For those looking for the kind of wind-me-down indie title that can still rustle up a good, nuanced frustration from time to time, BOOR will meet that demand (if not exceed it) without letting its potential annoyances get in the way or become the focal point. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to find in this brief puzzle-platformer that warrants the case a bulk of the developer’s true focus was really, truly invested that deeply. The simplified and illustrative presentation is a pleasant assortment of pinkish-reds and greyscale tones and the way this basic geometry can at times deliver something a little more complex and demanding in the gameplay front can be regarded the game’s real height at points. A pleasant experience it may be, just don’t expect anything other than conformity to a tried-and-tested formula.

RWBY: Arrowfell is not a title we would necessarily call wholly bad, but it feels lacking especially when considering that the teams behind it have such a great track record for platformers and fighting titles. It’s hard to tell where things ended up to make it feel so “bleh.” The repetitive nature quickly becomes apparent, the lack of innovation in combat keeping anything from feeling fresh after the first few stages and it just feels like a series so focused around combat would deliver a more fleshed-out experience. RWBY: Arrowfell is a title that will only appeal to fans of the franchise, but even then it won’t offer a stunning gameplay experience or make it worth picking up for the story. At the very least it’s nice to see new interactions between characters, but it’s just a shame the gameplay loop just couldn’t pull through.

The simple battles with their special moves are entertaining in short bursts and having sole ownership of a piece of property to defend lends a real sense of empowerment. In the end, though, the desire to see how a base has held up under attack is outgunned by the lack of desire to actually sign in and check the darn thing.

Dark Void winds up being less than the sum of its parts.

Party Planet succeeds at offering a lot of variety in one package, but the quality of the games wildly varies. While many are good — but also derivative of other games — others simply aren’t worth playing often due to a limited concept. Still, if you’re looking for a product to please not only yourself, but a group of friends either casually or at work, this will do the trick. In fact, it’s better-served as a break room game due to the super-short nature of some of the games. While some of the games support up to four players — each with their own Joy-Con — having them all playable with a single Joy-Con is impressive and ensures that, at worst, folks just have to take turns in a larger setting to enjoy the games.

It may be one step forward and two steps back in the overall Final Fantasy XIII series, but it is still an attractive package.

Its inspirations are pure, and give birth to some solid if all-too-familiar mechanics, but it’s ultimately a disappointing adventure that squanders source material that remains begging for a true video game adaptation.

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 3 does nothing to reinvent the formula, and instead happily situates itself in a cutesy, but mostly average status quo position.

When you take all of the flaws and advancements with the game, The 40th Day really just balances out to be equal to if not slightly behind where the first one started.

Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice has a forgettable story and some rather tedious, but optional, side missions. While the main 2D levels can be fun, they start to feel repetitive before long.

Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Star Ocean: The Last Hope, but this is merely a good remaster of a flawed game. It has solid combat mechanics (that do take a little while to become a little deeper than hammering on the attack button) and Square Enix has done a solid job touching it up to be presentable on modern hardware. It was a long and unique experience when it launched in 2009, but unfortunately the remaster only reminds us of the issues that plagued it. Considering Square Enix launched the remaster at a highly-discounted price, there’s a little more value to The Last Hope, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are some baffling design choices and an infuriatingly cockeyed story tucked in. Even with satisfactory combat, there are just too many good stories out there to recommend this overly-long adventure.

Gravel offers fun racing with a variety of cars and environments. The Off-road Masters mode that includes the Gravel Channel storyline is a unique way to include a story that features boss battles with the one-one-one challenges. Otherwise the modes in Gravel are lacking and the visuals are severely hurting. There’s better car models in some mobile games, but at least the selection is enough to get past this and the game looks good in motion with the colors and the lighting. Unfortunately, while advertised as PS4 Pro Enhanced, HDR isn’t included even though Milestone’s latest Supercross game included HDR. What makes the negatives more forgiving is that Gravel retails for $49.99, rather than a full-priced game. It has its moments and its variety, but it can’t be compared to something like the DiRT series.

Overall, Jack Keane is a rather fun adventure game, even if it does suffer a little in minor details. If you’re a fan of the genre at all, it's well worth the effort.

Players can absolutely see the incredible potential of Friday the 13th: The Game. When the game works without issue, it provides a fantastic, tense experience unlike other asymmetrical horror games on the market. It could just be so much better. Polishing off the bugs and expanding with additional content and modes would turn this into a title that becomes a longstanding favorite rather than something folks play for a hot minute before moving onto the next Early Access multiplayer title.

Momoiro Closet is a strange game to recommend because the all-ages version lacks so much content due to sexuality clearly being the focus. Even with scenes cut, the game still focuses heavily on a story of dating a nymphomaniac which is hardly family-friendly material. As such, anyone who is of age and interested should opt to download the patch. Those looking for a wholesome high school romance must instead look elsewhere because this visual novel isn’t a good fit.

If anything, this game is a promising gateway to many future projects, but to consider this a successful blend between the franchises wouldn’t be true.

The Descent is a decent addition for players who are dying to get back into the game for a bit or prolong their experience, but ultimately casual players will want to skip it, or wait for holiday sales.

Sundered has the basic foundation for a metroidvania/roguelike hybrid down pat, but its poor handling of enemy distribution and the otherwise fine combat that comes with it sadly drags it down. If you’re willing to make it past several hours of brutal horde attacks, there’s a gorgeous and well-crafted action-platformer to enjoy, but those turned off by lengthy grinding or chases through barrages of enemies had best look somewhere else. There’s fun to be had, yes, but you may not have as much of it as you hope for from this cosmic horror.

While the overall game loop of Two Point Museum is a thrilling experience and will keep you hooked for many hours, the execution falls flat throughout the campaign. The tasks asked of you can be frustrating as they sometimes rely upon luck, and while most of the tutorials are great towards the beginning, the lack of explanation about the financial side of Two Point Museum is disappointing.

Grisaia Phantom Trigger Vol. 1 is just a small bite of the new world of Phantom Trigger. Clocking in at just a couple hours, some may feel it takes a few missteps at truly utilizing its short gameplay length fully. Still, players should easily find themselves wrapped in a militaristic world that is both intriguing and a bit frightening. The likable, if odd, cast also ensures that most will go on to read Vol. 2 after completing this one. Hopefully that chapter finds it footing as Vol. 1 definitely has promise but doesn’t fully utilize this potential.

Pyrite Heart is better than average, but not quite enough to inspire players to fall in love.

An involving, evolving story and effective customizability just aren't quite enough to save a game marred by annoying graphical issues and uninspiring gameplay.

So how does Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason stack up? With mediocre horror themes, poor level design, and a poor story all muddled with poor stability, this is one game you wont miss playing.

While gameplay at the core is functional and multilayered, most won’t find themselves excited to play over and over again.

Retro Pocket is hurt by some boring games being included, but remains a worthy purchase due to a handful of really fun ones.

The flying itself is decent, and greatly enhanced by the game’s outstanding soundtrack, but ultimately Ace Combat Assault Horizon Legacy+ feels like nothing more than a poorly-disguised cash-grab.

The choice of the node system is regrettable and without super units and super weapons, the end game doesn’t have the same sort of pop and excitement that it should.

It’s hard to hold the positives in one’s mind without reminiscing on the kind of game Skully could’ve been. Yet take out the personal ambition of this being some grand, 3D adventure to explore in another scenario and Skully is still too much a case of good intentions marred by bad or downright odd decision-making in parts. While die-hard followers of the genre are sure to scrape together some joy in the spots of twitch-heavy platforming and hunt for collectibles the game affords, the lingering of one too many time-heavy design choices and back-end issues means the best Skully can hope for is the perception of a flawed “charming-enough” effort. Whether you can look past the inconsistent physics work, rough technical performance or the narrative’s hackneyed attempt at something resembling personality, will depend on how invested you are in the gameplay. It’s a rough, uneven, disappointingly-middle of the road trek. But for all its faults, Skully‘s acknowledging and understanding of 3D platforming’s appeal does count for something. A game whose heart is most certainly in the right place.

Blackbay Asylum is the complete opposite of a perfect game, but there’s a good brain to go with the cheesily gory heart hiding under its ugly psychopathic exterior.

Deadpool gives what his fans want, but exciting gameplay moments are too few and far between. It’s a great shame that the rest of the game isn’t up to snuff with the character performances as the industry needs more comical stories such as this.

If you’re up for an artistically ambitious puzzle game and don’t mind getting lost in the stages (literally), Qbeh-1: The Atlas Cube will mesmerize you the whole way through.

The visual novel portions are good and offer a change in pace, but feature limited animation and come off as low-rent as a result. That holds true for the similar texture work in a lot of environments, which doesn’t do justice to the impressive character models used and the solid animation across the board. For fans of either franchise, there’s a good amount of content here to enjoy, but this isn’t the kind of game that is likely to make new fans of either series on its own.

Though its stealth-based sniping gameplay can provide some exciting moments, Sniper Elite III is a decidedly mixed bag. Its abysmal narrative, outdated mission design, boring protagonist and weak non-campaign modes overshadow everything that it does well.

This is a remaster where the highs of unleashing the Force conflict with the lows of the original product. Quality-of-life improvements like the inclusion of traditional controls and the bump to the resolution help improve the game immensely. At the same time, the gameplay’s clunkiness, glitches and performance issues found on the Wii remain persistent issues in this remaster. For $19.99, there’s a decent amount of content and a chance to explore an old chapter relegated to Legends territory. Unfortunately, many of the more pressing issues were never addressed in this remaster. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is fun in short bursts on Switch, but the further you go, the more contained the Force starts to feel.

It’s all about nostalgia with Resident Evil 5 as it was fantastic seven years ago, but not as entertaining today.

Despite the addition of retro 2D events and a story mode, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 does little to improve the franchise thanks to middling minigame design and an empty, lackluster campaign. The more creative and deep gameplay arises in the story and dream minigames, but convoluted controls and brief runtimes hold back the majority of the events from entertaining players for more than a couple of attempts. The simplistic story will likely amuse fans of a younger age, but for most Mario, Sonic, Olympics and minigames fans, this crossover continues to disregard its potential and does little to justify its $60 price tag by offering only a few hours worth of polished but mostly mediocre minigames.

Elex is an unfortunate case where it appears to be too ambitious for its own good. It has a lot of great ideas, enough where it became a title of great interest when it was first announced, but the final result is something that shows promise of greatness without actually being great.

Memory’s Dogma CODE:01 provides an intriguing start to an episodic visual novel. Unlike others, it also provides a rather meaty look at the world rather than just an hour long glimpse. The only problem is that the story it’s telling depends completely on players caring about the characters and their plight. With the lack of focus on developing the protagonists as actual people, there’s a disconnect between the game’s highly-charged scenes and failure to endear the cast to players.

The many creative modes don't make up for the simplistic gameplay, though, leaving PixelJunk Racers feeling bland and forgettable. [Nov 2007, p.67]

EA Sports UFC 4 is a fun albeit bland fighting game. For something in a biennial release cycle, we would have hoped to have seen more evolution to the formula than what we’ve gotten...There’s a lot to like with EA Sports UFC 4 as it’s still an entertaining fighter, but it just doesn’t go beyond what we’ve come to expect from it.

For those who give into the temptation to buy this release, it’s thankfully a marked improvement over its predecessor. The songs are well-curated and of good quality, there’s a new (albeit throwaway) mode and the visuals and dance moves are more refined. It’s just a shame that Ubisoft is forcing consumers to buy both a physical release and subscribe to Just Dance Unlimited when they need to focus entirely on the latter.

As a whole, Mars: War Logs is a game well worth checking out for RPG fans and, at only twenty dollars, there’s no reason not to. Although frustrating at times, the developers’ ambition puts it above other indie RPGs which seem happy to settle for less considering their price.

Tropico 5 managed to disappoint more than it excited.

This episode is a step up from the previous one, starting up the halfway point of the Adventure Pass on a much higher note, but it falls short in longevity, proving that a character can be developed and well liked if focused on and given more tie as opposed to adding several characters that don’t necessarily add to the story.

While fans of 2D platformers will enjoy it, Concursion has rough edges when it comes to its slightly-unresponsive controls and overall gameplay smoothness.

There are nice customization options and the game has some personality, but even still, these concepts don’t feel fully realized. That’s the main and final problem with The Showdown Effect: it tries hard to be something folks want, but it comes up short, and needed to try a little harder.

You’d think two games packed into one bundle would hold your attention for quite some time, but the Prototype Biohazard Bundle will find a way to burn you out before you even transition to the second game.

F1 Race Stars isn't the worst choice for those desperate for a kart racing fix, but it's truly a title reserved for Formula 1 fans and their offspring. While the racing is enjoyable, its lack of polish and unique features make it play second fiddle to Mario Kart.

Dear RED – Extended is an interesting but very short visual novel.

Double Dragon Revive doesn't quite hit the mark, but does do some things right. The combat gives glimpses of greatness, but there's a lot going on with that combat. Limited space and room within levels mixed with random platforming/puzzle sessions is part of the reason the genre moved on to greater things. These elements didn't necessarily need to be revisited especially when other recent Double Dragon titles didn't try to do this. Yuke's seemed to go for a more serious tone with this release, and while Streets of Rage 4 was able to get away with a serious tone, it doesn't completely work here. It may be due to the fact that it feels more like a modern anime rather than a ninja gang story from the late 1980s. Revive may have also stuck out more if there hadn't been so many chances at reviving the series in recent years.

Go in just wanting a good time and Grease can be fun.

Go in just wanting a good time and Grease can be fun.

Rock Band Blitz is a conflicting experience for hardcore fans. The game has its moments, but the most entertaining part of Rock Band has been effectively stripped from the game.

Taito didn’t add anything new to the formula, but Arkanoid Plus! will provide straightforward arcade entertainment in short bursts, as long as you don’t go in expecting a revolutionary experience.

These types of games are, sadly, what we’re relegated to in a post-Guitar Hero world, but they’re not bad for what they are. The singing is pretty useless, since you could just sing along with any song in a similar game if you really wanted to, and the dancing is middle-of-the-road.

While it can be enjoyable, Jump Force’s power level is nowhere near 9000. This is unfortunate, as the concept for Jump Force is a good idea at its basic level and it’s clear the developers are passionate about the source material but the title ultimately does not live up to the idea’s potential. The story fails to really explain what’s going on and who all these characters are, but also is able to do so in a way where you don’t really care that you’re missing out on what should be pertinent information. The gameplay itself is enjoyable though not groundbreaking, and while there’s a fair amount of fun to be had here, there are more worthwhile options out there.

Sadame isn’t a terrible game by any stretch. Obvious attention was paid to get all the action/RPG trappings in place to create a deep experience. Everywhere, that is, except where it really counts.

It’s far from bad and that’s frustrating because you can see it achieve great heights — it just doesn’t do it as often as it could if they fine-tuned the concept instead of trying to throw everything into the stew at once.

Despite all of the complaints, there is some inherit value to Dragon Ball Fusions. The battle system, while not great, is creative and captures the feel of an anime. The plethora of heroes means that fans can create a team with nothing but their favorites and journey through the tale. The length and breadth of things to do will give anyone who enjoys this an incredible amount of value. Taken only on its merits as a game, though, and there are some noisome elements.

tar Fox Zero is a good game to play and it’s one many will get stuck into through some frantic attempt to rack up an even greater high score. Just don’t be surprised if that franticness ceases short of what you may have initially come to expect.

It’s essentially Wii Sports Tennis with a fresh coat of Mario-themed paint, which at this point is just not enough to warrant a purchase.

For everyone who has become jaded about tower defense, however, The Castle Game will just be another example of the category’s marketplace over-saturation.

Unbalanced, chaotic and a mess, Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny pushes the franchise in the wrong direction. There are glimmers of excellence, but it all comes together in such a disheartening package.

While SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy has the potential to be a fun hunk of cheese and fanservice, ultimately it relies too much on the game’s premise to carry things. The core tag team gameplay isn’t anything bad – rather fun and unique, even – but extremely short matches, a lack of variety and uneven AI means that said gameplay never achieves its full potential. Only the most diehard SNK fans may want to pick this one up, and even then, odds are you’ve seen these femme fatales done better in both gameplay and sex appeal in previous fighters.

Teslapunk simply cannot be recommended in any form. While it has a fantastic idea for a scoring system, everything else about it is simply unappealing.

Star Wars Battlefront is a solid proof-of-concept that should be fully realized in an inevitable sequel. Like Evolve, Titanfall and The Order: 1886 before it, Battlefront chooses style over substance. It’s absolutely beautiful and captures what it’s like to be in a Star Wars film, but style can only take a game so far.

Just Dance 2017 on Nintendo Switch is the definition of a port as besides allowing for new control options, there’s nothing to distinguish it from other consoles. That’s not a slight at Ubisoft, as there’s not much that could have been done to enhance this re-release besides updating the controls and they were successful in that. Using JoyCons is a fine way to experience the game, with similar functionality to that of a Wii Remote or smartphone (which are also compatible with the game) and makes it easy to rope in multiple players for those with a ton of them on hand.

But despite having the same solid mechanics as its big brother, Man of Medan starts the anthology off on a thoroughly “meh” note, thanks its unimpressive, poorly-constructed story.

Knee Deep is unique, but in the end fails to capture its potential into a truly memorable experience.

It doesn't redefine what it means to be a quality budget title, but UberSoldier 2 makes good use of its premise.

I couldn’t be more disappointed in how Star Ocean: The Divine Force turned out, to the point I’d rather go back and replay tri-Ace’s Infinite Undiscovery. You can take solace that The Divine Force is at least better than Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness as there are moments of intrigue, but they’re overshadowed by how severely underwhelming the overall package ended up.

The concept is reasonably well-executed, but this isn’t the kind of experience that gives you a lot to sink your teeth into. Still, as a bonus thrown in with another game and made available as a super-cheap download, it is easily worth its asking price.

While this is a relatively weak episode in the Minecraft: Story Mode world, it isn’t the worst episode and with the addition of the new characters, it will be enjoyable for fans and players alike.

The game is a fun, brief romp and might in fact be dampened by PSVR’s shortcomings with regards to control and visual fidelity.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a beautiful game to look at that occasionally delivers moments of excellence, but it lacks the depth underneath to deliver a mesmerizing and unforgettable experience worthy of its technological prowess.

It’s decent survival horror, but Silent Hill fans will be disappointed.

It doesn’t quite strike a perfect balance between simulation and arcade-like accessibility.

Dangerous Driving hits the perfect melody at certain points when focusing on what the team set out for it to do: be a spiritual successor to Burnout. At its peak, it feels like a Burnout game. The controls and visuals are fantastic and are properly tipping the cap to late 1990s arcade games along with the Burnout franchise. Collisions are massive and there’s a good bit of variety of cars and game modes. What the game does bad really hurts the experience. The AI lacks basically anything and the return rewards of unlocking new modes and cars feels all for nothing.

Borderlands 2 is serious fun, but has serious problems.

Morphies Law is the rare multiplayer game these days where the offline mode is the vastly superior option. While one may be able to recommend the game based on solo strength alone, the online issues need TLC. But even outside of that, a small number of equally small maps hinders what is otherwise a unique premise that has the potential for a fun and insane shooter with a ton of customization options. There’s enjoyment to still be had here, but you may be wishing for the game to morph into something better.

Fans looking for authentic and customizable WWE action at the expense of up-to-date graphics will surely get a kick out of the impressive amount of options and realistic animations available, which may be enough look past some of the game’s other issues. But for everyone else, it’s getting increasingly difficult to rely on 2K to provide a quality modern wrestling game that the medium and its ever-expanding base of devotees deserve.

In what is at times an incoherent and questionable selection of titles — compiled in what feels as drab and corporately sterile an attire one can find — there does remain worthwhile moments to look back on with Taito Milestones.

Whatever promise Life is Strange: Double Exposure has, be it in its beautiful setting, fun and likable characters, or its intriguing setup, ends up being undermined by a scattershot narrative that never comes together. And unfortunately, with a lack of any substantial gameplay or meaningful choices, that leaves this as just a so-so adventure game at best, and what is arguably the lowest-ranking game in the series. Hopefully Life is Strange can rebound back, but for now, it's not a pretty picture.

Criminal Girls 2: Party Favors isn’t a groundbreaking RPG, but does offer a decent gaming experience with an interesting story concept. The problem is it’s somewhat bland without the sexual aspects.

Spotty performance, a terribly boring aesthetic and a messy, cobbled together combat system amounts to something that had potential, but was beaten over the head with a cricket bat.

There are so many glaring flaws right up front; the framerate bottoms out, the story characters forced upon the players are atrocious and the always online requirement simply eats up bandwidth while adding nothing to the experience. When it hits that perfect line, however, this manages to be a satisfying and beautiful experience.

Megadimension Neptunia VII is slightly refreshing, but not enough to really revitalize this aging series.

It feels like Spike Chunsoft was either too eager to cash in on the Attack on Titan fever sweeping the globe or too scared to stray from the events of the show to take any real chances on this game. Whatever the reason, Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains is a beat-for-beat replica of the source material that somehow misses the action, suspense and tenacity that define the anime and manga.

Destiny 2: Shadowkeep isn’t bad, but it also feels wholly unnecessary when most of its selling points (Strikes, the Moon, Armor 2.0) can be played without owning it. This is one nightmare we didn’t need to have.

The first several songs are good fun to play but then the difficulty wall chunks itself into place and instead of playing the music you end up flailing away, hoping to clear away as many outer notes as possible while guarding the center ring against the advancing missed ones. You can survive that way, but it’s not particularly musical, and that’s a problem for a music-rhythm game.

It is likely that the game will continue to see patches in the future and hopefully some of these bring the game up to the standard it deserves. For now, however, Windforge is weighed down by its unpolished nature.

It’s just a shame that the whole thing comes in a package that looks like a rushed movie tie-in, as with more time to both polish the visuals and perfect the gameplay, The Bureau could have been more than just a throwaway shooter with strategy elements tacked on.

FIFA 21’s next-gen visuals speak for themselves as the player models are absolutely gorgeous. This is mainly shown off in the cutscenes, but even the visuals on the field seem cleaner and more detailed. The gameplay on VOLTA matches feel faster and you can pick up where you left on the previous generation. Otherwise, everything is a one-to-one copy and paste. To be fair, the developers didn’t name off anything more than visual upgrades, a new entrance and improved crowd chants. If you were expecting a large jump from generation to generation like you might have with Madden NFL 21, there’s even less in FIFA 21. This is still FIFA from EA, which means it’s going to look great and be fun.

Lost in Harmony is a fantastic experience and an incredible presentation, but it’s a shame that it’s just not that good a game.

Word search aficionados and casual fans alike would do well to purchase Word Searcher, but anybody who hasn't enjoyed them in the past will likely not experience anything to change their mind.

Almost everything in Captain Blood is a love letter to the genre it shares many titles with. This doesn’t feel like a game made to wow people, but rather provides solid entertainment and fun. The game feels like a callback, and it's almost wrong to say it is. Here we have an opportunity to play a game that has never been released and almost lost to time entirely, and it makes the experience nostalgic and charming. While the story and soundtrack aren’t something many will consider to be amazing, they are still serviceable and can be enjoyable. There's plenty of fun to be had within the game, and if you’re a fan of the genre looking for a new game to play, this could scratch that itch.

There’s some might in these heroes, just not enough to keep things interesting.

As intriguing as the world building is, it does not feel fully fleshed out yet.