There are some enjoyable bits here and there -- notably the flying sections and Rancor Rampage -- but for the most part, the Force pull of Kinect Star Wars far exceeds its Force grasp.

Sadly, the minigames collected here are an uneven bunch. Some are just so incredibly simple as to be entertaining no more than once (like painting shapes on the screen or swatting bugs); while others, including the rescue copter I mentioned and the more creative offerings (haircuts done to spec), have more staying power.

Crimson Dragon isn't bad, and there's plenty to do if you simply must unlock and evolve every dragon, but it runs out of ideas long before it runs out of missions.

It might be a suitable family game, but there are certainly better family games out there – games that won't leave a five-year-old yawning. For Fable fans distraught about Peter Molyneux's departure from Lionhead, I would recommend pretending this title didn't even exist. And for the unlucky few who can't resist and buy it anyway, I'd wager a nickel that you only ever play the game once.

The War of the Worlds has the trappings of a solid game. But because it's such a frustrating chore to play, in the end it only proved extremely effective at stressing me out with little reward. Good games just don't do that.

Ultimately, Moebius feels like an early version of a full game, something that needs playtesting and a keen critical eye before it's ready for public consumption. Even fanfiction authors have editors.

Knack fails to capitalize on its own ideas and structure, and is successful only in acting as a reminder of the shallow, punishing platformers of a time when we really cared about how many bits there were on your console.

It's a solid effort to be dour compared to Telltale's cartoonish games, but the cinematic illusion comes to a halt every time someone pulls an odd face, or when the music stops abruptly between scenes.

When it works, the walls between reality and the Diary of Faces melt away, exposing an adventure truly suited to the 3DS. Unfortunately, the hokey story and technological limitations do the opposite, reaffirming the reality that you're just standing in your living room, spinning in place.

The concept behind Warfighter is sound – particularly its attempt to personalize the internal conflict of a soldier – but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

Platinum Games may not have made a Legend of Korra game that plumbs the same well of soul that the source material does, but they've made something elementally entertaining all the same.

It's important to remember, however, that underneath the trite atmosphere and awful writing, there lies an experience that allows you to physically sift through a pile of skulls and, later on, toss explosive spheres of arcane energy at your enemies.

What little Lautrec does, it does competently but not compellingly.

Inversion is so generic that I'd sooner recommend just about any other of gaming's numerous cover-based shooters ahead of it – especially since its anti-gravity mechanic barely even factors into the grand scheme of things.

A Game of Thrones: Genesis feels cheap. The unique focus on treachery politics might have been enough to compensate for the lackluster graphics and gameplay a decade or so ago, but it's on the fast track for the bargain bin by today's standards.

Bodycount tries to drown out its many, many shortcomings with the din of a few big, loud guns.

If there wasn't a decent racer attached to the gimmick, I wouldn't recommend it at all.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is everything I hoped it wouldn't be: a mediocre shooter hoping to be bolstered by the Resident Evil name. It takes what is arguably the series' best setting and wastes it, forcing players to plod through generic underground facilities and the occasional, oddly vacant street from one boring encounter to the next.

Cyanide's vision for Game of Thrones is ambitious, but the studio's end product has buckled under the weight of its intricate design document. Despite some ideas I've fallen in love with, it's a buggy and ugly mess of a video game. Even for its story and brushes with the franchise's fiction, it's difficult to recommend to either series vets or role-playing fans.

A tepid pursuit of the bare minimum, resistant to the creative nudge that could have made it feel like something worthwhile. Everything works, it does what it says on the tin, but there's not a spark of personality in there.

NeverDead's immortality mechanic is certainly intriguing, as are its destructible environments. You may even develop an attachment to Bryce by the end of his quest. If the combat was more involving, and the destruction more deliberate, the developers at Rebellion might have been on to something. For now, in trying to tread new ground, NeverDead's greatest success is in finding the middle.

This is the worst sort of throwback: It neither recalls fond memories of 1985, nor keeps pace with the state of games in 2011. It does not need to exist.

It's a shame, because there are moments when Daylight's ominous ambience is pitch perfect, but ultimately it's undone by ho-hum gameplay and a dull story. The witches are truly unnerving, but they're never a real threat, and the reward for your survival is disappointing.

In this modern remake, the original vision is lost in favor of trying to reach a new generation of potential fans with some half-baked ideas on what would make A Cool Sci-Fi Game™. And in the process of doing that, Flashback has lost its identity entirely.

Fans of Kung fu pulp or those who want to sample motion-controlled gaming without breaking the bank should find enough stupid fun in KFL to warrant the $14.99 download. Just don't blame me if you can't lift your arms in the morning.

It's a noble and sweet idea, held back by monotonous grinding and technical issues. And by "technical issues" I mean "the camera."

From the awful AI to the jittery camera to the hazardous-to-controllers difficulty spikes, right down to the grammatically-challenged title, Knights Contract feels unfinished at best and lazy at worst.

Unless Pokémon are an essential part of your toy-based video game equation, you'll find better, more engrossing options in the Skylanders series or Disney Infinity.

Unfortunately, the only thing hiding under this particular luchadore's mask is a truly mediocre game.

Light reaches for greatness, but ends up merely serviceable; nothing breaks or falls apart within its mechanically sound design, but nothing inspires the game to step out from the shadows of better games.

It may look like just another sloppy licensed game, but beneath the surface squirms a dissonant yet introspective deconstruction of the genre (probably).

What has, at long last, been committed to a disc and placed into a box might have been alright a dozen years ago, but by today's standards it simply doesn't hold up.

Maybe one day hordes of fans will gather in local arcades to play LocoCycle ironically and quote some of its notoriously terrible lines – Mi espalda! – but until that day, it's just a bad game, and there's nothing funny about that.

If you find you have a knack for the basic gameplay of FlingSmash, beyond willing yourself through the levels as I did, there's plenty of replayability.

Nearly 1000 milligrams of ibuprofen are coursing through my system while I finish this review, slightly dulling the pain of the strained muscles in my chest and torso that I endured at the hands of The Fight: Lights Out.

It's as much a shame on 2K Sports for releasing this game as it is for the MLB to carelessly stamp its name on it. Whether it was sheer apathy or contractual licensing obligations that caused MLB 2K13 to exist in this state, it certainly wasn't a love for baseball, sports games, or its fans.

Sadly, though its reanimated heart is in the right place, Rock of the Dead ends up a little too much like its undead antagonists: starving for brains.

The Cartel heartbreakingly not only fails to build upon Bound in Blood's momentum, it spits in the face of everything that made it worthwhile. It doesn't feel like a misstep for the series, it feels like an epitaph.

To its credit, the game is colorful.

It's a careless, cynical, opportunistic mess that Silicon Knights and Activision should be ashamed to release. In fact, its concision almost comes back around to being a virtue, because at least you can quickly move onto something more pleasurable, like selling X-Men Destiny to a stupid friend you hate, or burying a beloved family pet.

It's not just a bad game, it's a terrible use of Wizards of the Coast's timeless license. Even when boiled down to its core combat mechanics, D&D is cerebral, challenging, intense, and infinitely rewarding. Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale is just a game about hitting monsters until treasure falls out of them.

The Lost Valley offers a pitiful amount of content, and what's available takes ages to unlock.

Fun for a few hours, better with friends, soon set aside for more complex experiences.

A shallow SoulCalibur imitation.

A brutal combination of brain-numbing monotony and maddening aggravation. Unless you're in dire need of a Dynasty Warriors-esque fix, Ninety-Nine Nights 2 is not for you.

Simply put, 007 Legends is a trap: a poor, uninspired game touting the 007 license hoping nostalgic fans will shell out $60 expecting to relive some of their favorite franchise moments. Bond-lovers will be offended by story inaccuracies and barely recognizable action sequences, while shooter fans will grow bored of the lame level design, lack of variety, and out-of-context story lines.

If you're after a tennis fix with Move and can't hold out for Virtua Tennis 4, this $30 title is a lot of fun and has high production qualities. A word of warning though: The game runs in 1080p at 60fps, but there's noticeable screen tearing.

The marriage of a first-person shooter and the Alien franchise should be a perfect fit, especially from Gearbox, a team rooted in the genre. And yet, the pairing eludes a happy ending once again. Aliens: Colonial Marines isn't disappointing because it couldn't live up to lofty expectations, it's disappointing because it turned out to be such an unfettered disaster.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z knows it's a stupid, flashy arcade action game, and rolls with it. It doesn't try to be clever or witty, or even ironic and self-effacing. It's not deep or customizable, and it's clearly running out of ideas past the halfway point. It isn't perfect. To some people, it won't even be considered good.

NBA Live 14 is a bungled attempt to produce a viable basketball simulation, and its failures are likely to linger in the minds of players for years to come.

Wait ... this is a retail game? And you have to pay $50 for it? Unfortunately, in spite of a few good ideas, Naughty Bear is too sloppily executed, and too shallow to recommend -- especially as a "full" retail experience.

Venetica contains hints of a compelling quest but feels like its development life was cut short. The end result is a potentially grand concept that just can't flourish within its forced, generic confines.

Attempt to play this style-over-substance offering as thoughtfully as its creators intended, and you'll wind up disappointed. Accept it as a button-masher, rather than the deep brawler it wants to be, however, and working out Crom's anger issues might become your next go-to guilty pleasure.

Putting a $60 price tag on this dud is tantamount to Charlotte spinning a web above her beloved pig friend Wilbur reading "Holy Jesus, This Pig Is Delicious," somehow believing the world would be better for the slaughter.

Wayward Manor has charm for the adorable-goth market, but not so much for puzzle game enthusiasts. It's simple, slightly janky and kind of cute, with an OK story and sub-par game design.

I imagine it's difficult to make a game called Blood Drive less fun than attending an actual blood drive, but, by golly, someone's done it. At least when you donate blood you get a cookie and juice at the end.

If it had greater enemy variety and required players to utilize their full arsenal of abilities – and if its technical issues were ironed out – it might have really been something special.

Whenever the recognition is working, Kinect really does enhance the experience of Steel Battalion, enabling the fantasy of piloting a very real walking tank and delivering a thrill of satisfaction with every confirmed kill. When the tech fails, however, at least in my experience, it fails in such a fundamental way that it's impossible to ignore.

This is the worst, laziest, most manipulative type of licensed game making. It's a top-to-bottom disaster that nobody, especially not anyone who gives a crap about Harry Potter, should play.

Quantum Theory will always be remembered (if it's remembered at all) as that game that tried desperately to be Gears of War and failed miserably.

The levels are also incredibly samey and brief – Kung Fu Rider is basically an arcade game that would have played better with a regular controller, and might have been worthwhile as a $10 PSN release.

Power Gig: Rise of the SixString is a dumbfounding product. It centers itself around a peripheral which is a real guitar, yet it doesn't allow the player to use the real guitar as if it were a real guitar. Instead, it settles for using a new toy to manipulate an old game -- but still manages to categorically fail at both.

A flimsy, forgettable, phoned-in Call of Duty. The only entertainment value comes from watching the relationship between Activision and Sony, who now seem chummy enough to exchange gag gifts.

Unlike Deadly Premonition, Earth Defense Force 2025, or other games that hide genuine depth behind an awkward presentation, Magus has no hidden quality, charm or saving grace. It's entirely witless, and none of its mechanics strive for anything beyond mediocrity. Despite its issues, though, Magus is surprisingly breezy to play.

It's almost unfair to review Amy, given the state it's in. On the other hand, it's sort of unfair that it was published at all. The thought of anyone spending money on Amy -- possibly drawn in by the promising trailers -- only to wind up with this mess, is quite honestly a little enraging. There might have been a decent story here once, or even good survival horror, but it's gone now.

There's the potential for a great competitive puzzler here, but the missing features, along with the iffy odds of actually connecting to an online game without something getting mucked up, make Magical Drop 5 impossible to recommend.