Farming Simulator 14 isn’t the cream of the crop, it’s not a load of crop, it's just struggling to grow and waiting on a little rain to bring better days.

Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated is not a good game. It is not a bad game. It is a game. A harmless time-waster that will neither bring a revolution nor it will end the world by its quiet presence on the Switch eShop. It is, however, hard for us to recommend it at the current price point considering there are far more viable options content and gameplay wise for the same price. What we have here is yet another incredible kusoge whose existence made us remember not to take life too seriously. Plus the title did remind us to replay the Sensible Software developed classic Cannon Fodder. In conclusion: Paper Wars: Paper-thin Fodder.

If you like retro-styled graphics and old-school FPS games, you'll find plenty to like here; if neither of those appeal to you then you may be out of luck. If you like the concept and can overlook the technical problems here you may have an unexpectedly good time.

For the low price of entry it's worth having on your 3DS just to relive the nostalgia of the Nokia version, but we would not expect Sssnakes to be one you rave to your friends about. It does not have the originality of other classic action puzzle games, and unfortunately the graphics and music do little to reel you in.

After a couple of passes through its four worlds, there's little if anything to keep you coming back. Even the single-player mode is merely a series of encounters with AI opposition and is really not worthy of sustained attention. Tilt Pack deserves credit for offering the kind of instant arena brawler thrills that anyone can partake in. But that comes at the expense of any lasting appeal.

Hooked on Bass Fishing has a certain charm to it, and it can be exciting to battle with and land a giant fish when it happens. But those flashes can ultimately carry a game so far when it doesn’t have much sense of an overarching goal, progress, or player direction.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 has the potential to be a strong platform fighter, but on Switch it’s wrapped up in a frankly incredible amount of poor performance and presentation. Fighters feel weightier, and the new campaign adds context and charm to the package, but it'll take a miracle patch to save it from being a choppy, blurry, flat-looking barrel of disappointment on Nintendo's console.

Mistover follows too closely in the footsteps of a game that overshadows it in every possible way. Its combat is unspectacular and its dungeon-crawling suffers from a lack of atmosphere and a bunch of harsh gameplay systems that ensure you never really feel like you're relaxing into a rhythm, getting any sort of foothold or extracting any real or lasting joy from proceedings. If you're going to studiously pay homage to a game as expertly-crafted as Darkest Dungeon you'd best bring your A-game, and, unfortunately, in this instance, developer Krafton has failed to do that.

Pallurikio isn't a bad game, but it's just not a terribly interesting one.

There is fun to be had in Farming Simulator 23: Nintendo Switch Edition, but those who find it will need to be intimately familiar with the farming process. This version feels like a significant downgrade over the PC edition released in late 2021 and has some gameplay quirks that hinder the actual experience of running a farm. Unless you are desperate to take your farming on the go with the Switch, there are better entries in this series out there to play.

Fast Draw Showdown is one of those games you just want to enjoy. If you should find yourself hosting a party one day but have no party games on your Wii to play, then rest assured that this game mixes well with friends and moonshine. However, it is otherwise not quick enough on the draw to earn its place in video game history.

Treasure Hunter X is certainly not a horrible game by any stretch, but it's not exactly that good either. The game relies too heavily on gameplay touches that have already been done many times before, and in some cases far better.

The branching narrative of Front Mission 3: Remake is the strongest of the series for me and kept me engaged with it long after I had grown frustrated with the combat system. The new music is solid, but also highlights some of the older sound effects that haven't been updated. And, to top it all off, the new artwork for the Switch port is bafflingly bad and gives strong AI-generated vibes, making this feel like a rushed, half-finished remake of a beloved tactical RPG.

At its low price point, Turtle Tale is an entirely functional platforming adventure from a small indie studio that you can breeze through in a day or two.

Heavily pixelated graphics, aggressive resolution scaling, scenery pop-in and an unreliable framerate all ensure that there are just too many barriers in the way of you freely enjoying the top-notch rally action.

Aqua Moto Racing Utopia initially appeals for being a rare water-based racer. Scooting around on your jet-ski often feels more like riding a bucking bronco than driving a vehicle, and that makes it stand out from regular landlocked racers. However, it's lacking several layers of finesse and balance, the presentation is deeply unappealing, and those aggressive water physics are a mixed blessing. We're just going to have to wait patiently for Nintendo to return to the Wave Race universe, aren't we?

However you end up playing Ninja Shodown, it's unlikely that it will hold attention for more than a handful of rounds. The core mechanics are solid, the action is relatively fast and fun - especially in four player mode on a big screen - and it can be rather entertaining. However, the difficulty spikes and lack of depth in single player, coupled with the lack of modes, no online and minimal options in multiplayer, ultimately make the game little more than a brief but fun time filler. It's becoming more and more apparent that party games like this need more meat on the proverbial bone to stand out, and in this respect Ninja Shodown struggles to make its mark.

Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force are a lot of fun, and let down not by their age but the quality of these Switch ports. What should’ve been a complete no-brainer purchase for anyone looking for more arcade action is now something to carefully consider first and possibly wait for a sale or a patch. There are many other shmups — retro, arcade, and brand new — on Switch that are all more deserving of your hard-earned money.

Blackwind is as utilitarian as a bank statement and painfully middle-of-the-road. It’s tough to recommend that you play this game because we can scarcely remember anything notable about it from our own playthrough. Yet at the same time, it doesn’t actually do anything egregiously wrong to make it instantly destined for the garbage bin. If you’re looking for an entirely unremarkable and unoriginal sci-fi themed hack ‘n’ slash, Blackwind certainly ticks those boxes. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a meaningful way to spend your limited time and hard-earned money, this ain’t it. We won’t go so far as to say that you should definitely give Blackwind a pass, but we'd understand entirely if you did.

If you're hankering for a semi-educational game to play with your kids Word Party is an adequate choice, but otherwise there are far better Wii U 'party' games to play.

Those looking for a more casual take on the sport might find some enjoyment here, but the rest will just have to stick with Real Soccer for now.

SkateBIRD is a creative addition to a genre lacking in variety, and its fun concept has clearly been realised with a lot of love. However, despite its potential, the best parts of the concept are underused, with neither the miniature skaters nor the addition of wings bringing much to excite. While the core gameplay is functional, the play feel is not fluid and the level design and laborious structure are always working against the fun. To top it off, the rudimentary graphics are needlessly hazy. More of a turkey than a pretty boy, then, unfortunately.

Sparkle 2 EVO has an interesting visual and sound design, but lacks a truly compelling gameplay hook. In its attempt at catering to both the tense competitive gaming crowd and the chill experiential group, it fails to fully entertain on either front. it's neither challenging nor relaxing, which in turn limits its appeal.

Ultimately, we have to ask ourselves one crucial question when it comes to Half Past Fate: Romantic Distancing: do we really need yet another reminder of the truly awful situation we’re all still in? The story being told here is an uplifting one, but it’s also stuffed with terms we’ve become all too familiar with over the course of the past year: social distancing, flattening the curve, remote meetings… we could go on. Games are – perhaps more than ever – a means of escapism, and Serenity Forge’s new title strays a bit too close to reality for our liking. We’d probably recommend other developers try again in a few years time when the dust has settled.

Super Toy Cars is a decent enough tabletop racer that will have fans of the classics like Micro Machines taking a quick nostalgic trip down memory lane, but it never manages to live up to the games from which it clearly takes its inspiration. You’ll get some fun out of throwing your car around the cute tracks, but the temperamental physics and inaccurate contact between your car and its surroundings has the potential to frustrate players before that happens. Not a bad game, then, but one that is a few grid positions behind its competitors.

The simulation just isn't something that the average gamer is going to find worthwhile, especially with the high price tag at launch.

Visually, the game looks more or less as it should, albeit with very little additional flair. There are several characters to choose from, and their background images are decent enough, but there’s actually no incentive to choose one character over another, other than personal preference. Overall, it lacks a lot of personality, and with nothing to really set it apart from its contemporaries, there’s very little to recommend here unless you’re a huge fan of the genre. On the flip side, the music is pretty great, offering catchy tunes that really stick with you.

The Conduit got a free pass for being relatively ambitious for Wii shooters, but those days are over: Conduit 2 is a mess of undercooked ideas and impotent execution. It's not that it's a drastically worse game than its predecessor, but the design has been so far surpassed multiple times in the past two years that there is very little reason to return to this underwhelming well.