Haze can be enjoyable, but it's far from the PS3's killer app.

The graphics lack style or pizzazz and the controls have a wrongness to them. This Touhou title isn’t terrible, but the curiosity of its mash up is all it has.

This is not to say that Criminal Girls: Invite Only is inherently broken; it certainly functions and offers over twenty hours of gameplay, but there’s better JRPGs available.

It’s certainly passable, but you can find many Metroidvania games that fulfill their gaming ambitions much better.

Coffin Dodgers is a heavily flawed game that winds up being ever-so-slightly greater than the sum of its parts.

Though nothing in Driveclub is inherently broken, its forced combination of clean racing and horrible AI have the potential to frustrate players more than any minor glitch could. Add this to the lack of any meaningful customization options and missing weather system, and you have the makings of a disappointment.

Unfortunately, Calvino Noir doesn’t meet the expectations that come with this genre and style.

In no way, shape or form could Redout: Space Assault be considered required playing. It’s simplistic and more than a little disappointing for what the developer can actually produce. That doesn’t mean it’s without any merit, though. Folks looking for a new Starfox type game will find plenty to enjoy here so long as they know that there are some lumps in the gravy. When it’s hitting its mark, this is an extremely exciting game. When it stumbles, though, it stumbles hard. For the budget price, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon, but there isn’t anything here to justify more than that one afternoon.

Hopefully, with the potential that the series holds, the following episode will focus more on Jessie and give players a much wider variety of things to do, decide and explore.

Sure, it's only $20 for retail, but downloadable services offer beat'm'up experiences much more exciting and varied for a fraction of Pirates Plundarrr's price.

The first episode of Bear With Me still hints at a greater game to come, nicely setting a proper noir tone with some occasional creepy bits and a gleeful dose of snark throughout. But it sadly says a lot that the initial outing feels more like a demo for the game than an actual full-fledged chapter of the story.

Sadly, Futuridium EP Deluxe does not stand on par with some of these gems, instead fading into the background, never to be heard from again.

In the end, Pocket Mortys ends up being the video game equivalent of Pirates of the Pancreas: something that had the potential for an amazing ride, but is held back and never gets a chance to shine, doomed to wind up being talked about in unenthusiastic tones.

Unfortunately, the age of the collection is its greatest undoing. While World Heroes certainly isn’t the worst 2D fighter ever made, it isn’t the best, either.

Scribblenauts Unmasked feels less like a video game and more like a chore. That’s a phrase too often thrown around in video game reviews, but it’s about as apt as a comparison one could draw.

DmC fans will get passable enjoyment from the ability to play as Vergil, but besides that, it’s a trivial addition to a compelling game.

Filled with half-baked ideas, repetitive mission design and the smallest explorable area yet, Curse of Osiris feels as empty and meaningless as The Dark Below. The expansion’s campaign fails to push the overall narrative forward and does little with its interesting setup, the Crucible is a mess until Bungie patches it, and the Infinite Forest feels like it needed more time in the oven. Add in some extremely-questionable business practices and you have the most disappointing expansion to hit the Destiny franchise. Though the expansion is as beautiful as ever, and the gunplay as solid as before, Curse of Osiris fails to provide Destiny 2 or Bungie with a new lease on life.

Thanks to these problems, a visually charming and potentially enjoyable — if thoroughly unoriginal — tower defense game becomes much harder to recommend. Of course, grinding to earn upgrade points is always an option, but the levels aren’t that charming.

Despite nailing the feeling of flying around in its Javelin suits and crafting a beautiful world, there’s nothing in Anthem to hold a player’s interest. It all gets old quickly thanks to bland encounters, dumb enemies, a borderline empty world and a dull story. Add to that a general sense of technical instability, loading issues, non-existent end-game and utterly boring loot, and the result is a game that feels unfinished, underdeveloped and wholly unsatisfying. Maybe check it out a year from now, but don’t even bother otherwise. There are many other games that offer a similar experience and they all do it better.

The storytelling and level design might keep players interested enough to make it through the main story, but the lack of depth in gameplay and role-playing makes it hard to imagine anyone wanting to spend their time playing Atomfall over any other successful title in the genre.

The release of Sakura Fantasy Chapter 1 feels a bit exploitative, however, in that it costs the same amount as previous titles while offering much less from a length standpoint.

One Piece: Romance Dawn is a great idea that was poorly executed. While fans and newcomers will appreciate the story, the gameplay feels like an afterthought. It becomes bland after mere hours and starts to feel like you’re going through the motions. This is not the reaction you want in an RPG, especially a long one like Romance Dawn.

The strange thing about The Lost Child is that, despite its many, many flaws, it still manages to be entertaining by virtue of being a bog standard, but competent, first-person dungeon crawler with a great pace of progress. It’s not worthy of scorn, nor praise, managing to cut right down the middle of the road.

Gemini: Heroes Reborn in itself is an enjoyable superhero simulator, but it gets by as a Heroes game in title and references only and is far too long winded and repetitive to be considered much else.

Death by Game Show is not an incompetently made game, but as a collection of design decisions the sum and its individual parts are annoying, disappointing or frustrating.

Unfortunately, in its present state, it doesn't work all that often, but hey, lesson learned. [July 2007, p.61]

Fans of Neptune and Friends will likely have a great time here. Those who already hate it should run away. For those who aren’t sure? Well, despite its warts, it’s a decent introduction to the series, and a great way to see which side of the line they will fall on.

Inmates is a textbook example of untapped potential. It’s obvious what the developer was trying to accomplish, but was only partly successful. The ingredients for psychological horror are present but they just never come together in a meaningful way. Inmates features the grand environment that is perfect to get under one’s skin but slow gameplay, linear progression, predictable storyline and reliance on jump scares takes a promising premise and leaves it mired in mediocrity. It’s a short time investment and inexpensive, so if it sounds interesting, there is some enjoyment to be had playing through it but there’s better options for those looking for a cerebral fright fix. It’s impressive for a technical project accomplished by one person, but unfortunately that is not something that factors into how enjoyable a gaming experience is.