The additional content is more than worth it to those who loved it, but for those lukewarm to the game, I’d wait a bit and see whether the next episode is compelling and then consider looking at getting this episode in the $30 four-episode season pass instead.

Unbound: Worlds Apart is a pretty standard puzzle platformer with its difficulty firmly planted in repeated trial and error. Despite gorgeous visuals, there’s not much interesting to see here.

The PC port stands as the definitive way to experience Beyond: Two Souls, boasting a higher frame cap, solid keyboard & mouse controls, and a remix mode. These additions, however, do nothing to remedy the poorly-aged, cliché-ridden script and inconsistent chapters you may remember, but do highlight the game’s strong visuals and emphasis on variety.

FATAL FRAME: Mask Of The Lunar Eclipse sports a new paint job that could still use a few more coats in some areas, but nevertheless offers an interesting horror mystery. However, even with the upgrades, the pain points of past entries are still present, and is not aided by a non-linear narrative that may not be enough to entice everyone to smile for the camera.

DNF Duel had the potential to be a great fighting game for beginners, but is far too shallow and unbalanced to be competitive in. Even so, it’s good for a more casual and laid back experience with some great visuals.

Tales of Xillia 2 ‘s greatest strengths are also its greatest weaknesses. Continuing the saga where it left off will be a joy for fans of the original who couldn’t get enough of its intricate world and colorful characters, but Bandai Namco’s choice to revisit a previous game may not satisfy those who are in search of new experiences in the Tales of series.

Fitness Boxing doesn’t have a lot of features to speak of, but it does provide a solid workout. Its exercise routines are challenging and enjoyable enough, despite their atrocious background music. Fitness Boxing isn’t going to be the most fun game on your Switch, but it’s worth checking out if you need a little extra motivation to get your heart rate up.

Creepy as hell but the jump scares too often failed to frighten and some performance issues dampened and otherwise well put together game.

Every time Saints Row does something that reminds me how much I love the series, it follows it up with an issue that makes me frustrated with it. As much as I enjoy the gameplay and getting lost in Santo Ileso, the structural problems, both in open world game design and under the hood, make this a tough one to stick with. There are highlights, like losing track of time in how much fun a Saints Row game can be, but it’s lost under a pile of bugs and glitches.

Automatron’s campaign isn’t very long or particularly interesting, but the longterm effects to the Fallout 4 sandbox are sure to be very interesting, especially as players get to carry their Frankenstein creations to upcoming DLC campaigns.

The game doesn’t ultimately suffer from its technical issues. Instead I felt more like it was muddled by lack of creative cohesion or foresight. The game’s story was intriguing, but doesn’t really resolve in a manner which is coherent. The level of visual fidelity works, but doesn’t entirely seem premeditated. Yet it’s over very quickly, and in its broad strokes paints a captivating picture. Had it required me to spend more time to reach its pay off, I might have been bothered by this. To compare it to music, this works well as a free mix-tape, but I wouldn’t tolerate it as a full album. That said, I’m interested in what the artist’s point of view is. If they were to be signed, I’d likely want to check out what they could put out with the support of a record label.

Romancing SaGa 3 is a strange game. I like some of its oddities, but others not so much. The game is a bit of a mess. It is, however, a really pretty mess with a great soundtrack. There is a lot of good here, but I just wish it wasn’t so bogged down with nonsense.

The Franz Kafka Videogame is a unique adventure game experience, filled with unique art style and accessible puzzles. However, a baffling story that goes nowhere and a dreadfully short length make the game simply adequate rather than surreal.

Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy feels like a mixed bag. While there’s the promise of a fun adventure in the Marvel universe with a likable group of characters, it’s hampered by the same problems of nearly every Telltale game in the last few years, plus a few new ones. It’s not terrible, but I’d wait to see what the other episodes look like before picking it up.

SpongeBob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake doesn’t live up to its predecessor, but is still an enjoyable enough romp through the sea. There are a ton of delightful callbacks that can spice up the safe level design and it’s fun to see alternate versions of beloved characters. If you’re a fan it’s worth playing through, but if not you may want to skip this one.

The story is well written and the game flows between different action sequences and cinematic breaks that keep both gameplay and the story fresh. There are some issues with hit detection and death animations that will frustrate you at times, but the game rewards you for getting through each sequence and makes it worth the effort.

Dragon Quest VIII is a massive world with well over 50 hours of gameplay. It stands out thanks to stellar voice acting and a huge, quirky set of monsters to battle. While there’s plenty to do, both the plot and the majority of the characters are flat and uninteresting. The quicksave feature and the ability to increase battle speed are significant quality of life improvements over the original, making this a solid title sure to entertain JRPG fans, but the dated and grind-heavy mechanics can make it a bit of a slog.

Into the Stars is a creative and unique game which nevertheless manages to disappoint. The combination of complicated gameplay with a distinct lack of direction means that only the truly determined will likely get far with the title – but it just isn’t interesting enough to warrant the investment from most.

After seeing so much change in Franchise Mode from Madden NFL 22 to 23, expectations were high for Madden NFL 24. While some things are what fans wanted from the Madden franchise in 24, it seems like time was truly against the game as glitches are more rampant than last year and things simply seem half finished. While we assume that things will get fixed as the year goes by, it might be time for Madden to look at trying to complete a game before putting out another one.

Those expecting the quality and polish of its predecessor will be disappointed with Exit the Gungeon. It’s too visually clustered and the new mechanics can be more frustrating than fun. Still, for a short burst of rogue-like goodness, you could do worse.

SNK Vs. Capcom: Match of the Millennium is a decent, casual style fighting game from the previous century. It has tons of characters and modes to keep you interested for a short time, but don’t expect any depth whatsoever here.

Delivers exactly what it says: a prettier version of the same game you played five years ago. Those looking for the same experience will find it, and those looking for something new or a fresh take on the series won’t get much out of this remaster.

It’s always somewhat tacky to compare products, but it’s warranted when so very much is borrowed. This game is a bit of a knockoff of the superior Mark of the Ninja.

ChromaGun answers a question nobody wanted answered: What if Portal made a few really terrible game design decisions that soured the whole experience? Don’t get me wrong, ChromaGun is not without enjoyment. It certainly has its moments. At $19.99, it may be worth buying. But it could have been so much better.

Stranger of Paradise is a good game, but it had the potential to be a great game. Its self seriousness backfires to a genuinely endearing degree, but also leaves the story poorly fleshed out and possibly hard to follow. The combat may be fun, fluid, and visceral, but issues with the PC version should make players look to other platforms.

Super Mario Party is some of the most fun to be had with a local multiplayer game on the Switch. Unfortunately that is compromised by a deluge of limited modes and design decisions that pull the whole package down. Based the fun factor alone, Super Mario Party justifies its price tag for anyone looking for a new game to play with friends. However, Super Mario Party's fun factor well exceeds the title's fundamental design principles--so tempering one's expectations is a must.

Games are for relaxation and fun – copy protection that impedes that and causes the user to spend time repairing their OS instead of enjoying their purchased product run counter to that.

Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid has some near-perfect online play and tag-team mechanics, but is held back by some disappointing story modes and an egregious lack of content. Dedicated Power Rangers fans and fighting game enthusiasts will find a lot to love, but for everyone else, wait until the free update for more characters and content in the future.

Dead in Vinland is a challenging game with fun writing and hours of gameplay to keep you busy. However, repetitive gameplay and a slow-moving plot holds back what could have been a truly fantastic game.

Cyber Citizen Shockman 3 is fun at times, mainly thanks to its goofy sense of humor and fun cutscenes and characters, though the basic hack and slash combat paired with inconsistent and often brutal difficulty grows stale quickly. Still, the levels are varied, ranging from city skylines and industrial buildings to demonic underground lairs, and the ever-changing enemies help keep the player’s attention throughout its seven short levels. Cheats and bonuses help provide a bit more bang for the buck, but for only $6, there’s enough here to justify picking this game up and killing an hour or two.

Every time I make an impactful choice or uncover a new part of the story or tidbit of lore, I'm reminded why I adore GreedFall. That feeling fades, however, whenever The Dying World pushes me into combat or the tedious build menus. GreedFall: The Dying World is an up and down experience; one that you want to love, but one that doesn't love you back.

Tempest is available for just $15 and it scratches an itch few other games do. It’s a capable, if somewhat buggy, pirate adventure that offers up challenging combat and an open world to explore. Customization and late-game challenges courtesy of legendary ships and mythical monsters help round out the title, making it worthwhile if a little frayed around the edges.

Construction Simulator 2 has some rough patches, but overall provides a fun and semi-realistic experience of one of the roughest and most grueling jobs out there. The game suffers from lulls in action, but when the action kicks in there is a lot to appreciate. A so-so affair throughout makes for a niche game for those looking for a casual experience.

High on Life is a decent enough game that doesn’t quite live up to its potential. The combat feels unfocused and lacks depth, while the story and humor only hit their stride in the final moments. Still, it’s worth a playthrough if you enjoy the more aggressive side of shooters with some light platforming.

Mom Hid My Game! is a weirdly hilarious title that suffers from a host of problems, but its flaws are what make the title enjoyable. If you have an hour to kill and want something cheap to purchase on your Switch, you should take it for a spin.

Trillion: God of Destruction has wonderful characterization and compelling moments, but gets bogged down in a series of unintuitive design decisions and a lack of engaging main story content. Come for the concept, but don’t be surprised when it doesn’t hold for long.

If you’ve been following the series this far, it might be worth checking out just to have a save file ready for when season four comes out. Just be aware that the finale is pretty disappointing on the whole.

An ambitious open-world survival game that does not benefit from being one. Tedious exploration courtesy of poorly-designed environments and underdeveloped survival mechanics detract from an otherwise strong main adventure. Charming presentation, colorful writing, and powerful environmental storytelling are highlights that are unfortunately eclipsed by a shallow open world.

If you are a fan of the franchise, by all means, consider adding this game to your collection, as it will let you slide into the shoes of some of your favorite characters. For all others, look elsewhere for your adventuring and competitive needs.

Star Wars Pinball VR is a serviceable pinball game that has no business being in VR. The eight tables all feel very similar, the visuals are incredibly low quality, and the Fan Cave is pointless.

Minoria may not be Bombservice’s best game to date, but it may still be worth a look for action platformer fans looking for a challenge. Though its combat feels more frustrating than satisfying at times, the fundamentals of its swordplay are still solid. Add to that its excellent art and music, and there’s a lot to like here if you can overlook its underdeveloped story and exploration.

The Secret of Mana Remaster was highly anticipated by a lot of fans and overall manages to capture the experience of playing the original within an all new outer shell of upscale graphics and new sound. It fails to make any revolutionary changes to the gameplay, forgoing an opportunity to improve on one of the all-time classic games, and the changes it does make (particularly the music) are hard to swallow at times. Secret of Mana for the PlayStation 4 is not quite a disappointment, but it does leave a less than satisfying feeling.

Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed is ultimately a decent iOS racing game that serves as a tribute to Sega’s past hits.

In summary, when it comes to Red Wings: Aces of the Sky, there just isn’t that much to talk about. It’s a fun little game for a while, but it gets repetitive quickly, and it’s very easy. I think most experienced gamers will enjoy it for a couple of days and then forget about it because it doesn’t inspire any strong feelings or make you want to go all completionist on it for the achievements.

Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Video Game is a well crafted and unique racing title that attempts to capture the unique elements of dirt bike racing. The game is fun and has a lot of detail in its gameplay elements as well as the riders, bikes, and tracks included. Unfortunately, loading lag times and other issues stain what would be otherwise a very solid racing experience.

Infinite Guitars tries to be a lot of things, and unfortunately doesn’t quite succeed at any of them. The rhythm mechanics come the closest, but like the rest of the experience are marred by glitches. Despite the immaculate soundtrack, the rest of the game just isn’t finished with a poorly written story and lackluster mechanics.

Bridge Constructor succeeds at being a surprisingly entertaining bridge physics simulator, but glaring issues like the confusing UI, nearly nonexistent tutorial, and terrible sound design get in the way of it being an otherwise decent game.

Backbone bites off far more than it can chew, with a completely out of nowhere twist in the third act, disregard of your choices, and a lack of resolution to any of its plot threads. While the promising story and gorgeous visuals had me hooked initially, the game tries to juggle too many things and ends up dropping all the balls.

God Eater Resurrection is a fun 40-hour experience that keeps you going with its gameplay mechanics and customization. The dark story falls flat at points, with the gameplay saving this game from a lackluster story.

The game isn't very good as an overall package, although the budget price might make it worthwhile for pinball enthusiasts looking for a couple of new tables to play.

The game does over multiplayer with up to eight players. Even here, however, the game seems somewhat limited in scope. You have only a handful of maps, and only four game modes, two of which are ranked.

That being said, the game is boring, lifeless, tedious, and a chore to slog through for veteran gamers.

The concept is solid and new elements like sense of smell are great ideas, but the execution and lackluster A.I. just don’t add up to the cohesive product it could have been.

Unfortunately, a great concept got lost in a morass of poor decisions and overcomplexity, if that's a word.

Rumble Roses XX could have been a contender against DOA4 and still set itself apart from the fray. Instead, the game comes off as juvenile with plenty of moves that would only seem to be appropriate in movies you’d find in a dark hallway in the back corner of the video store.

It was amusing to play in a party setting, getting to watch people get into the music who would not normally. An average title.

When boiled down FD 18 is really a 3rd-person shooter with not much variety.

If you like Redneck jokes and the idea of taking short trips in a big rig, you might get a kick out of this game.

Poor gameplay, sub par graphics, and some antiquated control mechanisms.

While some aspects of the game are worthwhile on higher difficulty settings, the hand holding on Casual and Medium is excessive.

In the end, I guess I’ll just say that if you’re really desperate to take your music games everywhere with you, the setlist turns your crank, and you find the Guitar Grip and Drum Overlay comfortable, then add 15 points to my score because Band Hero isn’t a terrible option. If you don’t require portability, however, I’d stick with the console versions.

The horrific control scheme literally kills the game from the word go, and the pain is only amplified by the equally terrible teammate and enemy AI, the awful graphics, the schizophrenic aerial missions, and on and on and on.

Tornado is fun for a bit, but once they start burying their great initial concept in a morass of extra moves and stupid levels (like a level where a giant bad tornado is bumping you around while the clock keeps on running), it loses its joy.

PaRappa means “paper-thin” in Japanese. Unfortunately, that also could be used to describe the game in general.

With boring quests that really don’t make you feel like you are a part of saving the world, there isn’t any real excitement to the game.

Fans of Suda 51′s work may be able to look past the numerous flaws present here, but ten dollars is a lot of money to spend on frustration and the desire to play something, anything else.

Spartacus Legends is the kind of game that you keep because it’s fun and you play when everything else has been beat or has gotten old.

With all of the options out there now, however, it really is a matter of too little, too late.

Unless you are desperately craving something new for your brand new shiny PS3, you’ll probably want to hold off.

If you're a die-hard Sherlock Holmes fan and can look past some significant flaws to experience an authentic Sherlock experience, then by all means, go for it. Otherwise, stay away.

The History Channel Civil War is a nice alternative to other World War II shooters, but you might want to rent it on a rainy weekend. It's a shame because The History Channel footage is really well integrated into the game.

A fun little game that is taken down several notches thanks to the poor graphics and repeating music.

AI is good, but could be much better. Graphics are decent, but are exceedingly bland and unexciting. Map design is incredibly limited to the point of frustration.

Unless you’re in desperate need of an old-school adventure with a serial killer theme, this is one crime you may want to leave unsolved.

It’s a repetitive platformer that does a good job of being pretty, true to Bilbo’s story and repetitive.

Miasmata is definitely a unique experience, and as the work of two people it’s actually a hell of an achievement. It’s a game with ambition, which should be rewarded even if it occasionally falls short of the goals it set for itself.

The games provided on Konami Classics Series Arcade Hits are a mixed bag from mediocre to bad. Unless you are a collector of classic game series like this, there really isn’t any reason to add this to your collection.

When I got Tokyo Beat Down, I was really hoping for a great beat-'em-up experience translated into the third dimension, similar to how adventure games and one-on-one fighting games have transitioned into 3D. Unfortunately Tokyo Beat Down falls short of that, and if I want a beat-'em-up I'm better off putting my GBA copy of Final Fight One into my Nintendo DS.

Pick this one up from Steam if you’re truly desperate for another attempt at playing the role of an evil dungeon overlord. If you’re waiting for a great game in that genre, however, pass this one by.

I've played a couple other versions of the game, and I know it can be quite fun. The keyboard controls for this one was supremely disappointing to me, but the 360-like controllers did help this issue.

I guess in the end, the problem with Resident Evil 6 is that it doesn’t have an identity. It wants to please its survival-horror fanbase, but seems to have forgotten how to walk that fine line between tense action and frustrating challenge.

As it stands, however, I found Fortix a mediocre experience that just didn’t grab me as much as I thought it might.

Given a year or so, Archlord might be a solid title. Right now though? It's not worth the money.

It’s hard to justify recommending Stardrive over Galactic Civilizations 2, Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity, or AI War: Fleet Command when those games offer more content for less money. If you’re a big fan of space-themed 4X games, and find it on sale, I’d say you should pick it up. But everybody else is better off leaving this one for the space-bears.

While I really like the Warriors series of games....it's time for an overhaul. The game needs a full graphics engine overhaul, much better voice acting, more cut scenes, and some solid depth.

Dynasty Warriors : Strikeforce isn't for everyone - for those who want to play a Phantasy Star Online / Monster Hunter style game with your favorite Romance of the Three Kingdoms characters, you've got yourself a fun game with some strong online legs, assuming you can find like-minded people.

With bland graphics, bad voice acting, uninspired missions, and the ability to finish it within four hours Reservoir Dogs is little more than a rental at best.

If you are waiting for some innovation, then you are probably better off in waiting a year.

Everything except the combat is needlessly confusing and frustrating, as if they were purposefully trying to make gamers mad. In comparison, the combat is too simple and almost dumbed down to make this an RPG For Dummies, DS Edition.

This game is not fun, and should be played by no one on this planet. Period.

Strategy fans may like it more than I do, and that's fine, but I really couldn't get into the game at all.

Crash MOM isn’t actualy a bad game, but the insane loading times cause it to be far more frustrating than it should be.

Over-all, War for Cybertron DS was mediocre.

Over-all, War for Cybertron DS was mediocre.

I thought this game was fun... for 10 minutes. Every time I fired the game up I really wanted to see that "SSX Tricky" splash screen instead. "SSX" is just a lot more fun and satisfying.

The Metro franchise succeeds when it synthesizes imperfect elements into a glorious whole; the Faction Pack fails because it breaks Last Light into its inglorious components.

Don’t poison your memory with ET:QW on the PS3.

If you find the game on sale for $2 or $3, it might be worth a go, but the problem is that even at that low price there are better, more ambitious games you can play; games that move the industry into the future instead of slavishly trying to recreate the past.