn't innovate the baseball experience. It's more of an extension of the GameCube version, with slightly improved visuals (16x9 support) and decent audio.

It’s pleasant to see the game get more colourful as you go along, and the skins are undeniably cute. Don’t go into Monochrome World expecting something to reinvent the wheel — or, I guess, the marble — and you should enjoy it just fine.

Bizarrely, despite the toughness, what really sticks out in my mind when I think of GONNER2 isn’t the action, but rather how it looks. I’m pretty sure that “insane psychedelic fever dream” isn’t a genre or a style, but I can’t think of any other way to describe the visuals here. There are flying eyeballs and you enter new levels by being swallowed by worms and the colours are all over the rainbow and…it’s just craziness. It’s gorgeous, in its own way, but it’s still nuts to look at. For most people, though, I think the insane difficulty will be what they take away from GONNER2, not the insane visuals. Which means that if you’re looking for a platformer or a roguelike that will truly test your abilities, it’s most certainly worth your time.

If you stepped away from Aliens: Fireteam Elite after launch, I’m not sure that the Pathogen expansion brings enough to the table to bring you back, but I can’t really argue that the $14.99 price point seems pretty fair considering all the extra stuff that comes along with the new, albeit short, story content. The new class perks are fun to play around with, giving you unique modifiers for your main special skill, most of which really boosts up your power level when paired with the right modifications. I certainly had some fun revisiting the game, and if you’ve been playing the game a fair amount up to this point, I can’t really see a reason not to pick up the DLC. Just temper your expectations when it comes to the new story missions and boss fight, which won’t blow you away in comparison to the main campaign.

Rainbow Cotton is a very good HD re-release of a classic game that not many people got a chance to play. Not only was it on a system that wasn’t known for its shooters, it was also never given a world wide release, making this one a true hidden gem. If you’re a fan of other Cotton games, you will love what is presented here. If you are new to the Cotton series, I can easily recommend this as a good starting game to get into the world of Cotton. Overall, this is a bare bones remaster with not many extras included, outside of a couch co-op mode that wasn’t in the original. It’s a short, wacky shooter that can be enjoyed by almost anyone. I highly recommend picking this one up if you can. It’s fun, and It does not disappoint.

It is nice to see EA Sports use their license for something a bit different.

Provided you’re either willing to put in the work in hunting down additional players, or have a few friends interested in joining you, I think you’ll enjoy Dragon Marked for Death quite a bit. As a solo experience it can be a little less compelling, but still enjoyable enough to check out.

It does well by the proven conventions of the games before it; The story is, at the very least, entertaining to watch unfold and there's more than enough game for $20.

But, hey: if you’re a fan of dungeon crawlers, chances are you probably don’t mind a bit of repetition and backtracking. Exist Archive has a bit of a unique spin on the genre, but I imagine that it’s not so different that it’ll alienate anyone who wants to grind their way through dungeon after dungeon. At the same time, though, it’s easy to imagine that it’s the kind of game that really could appeal to a wider range of people than just its core audience.

If you just want some stylized kills, of course, then you probably won’t mind the repetitiveness or the lack of story. And make no mistake, there are few games that are more stylized than Akane. But if you want anything more than style, then keep looking, because this isn’t a game with a whole lot of substance.

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.

Manages to scare with its gruesome plot and eerie settings. But the lacking gameplay fails to make the experience any more than a “search and run” title.