When The Past Was Around finds a way to include some interesting puzzles in the mix — but Florence found a way to be interactive without letting its little challenges get in the way of its story. It’s like that at every turn, in every respect. When The Past Was Around is good — but it’s no Florence.

Its fun, it'll help you pass some time while you wait for the game, and it does a solid job of introducing the new character and new weapon system, without giving too much away prior to DR2's release.

If you are opened minded to a non-traditional gaming experience and enjoy horror games and/or movies, I would highly recommend giving Until Dawn a try.

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.

The collection is a great entry way to get some underrated portable fighting game, however the genres being represented are a bit lopsided. The presentation is somewhat underwhelming but you can’t deny the value of the collection versus buying these titles piecemeal. That said there’s still some gems in the NEOGEO Pocket library and let’s hope volume 2 will include a certain crossover card game, that’s all I ask!

If you consider yourself a series NASCAR fan, you must own NASCAR 06. This is the game you have been waiting for and offers more game play options than you can handle. Casual racing fans may be confused by the concept and might want to consider this a rental at best.

For one of the rare games that actually made me feel like I wasted my time after playing it, I did enjoy the ride.

But overall the game performs on the PS3 without much issue. It's not the best looking game on the market, but I enjoyed the brightly hued color of the stages, despite some of the more repetitious environments that divide the rooms.

LittleBigPlanet 3 is still a charming platformer and creative sandbox at heart, yet without the full attention of Media Molecule, it feels like it sorta lost its soul.

Whatever notes Ys Seven is hitting, it's doing it right and marrying every smart mechanic in action-RPG gameplay between themselves to create an actually intuitive system that never tires nor lets up - even if it's more of a throwback than anything out today.

If you're a sucker for artsy indie games that tell an interesting story and feature unique gameplay, then you'll certainly love The Unfinished Swan. If you're not quite sure what you're getting in to, than wait for the demo or check out the trailer at the very least. Either way, The Unfinished Swan is a PSN game worthy of your attention.

While I enjoyed Dissidia as an FF fan, I have to admit that once the fan service stuff wore off, I grew bored of the overall game.

It a shame it took developers this long to come up with a console RTS control scheme, but alas it is here and it is glorious.

It's a lot of fun when you're actually playing, but when it comes the story related material, it falls flat. If you enjoy open world sandbox style games, PROTOTYPE has a lot going for it, and there's certainly a lot of ground to cover through the entire city, and a lot of random stuff to find and toy around with.

I don’t have a ton to say about Daemon X Machina just because it’s pretty simple in practice and our review is limited to speaking on content up to chapter 9 (about 90 minutes of gameplay). In my opinion, if you liked the first Daemon X Machina, you will like Titanic Scion. It doesn’t change enough to make it feel terribly different from that release, but does add enough to likely satisfy you if you were already a fan. If you didn’t like the first Daemon X Machina, I don’t think this changes enough to change your mind. If Titanic Scion has caught your eye and you’ve never played the series before, I would recommend starting with the first game. Not because of any story continuity reasons, but just because of the level of similarity. The first game will be a much cheaper way to learn if it can hook you.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide is kind of like comfort food for 3D platforming fans. Even if you aren’t a fan of the TV series, it still delivers the kind of action you want with a minimum of fuss, and it’s not like you need to know the show very well to keep up with what’s going on. It wraps all that up in a solidly competent package, which means that if you’re a fan of the genre, you could do a lot worse than picking this up.

Every aspect about the original has certainly been improved this time out, besides the Psychopath encounters, so it's definitely worth checking out.

A very, very good game. The only real issue I have with the game overall is that it feels too much like last year’s title. For some that may be a good thing. I just don’t believe the term; if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

A good sequel that would have been great if the story had more substance.

If you can get pass the obvious dated graphics then you will be in for a serious treat.

The visuals in Bustin’ Out are surprisingly detailed and fluid. The characters animation with clay-mation smoothness and have the traditional fun animations that Sim fans are used to.

The tools and interface make it easy to customize tracks in a lot of different ways. The only drawback is that you’ll probably be the only one enjoying them.

Has lots of features and pulls them all off very well, there's just not a home run in any category.

Does Blood Money come close to the series’ later standards in the World Of Assassination trilogy? Definitely not. But as a standalone murder simulator, it’s definitely got its charms.

I don’t think Assassin’s Creed Shadows is a bad game, but I don’t think it’s a great one either. With patches I think it could seriously become a great game, but as it stands with what I was playing, I’m not impressed with the systems/gameplay. I really, really want to like Shadows more because of how much the total package feels, but those few issues are enough to really hamper that. If you’re someone that enjoys going everywhere to do things and unlock everything, you’ll definitely have a great time, so it’s not inherently a super negative. The combat experience is definitely a damper though. Fingers crossed Ubisoft and the team behind Shadows really polishes and shines it up!

What the game lacks in exploration (there is a little, but not as much as, say, Metroid) and fun combat, it more than makes up for in pace and puzzle-solving satisfaction.

Not only that, but a great Alien game, which isn’t something I expected to be saying this soon after Colonial Marines. Creative Assembly has done a great job of delivering a game that pays appropriate homage to the original film, while once again breathing life into the franchise

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright is certainly one of the best releases on the 3DS this year, and it shouldn’t be missed.