Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition is a good racing game at its core hurt by lackluster porting and a lack of content. While Raw Thrills' prior arcade effort, Cruis'n Blast, got a healthy increase in content going over to consoles, this game did not and it hurts the long-term lifespan. As an arcade racing fanatic, it's easy to get a lot of use out of the game for years, but casual racing fans will want to look towards a meatier arcade-style racing game.

Much like its title, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate plays with multiple concepts attempting to garner widespread appeal, but would be better suited focusing on just one.

Nicktoons and the Dice of Destiny may not change the world with its simple gameplay and level design, but being the first proper Nicktoons crossover story in years is bound to let it worm its way into the minds of fans. While factors like a bizarre loot system and graphical issues hold the title back, anybody who is a fan of cartoons is bound to enjoy their time with this title. This may not be a Nicktoons Unite title by name, but it is one in spirit.

Pokémon Friends offers a fun, cozy puzzle experience overall. Though it’s geared towards children and its challenges can look deceptively simple, the time limit and extra obstacles can make things harder than they may seem at first. What keeps the game from truly standing out are its user experience limitations that, even at its most premium DLC-complete version, don’t let players actually have control over their progress.

Solas 128 is an intricate sprawling mass of puzzles, slowly building in intricacy from managing a single beam to untangling multiple colors and filters with only a handful of reflectors. The initial “guide the beam to the exit” eventually changes to “guide the color to the place to activate the trigger to get to the area while keeping an eye on three possible exits, all of which will be used eventually but in what order?” Meanwhile the neon-vector art style keeps the screen looking great even as the minutes tick by, and while the repetition of the soundtrack doesn’t fare so well in the long run, the steady beat of the synthwave music keeps the brain flowing along in a puzzley trance. There’s a lot to untangle in the depths of a corrupted machine, but when fixed maybe it can finally function again good as new.

Conflicks is like eggplant: it’s a taste that requires effort to acquire. Once the feathers get smoothed out, though, there is a robust, entertaining game to explore.

If you’re a returning player of the Payday franchise, you’ll like what Payday 3 offers with multiple heists and keeping its core gameplay design intact. Increased visual fidelity is a big bonus and adding cross-play to increase the player base allows for even quicker matchmaking when the servers are actually online. The first two weeks were difficult, but once in, the confined sandbox design of cooperative heist play is still fun and addicting. Going above those means and looking for something more will mean you will be introduced to the grind of unlocking skills and more guns, no matter how much money you make on a heist. When Payday 3 is clicking on all cylinders, it’s a proper upgrade to the previous game and you won’t care about the grind, but rather the fun that is had on each mission.

Bullet Soul is a fairly basic arcade shooter that gets by with hyperactive energy and lots of pretty explosions. It’s not the most technically impressive conversion available, being locked to 1280×720 even when running fullscreen, and the options menu is fairly bare-bones, but once I shrugged and moved on I had a great time blasting through the levels. Enemy and bullet patterns are well designed, each level is one set-piece after another and the action makes up for the nonexistent plot. Bullet Soul is a solid workhorse of a shooter, getting the job done with flair and style, and as fun to approach for seasoned veterans chasing score as it is for new players looking to dip their toes into a genre that’s frequently known for being unforgiving.

Darius Cozmic Collection does offer a lot of enjoyment for fans of shmups, regardless of which version is played. It can be criticized for being a cash grab attempt for splitting the arcade and console titles into two separate collections when combining them into one would still be comparable to many other retro collections. But those complaints aside, each collection does a good job at preserving an authentic classic Darius experience as there is something inherently fun about teaming up with a buddy to blast some robot fish. The Darius games aren’t readily available on too many other formats so it’s nice to finally be able to enjoy them on modern consoles. During the review process both collections were enjoyable, but if you were to only get one, the recommendation would go to the Arcade version unless you have specific nostalgic feelings for a console title like Darius Twin.

SCHiM is a game that initially shows a lot of promise with a truly unique concept that'a realized through expert-level design that makes the world around you feel believable and dynamic. It's a blast to hop around and enjoy the lazy afternoon tunes as you experience a quaint, if rather unremarkable, silent narrative. In the end, however, the game fails to squeeze all the juice out of this fantastic concept, offering far too much filler content to pad the experience and not enough unique puzzles, engaging platforming challenges and environmental gimmicks to justify the amount of levels present. The optional challenges and collectibles will appeal to some who are able to make their own fun, but overall, SCHiM feels like a wonderful proof of concept that fails to achieve its true potential.

Tachyon Project is for the people who have played that to death and want something else along the same lines.

This title is basically a celebration of twenty years of Atelier titles, and while it may not be the strongest entry in the franchise catalog, it’s a must play for longtime fans. Judging this title strictly on its gameplay merits would simply be a good game and nothing special to write home about, but the inclusion of so many past Atelier characters make this an enjoyable game for fans.

Regardless, the first episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2 is off to a solid start, but Capcom has a ways to go before convincing players that this is a good direction for the series.

Final Fantasy The Four Heroes of Light is a nice addition to the ever growing collection of the franchise. While not deliberate enough in it's efforts to be a numbered entry, it still represents the series as a whole.

If you’re looking for a fun, over-the-top fighter with a lot of charm, then Dead or Alive 5 Last Round has your number; it’s just too bad that the few new additions are far from compelling and there are some unfortunate bugs at launch.

Marathon is a shooter that gets better the more you play and the training wheels come off. Near the twenty-hour mark, there's a moment when the game opens up and everything starts clicking. The gunplay feels fantastic, the maps start getting good, your squad knows which Runner Shells to pick, the loot is fantastic and the risk-reward loop gets you. Getting to that feeling not only takes way too long, however, but is also offset by poor starting maps, grindy objectives and no narrative to really push you through those opening hours. Marathon is also held back by confusing decisions made by Bungie. Locking Cryo Archive behind arbitrary walls like making it only available on weekends, having poor options for solos and no permanent options for duos and only being able to play one contract per run are all choices that limit Marathon. It's unfortunate, because Marathon can be quite fun to play when everything eventually clicks. Bungie has built a good foundation with Marathon, but it's not quite the clean start it should have been.

Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham struggles to maintain balance with its cast of characters constantly pushing one another from the spotlight, and suffers from many of the series’ routine issues. On the other hand, it brings to the table an experience DC and Lego fans will not-soon forget: an action-packed adventure, plenty of charm and moments of bona fide hilarity.

Odd as it may sound to recommend a game moreso on its story, Ninja Theory’s latest is an interesting, if flawed, entrant.

The Missing: J.J. Macfield and The Island of Memories does in the end succeed in telling an intriguing tale complimented with effective and palpable means of progressing it. It doesn’t always find the right way to present it, but as odd a pitch this masochistic, self-inflicted series of mechanics in a puzzle-platformer might seem, it’s no surprise that Swery and developer White Owls are the ones to not only make it work, but convince its players more so to see this human and engaging tale through to the very end.

It doesn’t reach the level of greatness of say Chrono Trigger or Persona 4, but there is enough going for it where it is worthwhile experience for fans of the genre.

Garden Warfare remains a colorful and entertaining experience no matter the platform and one we hope will continue to grow.

All that being said, Driift Mania is an ambitious product that suffers only from lackluster solo play and some unfortunate graphical decisions.

Played with one of the other supported controllers, though, Sky Crawlers will deliver all of the above, but nothing else new to the genre.

If you haven’t been fully committed to the series before now, however, this is a terrible point to jump aboard as there aren’t enough good features to attract non-fans of the show.

While many are coming to the game as a BL experience, it would better be classified as a pure horror visual novel. The fact that men have intimate relationships with one another is key to the plot, but it’s not a particularly positive or pleasant representation. The key thing that Sweet Pool has going for it is the unusual themes it presents players with. This is one of those games that you’ll end up thinking about even after you’ve finished it. Just be sure to go with the complete version if at all possible. The Steam edition is cut in such a way that it’s impossible to recommend playing without obtaining the patch.

The Big Con succeeds when, as its title suggests, you’re working on elaborate con jobs that provide clever puzzle ideas with a lot of open and fun gameplay. While the rest of it is fine, it never feels like the sort of epic cross-country adventure it should be, despite what its stakes would suggest. It still makes for a good adventure with well-done challenges, and that alone may be worth it, but don’t expect a grand score by the end.

It’s apparent that a lot of work went into Fairy Tail to ensure that it’s something fans would embrace. While its target audience is obviously fans of Fairy Tail its pacing and mechanics provide an engaging enough experience where those unfamiliar with the franchise would still find it a worthwhile experience. Taken strictly on the merits of gameplay without taking the license into consideration, it’s a good though unremarkable JRPG. Side quests were abandoned a few chapters in due to their repetitive nature, but the main story and character side stories are interesting enough to keep the player engaged to completion.

As the final season of The Walking Dead is brought back to life by Skybound, the narrative plot continues to shamble aimlessly like the zombies that inhabit its world. A few emotional chats between Clementine and AJ and a finale-prepping conclusion makes the journey worth continuing, but Skybound will need to go above and beyond to provide Clementine the send off she deserves and make the fourth and final season one worth playing.