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

Like Birdemic or The Room, Magus is so terrible that it can only be called a masterpiece.

A mess. While the mechanics are slightly unpolished, they still have a similar feel to what we’ve come to expect, which can result in some enjoyable antics. Unfortunately, they are contained in a constrained formula where the player must navigate menu after menu to get into repetitive and uninteresting missions.

Postal 4: No Regerts is a return to form to the cult classic Postal 2. Unfortunately, while it does stay true to what made it successful among its fanbase, it doesn’t raise the bar in any area where it could be considered a great game. For a series known for pushing the envelope, Postal 4 feels like it plays things too safe. The gameplay mechanics are rough around the edges, while the attempts at edgy humor fall short. The potential is there, but regerttably the writers never push it to a level where it would be memorable. What we end up with is a game that is enjoyable but ultimately unremarkable.

This thing is so awful that it isn’t even worth the effort to cram in an obligatory reference to the original films. The real problem is that the likelihood of these criticisms being heard by the person responsible for releasing this mess is practically zero, seeing as how the complaints would be drowned by the deafening sounds of the giant metal clackers required to think this was okay.

With the brilliant heights that remakes of Resident Evil 2, for example, achieved last year, it felt inevitable that a remake like XIII would stand as the exact opposite result in that regard. Whether or not you’re the type to maybe excuse some of the failings as unanswerable solutions to an aged approach to game design, it doesn’t take away from just how little care and effort PlayMagic have placed in the other departments. Enemy intelligence that’s practically non-existent, an overuse on what seems like a meager, hurriedly-compiled assembly of audio and visual assets. On top of a gunplay premise that looks, sounds and feels objectively worse than that of the 2003 Gamecube original. 2020’s XIII is a broken, buggy and boring rendition of a game long-time fans deserve a better interpretation of.

Basement Crawl is a reasonably-priced, well-made game lacking the features to make it a must-have. It simply doesn’t offer enough as a multiplayer-only game to fully recommend as a purchase to anyone other than folks who are dying for Bomberman on the PS4.

Road Rage takes the Road Rash formula and fails to live up to any single entry in that series despite great advances in technology since its last entry — let alone its heyday. The racing action struggles due to poor controls, while the combat rings hollow with poor weapon selection and sub-par sound effects. Glitches and other technical problems muddy the experience further, while a lack of polish on everything makes the game feel like a cash-in on a minor “Road Rash revival” sub-genre.

It saddens me to say that there really isn’t anything redeemable about R.I.P.D.. It’s boring, repetitive, and there really isn’t any circumstance I can think of that would make me recommend it to anyone. I could prolong this depressing review by talking about some of the game’s smaller features, but it would all be for nothing, as they are really just more garbage thrown onto the pile. And I’d much rather rid myself of R.I.P.D. by playing a better game.

If even a ounce of effort was put forward, Brave Battle could have been a guilty pleasure, but instead it wastes everybody’s time with dreadful execution.

This is a game with only two gameplay features: tap the screen and give Square money. It's true that the music is great and the nostalgia value is off the charts, but neither of these things justify a release that is little more than a blatant cash grab.

Fighter Within could have been a demo disc for the power of the Kinect 2.0, but instead is an absolute mess that recalls all of the original sensor’s faults.

BlackSoul takes one step forward and two awkwardly-placed steps back time and time again. What could have been an impressive homage to the horror genre ends up feeling like a soulless bargain bin find.

Those with even a shred of self-respect should head to a seedy truck stop, bowling alley or other similar establishment and use the forty dollars this retails for to instead play the vastly superior The Fast and the Furious arcade game.

This title plays like a sarcastic version of a real game. I don’t mind being mocked if I can laugh along, but this is just mean.

A failed project that should have been scrapped, Ride to Hell: Retribution represents and includes everything bad about video games.

Nothing about this game is good. It's one of the most horrible games ever made.

This is the video game equivalent of Rebecca Black’s Friday, something so terrible that its existence is nothing short of a miracle.

Unfortunately, at $15, it’s hard to recommend even if you’re a PS3-only player since Urban Trial Freestyle does the same thing as this, but better.

Don’t buy this. Don’t show this to friends as a joke. Don’t even say its name out loud. This is the game that shall not be named. This needs to die an unloved death on the Nintendo eShop purchased by absolutely no one.

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.

I power walk regularly every summer. I bring my MP3 player with me that has over a 1000 songs and I can actually lift up my feet while I walk. Not only is it free, but it is infinitely more gratifying than Walk It Out!.

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

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

It offers up dozens of stages for a small amount of money and is a lot of fun to play.

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.

Everyone else should probably steer clear. The simple truth is there are better Ys games out there, ones that are already on Steam even. So check those out long before Chronicles+.

Rhythm Destruction has its problems, no question, but it’s also an interesting experiment in combining genres.

Fishing games are supposed to be relaxing, but Super Black Bass 3D was one of the most stressful gaming experiences I’ve had all year. Second-rate graphics, poorly thought out motion controls, bad music and some of the worst gameplay a fishing game has ever seen add up to an experience that is frustrating at best and unplayable at worst.

Super Puzzle Platformer Deluxe packs a ton of great run/jump/shoot/puzzle action in its arcade shell, and is easily one of the best Tetris-style games to show up in a very long time.

As such, anybody who has even one of the titles would be advised to avoid the collection and purchase the games individually instead. Still, those who missed the original releases, don’t have access to PSN or love holding as close to a physical version as these games will ever get will find a lot to love.

Turbo: Super Stunt Squad is both a Tony Hawk Pro Skater clone and a failed adaption of a snail racing movie. It has little relation with the film and could swap the assets out for say, The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, and accomplish the same thing.

If you loved Germinator, you’ll enjoy this, but it’s difficult to recommend a purchase for anybody who still has a lot of levels left to play that game.

Overall this is the most amazing, most spectacular, most…you know, I can’t do this anymore, even sarcastically. This game is bad, but I feel a little bad saying it.

At the end of the day, Sweet Fuse: At Your Side is downright fun.

Saturday Morning RPG has a few issues, but none are glaring. The writing occasionally falls flat, and at several points a glitch caused my view to be obstructed while using a timed button-press attack in combat, but the game remains wholesomely charming and fun throughout.

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.

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.

I love playing fighting games on PS Vita and I can’t say I didn’t have fun playing Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition on it. Unfortunately, it’s a criminally lazy port.

Intake is the arcade-shooter to defeat all arcade-shooters, both in play and style.

If you’re looking to spend some more time with the Wright Anything Agency, and maybe feeling a little nostalgic for some of the series wackier moments, Turnabout Reclaimed is well worth a look. It has some great characters and bright, funny writing. It may not be the best mystery, but it’s thoroughly entertaining. It’s also, you know, a case where you defend an orca in court. That should tell you all you need to make an informed decision.

This game has no redeeming qualities, no ambition and no heart. It is nothing but a waste of your time and money.

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.

All in all, Total Extreme Wrestling 2013 is a beast of a simulator.

Velocity Ultra is a bog standard vertical scrolling space shooter that is saved from being entirely forgettable by some fairly interesting traversal abilities.

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.

The bottom line is that this game doesn’t belong in the hands of children, but rather in place of shock therapy at an institute for the mentally insane.

Lost Marbles feels like a great proof of concept, but not a full featured game. What’s here is absolutely worth playing, just don’t expect to get much more than an hour or two out of it.

At $5, the first DLC offered up for Muramasa Rebirth is easy to recommend because of how drastically it changes the gameplay.

Heroes of A Broken Land can be short and easy, or a test of patience and faith. It can be huge, chock-full of quests and glorious gold, or small and intimate. It seems the only thing each randomized adventure has in common is that they’re equal in fun.

The Inner World is a solid enough adventure game that should satisfy any fan of the genre looking for a fun little title to pass the time.

It’s never serious and it never tries to modernize when it doesn’t need to, and that’s what makes Double Dragon Neon such an excellent example of a reborn classic.

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.

Boring at best, annoying at worst, do yourself a favor and give this game a pass.

The word “fiasco” is defined as something that is a complete failure. Fiasco doesn’t live up to its definition, but it’s close.

Simply put, this is the definitive version of Raiden IV. If you’re a fan, there’s a lot to love here.

It offers players immense freedom to create their ideal farm, but only if they’re willing to do a ton of work to prepare and maintain it for future years.

If you’re looking for a spellbinding visual novel, then don’t waste another minute searching for one, because Hakuoki is what you want.

You probably already know whether or not this is a game for you, so if you don’t have a problem with lots of reading and very minimal visual presentation, you can’t go wrong with Dark Scavenger.

If you’re still intrigued by Lili, go with the far less expensive iOS version and enjoy its repetitive play in short bursts.

Boasting highly chore-like qualities, it is nowhere near worth the low price of admission.

Into the Dark: Ultimate Trash Edition is not “so bad, it’s good.” It’s just bad. Very, very bad.

Its best feature, outside of any obvious educational benefits, is that Influent feels very much like a video game. Where most programs would have you sift through walls of text, painfully memorizing bits and pieces at a time, Influent has you explore, on your own terms, a game space chock-full of interactive study points.

Unless you’re some sort of masochistic that enjoys frustration, there is very little reason to recommend Dark Raid, and even then there are plenty of better anger-inducing games available.

By tempering expectations somewhat, Yury provides what you expect from a difficult platformer. It will make you die a lot and curse at the screen.

Splatter’s main gameplay is solid; it just needs to fix a handful of issues to be considered a contender.

It may appear to be a little minimalist on the surface, and the game doesn’t really teach you all you need to know about its battle system. But for those who enjoy this kind of passive and vague role playing experience, especially with a battle system that has you assume the role of a chess player and nothing else, then Deity Quest might be your little niche.

The use of mouse, while functional and serviceable, takes away from the true potential of the gesture-heavy gameplay. As it stands now, though, Fearless Fantasy is still a nicely streamlined role playing battle marathon.

If you’re looking for a puzzler with a gentle difficulty curve then Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake is a good choice.

There’s not much wrong with The Big Bank Heist solely as DLC, but the game it’s built upon contains flaws that carry over here (enemy A.I., general glitches, etc). Still, PAYDAY 2: The Big Bank Heist does exactly what DLC should do by expanding upon the base game with new features and challenges that can’t easily be replicated in the base product.

As innovative as its main concept is, Spoiler Alert abandons the inherent interactive element of video games, with only a terribly linear and bleak experiment still in tow.

If you want to have a good time with your 3DS, however, you’d be better off smashing it with a hammer.

Point Perfect is a fun game that, although meant to be enjoyed casually in short bursts, rewards getting better and lasting longer, allowing more of the game’s crazy randomness to be experienced as a high score worth bragging about is racked up.

If you love the Muramasa, you’ll get more than your money’s worth out of A Spirited Seven Nights Haunting.

Give The Nightmare Cooperative a shot if you’re bored by the existing base of roguelikes and dungeon crawlers.

Simply put, there are better visual novels out there.

Aside from some spotty keyboard control implementation and limited online play, there’s little not to like here. Mount Your Friends is a wonderfully weird game best experienced with buddies.

Sharknado: The Video Game is so bad that you already knew it was going to be bad before reading anything else about it.

While McDroid shoots for the stars with these additions to the tower defense genre, it mostly ends up flaming out in the atmosphere.

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.

But at the end of the day, Another Perspective takes a cool little idea and executes it in a variety of ways without major hitches.

See No Evil is a rewarding and enjoyable game to play, hear and see.

Toast Time is fun, but shallow.

Amazing Princess Sarah is well-worth five bucks if you love old-school gems like Castlevania but if you’re not into that classic retro scene, Amazing Princess Sarah will do as much to convince you of the genre’s flaws as it convinces you of its strengths.

Hell’s Where the Heart Is closes out Muramasa Rebirth‘s additional content nicely. It’s a light-hearted take on a sometimes-dark game, and offers up a completely different experience than past DLCs.

Orborun is one of the finest examples of a mobile-to-PC game to date. It controls marvelously with either a keyboard/mouse setup or a controller, outside of the on-screen UI from the mobile version being retained.

Boo Bunny Plague is not worth your time or money.

Showcasing the expert storytelling abilities Visual Art’s/Key’s are renowned for, Planetarian ~the reverie of a little planet~ is a visual novel that fans of the genre should be required to play if they missed out on it previously.

It is one of the most unique Metroidvania style games you will ever have the pleasure of playing, and a dream come true to for longtime fans of Castlevania. Those who have the desire and discipline to venture bravely into the world of The Waste Land can consider themselves to be a rare and fortunate breed of gamer.

Those who appreciate indie games, particularly ones that push boundaries of what is acceptable for games, should pursue this. Uriel’s Chasm is an uncomfortable, avant-garde title that has hooked me. Chances are more unsuspecting players will continue to fall under its strange spell.

In all, Arcana Heart 3: LOVE MAX!!!!! is an extremely competent fighter as long as you look beyond the obnoxious name and narrative missteps.

The twisted world of Enola is worth exploring despite itself.

Anyone with a taste for arcade-style games needs to have Iron Fisticle in their collection.

Unless the controls are tightened up in the future, it’s hard to recommend Tesla Breaks the World! to anyone other than the most devoted platformer fans out there.

While die-hard roguelike fans may find some comfort in the difficult combat, the game as a whole lacks the polish and fun factor of others in the genre.

Those truly interested in this should just watch an episode of Falling Skies and then play a mission of XCOM as this mixture works about as well as oil and vinegar and diazepam.

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

You get a hollow racing game, a hollow shooter and an overly-simplistic rhythm game. Anyone out for a modern-day Duck Hunt given the whole duck-shooting concept might want to try it out as a curiosity, but not until it gets a 95% price drop.