The Pale Beyond has a nice art style and tries to balance an intriguing story and survival gameplay, but the two elements never find common ground, and the technical issues eventually drag the whole experience into the icy waters.

Ghostwire: Tokyo has an interesting setting, but a lackluster story, monotonous combat, and disappointing visuals make for a forgettable adventure that doesn't justify its next-gen-only status, or the full asking price.

If Double Dragon, Final Fight, Streets of Rage or Golden Axe were your go-to coin-ops on childhood trips to the arcade, 99Vidas might well resurface some fond, pre-millennium memories. But alas, nostalgia only gets a game so far, and once the thrill-ride is over, there’s very little reason to return for a second playthrough.

If visual quality is what Tequila Works had in mind, three years have been well spent on fabricating a stylish, truly wondrous environment, despite drawing obviously from previous adventure accolades. It’ll likely underwhelm if approached explicitly as a puzzler, but Rime’s brief tale manages moments of genuine poignancy. The PC port is in dire need of patching, however, if such charm is to survive.

InnerSpace features a unique game world with some nice moments of quaint exploration and set pieces, but on the whole it’s a bit too cramped and pricey to truly soar.

Lifeslide offers decent value on paper, pun intended, and yet the brief run time and wonky physics prevent you from fully enjoying the colorful but repetitive levels.

While packed with content, WRC 8 is a rally sim that struggles on the Switch due to poor presentation and the console's inherently unresponsive controls.

Lost Sphear is a middling JRPG that lacks style, tone, and substance. You can see certain ideas that are working hard to keep things afloat, but with a rough plot, bad cast, generic look, and combat that grows tedious, it fails to stand out.

Mashing up unique aesthetics and gameplay doesn't always yield a perfect result, and Ape Out tries to fit together two disparate ideas without successfully navigating the challenges of such an endeavor. Too many elements just don't work at a fundamental level, making it an uneven effort at best.

Alt-Frequencies has a unique hook in its gameplay and story, with plenty of potential, but it skews towards being an all-too-brief mobile game rather than a full fledged adventure puzzle.

Hitman 2 is a disappointing follow-up. Instead of working to expand on the elements that worked in the previous entry, there's been a misguided effort to simply add bullet-points to the back of the box. A bad story, less impressive levels, and superfluous new modes leave the sequel lacking an identity, like 47 himself.

Pinstripe is not an overly exciting or satisfying gameplay experience, but its art style and haunting setting will stick with you. The repetition from backtracking, simple puzzles and general shallowness of the mechanics are bound to leave fans of the metroidvania games bored and disappointed. However, this unique version of Hell and a man’s struggle to come to terms with his personal demons is both intriguing and haunting. The haunting atmosphere created by the visuals and audio, including chilling voice acting and a great soundtrack, should hopefully help Pinstripe standout from the lot.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide offers an authentic representation of the 40k lore, and while the cooperative action gameplay can be occasionally satisfying, it lacks content, has a few strange design choices, and suffers from too many performance issues.

There are fascinating and fun elements in Ultros, from the splashy visuals, the alien design, and the unexpectedly enticing gardening mechanic. However, most other facets of the gameplay just aren't up to par for a modern metroidvania.

Fall Guys has a decent foundation for creating some whacky multiplayer mayhem, but with so much of your success resting on luck, the lack of maps, and occasional server problems, the entertainment value rapidly dissipates.

Although it features moments of satisfying action and a few good end-game design tweaks, the majority of Outriders experience consists of conflicting design ideas, technical issues in multiplayer, and poorly implemented borrowed mechanics.

RAGE 2 held plenty of potential, but even considering how great the combat is, falls well short of that goal. The sequel is hampered by the same issues that cropped up in the original. The campaign is a non-factor and the open-world needed more life in it. Third time's the charm?

Twin Mirror is a teaser for an exciting adventure that it never delivers. There are some good ideas here, like the interesting Mind Palace world and a helpful imaginary twin, but they needed to be expanded. Ultimately it has a short and bland story, with minimal interaction, limited player choice, and a lack of memorable characters.

Panic Porcupine is a parody game that will test your patience and ability to adapt to side-scrolling platforming action. But its heavy reliance on repetitive deathtraps, accompanied by devious camera movements, overall holds back the experience.

Managing a small group of bums becomes addicting in Garbage, with the objective to keep them alive and train them to fight. Unfortunately some leveling grind, repetitive and random fights, and technical blemishes mean that the game does not go the full distance.

If you're an absolute die-hard, I guess you’ve already picked up Madden NFL 19, but otherwise I'd warn you to hold off and continue playing last year's version. There's nothing special about this year's edition, and with all of the technical issues, it's a major bummer.

Stage Presence combines mic-improvisation with the immersive givens of the headset to deal a gut-punch of stage fright. Outside that momentary thrill, however, it's a noticeably mundane gig: if conquering one's fears means facing them head on, then Stage Presence unfortunately sets itself up to grate after its first few objectives.

The Inner Friend was in much need of adding risk to its puzzles and encounters, if it hoped to create the eerie, unsettling atmosphere of which its subject matter and visual design are more than capable.

Last Days of Lazarus sets itself apart with lasting religious themes and compelling interior spaces. Unfortunately some tedious item-hunting and unappealing walks outside prevent this first-person adventure from rising above.

Minecraft: Story Mode - The Complete Adventure offers a couple of thrills and some likable characters, lost in the midst of subpar gameplay and an uninvolving story. A missed opportunity to create a great new Minecraft spinoff experience.

Maquette toys with interesting ideas and its unique core gameplay mechanic is enough to make it stand out. However, the poorly developed plot and weak conclusion make the game feel like a rough draft of something much stronger.

Deliver Us Mars comes crashing back down to Earth because of presentation failings, story missteps, and technical issues, despite a somewhat compelling personal tale involving the majesty of space travel and exploration of the red planet.

The simple synergy-focused combat can be fun with some friends, but Ultimate Alliance 3's padded plot proves pernicious for its diverse cast of wretchedly one-note characters. Add to that a campaign that's poorly paced and painfully inconsistent performance, and you're left with a repetitive and unexpectedly plain package that doesn't adequately justify the revival of a franchise.