Feels like some lost XBLA title from 2006, like it just wandered in from the cold after years adrift at sea, totally unaware of what's happened in the six years that transpired since. Its insubstantial puzzle mechanics and generally bare-bones presentation are the stuff of yesteryear, somehow transplanted into a time that's all but forgotten that games like it ever existed.

Given the embarrassingly long time spent patching and getting Battlefield 4 up to snuff, maybe a "stable" Battlefield will be enough for some players.

The way this game depicts Frank going through nearly the same story you've seen before sort of cheapens the existence of the original Dead Rising 2.

Drifting over the polygonal landscape looking for crystals is still a peaceful good time, if you can overlook a few flaws.

It's familiar enough in spots, but the way the Veil powers function gives everything just enough of a tweak to feel exciting.

Somerville's strengths come from its mysterious narrative and storytelling intrigue, but it fails to match the overall polish and cohesive game design language as its spiritual predecessors. [Quick Look]

It's also got some of the most hard-hitting first-person melee combat in any game I can remember, and an optional cooperative element that really broadens its appeal. Dead Island constantly runs the danger of collapsing under its own weird, esoteric technical quirks, but when it's running at full tilt its charms are hard to resist.

Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit is definitely more a game for those familiar with the series than players looking for a deep, competitive fighting game. While it's visually engaging, those without an interest in the actual Dragon Ball Z franchise will find the fighting too simplistic to be rewarding.

There are some incredible peaks in Shank that I think are entirely worth experiencing, and it can be a pleasure to play, at least for a while. There are far worse ways to spend $15 for three hours, but it's those very highs that really make Shank's shortcomings that much more disappointing.

Still, this is the first year where I feel like I can actually recommend a WWE game in earnest. Granted, it's a caveat-laden recommendation, but a recommendation nonetheless. Considering how long it's been since one of these games actually felt playable, let alone enjoyably so, it's almost worth putting up with the various peculiarities and more antiquated elements just so you can actually have fun wrestling again.

The age of the Switch's hardware and GameFreak's prowess as a studio is on full display in the newest Pokemon release as we see muddy textures and single frame animations. While we get a new crop of cute Pokemon, a more open world, and new battle mechanics we're unfortunately stuck trudging along at a snail's pace because of the game itself. [Quick Look]

It's also got some of the most hard-hitting first-person melee combat in any game I can remember, and an optional cooperative element that really broadens its appeal. Dead Island constantly runs the danger of collapsing under its own weird, esoteric technical quirks, but when it's running at full tilt its charms are hard to resist.

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That simple control style makes the multiplayer feel flat.

Bionic Commando goes back and forth between moments of great, navigation-based gameplay and a lot of little touches that don't work as well as you'd like. It makes the final product a little frustrating, because you can almost see a better game trying to bust its way out of its constraints.

Its mechanics are sound but its design uninspired, failing to do any one thing better than the standout entries in the genre. And the few unique tricks it does have, its predecessor did better. After Guerrilla made such a resounding impact, it's a shame that the best you can say about this latest Red Faction is that it's just OK.

There are definitely some quality songs on the list, but I think I would have rather been able to pick and choose a few of them as downloadable content for World Tour than be forced to buy them as a package.

The Chant is a psychedelic folk-horror action-adventure game that has more to it than one might expect from an indie title. While it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the table with its gameplay, it does provide a successfully fun experience and a compelling cult setting to sink into. [Quick Look]

It just isn't much fun to play. The core act of driving a car feels off in a way that completely put me off of playing the game. Without that in place, the rest of it just falls apart. The PlayStation 4 has been without a serious racing option since launch, and Driveclub doesn't fill that gap.

There are some neat ideas of how to effectively use the various touch screens of the Vita, and the art is gorgeous enough to make the game an able showpiece for what the system can do visually. There just isn't quite enough to the game beyond that to make up for some of its more irritating aspects.

Parts of this 50 Cent adventure are downright enjoyable, but I think the most enjoyment I got out of Blood on the Sand came ironically. The action is pretty generic, but it's functional enough to keep you moving from one bout of unintentional comedy to the next.

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While the mission mode and various attack modes can certainly keep you occupied for a time, Meteos' real legs come from human competition. Unless you're planning on playing with friends and don't care about random encounters in ranked matches, Meteos Wars is pretty tough to recommend.

A great little time-waster that's nice to have in your pocket, always at the ready. Two dollars for the package of two varieties is a heck of a deal.

In the end, LEGO Rock Band just doesn't do a terrific job of justifying its existence as a standalone game.

The Bourne Conspiracy is a short game that can be clumsy and repetitive at times, but it does it with enough style that I didn’t feel like it was a complete waste of time. For what you get, though, it’s still tough to justify the $60 price tag.

The standard gameplay in NBA Jam is insanely entertaining, and if you've got a group of players ready to play at your side, you'll easily get $50 of enjoyment out of it.

It's still my favorite online multiplayer shooter. But the bells and whistles surrounding the game are muted and missing, leaving behind that same core without giving you enough new and exciting reasons to come back.

But Lips is hardly a bad game, so if you're unable to go the Sony route, Microsoft's answer does most of what it needs to do to be successful.

It's also an utter mess in a technical sense. There are a few enjoyable moments here and there, and over time you can see the skeletal framework of a better game start to emerge, but given the heights Mass Effect has reached in the past, it's hard to believe this is what we've been waiting five years for.

Even as the level designs seeks to frustrate you beyond measure, the game remains strangely addictive. If this were simply a bad game, you'd give up and move onto something else. But something at the core of Swarm keeps you coming back, despite all reason to the contrary.

Gotham City Impostors shows how far a clear sense of personality and humor can take you even when you're making the same old style of game.

Offers lighthearted flight action that's fun enough while it lasts, but it just doesn't last very long. As if the brevity of the mission lineup weren't enough, there's no support for StreetPass or the 3DS' other nifty system-level features that would have let you further explore all the cool stuff your new handheld can do.

The simple fingertip swiping motions of Fruit Ninja scale up to a full-body experience with ease, and while some might balk at the price difference between platforms, Kinect owners hungry for something, anything of quality will find plenty of curiously cathartic, fruit-annihilating fun for their $10 here.

It's light years from being a great game, but there's still something at the heart of No Man's Sky that speaks to the would-be explorer in all of us.

It's damn hard to talk about video game tennis without bringing up Virtua Tennis, particularly when a game, like Grand Slam Tennis 2, hems so close to that original arcade formula. It's a facsimile that's executed well enough; there just aren't any good reasons to recommend Grand Slam Tennis 2 over the games that it cribs from.

It feels like the kind of guilty pleasure that you and me, serious players of video games, should be embarrassed for enjoying. What satisfaction could there possibly be in a game that largely plays itself? In spite of the one big, obvious caveat, I kind of love this game.

The story is the main thing that I'll remember about The Force Unleashed--I found it to be more satisfying than the last three movies combined. Though you go in sort of knowing how it has to end, since it has to lead into Star Wars, there are plenty of significant events occurring throughout. It's enjoyable to watch it all unfold. That said, it's unfortunate that the game isn't a bit more even, because the constant flips from too easy to too hard really drag things down and prevent The Force Unleashed from being great.

Bionic Commando goes back and forth between moments of great, navigation-based gameplay and a lot of little touches that don't work as well as you'd like. It makes the final product a little frustrating, because you can almost see a better game trying to bust its way out of its constraints.

Its mechanics are sound but its design uninspired, failing to do any one thing better than the standout entries in the genre. And the few unique tricks it does have, its predecessor did better. After Guerrilla made such a resounding impact, it's a shame that the best you can say about this latest Red Faction is that it's just OK.

With most of the additions aimed at streamlining elements of the first game or, at least, making them less of a pain to deal with, Crackdown 2 occasionally feels like a big patch for the first game.

For experienced players, though, Tales of Valor offers enough distractions to fill your need for something new. Just don't be surprised if you find yourself returning to the original campaign and multiplayer modes the next time you need a fix.

There are moments of multiplayer thrill to be had here, but they're infrequent, and sometimes tough to get to.

Its protagonist is an intriguing one, and her mission frequently teases greatness. But it never quite arrives, due to the developers' inability to marry the "full-fledged" Assassin's Creed gameplay to the Vita's form and function.

It's a sharp-looking game, the voice acting is largely on-point and funny (if occasionally obnoxiously repetitive), and there are at least a few solid hours worth of puzzle-solving to be had here. It's just that those hours don't really add up to a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, ultimately relegating The Cave to an interesting curiosity that sadly doesn't have much sticking power.

Enemies don't require much strategy in All 4 One. Especially towards the end, crowd control demands the game boil down to endlessly cycling between rockets and grenades. Yawn.

The Just Dance series feels like it's headed in the right direction with Just Dance 3, but it still has a long way to go. If you were satisfied with the Just Dance experience on the Wii, and you find the soundtrack to Just Dance 3 appealing, you probably won't be disappointed. But you should know that you can do better.

It's just too bad that the online matchmaking is totally broken on the PS3, making the game's fun online multiplayer a total chore to experience.

Even if you are a hardcore Aerosmith fan, this game's short and spotty track list makes it hard to recommend.

Tomena Sanner is a silly little game. You'll burn out on it quickly, but it's cheap enough that you might be totally OK with that.

As with the original Skate, Skate It manages to feel authentic and it comes with some sharp ideas. But the game's presentation and control just don't pan out, and it seems like a game that'll frustrate players more often than not. If you're a Skate fan looking for what's next, do yourself a solid and wait for Skate 2.

There's a pretty decent core to it, but everything from the monotonous mission design to the way the characters are introduced and immediately discarded to the lame audio to the overpowered AI just chips away at different parts of the game until you're left with a game that's probably only enjoyable if you're playing with friends and ignoring large parts of the world building and lore. If "shoot first, ask nothing later" is your style, you'll probably have a pretty good time. It's a dumb game with decent combat and effective co-op. But the game isn't good enough to recommend to anyone in any other situation. If you like playing alone, I'd recommend you look somewhere else.

Moments of true thievery are frequently left to side missions, which leaves roughly 10 hours of story in which you navigate bland mazes of narrow corridors, dull traps, and dimwitted A.I. foes, all for an end result that does nothing but underscore what a colossal waste of time the whole endeavor ultimately was.

Remember Me is a better story than a game, a mixture of Philip K. Dick-style plotting and Luc Besson's sci-fi aesthetics grafted onto an initially nifty, but ultimately repetitive gameplay design.

All I can say is that in spite of its sometimes dopey script, its slavish dedication to control mechanics that don't always quite fit, and its unrelenting desire to stuff in as many obvious blockbuster movie references and cliches as a single game can hold, I enjoyed the experience of playing Beyond: Two Souls.

That simple control style makes the multiplayer feel flat.

An engaging slice of dark fantasy, one that reaffirms American McGee's command of both the unhinged and the fantastical.

Kaos obviously had ideas for this game, yet seemingly couldn't bring any of those ideas to total fruition. The end result is a brief, brittle campaign bereft of impactful storytelling or creatively designed action, one that ends not with a bang, but with the build-up to a bang, followed by a title card.

The story of double-crosses and revenge feels pretty inconsequential over the course of Wet, but it manages to get the game's sharp dialogue across, so it certainly has its place. But that's probably the best thing that can be said about Wet, because the rest of its interesting moments get driven into the ground through repetition over the course of its 12 chapters.

So no version is perfect, but the faster loading makes the Wii version the best choice, provided you've got the right controllers on-hand.

Kaos obviously had ideas for this game, yet seemingly couldn't bring any of those ideas to total fruition. The end result is a brief, brittle campaign bereft of impactful storytelling or creatively designed action, one that ends not with a bang, but with the build-up to a bang, followed by a title card.

While this formula is as old as time itself, AQUIA does it in a way that few games have done before, and it does it with an interesting, underwater-themed look.

Drifting over the polygonal landscape looking for crystals is still a peaceful good time, if you can overlook a few flaws.

"The Devil in Me" takes an intriguing historical true-crime premise, mixes it with a bit of SAW, and half-bakes it, amounting to a very by-the-numbers, unscary addition of the Dark Pictures Anthology. Unlikable characters with dull personal problems and a plot with glacial pacing bog down a game that had a lot of potential in its set-up. That's not to mention the graphical glitches and other oddities that make the game feel rushed out the door. These unfortunate factors culminate to make The Devil In Me the weakest of the Anthology series thus far. [Quick Look]

There are some neat aspects of Section 8 and some good ideas that keep the game from getting too straightforward. But it feels like half of a game.

The story of double-crosses and revenge feels pretty inconsequential over the course of Wet, but it manages to get the game's sharp dialogue across, so it certainly has its place. But that's probably the best thing that can be said about Wet, because the rest of its interesting moments get driven into the ground through repetition over the course of its 12 chapters.

The Callisto Protocol was touted as the next Dead Space and it unfortunately suffers for that comparison. With frustrating, awkward combat, an uninteresting plot, and jump scares that fall completely flat, The Callisto Protocol struggles in the shadow of its spiritual predecessor, which did all of those things better 14 years ago. (This is all not to mention the full-screen strobing light effects that cannot be turned off; an accessibility failure that one would not expect of a modern AAA game.) It's a pity that Callisto copied the aesthetic of Dead Space while failing to execute the aspects that made it frightening and fun. [Quick Look]

If you're just comparing it to other action games released on the Wii, The Conduit does some interesting things with its control and with its multiplayer modes. But other aspects, like the poor story, bland design, and awful voice acting, would be just as bad on any platform. It's that stuff that drags The Conduit down into an area where it's tough to recommend without providing a boatload of caveats.

All of this would have been welcome in the early 2000s, but the years of disappointing follow-ups and the overall progression of industry standards leads to Star Fox Zero having the impact of an HD rerelease rather than a full sequel. Being able to beat the game in 2-3 hours doesn't help, no matter how many branching paths or lackluster challenge missions are included. Even the moment-to-moment action doesn't have anywhere near the impact that it had almost two decades ago, as this limited style of gameplay feels dated in 2016.

A love-it-or-hate-it game. While the world it presents is breathtaking, the game's core combat and slow pace are what hold me back from recommending it to all audiences. However, if you tend to find yourself with more arty tastes in media, or are one of those gamers who thinks a good game necessitates a good story, Cryostasis might just be the game for you.

In the end, it's the price that serves as Brain Age Express: Math's biggest enemy. At 800 points, this slice of Brain Age is nearly half of the retail price of Brain Age or Brain Age 2, both of which would be a more valuable purchase than this downloadable edition.

A good, solid scrolling shooter. It's tough, but not so tough that it will only appeal to genre crazies who can only feel emotion when it's filtered through a bullet hell pattern.

Despite the way-too-chatty guns (for what it's worth, there's options for that), High on Life ends up being a pretty fun shooter in a colorful and ridiculously stupid sci-fi world. It's not reinventing the wheel with its combat, but it doesn't really have to in order to be an alright time. The boss fights are surprisingly enjoyable and the game's exploration is satisfying, with upgrades and unlocks that open the world gradually, in a way that reminds me a bit of Ratchet and Clank. High on Life's crass humor is an understandable balk point for many — and the first hour or two is unrelentingly... well, Roilandy — but if you can push past the bad first impression, it's a good ol' competent FPS. [Quick Look]

Even as the level designs seeks to frustrate you beyond measure, the game remains strangely addictive. If this were simply a bad game, you'd give up and move onto something else. But something at the core of Swarm keeps you coming back, despite all reason to the contrary.

I love the deliberate left-field designs of the monsters, and there's a purity to the way it approaches first-person shooting action that I wouldn't want to change, yet the game is so brutally intense that my frayed nerves and trembling hands can only handle it in half-hour chunks at most. Maybe that's Serious Sam's fault, or maybe I'm just not serious enough.

There's tons to do in Mad Max, but most of what you do are the same few things, over and over again. I did it because I felt like I was supposed to, because some piece of my weird brain told me what I was doing was fun.

I Am Alive is extra disappointing because it has so much potential right up front, and then wastes no time squandering all of it. Its premise is exciting but its promise goes wholly unfulfilled, and at some point you've got to stop lauding a game's good ideas and think about how much you actually enjoyed playing it.

As a Mario game, Mario Super Sluggers feels kind of cheap; as a baseball game, it fails to capture the finer points that make the sport interesting in the first place. Its accessibility is probably Mario Super Sluggers' most well-realized characteristic, but what you're getting access to simply isn't much fun.

Some late-game issues not withstanding, Dadliest Catch is a charming, bizarre, genuinely likable little game.

The new quests and areas, combined with a "best of" lineup of characters from the other DLCs and other parts from the main game make for a good, exciting mini-adventure. If you're at all interested by the idea of returning to Borderlands, Claptrap's New Robot Revolution is absolutely solid.

Most disappointing is the game's conclusion, which lacks the kind of all-encompassing, universe devouring qualities of some of the series' best entries, switching instead to a sort of Rainbow Road-esque fantasy land that just tosses a bunch of random giant things from the other games together into a technicolor slurry.

It's not a completely disappointing experience, but I felt like too much of my time with Burnout Crash was spent almost having fun. In a way, that's almost more frustrating than if Criterion had whiffed it completely, since you can see the game that you'd want to play right in front of you, and yet it remains just out of reach.

A good, solid scrolling shooter. It's tough, but not so tough that it will only appeal to genre crazies who can only feel emotion when it's filtered through a bullet hell pattern.

If you have a soft spot in your heart for any of these old big-cart classics, you’ll probably be able to overlook the emulation issues and load times, but some of these early Neo-Geo games don’t hold up so well today, so make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into before you commit.

Web of Shadows opens strong, but it seems like it runs out of interesting and varied ways to put them to use well before you get to the end, and it turns into a bit of a grind.

The end result feels like a game that was created in a boardroom, its DNA formed by focus testing and market research. Time will tell what EA does in an attempt to remedy its grave errors with Battlefront II, but the game as it stands today is little more than a disappointing mess. Its technical prowess, beloved characters, and shiny spacecraft serve as little more than a distracting facade that covers an embarrassing attempt at a marquee Star Wars game.

The structure of the game is decent, but it's brought down by issues both large and small. The largest one is a simple lack of content. With eight maps, a lackluster arsenal, and a campaign mode that is, by default, populated with terrible AI-controlled bots, Brink just doesn't have enough going for it to justify a full-price purchase.

With faster and more responsive controls, a better multiplayer framework, and a smoother character progression system, this one could have been surprisingly competitive in its category. But with so many problems holding it back, Lost Planet 2 is hard to recommend against all the other great shooters already out there.

The problem is that everything is counterbalanced by a quest that quickly grows stale and repetitive after its first third. Even the final boss fight is just a minor twist on an encounter you’ll have done at least five times before.

There's something so audacious to me about stacking aliens on top of the apocalypse, and Mothership Zeta does it well enough that I'm willing to excuse some of its structural bluntness and over-reliance on combat. It's not the best Fallout 3 DLC, but it's still pretty interesting, and not a bad way to spend four or five hours.

As I trudged through hour after hour of Lost in Shadow's adventure, a singular, pervasive thought cycled through my head: I wished this game were shorter.

I think it speaks volumes to just how low the level of quality in most Wii party games has become that all it took was Nintendo putting together a competent, though still largely familiar package, to put everyone else to shame.

The focus on occasionally tough boss fight patterns and cutscenes goes a long way in making Ninja Blade feel old.

For every brilliant moment, there's a handful only worthy of exasperated annoyance.

For every moment Tesla Effect had me cursing the '90s, another put a big, fat grin on my face. It's unapologetic about its roots, even when it probably shouldn't be. But I really enjoyed my evenings with the barely functional gumshoe, and it didn't destroy my memories of Tex Murphy in the process.

There aren't many action games in this particular mold to begin with these days, so those with fond memories of Deadlight's spiritual predecessors will likely have a reasonably fulfilling few hours here. Without an existing sense of nostalgia for the source material, though, you may find Deadlight's minor flaws collectively outweigh all the things it does right.

As is, The Bureau makes for a decent enough 10 hours of alien-obliterating combat, but all the way through you'll find yourself lamenting the many aspects that feel like they could have, and should have, been better.

The fundamental flaw with Insect Armageddon is that is simply doesn't capture the sheer scale and explosive chaos that made its Japanese predecessor so memorable. Couple that with a shooter backbone that's too simple and too repetitive to rope in fans of the genre and you're left with Insect Armageddon, a game that will fail to entice either fans of the genre or the series.