Ultimately what kills the experience are the microtransactions. While the game might be $40, literally 80% of the Superstars are locked with some that you can’t even pay for (John Cena). There was a lot of potential here but it doesn’t come close to the arcade experience that WWE All-Stars had. It’s hard to tout WWE 2K Battlegrounds as a social game with the focus on variety coming from the single player portion.

A lazy port of a set of lazy ports from six years ago, but it is technically the best way to play two fantastic games – and also Devil May Cry 2. There is absolutely no reason for any fan who already picked up the original HD Collection to give this one a go, but if you’re an old fan who doesn’t have access to the PlayStation 2 originals or a gamer that’s always been interested in the franchise, you can’t go wrong picking this collection up for $29.99 USD.

Combat feels stiff, unresponsive, and overwrought, though it captures the visual excitement of the anime nicely. If that were all there is to the game, it would be pretty average, but everything else just gets in the way.

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

It’s strange to see that a follow-up that is in theory better wind up being less fun than the first, but that’s the case with Gear Club Unlimited 2. The game needed a bit more time in the oven and it’s evident in the final product.

Simply put, there are better visual novels out there.

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.

Despite my many hangups with this collection, you can still have heaps of fun. The game is compelling as you set traps for your opponents, cast spell cards to improve your monster's ATK and DEF, and tribute your current beasts for stronger cards like the Blue Eyes White Dragon (which is also in Legacy of the Duelist). Playing Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships 2004 sent a wave of nostalgia towards me, and if I had a Switch copy of this collection, I'd be playing it for hours, lying on my couch, just like my childhood. It's just a shame that this collection failed to modernize the classic games with better UI. The lack of save states is also frustrating, and the selection of games on offer may be a disappointment, especially because the Game Boy games are outdated. Also, I don't know about you, but Dungeon Dice Monsters might be the worst idea for the series, and that's unfortunately part of this collection rather than something like Duelists of the Roses. It's probably best to ignore this collection and check out the more recent Master Duel instead if you're not affected by nostalgia.

The King’s Challenge is a serviceable old school point ‘n’ click adventure that should appeal to fans that found the recent remake by Sierra a tad too removed from the spirit of the original.

ERICA stands as an intriguing example of connecting players with a game through touch controls. It succeeds primarily as a technical feat and less so as a deeply-engrossing video game. If the storyline were given more time to grow then maybe it would have blossomed into something special. As is, it’s akin to a murder mystery popcorn flick. There’s fun to be had solving the mystery, but not quite enough to create a memorable experience.

Some occasionally-credible voice work and performances from its cast aside, The Last Worker (in a fitting, albeit ironic, kind of way) ends up as deprived and joyless as the very corporate setting it means to ridicule.

Who would have thought a game with a snowy setting such as this would look so dull? There’s some good to be discovered in I Am Setsuna, but it’s overshadowed by its sheer unoriginality and repetitiveness.

Crushed beneath a monotony of drones to trash, muffled dialogue to decipher and environments to float amidst, there are brief pleasantries and welcome respites in Marvel’s Iron Man VR. Distractions that unfortunately amount to the only genuinely welcome highs in a VR effort that, commendable an effort it is to move out of the regular shooting gallery format, are wound up in one too many technical follies and lackluster mission objectives for the implied liberties to feel substantial. Yet in a game with such dire over-reliance on its players treating its controls and combat — both at the same time — like second-nature, when the erroneous ways with motion controls crop up, the damage to one’s time (and thus one’s enjoyment) is far more detrimental. Appeasing fans with its source material, on its own, is a harmless endeavor. So long as there are little difficulties and confusions with the gameplay accompanying it. Marvel’s Spider-Man proved what good-will can be generated out of such licensed iterations, when wielded properly. Marvel’s Iron Man VR, however, is a flawed but ultimately frustrating effort to sell. Twisting the once-attractive proposal of being Iron Man into a clumsy misdirection.

Unless there’s a major update in the near future, you’d be better off waiting until it inevitably becomes part of an indie bundle so that you can briefly jump in and enjoy its first few hours. Until then, your money and time should be spent elsewhere.

Mostly, this is a purchase for those who are willing to show their support for doujin creators. Tobari and the Night of the Curious Moon is a mouthful of a title that isn’t as magical as desired.

The idea of a Star Wars game focusing entirely on the world of outlaws in its seedier parts of the universe is a great one, but it deserved a different kind of game than Star Wars Outlaws, instead of being suited for something more like Shadows of Doubt, Disco Elysium or even L.A. Noire. Even a straight, linear action game would be better. Instead, we get a boring, open-world monstrosity with uninspired gameplay, way too many useless features and a constant deluge of uninteresting side content. Kay and company deserve way better and so do the players. Save your credits and wait for something like a solo Kessel Sabacc game instead.

It’s oh so close to achieving high marks from a gameplay perspective, but it’s also hurt greatly by a lack of polish that makes it a hard product to recommend at launch. In time, there’s a chance we’ll see some improvements that tighten up some of its loose ends and while that’d be unlikely to fix every issue the game has, it may result in it being a more complete experience. As it stands, it feels like a half-baked product that succeeds in spite of its shortcomings, but still needs more work to be a must-buy pickup for either fans of the show or brawler fanatics alike.

Those simply looking for a great game of virtual hockey will find some enjoyment here, but dedicated players who enjoy digging deep into the various modes EA has introduced over the years will be sorely disappointed.

If you’re the type of gamer who is actively seeking a more calming experience in a landscape scattered with non-stop action and intensity, then perhaps KOI will provide you with the type of entertainment that you’re looking for. If, however, you are looking for KOI to be anything more than it is, namely a collection of ideas in a pretty package that don’t mesh well together, then you’re going to find yourself sorely disappointed.

Overkill VR is nowhere near the worst experience a gamer can have in VR. In fact, it’s great using its cover system to trick the player into performing facsimiles of squats and burpees. It’s just that there is so much fine tuning that needs to be done to make it a great game. The enemies’ hit points needs to be dropped, reloading is screaming for reworking to allow for better player immersion and levels need to be more than figuring out the enemy spawn points and dominating them.

The RPG elements and distinct visual style do present some life, but don’t go in expecting this to be a mechanically sound game.

Even without the police chases and the breathtaking scenery, ProStreet could have been a great game. Instead, it’s a competent but not particularly interesting racing title that will constantly leave you wishing that you were playing a console version instead.

It’s extremely difficult to recommend Hadaka Shitsuji to visual novel fans out there due to two key reasons. The first is that the content included in the game is varied and quite extreme on occasion. Secondly, the routes are confusing and difficult to get right on a blind playthrough. The game is intriguing in its depiction of cruelty, but that’s certainly something of an acquired taste. Check the game out if you’ve got a taste for the extreme, sometimes absurd content, and an appreciation for butlers.

We Are The Dwarves shouldn’t be completely dismissed, as it still at least has some neat ideas, controls nicely and looks pretty, but it comes across being so viciously unfair that it can only be recommended to the most hardcore fans of this genre.

This is a two-and-a-half-year-old title brought to current-gen consoles with minimum effort at close to full price.

For its price and what its trying to do, Ghost Blade HD isn’t the worst time. Navigating mazes of instant death in the form of the projectiles does have an inherent value. It’s just that there are so many better examples of the genre available across all platforms. If the player is looking for something to ease them into this type of game, this will fit the bill. The bullet pattern design does play fair. The real worry is that a newcomer might play this and wonder what all the fuss is about. Already indoctrinated fans will just find themselves bored in short order.

Ultimately, Alwa’s Awakening feels like the foundation to what might have been a rather more substantial revisit of the glorious 8-bit like so many before it. Though its varied locales and array of gems to find do at least give plenty of food for thought on how to achieve what may feel like a frustratingly impossible task, a lot of the finished product that comprises Alwa’s Awakening comes across as either undercooked or much too rose-tinted and reliant on nostalgia for the pure sake of it.

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is not a bad game — just an extremely generic one.