Shadwen makes a lot of smart decisions, and I’ll definitely miss its rewind system in other stealth games, but it never fully comes together as a whole. There’s just not enough enemy variety, and the 15-level campaign grows tiresome as the end nears. Throw in one of the most anticlimactic endings in recent memory, and a lot of the initial goodwill is used up. While far from perfect, there’s still enough ambition here for stealth fans to appreciate, but Shadwen isn’t Agent 47.

During the course of Tchia’s tropical adventure, players will experience many great, carefully-implemented ideas. The open world influenced by New Caledonia remains sensitive to its cultural inspirations, the unique soul-jumping mechanic is a joy to use and explore, the boat controls and fully-functional ukulele are overkill in the best kind of way, and the story has both unexpected darkness and humor. Unfortunately, a handful of good ideas can’t save Tchia from running out of steam before the finale and crumbling beneath a wave of performance issues.

“Adorable” is about the biggest compliment I can give to Catlateral Damage as a whole. As a cat lover, I relished the chance to vicariously experience the destruction they cause, only to find that knocking things over ad nauseum wasn’t all I thought it would be. In any case, there are plenty of laughs and smiles to be had if you’re of a mind to enjoy this silly “Simulator” stuff, and creator Chris Chung has seen fit to stuff the game with a plethora of cutesy collectibles (including a surprise “Pawlatinum!”). Go in with modest expectations and a lighthearted attitude and you’ll be sure to have a good time.

AvP far outstrips the movies of the same name, but is no where near the landmark experience that the original game was.

Aragami 2 had potential to be a great follow up to an indie classic released five years ago. Unfortunately it lacks any real challenge and feels bloated with repetitive mission types and locations. The game starts to overstay its welcome after a while, but there’s definitely fun to be had before reaching that stage if you can put up with the plenty of bugs that still need to be fixed.

If I’m being honest, reviewing Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots comes with its own pain points, but very little of that has to do with the game itself. Yes, there are certainly some shortcomings, some of which I hope can be addressed post-launch, but my misgivings come from whether or not I should recommend it to others. On the one hand, I’ve genuinely enjoyed my time with Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots, and it’s likely that other fans of the franchise will as well. That being said, it’s difficult to recommend it to those who haven’t gravitated towards the genre in the past. And even for those who grew up playing these types of games, you should temper your expectations a bit. For every birdie or eagle that Everybody’s Golf Hot Shots lands, its head gets stuck in a sand trap just as often.

On the surface it would appear that Livelock is trying to bring something new and interesting to the PlayStation 4. Unfortunately, though perfectly competent as an action game, ends up falling flat on execution. The predictable storyline, inconsistent production values and lackluster variety mar what could have been a fun distraction during the summer’s AAA famine.

I was all set to jump into Zanki Zero and have a good time uncovering a mystery, crawling through dungeons and even seeing what I could pull off after several rounds of surviving, dying, and using that cloning loop to get ever stronger. Instead I found a bunch of tedium fueled by disparate systems not playing well with each other, disappointing combat, and a story that constantly tried to disguise how shallow it was via torturing its characters.

A Juggler’s Tale is enjoyable for what it is, but it doesn’t quite reach the particularly memorable nature of similar indie games it so obviously takes inspiration from. There’s a great introspective narrative with some brilliant themes regarding personal freedoms and cutting the strings of toxic relationships throughout, but a short runtime and occasionally obtuse puzzles and mechanics leave it feeling a bit more tangled up than it should by the end.

In practice, Smashbox Arena ends up being a lot of fun, with precise tracking and fast paced competitive gameplay that hides a lot of depth and strategy, but it’s ultimately held back my a number of technical issues and the lack of a strong online community.

It may have been something special back in 2008, but it is definitely showing its age — especially when compared to The Chinese Room’s later releases, Esther falls dramatically short of modern expectations.

Dead Secret works as a mobile VR game, but its simplistic roots are painfully obvious on the PlayStation.

Insane Robots’ character and map designs are cute, and the grid overworld meta keeps the downtime interesting. The wide smattering of augments are a neat way to differentiate each fight. It’s hard to ignore that the experience is marred by a trove of RNG dependencies. It feels a little too random at times, bordering less on “cool card game” and more on “Pengu1n of D00M.”

If Asksys Games and Nihon Falcom were serious about porting Tokyo Xanadu to the PS4, there was a lot more that could have been done. Graphics needed a major overhaul, and the additional side stories were merely fluff that didn’t contribute a lot to making an already bland story more interesting.

Crisis accomplished its goal of immersing me in the role, even if some of the more brilliant ape interactions were one-off moments rather than regularly used mechanics. Sadly, this brilliant immersion is hampered by dull environments, enemy encounters that become boring, and a fairly weak story that requires the films in order to mean much.

The Bureau is a decent game that fails to bring anything new to gamers’ tables. With a period alien invasion having been done before in titles like Resistance, gameplay mechanics ripped straight from Mass Effect, and XCOM elements wrangled together, The Bureau feels like an unpolished conglomeration of games that have come before it.

Makes some great improvements over the first and is by far the better game, but not as much better as we would hope. The gameplay takes a huge step forward to provide the fun, albeit easy, combat that the first game lacked. However, the story takes a huge step back, making even the game of golf seem interesting, which becomes even more frustrating with the quick and small dungeons that push you quickly back to the story.

At $4.99 the game is at the top end of the minis price range, making it rather costly for a game that is basically just a rudimentary time management game. Supermarket Mania can provide hours of enjoyment for fans of management sims, but it does little to provide anything new or unique, and fails to expand upon the genre.

If you’re a big fan of Assassin’s Creed, or enjoyed ACC: China, then you can pick this up without hesitation. It’s more of the same gameplay-wise, but completely different story and setting-wise.

Putting aside the quirky and cute foreign styling and the heavy framerate dips, the gameplay is solid, if for nothing else but a “turn off your brain” kind of arcade fun.

The best thing that Pop-Up Pilgrims does is present a fascinating papercraft pop-up world that more VR developers should explore. Had it offered a more consistent growth on mechanics and rapid change between the variety, it would have stuck with me more than it did. Instead it was a monotonous and repetitive 60 levels that didn’t offer anything memorable during the five or so hours that it took to complete. Pop-Up Pilgrims isn’t a bad game by any stretch, but it’s not all that interesting or engaging either.

There’s just far too little to enjoy, and what is here feels like low-budget copy and paste of the last half decade of horror titles if you decide to play without the PSVR headset. Virtual reality escalates the atmosphere to a much more sustainable level, but there’s nothing about Don’t Knock Twice that makes it a must play horror game, inside of virtual reality or out.

While Absolver is up and down in a lot of places, the game just doesn’t come together well. There’s something about the underlying design that makes it feel disjointed. Most of this comes from the quasi-open world aspect, but the ridiculous level of grinding involved and the disconnected PvP mode makes Absolver feel like a game that’s at war with itself.

Despite being rather rough around the edges, Tannenberg’s unique nature breaks from the trends of most AAA first-person shooters today. It’s hardly what I would call a “good” game, and the console version needs a lot of work to feel like more than just a quick PC port, but in spite of all that, I enjoyed the time I spent with it. It was a refreshing breath of fresh air, something just a little bit different. To that end, I commend the development team for not making yet another action-packed blockbuster-style FPS. While it’s not going to replace my old multiplayer standbys of Warzone or Destiny 2, Tannenberg is a game I’d definitely consider going back to if I’m craving a bit of a different approach. I’m just hoping for a bit more polish and console accessibility by the time I return to the Eastern Front.

The second downfall, and possibly a deal breaker for some sim fans, are the graphics. From a distance the game looks great, but up close and personal it loses the detail and sharpness that you would expect on the 5 inch OLED screen.

Overall, the game is too short, even for a minigame, but each minigame is rather enjoyable – especially for younger children.

It does some core things right, like the combat and the numerous places to explore, but it does a lot of little things wrong, such as the huge amount of fluff and the useless crafting system.

While it does seem that Gameloft might have rushed the title a little to hit the PS Vita launch, it's still a well designed game with plenty of content to keep you busy for quite a while.