Valley lacked any redeeming fun factor to make up for the time I spent playing the game. While the game offers plenty of opportunity to explore a wide world, there is no real story that explains where you are going or where you are.

No Mercy this is not. It's got good intentions and the right idea, but the game is not there just yet. I understand this is their first game, but there is just not enough meat on the bone to justify paying full price for this. The story mode is short, repetitive, and nothing you do matters. Matches are way too short, the creation modes are ridiculously limited, and we don't even have basic match options like turning on and off DQs or elimination rules in multiman matches to keep exhibition mode interesting. Maybe after a year or so of updates, this will feel more like a complete package, but I would recommend waiting for a sale or some major updates before picking this one up.

Sadly, the lack of a discernable plot, limited character selection, some bugs(enemies walking through barriers, jumping off the screen only to appear on the other side), and boring basic level play lead this game down a bad road.

Vane exists in an enormously stressed and jagged world of puzzle-platforming. Simply moving around feels rough and unfinished, and that's not always on purpose. If only Friend & Foe had more time to incubate its creation.

Without much reward for playing single player—and an obtuse and difficult to navigate multiplayer system—Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition simply creates too many barriers to entry for the player to overcome. While the simple gameplay could be fun with an easier interface, the complicated multiplayer will likely only be enjoyed by the most hardcore of fans. Not an outright bad game, but certainly a difficult game to play.

This simple nonogram puzzle encourages the player to unlock items to decorate a mouse's home, but falls short on providing reasoning or goals for the player. It's cute and simple, and fun for a nonogram puzzle fan, but doesn't fully separate itself from the competition in a way I was expecting or hoping for.

Train Fever is a highly ambitious transportation management game that unfortunately suffers from gameplay issues ranging from slow progression to a lack of objectives. Train Fever is only recommended to those who are strong fans of the genre, while other players are better off with more welcoming and polished games.

If you’re a fan of the series, MX vs. ATV: Supercross is worth a look, especially for the $30 price of admission. But if you’re a regular racing fan looking to scratch your itch within the genre, you’re better off looking somewhere else.

Bus Simulator 18, at its core, is a good simulator game with a whole lot of soul. It brings a lot of playability options to the table, whether you want to just drive a bus or manage the whole company. The driving is complex enough to keep the player involved, and the economic systems provide a respite for players tired of being behind the wheel. However, the game is hurt by some frustrating bugs and sub-par traffic systems.

If you really love Time Crisis 4 or light gun games and have some money to burn then Time Crisis 4 is right up your alley. If you don't fall into those two categories then you should spend your money someplace else.

The narrative hook The American Dream tries to position itself on does more to detract from this game than enhance it. It does nothing to spark a conversation, is far too over the top to pose as a commentary, is completely tone deaf on occasion, and goes on for far too long.

TimeShift has a great concept that should have added something new and original to the crowded first-person shooter genre. Unfortunately Sierra's newest action game is marred by a boring story, an easy difficulty and time shifting abilities that aren't nearly as much fun as they should have been.

Port Royale 3 is an often frustrating experience as a result from its lack of in-game communication regarding both gameplay mechanics and mission objectives. Add a confusing controller setup and lackluster graphics, Port Royale 3 is a hard recommendation to even gamers that enjoy real-time strategy and city expansion gameplay. The few moments that do offer genuine entertainment are simply not enough to even recommend Port Royale 3 to longtime series fans.

Divide doesn’t excite, doesn’t surprise, doesn’t reach out, and doesn’t look in. It tests my patience, wastes your time, and can’t keep its eyes on the prize. The cool architecture is basically copy-pasted to death. And the gameplay, which is thankfully short on bullets, is still rehashed ad infinitum. It's a twin-stick shooter that removed the gunplay but replaced it with little more than checkpoints and crate scrounging. It often feels like there’s no end in sight.

As a joke Omnibus might be fun for a few hours, but playing it through legitimately, level by level, is an exercise in diminishing patience.

The name of the game pretty much spells out exactly what you can expect: LEGO Jurassic World. It is the traditional, Travelers’ Tale LEGO experience that is becoming all too familiar, set in a Jurassic Park setting. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The visual calisthenics in Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle are a sheer triumph. But the dialogue-tree hula hoops will simply leave you out of breath.

The bottom line is that Fallout 76 was an experiment that was created on an outdated engine incapable of implementing the vision Bethesda has for it. This has led the game into a full blown identity crisis, as it doesn't really play well as a single-player game, sucks at PvP, with its only saving grace being its multiplayer experience, specifically with friends. Sometimes it's better to be great at one thing than good (or not so good) at many things. Promised updates in the future may eventually get the game where it needs to be, but as of today, it's not what fans wanted or expected.

If MIA were cheaper, or had more interesting art design, or tried to say or do something different than other games like it, or at least leaned a bit more into some of the silliness it gestures at (the dialogue has the occasional quip that indicates something the game could have been), then we’d have a something I could recommend buying. At its current state, it’s worth playing if you can get it for cheap. Go save Mars in another game.

Super Evil Mega Corp may have struck gold with their take on the TMNT franchise, but with an empty story, a myriad of audio problems, and the same difficulty as an actual turtle flipped over, a game that wants you to play it over and over makes it impossible to play it over and over. I guess everything that turtles, ain't gold. Splintered fate, indeed.

While Sonic Lost World isn’t a terrible game, I feel as though Sega missed the mark quite a bit here. The controls are very touchy and at times downright horrible, the auto-target feature can get you into trouble with the homing attack, and the novelty of the Special Stages wears off quickly.

As a game hub, Capcom Arcade Cabinet delivers the goods. It's a good-looking program that is easy to use and packed full of games. Too bad this first pack of games isn't more impressive. 1943: The Battle of Midway is great fun, but Avengers left me cold. On the other hand, Black Tiger is free...just as long as you don't mind downloading a 2 GB file.

Battle of Z may be boring, but at least it looks incredible.

Alien Spidy is a great premise for a game but the extreme difficulty, inaccurate controls, and ridiculous level advancement requirements really hinder what could have been a great game.

It's not much more expansive than its arcade counterpart and even though it preserves the multiplayer, Tank! Tank! Tank! is a rather massive letdown.

Through all the performance and optimization issues, all the problems with shading and rendering, I believe there's a good game waiting to be unlocked. However, as it stands, Cities Skylines II is a major disappointment that should have been pushed back to fix these issues. Instead, gamers are stuck dealing with yet another game that falls victim to a rush and will need multiple patches until we see what the final product actually is.

World Rally Championship 6 has some bright spots, including plenty of courses and types of vehicles to choose from. The negatives bring the overall product down below the positives, including bad frame-rate issues and questionable gameplay elements. If you are a massive fan of rally racing, you'll still enjoy this title. Everyone else should look elsewhere for their fix on racing.

Sid Meier's Starships provides a simplified, portable gameplay snippet of the series turn-based gameplay that ultimately makes it a difficult recommend for Civilization fans. While the game was clearly designed for a tablet, there is still some entertainment to be found in brief gameplay sessions.

Tiny Brains brings back an old school local co-op feel that can be fun, but the wonky controls, repetitive puzzles, and short length drag it down. Play it with friends or not at all.

Bar one or two genuine scares Perception doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to horror, a lot of the animations were boring and didn’t intimidate neither me nor brave Cassie. Perception fails to deliver on the horror side, but boasts clever mechanics and an engaging but flawed narrative. The artstyle is original and works perfectly with the darkness and echolocation mechanics.

If you want the best experience possible with MythForce, play with friends. If you don’t have friends, then play by yourself. If you hate yourself, then try playing with strangers. Visually, style-wise, I love MythForce. While there isn’t enough dialogue what is there can be amusing the first couple of times. Combat takes some getting used to, but once you have the hang of that the game gets better. I love roguelike elements, I just need more randomness. With the exception of MythForce’s style everything falls flat after a few hours. Buy this on sale and convince a few buddies to do the same and you won’t be upset you did it.

It follows the formula of a Call of Duty game, but delivers each element just a bit worse than it's predecessors. Call of Duty: Vanguard is a game that will surely grow and improve over time, but what we have at launch is something that at least fails to cater to what I was hoping for in any aspect of the game. The single player campaign is ridiculous even if it does deliver some moments of high action; the multiplayer is a mess, at least for someone with my skillset; and zombies is simply unfinished. It'll get better, but what we've got right now just isn't all that good.

Ninja Shodown is one of those games where the Multiplayer shines more than the single player experience. That’s not to say the game isn’t fun alone; it is, but there’s more mayhem to be had in multiplayer, especially Versus Mode. It’s hard to recommend for $15 if you don’t plan to play with friends, especially with no online play, but if you have some friends who want to kick up some ninja-style mayhem, you’ll want to check it out.

Street Fighter V has all of the makings of a fantastic fighting game. Unfortunately, that is all it has: makings. There are some performance issues to go along with a serious lack of content that is meant to constitute a full game experience, which is criminal, to say the least.

Bush League Hockey got just about everything right except for the actual Hockey part, which is a shame because this is a charming arcade-style game but it's not something that I can see a lot of people wanting to play over long periods of time.

Breathedge offers some decent exploration and survival gameplay, tucked among very slow trips to gather materials that sometimes feel like they are wasting the player's time. A hit-and-miss sense of humor can sometimes amuse, while other times causing something close to fury. A mid-game pivot seems to drive the game off track—changing the mechanics in a way that feels jarring. Enjoyable for stretches, Breathedge can't help but shoot itself in the foot occasionally, in ways that are more frustrating than fun.

Onechanbara Z2: Chaos never really forgets where it came from. As a result, it's mired in some pretty simplisitic gameplay and storytelling. If you're a fan of the series, then it's worth checking out. Otherwise, you're better served by games like Devil May Cry.

This isn't Call of Duty in the land of Swedish meatballs, it's Boston Dynamics in an IKEA-effect hunting sim. Come for the difficult robot fights, stay for the Arctic Circle sunsets. The technical issues will make you rage quit one day and then bring you back the next.

Quirk and more quirk can't really save this Zuma clone from being relegated to the depths of the 3DS eShop. Tokyo Crash Mobs is a game you've got be really interested in to get any mileage out of it after completing its lackluster story mode.

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed looks and sounds great, like a well-made game from 2022 should. The issues start to arise with the gameplay. Open world maps feel small, missions are short, and the story lacks depth. I never hated my time spent with Reprobed; it started as pushing a pea up a hill but felt like heaving a boulder up a mountain by the end. There are times when I like to think back to being a 13-year-old boy who finds fart jokes amusing; you just don’t see games with the same raunchiness to them as you did back in my youth Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed has kept that level of humor, for better or worse.

The great aspects of the game are crushed beneath the monumental weight of it's frustrating gameplay. While some of this pain is eased by the multiplayer, it isn't enough to make up for the fact that the game just shouldn't have been released on the 3DS. This is a console game trapped in a handheld body, and it's really a shame that a game with so much potential is limited by such small but ever-so-important design problems.

Dark Alliance has the core of a fun game, but many design decisions and some very spotty enemy AI prevent the game from fully taking flight. While the game still feels early, there is some fun to be had running around and taking advantage of Dark Alliance's many issues. But with time, this game will become a mid-tier action adventure—which is exactly what it should be.

With so many great ideas in The Chaos Engine, it pains me to admit that I didn't have much fun. I love the world it creates, the diverse enemies and the science fiction story, but can't get past the punishing difficulty and cheap hits. This enhanced version needs a few more enhancements to be ready for the 21st century!

Wild Card Football is the first Arcade Football game with real players in a very long time, and that's progress. But some mechanics slow the game down, and there is an overall jank to the proceedings that could use some refinement. And, of course, card packs are the worst. This is Saber's first foray into the Arcade football genre, and I think it's off to a good start. But it's a false start, and they're going to start 5 yards back for a 2nd and long.

Good track design and a blistering sense of speed are not enough to compensate for relatively mindless racing. Horizon Chase 2 serves as an ode to arcade racing classics that reminds us just how far the genre has come.

Tank Troopers is neither a great game, nor a horrible game. It's a niche game aimed at a wide audience, and has its upswings and downturns. Mission dynamics are diverse, with enemies both larger and smaller than you, or faster and slower. Weather plays a role, and your tank troopers are a pretty interesting bunch. The game is frustrating at times, and greatly rewarding at others. My tip: have patience with it.

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures is average and generic in every sense of the word.

When Battlefield 2042 works, it works well and can be fun but it sadly feels like this game really should have been delayed again with all of its issues.

Knack 2 is a bloated experience that no one asked for. Sony Computer Entertainment Japan can be credited with improving over the first game, but that's not saying much.

Battlefront can be a lot of fun within a few specific modes. Unfortunately, those moments are only a small portion of the overall experience. While I have no doubt that the game will improve with updates and DLC, what is here in the base game leaves a lot to be desired.

The problem is that the game is just too repetitive for its own good.

The King’s Bird has the potential to be wonderful—and in its art and music, it is. Based on that alone I would play it all day. But the sense of freedom it is trying so hard to evoke is held back by its finicky controls, and since the game’s very foundation is meant to be freeing, it falls short. Altered controls and a slightly wider margin for error, especially on console, would really let The King’s Bird soar beyond the confines of its cage, and boost its mechanics up to the high tier of its design.

Max: Curse of the Brotherhood is a decent platformer with fun gameplay and a variety of puzzles for you to solve.

The beauty of Away: The Survival Series isn't the gameplay but the journey itself. While it has it's problems with bugs, the environment itself is lovely and the narration and musical score at least give the short expedition a quiet elegance.

The Weaponographist is a decent mix of Roguelike and arena brawler, but the controls are a bit stiff and there just isn’t enough content or personality to put the game above its similarly-priced competitors.

Too simple for it’s own good, A.W. Phoenix Festa is a game that never truly commits to itself. That’s sort of ironic since dating and relationships are such an important part of the experience.

Need For Speed : Payback is a game that everyone hoped might put the series back into the limelight of seat-of-the-pants racing. Instead, the game has middle-of-the-pack graphics, weak storyline, emotionless driving and a poor upgrade system. This game is definitely a car in full-throttle reverse instead of speeding off in the right direction.

Disjunction is a stealth-action RPG that seems to focus more on the "stealth" and less on action or even RPG. The framework is there for a better game, but it sadly fell short of what it could have been.

Shin’en is back with another game for Game Factory, this time Strawberry Shortcake. The concept works much better as a platformer, with some decent gameplay and Shin’en’s typically good graphics. This one is a good gift idea for young children.

As fan service goes, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution has a lot of the trappings you expect from this style of anime game. Unfortunately, it's impenetrable for those of us unfamiliar with the series. And while the gameplay isn't bad, there just isn't enough depth in this game to keep fight fans happy.

Pop-up Pilgrims is a beautiful and charming game that is pleasant for a time, until players discover that it carries some backdoor punishments for not getting perfect scores on every level. Compounding the issue, the game never explains this unfortunate mechanic, instead allowing the player to discover how things work when they are already in the midst of their punitive levels. There is no question that the game is well made, and fans of Lemmings-style games will probably find something to love here, Pop-up Pilgrims left me more frustrated than entertained.

RiffTrax: The Game almost entirely relies on the quick wit of the people playing it; play with a bunch of duds and you will have a dire evening. But if you have funny friends, you can have a pretty decent time playing the "Write a Riff" mode for a few rounds. Just stay far away from the "Pick a Riff" mode, and understand that the appeal here is very limited to those that enjoy this form of entertainment already.

Out of Ammo stands out as an example of a VR port gone wrong. While the core gameplay is fun, the room-sized parameters of a HTC Vive game simply do not work well on a PS VR. Playing this game feels like standing in the parking lot of an amusement park with no ticket. You can see the fun just inside, but you can’t quite reach it.

Trials of the Blood Dragon is a confused concoction. The Trials gameplay is as solid as ever—RedLynx know their craft—but the side-scrolling levels are clunky and out of place. The whole thing feels like a waste of the Blood Dragon IP.

Eyes of Heaven offers a wacky story with plenty of varying dialogue that will bring in even the most casual Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, but the gameplay is average at best that doesn't offer much substance other than making sure the button mashes connect before the opponent's does. Fans of the anime will appreciate this game, but the casual gamer will not get much out of this title.

Call of Cthulhu sadly doesn't live up to either its literary or pen-and-paper heritage. The setting, atmosphere and some of the voice acting are impressive, but the detective gameplay is shallow and fairly linear, and any other gameplay aspects feel buggy and tacked on.

Rampant server issues, poor performance, badly designed UI and a non-existent player base have crippled what should have been a really interesting change of pace for console shooters. Verdun may improve with time, but as it stands, is an absolute mess.

While I’m not sure that I would call Ultimate Tetris the ultimate version of Tetris, it certainly is an adequate version of the classic. They nail the basic concept of the classic game but fail to really take it anywhere new. Plus, the online issues are just plain horrendous.

It's a very vanilla title that doesn't do much to advance the series, but is definitely going to please the die-hard fans.

I'm not sure what happened with Greak: Memories of Azur. The elements are all there. The ingredients in place to create something wonderful, and it does look stunning. But the execution is a complete let down. The promise fails to bind together because for every clever idea, every good intention, there is some frustration looming alongside. For every good bit there is something bad, and the end result left me feeling like the package was less than the sum of its parts.

While the cheerful island graphics and pirate themes are fun, King of Seas' over reliance on grinding quickly stifles the enjoyment. Exploration is highly enjoyable, but after you've seen everything, the story is the only thing left to pursue. Artificial barriers to extend the experience frustrate, as there is little satisfaction in grinding to victory.

Akiba's Trip is like a summer blockbuster at the movies, it looks like it'll be a ton of fun, and it has its heart in the right place, but it's just missing a little bit of soul. Thanks to a sub-par battle system, and some technical flaws, it winds up wasting a lot of potential.

Ryse is fun at points but is ultimately held back by its repetitious nature. Still the game is a great way to show off the graphical capability of the Xbox One.

Rack N Ruin is a twin-stick shooter (sort of) with a juvenile appreciation for wanton destruction. The role-reversal, with you as the bad guy, brings up some interesting questions, but the story doesn't take near enough advantage of that fact.

While I can’t fault Cloud Gardens for its cool visuals or interesting themes, those things are ultimately lost to fiddley controls and a somewhat obtuse gameplay loop. Many players will likely enjoy the creative side of this game, but others will be left wondering why they are trashing up perfectly nice scenes.

With a unique presentation unlike anything I’ve seen before in gaming, Salary Man Escape creates its own singular vision of workplace hell. But with frustrating controls and a bordering-on-broken physics model, the stellar puzzle design is lost in a mire of irritation and exasperation. If I wanted to feel stressed, I would just go to work.

If you've never played any of the games in the series then you may want to try this one out, if not there are plenty of better DS titles out there.

It’s not a bad game per se, but it’s just got a lot of nagging issues that make it almost a chore to play.

By now, Spider-Man should be swinging for the fences when it comes to his own video games -- no other game character can even move like Spidey. None. But instead, he's leaps and bounds behind less superheroic fare, and he's fending off too many inner demons which, in this case, are castrated frame rates and multiple bugs choking up his web sights.

When the poor sensation of speed isn't bothering you the soundtrack is.

If you’re looking for a decent shooter you’ve come to the right place. Atari and Zombie could have done much better given the promise seen in the first few levels, but the poor level design and weak AI kill the game before it can truly get off the ground.

Spider Man Battle for New York is an unimaginative follow-up of last year’s Ultimate Spider Man. The story isn’t nearly as epic, the action hasn’t improved at all, and the lack of compelling villain gameplay make this a one-play affair.

Despite all of its glitz and movie inspired hype, I just can’t recommend this game as a purchase, and a rent is iffy too.

Z-Axis tries to capture the intense, ethically-charged feel of the X-Men films, but ends up with an average brawler and little replay value.

It blazes a lot of new trails but doesn’t make much headway, and the traditional shooter elements aren’t done very well. The multiplayer really needs more depth, but hopefully the inevitable sequel will do it better, because I can’t imagine playing deathmatch very long with the controls as they are.

Cartoon Network Racing does a lot of things really well, just not the gameplay. It’s packed with extras, decent graphics and the personality of all the CN shows, but it doesn’t play as smoothly or comfortably as Mario Kart DS.

Just doesn’t feel like a finished game.

The length of the game means you’ll beat it in a week if you really sit down with it and commit a few hours a day, but you’ll be feeling deja-vu the entire time you play. Isn’t this enemy near the end of the game just like one I fought way back at the beginning only a different color? Why yes, yes he is.

With so man other quality DS puzzle games out, only the Pokemon faithful should pick this one up.

The puzzles were too easy, the combat too clunky, and the plot was a rehash of a generic B-grade movie.

While this game has some positive aspects (Movie Graphics, mindless killing, beautiful attack combos), the lack of a true identity and engaging plot make the effort hardly seem worth it.

A fantasy RTS/RPG hybrid that fails to do anything new or exciting. Nothing terribly bad here, but it’s just hard to work up any enthusiasm for this title.

NIS tried hard with this new game built specifically for the PSP, but design flaws and a weak story hold back what could have been a good game.

Adults will hate the characters so much they'll probably never get past the second world, whereas the children will be turned off by the games dark look and steep challenge (especially towards the end).

Sword of Convallaria: For this World of Peace is not a game made for me, a person who enjoys a good, story-rich tactical RPG. Not much story there, and I found it confusing, to say the least. There are a lot of moving parts to this one, some of them feel like old-school TRPG traits that I love, and some feel like it’s wearing the mask of a TRPG. If this is not made for someone who, by all accounts should enjoy this, then I am unsure who this is made for. Have fun, but be cautious.

After you get past the glossy menus and the cutesy mascots you have what can best be described as an average track and field experience.

Starship Troopers: Extermination on console puts the rough in Roughnecks. Technical issues, poor crossplay implementation, and frustratingly chaotic gameplay design leave much to be desired.

Build a Bear Workshop captures the magic of actually building the bear, but after that the game mostly falls flat.