Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes is not a game I can really recommend. Whether you’re a fan of rogue-lites or pinball games, there are numerous options out there that will provide vastly better experiences for your money. Whilst it does have an admittedly interesting concept, a complete lack of balance and poor optimization completely squanders any potential this unique hook might hold.

Touken Ranbu Warriors is an extremely difficult sell for fans of Omega Force’s previous work, given how stripped back a product it is. Small scale battles that can be over in minutes, along with a complete absence of any meaningful progression or grind, completely rip the heart and soul from the now infamous 1 vs. 1000 formula. If you’re a fan of the Touken Ranbu franchise who has yet to sample a Warriors game, then you may find some joy in the depiction of the Touken Ranbu universe and the accessible nature of everything. For everyone else, however, it’s safe to say you can avoid this and hold out for the imminent release of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, which should hopefully have a little more meat on its bones for longtime Musou fans.

There’s still room for a big snowboarding game in today’s video game landscape, but Shredders isn’t able to fill it. While it looks nice when you’re not moving, issues with performance, controls, mission design, voice acting, story, nearly every aspect of this game is flawed. So value your time and wait for the next title in the genre.

I really wanted to love Kao the Kangaroo. And while I did enjoy parts of it, the severe glitch I encountered kept me from progressing like I had expected to and effectively kept me from actually beating the game. Once Nintendo gets around to implementing the patch, I could potentially recommend the experience. But until version 1.2 goes live, I cannot recommend it to other platformer fans in good conscience.

Overall, My Time At Sandrock is a great game. There’s tons to do, and it’s got plenty of depth. If I had played it on, say, PC or PS5, I’m sure it would have run fine (or at least serviceable). But I didn’t. I played it on the Switch. And the Nintendo Switch Version of My Time At Sandrock is a crunchy, crusty, stuttering mess that I very much recommend that you stay away from.

A nice look and decent pacing aren’t enough for me to recommend a game to pretty much anyone, though. I came in really wanting to like Lifeless Moon, but pretty much everything I enjoyed about it I could see in the screenshots and trailer. There are too many good puzzle games out there nowadays to spend time on one which has so little going for it.

When it comes to presentation, Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition is a treat and a real step up from the previously released versions of the game. It’s just a shame the visual overhaul doesn’t do much to offset the monotonous gameplay and abundant bugs that plague the experience. I really wish Infuse Studio spent a little more time ironing out the kinks because it would make it easier to recommend to more casual players who may not mind the game’s lack of challenge and unimaginative puzzles. Sadly, at least in its current state, Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition is a bit like finding yourself trapped in a public bathroom without any toilet paper: it’s a frustrating and lonely situation that you’ll probably want to avoid.

Given how ambitious and unique the premise of Inifite Guitars is, it pains me to say that what should be a refreshing marriage of RPG and rhythm-based gameplay has turned out to be a bit of an exercise in tedium that is held back massively by issues with input recognition and repetition. It looks beautiful, and, with a few patches aimed at tightening up the gameplay, this may turn into something that is worth experiencing for that fantastic soundtrack alone, but, as it stands today, Infinite Guitars doesn’t feel like it was quite ready to take to the stage.

Panorama Cotton was an incredibly impressive title in 1994, and nobody can take that away from it. Judged in 2021, though, there’s little reason for anyone to play it. It simply doesn’t hold up against similar titles. Clear and colorful visuals and competent shooting mean it isn’t exactly a chore, but nothing about it stands out today. This is a prime example of how some games are best left in the past.

Mia And The Dragon Princess is another title that can be gorged through like a starving child when he glimpses a box of Celebrations. But unlike Celebrations, it doesn’t have the quantity nor the quality to entice you to keep on feasting, it’ll instead make you feel full all too quickly.

Modern Warfare 3 should not exist in its current form. This world, these characters, and modes such as zombies deserved better, especially after Modern Warfare 1 and 2 laid the groundwork for a spectacular third entry with two carefully crafted reboots. If you’re purely in it for the multiplayer, then there may just be enough here in the nostalgia of revisiting old maps to warrant a purchase, but that is the only grounds on which Modern Warfare 3 might prove an acceptable product. For anyone looking for their next action-packed campaign fix or hoping to see the zombies mode return to its former glories, you should absolutely avoid this year’s entry.

Chernobylite is an enjoyable little loot n’ shooter sadly torpedoed by technical issues for the PS4 version. It’s such a shame that the intriguing storyline and the compulsive scavenging fun is completely ruined by bugs. I was looking forward to uncovering the dark mysteries lurking within Pripyat, but until the game-breaking errors are fixed, they will have to remain hidden.

Had more care been given to crafting a more handcrafted campaign that relied less on repetitive busywork and more on the cinematic set-pieces that we know the looter shooter genre is capable of when done right, then this may have been a different story, and the admittedly enjoyable combat would have had the chance to shine more had the activities surrounding it been remotely enjoyable or creative. As it stands, though, this is one of the worst campaigns ever to grace a videogame, never mind a live service, with an endgame that does the unforgivable and asks you to continue grinding out the same content that you’ve just slogged through.

Despite the clear effort that went into build diversity and satisfying naval combat, Skull and Bones’s core gameplay loops simply aren’t enough to stop this ship from sinking. Mindless grinds, tedious busywork, and a complete lack of any meaningful gameplay hooks outside of the core combat result in an experience that feels incomplete despite the plethora of Ubisoft checklists that there is to work through in your time at sea. If you’re someone who enjoys tinkering with builds and doesn’t mind grinding for materials in a constant pursuit of that next upgrade for hours on end, then you may find something to like here. Otherwise, this is a voyage into tedium-induced insanity that you can definitely afford to miss.

After two triumphant video game outings, South Park: Snow Day is a crushingly disappointing effort, with new development team Question leaving behind everything that made the New Kid’s previous two adventures such a success. Bland combat, a distinct lack of humor, and one-dimensional level design come together to create something that I suspect most will bounce off immediately. Not even the mildly interesting rogue-lite card system and persistent upgrades can save this one from disaster. At worst, I expected Snow Day to be something that at least could be recommended to hardcore fans, but with such a disregard for what makes South Park special, this is one even the most die-hard of fans can avoid.

There will be people who like The Suicide of Rachel Foster because they are able to sidestep away from the whole pedophilia aspect, which is only a possibility because the game itself tries to frame it differently. I can’t tell you how much I initially wanted to like The Suicide of Rachel Foster — I played it twice and watched several let’s plays to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. But the developer really needed to handle these topics better, or at least have one character that didn’t sympathize with the sex offender. Ethical issues aside, the environments were great, but everything else fell flat. There is no recommendation here, only concern.

I played Gungrave G.O.R.E with zero knowledge of the franchise, and I reckon that is for the better. I would be infinitely more disappointed going into this game as a diehard fan of the series and seeing what a disservice G.O.R.E does to the Gungrave name. It’s astonishing to see Iggymob charging $50 for a low-budget, niche game riddled with unoriginal gameplay, multiple soft-locks, atrocious level design, and laughable voice acting.

Between the half-baked gameplay loops, repetitive open-world busy work, and shockingly poor optimization, Redfall feels like a title that’s still in alpha, never mind a product that’s supposed to represent a flagship release for Microsoft’s premium subscription service.

Put simply, Cyber Citizen Shockman is a peculiarity of a retro game. Though I appreciate it being brought to new audiences some 30 years later, I can’t say it holds up very well. My hope is that the series grew over time and got much improved, since I know Ratalaika is bringing other games from the franchise to the West. But if you’re looking for an amazing retro experience, you’ll probably be disappointed with it.

And so it’s unfortunate, then, that every positive I just mentioned comes undone at the hands of that dreaded localization. There were stretches of gameplay where I was just grinding, or exploring, and for a moment I’d forget what a mess the translation was, immersed in Xuan-Yuan Sword’s perfectly serviceable gameplay loops. But, this is an RPG, and to this player, world-building, deep characterization, and dense lore that I can immerse myself in is just as important to my enjoyment of an RPG as gameplay is. There will likely be a portion of players who will be able to look past this issue, simply content at being able to play a game that had been out of the reach of Western audiences for so long, and that’s perfectly fine. As I’ve indicated, there’s a solid RPG here somewhere and I have no doubt that this would be a fantastic experience had the port been shown the love and care it deserves. As it stands, though, Xuan-Yuan Sword: Mists Beyond the Mountains is such a compromised experience that it’s impossible to recommend in its current state.

Unless you have the patience of a saint, I would steer clear of In Nightmare. It really is a shame, as there’s an interesting story being told from Bill’s eyes and a really vibrant and vivid world with a unique style to explore, but any semblance of gameplay is horribly hampered by a nightmare of poor gameplay designs. I’ll keep dreaming of how much I’d enjoy this game once it sees some quality of life improvements show up to fix the plethora of lackluster stealth gameplay and frustrating “puzzles”.

The problem, ultimately, is that this is a collection of really lackluster titles. Even the best game here isn’t worth your time. It’s hard to recommend to anyone because they’re not even bad in an interesting way; they’re just poorly designed. If you are somehow the rare person who has spent the last 30 years holding a torch for this annoying bobcat, then this is the collection for you, but everyone else should stay away.

Kingdom of Arcadia unfortunately does little to elevate itself above the scores of other action platforming games just like it. It fails to take advantage of its setting, which could have resulted in a unique experience or at least something a little less predictable. It’s mildly amusing at best but derivative of everything that has come before it.

While Balan Wonderworld has a few interesting ideas tucked up its costumed sleeves, none of them are executed particularly well, which makes the game feel like a real chore to play. From its dozens of forgettable costumes and frustrating mechanics to its uninspired visuals, it’s hard to recommend adding this one to your PS5 library, especially when there are much better platformers like Astro’s Playroom and Sackboy: A Big Adventure already available.

The amateur-hour writing and uneven combat are just too difficult to overlook, especially considering just how stuffed the genre is with competing titles that do just about everything The Last Oricru does, only better. Sure there is fun to be hand in exploring Wanderia and its intricate level design, but every “wow” moment is typically followed by a facepalm, as Silver says something that is tonally deaf or falls to yet another attack that should have had no business hitting him. If you’re after another slice of Soulslike action in 2022, then your $40 can absolutely be spent better elsewhere, with The Last Oricru serving as little more than a pale imitation that struggles to even nail the Soulslike fundamentals.

There are faint glimpses at what could have been in the ship combat sections and the breezy narrative, and the short runtime does help mask some of the frustrations that plague the experience, but on the whole, it’s difficult to argue that Captain Blood wouldn’t have been better left in the depths it was salvaged from.

Some games are only going to appeal to a very specific audience. That’s great, I’m all for niche games, and SuperPower 3 should have been one of those titles. With the number of issues, it has, though, including systems that simply don’t seem to work, performance problems, and a complete lack of direction, it’s hard to see even the players who it should be for getting much enjoyment out of it.

It never feels good giving a negative review. I sat on this for a full day, agonizing over scoring such a beautiful game poorly. But what other choice do I have when I had to restart multiple times for even a shimmer of hope to finish what I started? It’s possible Flow Weaver isn’t optimized for the Oculus Rift S despite what the website states, so if you have an Oculus Quest or Oculus Quest 2, perhaps you won’t experience the bugs I did. I do see on the game’s Oculus page that the dev team is working hard at tackling bugs, so if this even remotely interests you (which, for real guys, it has potential), keep an eye on it and check back in a month or two. But as it stands, I regrettably cannot recommend Flow Weaver in its current state.