Stories: The Path of Destinies is a clear example that the framework for success can only take you so far; the execution of an awesome idea has to be there for a game to reach its true potential.

That’s kind of the crux of the problem: everything in The Charnel House Trilogy is too obvious. You see most of the scares coming a mile away, it’s super easy to see through the psychological tricks that it tries to employ and once you understand what’s going on with the train it doesn’t feel particularly ominous anymore, no matter what tone the graphics and music might otherwise set. Horror benefits from ambiguity.

Tokyo RPG Factory appears to have one goal: remind us of the Golden Years of RPGs. Unfortunately, Oninaki captures that era of gaming and does nothing remarkable with it.

The Casting of Frank Stone may be something for die-hard Dead by Daylight fans or those who truly love Supermassive's adventure games, and can even act as a good entry point for new players, but it can't help but feel like a disappointment. While the story is great and the camera mechanic is neat, the overall experience is dragged down by the likes of repetitive, bland areas and a few aggravating characters. Still, it's great to see a franchise with a lot of variety such as Dead by Daylight expand into other genres, but let's just hope that next time they bring along a lot more personality.

SUMMERHOUSE by Friedemann is a visually striking game that offers a serene building experience, perfect for players seeking a creative outlet without stringent gameplay mechanics. While it shines in its ambiance and artistic design, the game could benefit from more refined controls, clearer objectives and enhanced accessibility features. It's a game that won't necessarily consume hours of your time in one sitting, but will be a delightful escape for those who appreciate its laid-back, creative charm.

When it works, Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty is a beautiful, quirky, and devious puzzle platformer that deserves a spot alongside the likes of LIMBO, Another World and the original Abe’s Oddysee in the gaming canon. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work nearly often enough.

This would have been a great game for $39.99, but is very hard to recommend at $60. [July 2007, p.59]

The lack of single-player options is going to be missed by many while they look to dive back in and feel the nostalgia of the series. The soundtrack, visuals, sound design and actual gameplay are still solid but can seem dated. These aspects are still special in their own way and almost seem to add more charm to this classic fighting game. While the foundation of what makes Virtua Fighter special is still here in Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O., it's still lacking in a lot of aspects. With that said, it's still a cheaper fighting game that's reliably fun and a good game to play while you wait for the newest entry in the series to make its debut. What we have here is a solid PC port of the PS4 remaster and its still a welcome addition to the PC fighting game community. This isn’t an overwhelmingly huge update and new release of the game, but rather a way to give new and old players alike a taste of the classic fighting game.

The World Next Door is not a title that’s going to rock anyone’s world, but it’s a good title that would be worth checking out for someone wanting something a little different. The puzzle combat system is enjoyable but could have benefited from further development to flesh it out a bit more. The story isn’t extraordinary but is still an enjoyable journey despite its anticlimatic ending. The game takes about four hours or so to complete, so it isn’t a huge time commitment. The world of Emrys is an interestingly designed world that can be fun to visit but is also not a bucket list destination.

Moreover, if you love testing your skills against others online, this game isn’t for you, either. If you like playing fighters by yourself, huddled up in a corner in some depressingly dark room, then sure, Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus R is the thing for you. It’s just a shame that such a terrible, terrible decision can hold back such a wonderful game.

By no means is Tales of Zestiria bottom of the pile, yet as far as all around quality goes — by which the many cogs keep this latest entry circulating; moving with swift, relevant engagement — Zestiria is perhaps the point wherein Bandai Namco really do have a franchise on one hell of a tipping point.

Components blend in such a way to entice a new player to give it more than a few runs. After the honeymoon is over, though, a game that leans so heavy into the rogue-like trappings needs to do something to maintain player interest. Regrettably, that is where this title falters.

The cyberpunk world of The Ascent seems dazzling on the surface, but much like your standard cyberpunk world, the grime underneath all of the neon and futuristic landscapes ends up revealing a hefty mess once you go exploring it. The top-down shooter gameplay is fun on a basic level, but quickly becomes monotonous as it drags on in order to keep up with the RPG-styled length and ambitions, while the RPG side of things has a good story and some nifty gameplay tweaks, but its desire to keep the gameplay focus on being a top-down shooter means that any potential when it comes to depth and variety is never fully realized. If you’re a die-hard cyberpunk fan, don’t mind a lot of repetition or have friends to join along, there can be fun here as you ascend, but the rest might be better skipping the trip up.

For better or worse, Gargoyles Remastered remains a product of its time. The remaster was handled in a way where all remasters of classic games should be handled which is add quality-of-life features like being able to save and modernizing the graphics and sound while giving the player the option to switch to the original version. The remastered graphics are beautiful and it’s like watching the animated series as game. The game mechanics are antiquated, however, and don’t hold up well. Players who enjoyed this title on Sega Genesis will find that it plays exactly how they remember it and can still have fun with this one. Newcomers who don’t have the benefit of nostalgia will likely be less forgiving of the gameplay in Gargoyles Remastered.

Dusk Diver 2 shows a notable improvement over the original by adding a second playable character to switch between in-battle at any point, but doesn’t improve the formula enough to be a must-have for anyone who didn’t love the original. The combat system has been beefed up, but variety is still in short-supply and the same environments being used throughout dungeons hurts things. The overworld exploration is the most pure fun the game offers up in its current form and it’s a shame some streamlining wasn’t done to dungeons to make them less laborious and more fun to complete.

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint is a good game overall. The biggest complaint is that it generally feels like a mashup of other recent Ubisoft shooters and even with some attempts at forging its own identity, it seems like a game we’ve already played recently. In spite of this, there’s quite a bit of fun to had and people who can’t enough of Wildlands or The Division 2 would likely find the same excitement here. If expectations are tempered for a familiar game that is derivative of previous contemporary titles, there’s a lot of fun to be had on Aurora in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, but players expecting something drastically different and new will be looking a long time on the island.

The game provides a brief, enjoyable taste of something that deserved to be fleshed out further rather than cut short.

What I enjoyed was minimal compared to the game’s content, so it does not come with a high recommendation. But if you’re a hardcore DBZ fan like I am, you’ll still manage to find some entertainment in the game. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is not the best love letter written to fans, but it’s still a love letter nonetheless.

Lords of the Fallen is a divisive game that has all the charm in its presentation, but doesn’t follow through with its execution.

Maneater: Truth Quest is an enjoyable but unessential expansion for Maneater. Westhaven is an entertaining narrator but his over the top conspiracy theories just aren’t as entertaining as his documentary narration in the base game. The new missions end up falling into the same type of repetition the other missions. The new atomic shark powers are actually one of the better parts of the expansion and having a green nuclear energy ball fly from a tail whip attack was a great addition. While taking on the new sea life monstrosities provided an enjoyable challenge, Truth Quest is a necessary reason to return to the water for only the most devoted Maneater fans.

Gungrave G.O.R.E. marks Grave’s return to blasting everything in sight. Fans of the earlier entries in the series will be happy to see the gameplay has remained largely the same, which is charge into battle with guns blazing for pure action-packed carnage. Mindless mayhem and destruction can be a good time and that’s exactly what this title delivers, which works as a double-edged sword for Gungrave. Because of how basic and repetitive the gameplay can be, it’s easy to lose interest after a few levels and not find the experience of playing it fulfilling. On the other hand, there are times when it’s good to just turn the brain off and have fun, and when that mood strikes, Gungrave G.O.R.E. is just what the doctor ordered.

MXGP 2019 is a welcome addition for fans of the franchise that can looks past the legacy issues and have an excellent feel for the games. This series requires a grind to get good and competitive as players will have to play with setups, learn tracks and overcome obstacles that can hamper the experience. The Playground is the place to play and learn how to ride and The Waypoint is a great addition. The Track Editor is a much-needed mode for the series as it allows endless possibilities for riders. Having the full 2019 FIM Motocross Championship is a bonus, but this is more important to a small demographic of people. This series doesn’t get the promotion that the Monster Energy Supercross Series gets in America and also begs the question of why Milestone has two separate motocross games and why resources can’t be combined for one game?

If it weren’t for bad gunplay and aiming mechanics that have to be surmounted, Operation Blackout would be an easy recommend for the interested. As is, it does require a patient and forgiving player. Those that can find their way around this issue, though, will have a better time than the poor kid who got the Radar Rat.

Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE feels a bit like another entry into the Danganronpa series simply without the school approach, leaving it feeling like it’s not really standing on its own two legs. The highlights end up being the investigation elements and many side quests which are the most somewhat original parts it could manage. The main story will keep players engaged, but it’s a shame it’s held back by outdated elements disguised as “humor” that only those stuck in an edgy school kid mindset could enjoy. It’s easy to see how many will still be able to look past the flaws and enjoy the overall experience, but it’s a shame they had to exist at all due to poor writing that feels as though it’s from those who never consumed anything but their own creations. For those who have enjoyed Danganronpa this will likely be at least mostly enjoyable through and through, but it’s a shame Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE couldn’t find a good footing to stand up and feel like a truly original title.

While the ability to injure the other team by ripping a guy’s helmet off and beating him with it is attractive, it comes at the expense of the core gameplay.

There’s the potential for a beautiful journey here, but Rain seems to be too content to wallow in its melancholy to create any real engaging gameplay. All the set pieces are present for a new nonviolent darling, but with the plodding narrative, uninspired gameplay, and often frustrating camera tied to environmental puzzles, Rain combines a string of mishaps rather than a heartwarming journey to save a little girl in need of a helping hand.

So if you’re in desperate need of a Bejeweled-like to play on your 3DS, look no further. Otherwise, go for one of the similarly satisfying free alternatives.

Blackwood Crossing begins with the promise of a fantastic and emotional journey, and provides one from beginning to end when it comes to a terrific story, but in terms of gameplay, the journey ends well before we can even take a stroll to the dining car or the like. It’s just too short a trip, not allowing for enough time to make the most out of things when it comes to puzzles, challenge or unique interactions. It’s decent, sure, but sadly never gets the opportunity to be truly interesting, which is sad given the amount of potential here.

There is fun to be had and there are much worse anime titles out there, but there are also much better ones. Dedicated Naruto fans looking for fast-paced, gravity defying multiplayer beat ’em up action need look no further, but for those looking for a worthwhile single player experience or multiplayer with voice chat can skip this one.

As a whole, Wargame: Airland Battle is a bizarre mix of exciting, engaging multiplayer and an abysmal solo campaign that feels like an afterthought.

While what should be the biggest draw — the crossover and the story — falls flat on its face, Accel World vs Sword Art Online isn’t a complete loss. The actual game part of the game works well enough that players might find themselves more interested in taking on side quests and missions than working through the story campaign. Of course, Yui isn’t that great of a prize, but still. There is plenty of content with which to engage, but those looking for this type of gameplay would be better off playing Lost Song or Hollow Realization first. Those have more interesting stories and some better translation work in addition to the well-done game systems. If those have already been completed, then this isn’t the worst game for fans.

The Castle Doctrine has innovation oozing out of every pore. By combining well-developed puzzle design with massively multiplayer strategy, the game is simply unlike anything else on the market right now.

The amount of criticism dished out here may paint a negative picture, but White Shadows is by no means a terrible product and so evidently houses a clear visual style and competent-enough execution of puzzle-platforming. Yet for how little it attempts to break from tired conventions or do anything that doesn’t border on aggravating with its pacing, it’s what the game doesn’t do where most of one’s response will likely linger. Maybe the conclusion that it’s all too ordinary and forgettable is bizarrely what is most poignant. That little is offered in the other direction that’s in anyway damaging to the experience or worthy of ridicule, yet neither does anything warrant an expression any better than a figurative shrugging of the shoulders. In the end White Shadows, in all its many off-kilter interspersing of music pieces, plays things safe. A fine, if by-the-numbers entrant whose uninspired delivery we’ve all found ourselves tiredly accustomed to.

If you’ve got a few hours to kill and are looking for a cute, simple story, then KARAKARA will likely fill the void.

Over Fence has an average game on their hands with Flip Wars. There is so much potential here for bigger and better things, but for the time being, it’s fun and worthy of parties. If you’re into multiplayer games, it isn’t a bad choice at all. That being said, patience is key when waiting for matches to start and actually playing them. It has only been available for several days now so the fan-base is slowly developing. If purchasing Flip Wars, make sure you have others to play with in person or good enough internet connection to play online. The free access to Nintendo’s online connection is limited, but at least you can enjoy it with friends.

Customization to modes like Volta, career mode and Pro Clubs is a step in the right direction, but FIFA 20 does little to flesh out features like press conferences and make them have more of a real impact. Players will quickly realize how similar the interface is to FIFA 19 in several modes and will be yearning for the franchise to receive a complete overhaul. With Sony and Microsoft preparing for next-generation consoles, players can only hope that the FIFA franchise also decides to evolve and significantly revamps the single-player experience next year.

It is hard to recommend Backbreaker since there are so many problems with it, but dig deep enough and you may find a fun gridiron game at its core.

Eat Lead The Return of Matt Hazard does a good job of creating a cohesive universe. However, the game play is so poorly executed that even its best moments are not worth the time.

The grid-less combat can be annoying to get used to—especially when learning how to properly position characters—but there’s enough small changes to put a good spin on otherwise stale tactical combat.

Unfortunately, Chili Con Carnage is much better at sparking a racially-charged debate than it is at being and entertaining product. [Apr 2007, p.50]

All said and done, Family Tennis doesn’t quite live up to the smooth experience that Wii Sports offered, and the control tweaks are so slight that they are barely noticeable outside of the anti-wagglefest element.

Eat Lead The Return of Matt Hazard does a good job of creating a cohesive universe. However, the game play is so poorly executed that even its best moments are not worth the time.

If you like strategy games at all, let alone grand strategy variants like Generation of Chaos, then the last thing you want to be playing is a game that simply hands you victory. [May 2007, p.64]

Ironically enough, this might be one to keep your eye on as the modding community gets a hold of it. Despite the flaws, this game has enough potential to end up standing out.

In the end, calling this a "rebirth" or even a "reboot" just doesn’t cut it. If one looks hard enough, they can see the ambitions SNK had with this game, sadly outstripped by time and budget.

Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner becomes slightly more interesting after the initial tutorial hump, but it's really hard to overlook those first few hours, especially when so many of the game's major characters are so annoying and cliched. [Mar 2007, p.57]

In a genre where games need to be well-oiled machines to be enjoyable, this one sadly doesn't make the grade. [June 2007, p.56]

In the end, calling this a "rebirth" or even a "reboot" just doesn’t cut it. If one looks hard enough, they can see the ambitions SNK had with this game, sadly outstripped by time and budget.

Time Hollow clings to mediocrity until the last hollow pen hole, and I can guarantee you won’t be compelled to ever pick it up again upon finishing it.

Unfortunately, the inability to speed up the game when you have about an hour of troop-building ahead of you, or when your hero must rely on auto-regen to heal, means that you'll be watching HoAE more than you'll be playing it. [Mar 2007, p.61]

Overall, Flip's Twisted World isn't a bad game and is definitely better than a lot of the platformer shovel ware the Wii gets, but the main selling point of the game – the ability to manipulate gravity – quickly becomes unexciting.

You're given the story setup, the potential of the control system, and a sharp visual style....but it comes with training wheels. [Spring 2008, p.50]

Quantum Theory has a lot of problems, which is a shame, because there is certainly the workings of a great game here, even if it is derivative.

Quantum Theory has a lot of problems, which is a shame, because there is certainly the workings of a great game here, even if it is derivative.

If there was some innovation or more effort was made to carve out a unique identity, this could have been a great retro title. Instead we have something rather forgettable and only recommended to the most hardcore retro game fans.

What hurts Destiny 2: Renegades the most is that it is just an Episode masquerading as an Expansion. There are no new Strikes, Crucible maps, Gambit maps, and for the first time ever in any $40 expansion, no new Patrol Zone and no new Raid. On top of that, some of the most desirable loot, including the White and Purple lightsaber crystals, are held ransom in the Eververse Store. As Kylo Ren once said, "it's time to let old things die," and it's hard not to think that about Destiny 2 after The Edge of Fate and Renegades. After 2025, it's time for Bungie to take a break, regroup and finally release Destiny 3.

After such a long absence, this is a disappointing effort to say the least. EA has promised that they will remedy many of the predominately visual issues that plague it, but until that or a drastic price drop occurs, there’s simply no reason to own NBA Live 14 with NBA 2K14 in existence.

ROGUS – Kingdom of Lost Souls teases with grandeur promise, but devolves into a barebones running action platformer as lacking in gameplay variety as it is in visual and presentation variety.

Sleeping Dogs: Nightmare in North Point is priced accordingly as it's a short and repetitive story that doesn't play to the main game's strengths. It removes Wei Shen out of everything he accomplished and places him in nightmare scenario that's purely tedious and unrewarding. The only redeeming value is that you get to see the lovely Not Ping once more - that and the informative mythos that surrounds the game at an appropriate time.

The combination of a horribly slow pace and a lack of any true puzzle difficulty makes the entire three-hour campaign feel like one massive fetch quest, only there isn’t a grand payoff once said quest is complete.

As a whole, Face Noir is a forgettable disappointment. Nothing stands out or inspires discussion other than its inherent blandness. With boring dialogue that drags on too long, bad facial animations and frustrating gameplay, even the most committed adventure game players will have a hard time staying involved. There’s potential for something interesting here, but Face Noir simply isn’t worth your time to play.

It’s a truism that writing up reviews on mediocre games is the most difficult aspect of games coverage. There is no reason to tear into them, nor do they inspire the author to invent new ways to praise. Despite the score seen below, Defenders of Ekron is not a mediocre game. Instead, it is either a great game with a lot of bad parts or a bad game with a lot of good parts. It is a refreshed take on the “glass half full/empty” test. I’m going to say that it’s a good game with a lot of bad parts, as the time spent exploring the warzones and discovering new powers stuck with me more than having to solve that one danged magnetic ball puzzle again. People who decide otherwise are not wrong, though.

Only the hardcore fans of the prior Mystery Dungeon games should give this a go, and that is only if you want to get everything out of the story and put many hours into unlocking the extra Episodes.

It’s admirable that Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric tries so many new things, but every path it follows is a dead end.

Squint hard enough and you may latch onto some modicum of intrigue with the mechanics it offers and the objectives it poses. But for anyone inexperienced with Swery’s past work — let alone those who simply don’t take well to ample busywork — The Good Life is unfortunately equal parts unappealing and unsure on just what kind of game it wants to be.

Bonza Word Puzzle banks on the lack of patience from its consumers, especially since they hike the difficulty a tad early on after new crossword solvers have gotten used to how the game works.

Dontnod are capable of so much more than what this latest outing provides — it’s not terrible, but Twin Mirror is a misfire from a developer whose experience and past achievements would have you presume they should know better.

SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow is a visually appealing addition that unfortunately only runs skin-deep.

Genuine unintentional hilarity like this is rare in games, and it’s worth experiencing. Maybe not at the asking price, but if you see this in a steam sale, snap it up and have a good laugh.

What players might expect out of Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories and what it actually is are two entirely different things. It markets itself as a serious yarn centered around a catastrophe where player choice matters, but it’s actually an intentional comedy that uses the drama of the situations to heighten the absurdity of it all. It’s weird, but in a fantastic and enthralling way. Players with patience and a great sense of humor will come away extremely pleased. Those that can’t abide a laundry list of technical imperfections would be well served staying away. Disaster Report 4 is heavily flawed with too many irritating parts to suffer past, but it still comes recommended for anyone that believes Weird Al’s “Dare to be Stupid” should be the national anthem.

Redux: Dark Matters on Steam isn’t worth getting excited about given the wealth of better alternatives, and even if you’re a Dreamcast collector, there are far better shooter releases for it in recent years.

Unfortunately, Flock is hard to recommend. The game design is repetitive and confusing, not leading players enough to where they're supposed to go or what they should be doing. There's a lot of beauty to be had with Flock, which will attract many, but don't expect a fun game behind its beautiful exterior. This is a game I wish I could have liked more but found myself scratching my head, even raising my voice for a few moments.

The puzzle design misses the cleverness that made the previous chapters so much fun, rendering the penultimate chapter an extreme disappointment as a game, doubly so as the previous chapter was the best in the series.

Virtual reality is an incredibly exciting technology. Unfortunately, The Assembly follows safely along the path of other VR games with a functional, but absolutely cumbersome, movement scheme.

Simply put, Call of Cthulhu is a game of wasted potential. Its investigation system is fun, and something that could have easily carried the game on its own, working perfectly with the world of Lovecraft. And even any of the other gameplay elements could have made for a good adaptation. But when they mix together, the end result is a mediocre, cluttered mess that’s over too soon for anything to make an impact. Maybe hardcore fans of Lovecraft or the tabletop game can get some enjoyment out of things, but you’re better off waiting for The Sinking City instead.

Daedalic must be held accountable for the negative impact their sales model has had on the game. Even without this factor marring it, this overly random, poorly written adventure can’t hold a candle to its competition.

Laserlife had immense potential. Choice Provisions created a game that only they could make, but they did so in a way which doesn’t feel complete.

Probably the most disappointing thing about The Edge of Fate is how skimpy it is on new content. With just a campaign, location and raid, The Edge of Fate is the worst value proposition of any piece of Destiny content since Destiny: The Dark Below. Ushering in a new era, the next Destiny release needed to be bold, hook players and continue to show that Bungie can release quality products each go-around. A Destiny 3 might have been able to do all that. As an expansion, Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate doesn’t accomplish any of that outside of introducing an intriguing concept. This is one fate the Destiny franchise might not be able to escape from.

An enhanced version of a game that is, objectively speaking, a sub-par experiment at niche game design. The newly-added characters, uniforms, animations, tutorials and so on add to what was present originally in a highly beneficial fashion. In fact, many of these things should have been considered and added before the original released. The problem is that the original formula wasn’t great originally. Adding honey mustard to a wilted lettuce wrap might make it taste better, but it’s still not good.

Developed by an unproven developer with no marketing push, Lost Planet 3 is dead on arrival. It’s almost as if Capcom sent the franchise to die, as even if Spark wasn’t so inept at staging combat, it would still seem like an unessential imitation of the first game.

Whether it’s the indulgence of its presentation or simply the lack of reason from its players to really care about such a dire portrayal of modern-day life (implying harsher truths or not), Mosaic seldom lands any sort of balance between involvement through gameplay and artistic direction for the journey to feel worth trudging through. For a game all about trying to break out of a cycle and changing one’s perspective, Mosaic seems oddly content in the same drab pretense that in the end, through needless repetition, still arrives at nowhere meaningful or memorable.

Designed to play in short sessions, Pylon Rogue attempts to straddle the line between catering to casual or hardcore gamers and doesn’t quite deliver to either. Challenging games can be enjoyable, just look at Dark Souls, Nioh or any number of NES classics, but in Pylon Rogue there is no sense of progress being made to make the challenge rewarding and the shallow, accessible design doesn’t generate enough interest to continue trying.

Saint Seiya: Brave Soldiers feels like a rushed game with a very small budget.

All in all, it’s hard to recommend Tiny Token Empires for the PS3. Even though the puzzle portions are a lot of fun, they’re not so much better than other games on the market that the frustrations caused by the strategy portion are worth putting up with them for.

Starship Troopers: Extermination is a frustrating game. Not because of the challenge, but because it’s so close to being good only to crash into the ground in a heap of green blood and mandibles. The technical glitches, poor lighting and unrewarding progression system interfere with the moments that capture the feel of the action from the film. With some patches and expansion, this title could be fantastic. In its current state, players would be better off going back to Earth Defense Force or Helldivers II.

When a game’s stated goal is to distill role playing games down to nothing but combat, the combat needs to be really exceptional to carry the whole game by itself, and this is where QuestRun comes up short.

Epic Dumpster Bear isn’t terrible. It runs smoothly with no frame rate hiccups or annoying glitches, but the controls are counterintuitive and the first few worlds are a bit of a drag. You’ll start to have some fun if you can manage to hang around until the fourth world, but the game hits its stride too late in the adventure, making it nearly impossible to warrant a replay.

Existing fans of the Hyperdimension Neptunia series may feel a bit like lab rats being consistently subjected to different genres while the next main RPG is in the works. It would be acceptable if every game were a masterwork of its respective genre, but of course that isn’t the case here.

With its stock-reliant appearance and seemingly uncombed delivery, Hyposphere feels like a game hurriedly rushed out for presentation sake, with little else put into refining the experience underpinning it.

One Night Stand feels more like a think piece than a proper game. It’s strongest on the first playthrough and slowly loses its allure with each subsequent one. Perhaps the most poignant experiences to be had with this game would be playing once or twice and then having conversations with friends about how you felt and what different choices led to what ending.

For a game like this to have this bad of a mystery at its core should be absolutely unforgivable, but it presents itself with such charm and style that I find myself willing to forgive quite a lot. Not quite that much, but a lot more than I’d expected.

Most of this review was spent pointing out where John Wick Chronicles fails fans of the movie, and that is a major issue. While it doesn’t always work out, even the worst licensed game still has hopes of trying to capture the feel of the franchise it’s using. Outside of the Continental, this game doesn’t. One cannot help but think that there were some grand designs for what the game was going to be before the deadline in the form of the sequel’s release reared its head. Anyone who can put that aside and wants a decent gallery shooter can have a good time with John Wick Chronicles. The targets are plentiful and the game likes to use all 360 degrees around the player for their spawn points, meaning it takes advantage of the ability to turn around, something that some other similar titles can’t even state. So, while John Wick Chronicles cannot be recommended at full price, it’s worth snagging when a proper sale comes around.

With some more interesting puzzles and cleaned up controls, Tiny Brains would be an easy game to recommend to everyone, but as it stands it’s best avoided.

The experience of playing this title is one of roller coaster highs and lows. At first, it seems like the new bad game everybody should check out. It’s so gormless in its stupidity that it’s endearing. Through extended play, those scales drop from the eyes and the blissful ironic joy gives way to tedium as the player prays to their deity of choice that they don’t run into a bug that renders the scenario unwinnable. With fixes to the pathfinding and spawning, Heavy Fire: Red Shadow would be an honest to goodness hilarious arcade style classic, intentionally or not. As it stands, only the most patient should climb behind the gun.

Deadly Premonition is a mechanically stiff game that’s fortunate enough to have a compelling and intriguing murder mystery backing it up. Unfortunately, the PC port is mired with issues. It’s not the lackluster visual, repeating animation or the slow and unappealing gameplay that’s the problem; it’s the multitude of technical issues that will push players away.

It stands out the least of the Johnny ____ series, and is hard to recommend given how few things it does well compared to other games in its genre.

The tough reality is, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is an outdated game from top to bottom.

Shelly Harrison sets out on a cross-country action-FPS trek to find the lost artifact of the Demon Core. Intense firefights are interspersed with slower exploratory segments, making it more a late-90s FPS throwback than prequel game Ion Fury's Build Engine adventure.