With a handful of infuriating exceptions, Blood of the Werewolf's challenging gameplay generally feels fair and rewarding, and its increasingly lethal, lightning-quick action is well paced. [July 2014, p.78]

EA's newest iteration of FIFA features improved play on the pitch, but doesn't provide enough gameplay modes to justify a $60 price tag unless you live and breathe the World Cup, or want to play as every country FIFA recognizes--including American Samoa. [July 2014, p.73]

Blackgate succeeds in channeling Arkham's open-world structure into a 2.5D format, but runs into pacing issues and hackneyed dialogue along the way. [July 2014, p.70]

There's a strange charm to Bound By Flame that helps paper over the performance issues. There's a well-acted but profoundly bewildering script, a baroque crafting system, and drawn-out boss battles. It's not great, but it's fairly... interesting.

Offering a serviceable but somewhat bland alternative for core card-battlers wanting to play with friends(but unable to organize an in-person match), Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium Duels is a bit of a slog for all but super-fans. [June 2014, p.80]

Eutechnyx's third kick at the NASCAR can keeps hitting singleplayer and multiplayer speed bumps that diminish the overall racing experience. [June 2014, p.81]

Rough visuals and a lack of polish hurt, but Pro Hunts offers adequate hunting action without too much artificial bombast. [June 2014, p.80]

We had fun with Last Agent's streamlined story and missions, but navigation issues and faults left over from other episodes make it unworthy of the series' legacy. [June 2014, p.78]

Strike Suit Zero still has its issues, but the Director's Cut does a much better job of accentuating its strengths while hiding its weaknesses.

While Kinect Sports Rivals amuses and impresses in spots, the overall package fails to show significant improvement in the realm of motion gaming, making for an ultimately discouraging early showcase for Kinect 2.0.

The world's first bona fide videogame mascot deserved better than to have five failures trotted out alongside four dirt-simple classics, and the inflated price of admission doesn't do his flawed exhibition any favors. [May 2014, p.83]

Far Cry Classic exhibits many of the ideas that came to define the series, but this decade-old shooter doesn't hold up very well thanks to antiquated design and a spotty porting job. [May 2014, p.82]

Gearbox piles on the wit and humor more thoroughly than it has with its other holiday-themed DLC, but the lack of Valentine's Day-themed environs leaves it feeling too much like the base game. [May 2014, p.77]

While we would've had the first female Dead Rising hero headline a full length game, Fallen Angel is a nice add on with excellent storytelling beats and a beefier adventure than Broken Eagle. [May 2014, p.77]

Dead Rising led by unrepentant killer could be perfect, but Chaos Rising sinks like a stone. [May 2014, p.71]

Constant C’s certainly not for the easily discouraged, but its cleverly designed puzzles and surprisingly engaging story are a treat if you don’t mind a little (okay, a lot of) punishment.

It's one of the brighter spots in this somewhat patchy DLC set, but serious online players needn't shrug off a welcome injection of variety. [April 2014, p.73]

What it does deliver is a clearer, darker look at Wolf’s depressingly downbeat landscape, complete with trolls shooting smack and corrupt, greedy bureaucrats. It’s as mesmerizing as it is glum, using the series’ stark, black-and-neon backdrops as visual clues to Fabletown’s — and Bigby’s — split nature.

However you play, the button-mashing combat proves crushingly simplistic and repetitive, and moving around the stages is awkward and disorienting, with a dizzying camera that makes Battle of Z a pretty ideal motion-sickness simulator.

Thanks to its engaging combat and spectacle, Lightning Returns manages to distract somewhat from its overarching design issues. As a game, it's notably flawed but has its moments. [March 2014, p.76]

Given the scope of what it tries to cover, Liberation HD could’ve easily been as complex and lengthy as its home-console siblings. Instead, this somewhat-confusing adventure gets you to love it, and then leaves you yearning for more.

It’s over far too fast (we explored a bit and finished in roughly 90 minutes) and it’s missing two major Dead Rising staples by omitting co-op play and "psycho" battles. While the single-player focus applies to all Untold Stories, we’re left hoping the other three heroes of Los Perdidos have longer, crazier adventures in store.

Though Spartan Assault boasts many of the aliens, armaments, and well-worn plot wrinkles we associate with the Halo universe, it lacks the polished sheen that just about every other game in the series enjoys.

Despite its literary ancestry, The Raven is uneven in its narrative delivery. Whether stuck on the Orient Express or relaxing on a Venetian cruise ship, The Raven’s cast of well-heeled socialites is deftly drawn, with sharp dialogue and expressive voice acting to match.

The Raven might test your patience in more ways than one, but Zellner remains as endearing a protagonist as we’re likely to encounter.

Like Dawn, Contrast sometimes misses the leaps it strives to make, but when its simple, quiet story and uncomplicated platforming perform in balance, it transforms into a beautiful indie experience that manages to stand on its own. [Feb 2014, p.71]

If you don't care so much for story and just want grindy, hard-as-nails combat, the Tower pack features a succession of difficult shootouts against waves of enemies in diverse areas, with a combat-simulator conceit that allows for deviations from realism. [Jan 2014, p.70]

The Developer Pack, meanwhile, gives us a behind-the-scenes museum in which to try out every firearm and safely examine the game's monsters and human characters up close. [Jan 2014, p.70]

If you've run the first-person gauntlet before, Magrunner's slight tweaks on the formula make it worth checking out. [Jan 2014, p.71]

Disappointingly, the experience becomes a painful chore if you play solo. [Jan 2014, p.69]

While BandFuse evolves the music game genre by allowing you to use real instruments, with so many oversights and foibles, sadly the progression stops there. [Jan 2014, p.69]

Despite simple visuals, the game curiously looks much crisper on Xbox One; the other next-gen advantage comes from a biweekly Challenge objective to tackle. But on either platform, Angry Birds Star Wars should have been a $10 download, and paying much more might make you feel like you've been taken for a ride — and we're not talking about the Millennium Falcon.

There’s more to Ryse than its glossy exterior suggests, and Marius’ tightly told tale makes for an entertaining journey filled with its share of surprisingly considered carnage, but as the credits rolled, we dreamed about what a sequel might be like. Take it off its rails, inject more variety and depth in its systems…now that’s a game we absolutely want to play.

With its charming, colorful sandbox of tools, there's definitely a micro-managing itch that Zoo Tycoon handily scratches - we just wish the thrills stuck around a bit longer.

Powerstar Golf has its enjoyable strokes, whether playing solo, with local buddies, or while challenging an online rival's best score in an asynchronous mode, but truly head-scratching skill and progression choices diminish what's already an uninspiring clone.

Blood Knights is too easy to ever become actively irritating, but its deficit of danger makes it too darn dull to hold even a devoted horror nut’s attention for long. Perhaps it’s a blessing, then, that the whole ho-hum campaign clocks in at just four hours.

It lasts just long enough to justify its humble asking price, but better online island vacations await you elsewhere.

It's a by-the-numbers adaptation with more than 1000 built-in multiple choice questions, which should sate trivia buffs for a while, though the sluggish pace and the host's incredibly repetitive quips turn grating after only a few rounds.

Apart from some death-by-bad-camera-angle moments and a few aggravating perfection-focused “challenge” sequences, Marlow Briggs is enjoyable enough. Just don’t expect to remember any of it next week.

Foul Play won't tempt you to heave tomatoes at its cast, but you won't find yourself crying out for an encore, either.

Though Mars: War Logs marks an achievement for its ambition, rough patches in presentation and gameplay make it a tough recommendation to anyone not willing to weather them. [Nov 2013, p.73]

While it looks like a second cousin to the Ice Age films, Freefall Racers is utterly devoid of personality, and it's also rather slight, with just eight tracks split between a handful of drab cups and no real long-lasting pull in sight. Frivolous as it may seem, however, it's still a rare bit of Kinect-enabled fun, especially for little ones.

Quest for Cool Stuff is short and simple: an adequate diversion for tykes, but lacking particular creativity or excitement. In an era of great, affordable downloadable games, $40 for a routine, bite-sized licensed game seems like a stretch.

This game’s not just bizarre, it’s downright schizophrenic. And while we’re used to — and even enjoy — some of these sorts of wild hijinks from mad-genius Suda51 and his team at Grasshopper, Killer Is Dead’s individual components never coalesce into a worthwhile experience.

It’s certainly a fresh take on the franchise, but sadly, it isn’t a particularly captivating one.

While its gameplay and visuals are better than they were in 1992, what was groundbreaking back then feels merely average 20 years later.

Declassified may not be innovative or even very pretty, and it certainly has its problems. But this is also a strategy-lite shooter that’s more than the sum of its often rough-hewn parts. It's entertaining from start to finish, and feels a bit brainier than other shooters when it comes to gunning down hordes of enemies. In that regard, Declassified captures at least part of what makes the XCOM franchise so special.

There may be no such thing as the perfect heist in PayDay 2, but they’re rarely forgettable — proof that while this game isn’t quite the transcendent co-op experience on the level of, say, Left 4 Dead — it still offers up a nice change of pace in first-person shooters on Xbox.

Its tough-love formula offers fun and challenge in the short-term, but there’s just not enough variety or depth to make a lasting impression beyond those initial thrills.

The confusing narrative, poor voice acting, and lackluster puzzles make the game hard to love, but if “weird” is your niche, this trip offers some solid entertainment.

This expansion’s biggest problem: the woeful lack of people with whom to play. Days and even a couple of weeks after Lost Island’s release, finding even a single match often felt like an endurance trial, which is a shame — this add-on’s neither truly spectacular nor a fantastic value, but it is worth playing.

Even players with an insatiable lust for fiery explosions will be disappointed when they find that the whole affair’s easily finished in under four hours. Thunder Wolves is mindless fun if you're in the right mood, but it's just too flawed and fleeting to be a good value.

But even with its less-satisfying endgame, Storm’s conundrums still offer an offbeat way to stretch your brain.

From its unspectacular graphics to its utterly predictable, objective-based spin on Horde mode’s wave-based skirmishes, Fuse never fully comes together.

At $50, Revelations is cheaper than most AAA retail releases, but it’s decidedly lower-budget in scope and style. While it’s a serviceable throwback for those sick of survival-action, we’d have liked a bit more polish and a deeper quest.

Despite clocking in at around 2.5 hours, The Redemption rushes you through the final paces of the three-part Tyranny of King Washington saga so doggedly — and with such gaping holes throughout the narrative — that we were left with a sense of nagging unfulfillment, not closure.

However you look at it, the so-so cardplay (you can choose Texas Hold ’Em or Omaha this time) does offer some nifty real-world prizes for winning challenges and tournaments: several unlockable heads and skins for use in Borderlands 2, plus five 360 Avatar items. It’ll take a number of hours to get them all, although while you’re working on that, you can also spend your in-game cash on custom chips, decks, and felts for use within Poker Night 2 itself.

Blood Dragon becomes too easy too soon, thanks in part to the steady stream of health-bar upgrades and damage-reduction bonuses you’ll unlock as you tear through 30 experience-based levels of personal progression. By the end you’re practically unstoppable, so you’ll almost certainly overcome all seven story missions, and complete every optional hunting excursion and hostage rescue, in under five hours.

The visuals and consciously retro soundtrack show a sense of style, but Sacred Citadel lacks the heart that defines the greatest brawlers. Use it to scratch an itch if you must, but if you’re new to action-RPGs, XBLA games like Castle Crashers and Guardian Heroes will prove far more rewarding.

Playing solo is incredibly difficult and very little fun, and once people stop playing on Live, God Mode’s as good as dead.

The story extends Daniel's tale, but Hell & Damnation's 14 levels are merely somewhat revamped versions of environments from the original Painkiller and its Battle Out of Hell expansion. [May 2013, p.77]

We see Defiance’s potential in the little interactions and grand moments alike, and while our first impression has been rougher than hoped, we’ll be back in six months or a year to see how the concept has been expanded and refined. It’s just unlikely that we’ll spend much of the meantime watching Defiance struggle through its growing pains.

Storywise, The Betrayal is a shade sillier than The Infamy, and a few moments in its missions are strange to the point of absurdity... If you’re invested in its alternate-universe narrative, though, The Betrayal is an important piece of the puzzle, and its ending hints at something potentially amazing for the final chapter.

What sets Terraria apart from its obvious inspiration is more than just 2D design; it’s the action-centric tone that emerges the more you dig around and buddy up with pals, especially online ones who have cultivated their own worlds and arsenals (though local split-screen multiplayer is included).

Just entertaining enough to buy when it’s accumulating dust in the bargain bin. But for a richer sniper experience with more gruesome kill shots, last year’s Sniper Elite V2 is a better bet.

From the initial menu screen, it’s clear that little has changed over the course of a year beyond pasting in David Price as the cover star. The interface is essentially identical, the play modes are unchanged in execution, and the on-field action is precisely where it was last season. Even the Achievements are carbon-copied.

The joy of exploration occasionally tips over into frustration, as when untouchable background scenery seems to offer a safe place to land, or during an infuriating and unnecessarily time-consuming final boss fight. But for the most part, Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams is a charming adventure and a reasonable value.

As an extension of Dead Space 3’s story, it’s ultimately a bit pointless — especially with its cliffhanger ending, which effectively deprives you of the closure the main game (minus its end-credits tease) delivered. Unless you’re a hardcore fan or franchise completist, we’d suggest saving your $10 and replaying Dead Space 3 instead.

If you can get some pals together, have a stable connection, and don’t mind interrupting your game for a level-up session, you’ll have some fun here, but Battle Grounds still falls short of being the sleeper hit it could have been.

It’s still nice to see Tecmo Koei making enhancements, even if the fundamental formula is a bit flat these days.

Early on, you’re given mindless, nearly scripted busywork like chasing after Bluecoats intent on lighting powder kegs, and overall, the first half of Infamy’s 2.5-hour journey is a jarring mix of rushed action and s-l-o-w activities, without the freedom of ACIII’s open world to balance it out.

If you're already a Naruto believer, this game's excellent visuals and its faithfulness to the source material will outweigh its flaws. [April 2013, p.76]

The over-the-top carnage is rounded out with co-op play (starring new redneck pal Huff), vehicle stages, new levels not in the PC version, and an inexhaustible supply of sticky high-jump pads — though it’s held back by rough visuals, co-op lag, and an overall lack of polish.

We enjoyed Special Forces’ team-focused tweaks, even with the game’s dull maps and balance inconsistencies, but this multiplayer-only shooter doesn’t make a very strong impression. It’s a couple of ranks below the genre's best — and that’s something a $15 price can’t fix.

This is really a review of two games: a derivative story campaign (that you can play solo or with up to three friends in co-op) and a riveting, far superior multiplayer mode that allows you to compete as marines or alien xenomorphs in online matches. Considering Colonial Marines’ relatively long gestation period — roughly six years — it seems more attention was paid to fine-tuning multiplayer than to the campaign.

It's intriguing to see the evolution of Agent 47's murderous tactics across these seminal entries, but much as Silent Assassin was lauded upon release for its many kill options, it's a startlingly clunky experience nowadays.

Want an excuse to keep climbing ledges and sailing the high seas? This downloadable Assassin's Creed III pack gives you exactly that, and little more.

Unfortunately, the story feels just as half-hearted, and it's hampered by fast-travel locations and quest kick-off points that seem erratically placed.

It's an interesting piece of Sega history, but not one that's aged particularly well.

Vipers is still a lot of fun, but you won't dump newer 3D fighters for it.

Seeing how the genre has evolved from VF2 is fascinating, but those new to fighting games might find this history lesson a little tougher to enjoy.

All three modes are fast-paced and enjoyable, but don't expect them to add anything major to the game: aside from letting you gradually unlock weapons and characters that can also be earned in Mercenaries (including the new, faceless Agent and mysterious Carla Radames), they're a little shallow.

Swaying your arms and sliding down an ice tube is lightly amusing, but it doesn't add up to much - you can clear all of Crashed Ice's events in an hour, leaving you with little to do but chase leaderboard rivals.

The F1 license ultimately adds little value to a style-over-substance kiddie racer where luck often trumps driving skill.

Oddly, what doesn't come into play so much is the series' unique new feature - the heart-rate monitoring done by the optional new Top Shot Fearmaster.

Think of Karaoke as a backup for a night at the pub with rowdy pals; serious singers won't find much satisfaction here.

Both games are perfect reproductions that add Live co-op. Sadly, though, their record-scratching soundtracks and exaggerated early-'90s urban culture have aged as well as an MC Hammer lunchbox.

Despite the off-tone retelling, though, Lego Lord of the Rings succeeds in being the most authentic and complete LOTR videogame to date.

Omega has little narrative impact on the main game. Omega has snatches of rich backstory, but it's a limited, pricey thrill aimed only at the series' most devoted fans.

The biggest bummer for retro enthusiasts is this package's complete lack of special features.

You'll just need some patience and a love of the sport to value it properly.

It's a limited, simplistic experience, but still an enjoyable one for old-school shooter fans. [Jan 2013, p.83]

To its credit, Home Run Stars swings for the fences at every opportunity and clears the wall as often as it completely whiffs. At the very least, it's a cheap, interesting experiment in trial and error.

The routines here are fun when you know them, but getting there is more of a struggle than it should be - and unfortunately, that slows this dancer's roll.

It's one of those perfectly imperfect games you'll grow to love, even with its annoyances.

Not being able to save during missions is a pain, as a single poorly tossed grenade or unseen enemy tank might cripple your crew. But find your sweet spot among the five difficulty levels, and suddenly ambushes and rolling heavy artillery feel like reasonably fun challenges instead of backbreakers.

The super-basic matchmaking and sometimes-laggy online play are also disappointing, especially coming from the developer that brought us BlazBlue's superb netcode. Ultimately, this game's a good value; just be prepared to do a lot of your own research if you want to grow beyond a rudimentary level - and get local buddies to do the same if you want competition.

The game's biggest issue, however, is still iffy core gameplay. Compared to Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored, which let you perform greater acts of stealth against enemies that react more naturally, Panic's fodder is a bit too brain-dead and the stages don't make kills as rewarding.