Runaway: The Dream of the Turtle starts off as a great adventure game, with plenty of potential, but basically throws it all away. [June 2007, p.58]

Ryse: Son of Rome has the visual fidelity of the future, while its gameplay and storytelling are stuck in the past.

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

Enjoying Ragnarok Odyssey: ACE hinges on enjoying the original, because this is the same game that was released in 2012 with more content.

Far from the most complex, in-depth or even immersive game it may be, Chronos: Before the Ashes‘ straightforward, if a little dry, non-VR trip does avoid overstaying its brief, pleasant-enough welcome.

As it stands, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days proves to be the perfect weekend rental. In that weekend you can plow through the campaign with a friend in an afternoon, and get as much as you want out of the multiplayer.

Despite its shortcomings, it’s enjoyable, but only for hardcore JRPG fans.

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.

Unfortunately, there's just too much about the game that doesn't work to counter-balance all of the good stuff. It's impossible to recommend when an RPG fan could be playing better things instead. [Oct 2007, p.58]

As it stands, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days proves to be the perfect weekend rental. In that weekend you can plow through the campaign with a friend in an afternoon, and get as much as you want out of the multiplayer.

While Aaero’s challenge is enticing to tackle, the unfortunate string of performance and gameplay issues add detriment to the overall package. Outside of its confined choice of soundtrack and noticeably similar level design from beginning to end, enjoyable as it may be to rack up as high a score as possible and even push one’s self to higher difficulty modes thereafter, Aaero doesn’t quite demonstrate the same degree of intrigue or immediacy that past and even fellow contemporary efforts within this genre have so clearly shown. A few interesting mechanics here and there, the majority of the game’s run-time is spent retreading the same loop — perhaps worrying more so on when the next game-breaking hiccup will pop up next.

It’s hard to fully recommend a game when so much of it is waved aside with “you’ll get used to it,” but once you fall into The Witch and the Hundred Knight‘s peculiar tempo, it’s not a bad way to dominate the world.

As it stands, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days proves to be the perfect weekend rental. In that weekend you can plow through the campaign with a friend in an afternoon, and get as much as you want out of the multiplayer.

The fact that this was designed as a portable game ultimately is this version’s weakness and why the handheld version remains superior.

Furi is going to find its audience, that much is certain, but the real shame here is that with a couple of tweaks, that audience could have wound up being far larger than what it likely will be.

Those who enjoyed past entries will enjoy this one and get a kick out of the new right-stick jumping and aiming mechanic. Beyond that, there hasn’t been much added to the mix beyond superficial customization options.

If you’ve never played Indigo Prophecy before then you ought to give it a try, but you’d be better off digging up a PS2 copy than playing this mess.

Predator: Hunting Grounds is bolstered by its unique gameplay dynamics and beloved license, but falls flat thanks to unbalanced and repetitive matches as well as a general lack of polish. Some matches manage to capitalize on the thrill of hunting prey and surviving alien encounters, but the overly-simplistic Fireteam gameplay and the unnecessarily complicated Predator mechanics lead to matches that end far too quickly to feel satisfying for either side. With some post-launch balance refinements, additional polish and a proper Fireteam tutorial, the title could re-emerge as an imperfect but more frequently enjoyable experience thanks to its strong fundamentals. But as it stands, Predator: Hunting Grounds is tough to recommend at launch to those who don’t consider themselves diehard Predator or asymmetrical multiplayer fans.

There have been a slew of movie franchises that have gone with cooperative multiplayer experience in recent years. Aliens: Fireteam Elite goes deeper and offers a lot for those that like grinding. The game just lacks a hook to keep players engaged as missions are long and redundant. The weapon unlocks and adding perks helps to keep things going, but the means of the game is separately leveling up each of the five classes across twelve long missions. Hardcore Aliens fans that liked the action-focused movies that differ from the original may find this right up their alley. The audio aspect could be amazing if there was a way to mute the comms narrative that ruins the atmosphere of the game. Ultimately, Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a functional cooperative third-person shooter that’s an improvement to Colonial Marines, but doesn’t supersede Isolation.

The scale of one’s enjoyment with a game like B.I.O.T.A. depends entirely on what kind of game you’re expecting and more importantly, what area of game you end up gravitating towards coming out of it. For those in the Metroidvania camp, the game is an inoffensive if not entirely unique interpretation on the template. But on the platforming side, fortunes are far more favorable, playing host to sequences that are both well-executed and challenging on top. The fact these bright spots are so tucked away, though — caught between needless back-tracking and a general world design that can feel too linear — can lend itself to B.I.O.T.A. feeling too uneven and demanding on one’s patience to warrant seeing it through. Even so, it’s these precision platforming sequences, working together with the hyper-retro leanings, that just about pulls it from out the doldrums. It might not be posing any original ideas, but for better or worse, B.I.O.T.A.‘s know-how on old-school traits just about keeps it afloat.

It’s a nicely dystopic future, but needed to walk the mean streets of development a few more weeks before busting out to the big time.

Despite all its issues I honestly enjoyed SmuggleCraft. The tracks are a bit lonely, the challenge level is fairly low even when a mission says Death Trap and the menus desperately need another round of polish, but the courses are beautiful and fun to fly through in their detailed, low-poly way. Zipping through a canyon at mid-day looks very different from dawn, and weather effects dress up the scenery as well. Most sections can be done by tearing through at high speed but every once in a while you need to let up on the gas during the thin, guard rail-less sections, and while it’s eventually unlikely you’ll fall off the edge failure is still a possibility. There’s a lot of work left to do to get SmuggleCraft to become the game it should have been on launch, but if it can get there it’s going to be a fantastic chase through gorgeous low-poly worlds.

Legend of Kay Anniversary reworks a solid PS2 game onto more modern hardware, but doesn’t do much with the hardware to make the game better.

While an undeniably beautiful game to look at, the underlying technical issues hamper the presentation. Godfall stands as a decent first attempt at a new IP with solid ideas and great combat, but doesn’t stick the whole landing.

Randal’s Monday doesn’t do everything right, but the things it does do right are daring, and in a genre that’s been lost to the ether for years, that’s definitely something.

Destiny: Rise of Iron is a big step back from The Taken King. While The Taken King was willing to push Destiny forward with brand new ideas, features, and a ton of new content, Rise of Iron is perfectly fine with recycling what has been run into the ground.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is, at best, a minimal improvement over its predecessor while sharing a lot of the same issues, but there’s just something so endearing about how it all came together.

For this particular game to have truly shined, we would have needed to see a much better narrative and a more varied set of missions. Unfortunately for gamers far and wide, Mad Max is far more likely to frustrate than entertain.