Much like the namesake character himself, The Lord of The Rings: Gollum couldn't be saved from what it became. Frustrating platforming coupled with boring gameplay and cheap ways to die make any experience hard to play. Unfortunately, the intriguing setting and lore exploration can't come close to overshadowing the game's fundamental issues.

Crazy by name only, this iOS port costs three times as much for the same amount of content. With simplistic controls and bad replay incentives, this game has little to recommend.

A flawed take on the survival adventure template, The Solus Project's subpar execution ultimately undermines the few moments of true enjoyment that it occasionally provides.

A mediocre third-person stealth effort revolving around a singular gimmick that is both intriguing and also damning to its ambitions, Shadwen is nowhere near the lofty standard that we would expect from the house that Trine built.

This rather short expansion can be fun for fans of Little Nightmares, but lacks content and isn't as impactful as the main game.

The Blackout Club is what happens when a concept isn't executed well. Everything about the setting and lore should lead the game to be a surefire hit. But, with the lack of a main story path, painfully repetitive levels, and a torturously grindy progression system, The Blackout Club feels unbalanced, unpolished, and immensely unrewarding. The only thing saving it from being a complete waste of time is that communicating and working as a team, planning out your strategy can be enjoyable, although only in short bursts.

Unfortunately, far too many of Hardware’s ideas are poorly executed for it to be the saviour it might have been. It doesn’t do it any favours to see it presented in such a generally unenthusiastic, haphazard fashion. With variety sorely lacking and balancing currently an issue, there’s little to suggest a long-term future for Hardware: Rivals in the heaving ball pit that is online-only gaming.

X-Blades has visual charm, but the grind of monotonous combat soon starts to wear thin. The longer you play it the more you'll hate it.

The Devil's Cartel takes what made the original Army of Two intriguing and replaces it with quick and simple gameplay that doesn't require much skill. Together with a weak script, this shallow experience is only for the most devoted of fans and trophy hunters desperate for another Platinum.

Timothy vs the Aliens is a sub-mediocre platformer shooter whose own tragedy is that, for anyone except for the youngsters, nothing of any real substance lurks under its frequently formidable and beguiling veneer.

There is the odd glimmer of something greater in Gemini: Heroes Reborn. For whatever reason, you never get to see it very often. Combat can be gleeful fun, but a forgettable, pointless story, dull characters and uninspired design work are just some of the things that work against any potential.

Dolmen attempts to add some potentially good ideas into the Soulsborne formula. Unfortunately, it misses the mark far too many times in important areas to make it worth the effort you need to play it. Great level aesthetic and enemy design are wasted on far-too-flawed combat. With so many other Soulsborne clones available, Dolmen can easily be passed up.

Stray Souls barely works well enough to finish, but it lacks the kind of refinement and effort needed to bring together all of the ideas presented in this game. Doubly so, the technical issues make an already fragmented narrative feel even more disjointed. Even for people who enjoy bad horror, this is a hard sell.

An otherwise robust combat system is summarily undone by dunderheaded AI, repetitive grinding, a lack of modes and uneven presentation. We've wanted to return to Ancient Rome for years now on PS4, but not like this.

Kerbal Space Program is a fascinating educational tool. There's a childlike joy to be had in experimenting with your space-faring efforts. You'll find it hard to appreciate that on PS4 though, as this version is a mess on multiple levels. A genuinely good game is spoiled by a terrible port.

Very little about Samurai Maiden makes the game appealing. When you combine overtly simplified and imbalanced combat with slow attacks, fast enemies, and an incredibly humdrum storyline, a bad time is unavoidable. Unless you want something with mindless anime girls and half-baked gameplay, Samurai Maiden is not the game for you.

The absence of the practiced creative hands of previous Transformers developer, High Moon Studios, is keenly felt as Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark has sadly turned out to be both the weakest Transformers licensed title and the most uninspired third-person shooter in sometime.

Foregone is a mix of ideas that don't mesh well. The name of the game is simplicity, but Foregone contradicts itself with randomized loot, an immense difficulty spike, and a hard turn away from "play as you like" after committing to that formula. Foregone is a copycat title through and through with a couple good ideas that are encrusted with careless execution.

Mindjack's shtick, the ability to hack an opponent to fight on your side, is not interesting enough to overlook its dreadful cover and combat systems, boring characters, unresponsive AI, and bland level design. Its only saving grace is its unique multiplayer component that allows you to hack into someone else's game to cause all sorts of trouble.

Far less fun than both it could and should have been, Surgeon Simulator ER is undone by poor PSVR implementation and lack of additional content over the previous non-VR release.

Interesting co-op concepts are lost in a title riddled with copious amounts of gameplay and audio/visual glitches.

With finicky controls and oversized maps, it’s hard to recommend this game to anyone other than those who love the franchise and the two series themselves.

Unfortunately, Micro Machines World Series has been forced into a corner where its online multiplayer only nature, buggy online play, and less than half features of the content of its non-licensed predecessor makes this a hard purchase.

There’s not much positive to NBA Live 16 apart from the unique menus and the well-conceived game modes. Gameplay is borderline crippling, leaving the final product on the whole incomplete. Uneven growth keeps this year’s outing from being justifiably on anyone’s radar.

There will come a day where The Park is available on PS4 for peanuts, and that day is when I’d fully recommend trying its fresh, but flawed, brand of horror out. Until then, the price of admission is too high for the brevity of the ride. Especially for one that has more than a few nuts and bolts missing from it.

If this game came out in 2012 I'd probably have nicer things to say. It could potentially have been ahead of the pack back then. But now, in this day and age where developers have taken the formula and ran with it, having created racers in the same vein that are more impressive in almost every way, KT Racing have sadly finished in last place.

I can well imagine that when you're situated in a hydraulic miniature car attached to an arcade machine that is blaring out the audiovisual presentation of Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition at full tilt, that it's something of a compelling if not a mildly intoxicating quick fix of arcade racing goodness. At home however, and stripped of such performative trickery, Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition fails to impress and really needs much more meat wrapped around its bones to justify its existence away from the din of the arcade scene which birthed it.

An admirably niche racing game which gets the look and feel of truck racing just right, but manages to get the single player career experience all wrong.

Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a game crying out to be more straightforward, more-focused, but instead it’s added one more wafer thin gameplay mechanic after another, flying in the face of common sense, and now its bloated frame has exploded because it simply can not hold all that mess in and still function. A dull, frustrating misfire.

Despite its charm, Commander Cherry's Puzzled Journey is too flawed to recommend to adults and kids alike.

An unnecessary port of an already unspectacular game. It may find an audience, but it’ll make it as tough as possible to like it first.

The entertainment of sniping in Sniper 2 is plagued by bouts of mediocrity between each shooting scenario, resulting in a rush to get to the next sniping roost. The multiplayer isn't even equivalent to a cut-and-paste of other shooters, and the narrative is something found in any military movie. $40 may be cheaper than most games, but so is the experience in Sniper 2.

A shell of its predecessor. All the fun mechanics from Guided Fate Paradox have been removed and changed, leaving a generic but tedious combat system. The story, while potentially interesting, has major pacing and voice acting issues that dull the experience. Only a diehard NIS fan will want to play this game.

Pac-Man needs to go back to his maze-running roots if he is to have a chance of starring in a decent game again, because efforts like this come across like a fading actor phoning it in on an awful movie for the sake of another paycheque.

Rennsport doesn't leave a positive impression at all by overcharging players for a flimsy racing game package that's clearly unfinished. Yes, the car handling is nuanced, the featured track selection is nice, and while the car selections come up short, they are hulking and sound as impressive as they look; however, Rennsport falls very short in just about every way and will not hold racing game aficionados' attention for very long until they drop off and find a better and fairer alternative to spend their time with.

Earthfall is a hard pill to swallow. Almost everything it does will lead to frustration. Your money is better off spent elsewhere unless of course you constantly love to scream in your friend's ears.

Empire of Sin is a poor and skeleton-thin management game at its core with complicated systems, menus, and tutorials that do a poor job at getting you acclimated to the experience. Add on top of that a library worth of bugs that force you to restart, ruin pivotal moments of the game, and just make the experience more frustrating and you have a game that is not worth even worth a slight bit of consideration. Empire of Sin is a massive disappointment.

There's no doubt that White Shadows has something to offer in raw artistic spectacle, but there's far too many issues with the game to be celebrated. It comes across as a game that has its priorities completely upside down. While it's commendably brave that a brand new studio would explore delicate themes on their debut game, this preoccupation has apparently left no mind toward the fundamentals of what makes a gaming experience rewarding. Furthermore, these themes have not been handled in a very sophisticated manner. Social commentary aside, unoriginal level design, a forgettable narrative and poor frame performance sadly render White Shadows as one you can miss.

Whether you are a fan of Ark, voxel-based construction games, or survival games in general, you will find something to hate about PixARK. A wild mess of a game, PixARK is one of the most off-putting experiences on PlayStation 4. Avoiding PixARK is imperative.

A great concept that summarily misfires on all cylinders, Milanoir is an admittedly stylish retro shooter that is simply too frustrating and poorly designed to recommend.

Antab Studio provides living proof that style should not come before substance in an eye-catching albeit below average shooter which would've felt at home on the PlayStation 2.

Eternity The Last Unicorn is a hot mess of a game with old school graphics and game mechanics that feels more dated than a launch title from the original PS1.

Even the most hardcore Gundam fans will find it hard to say they enjoyed VS-Force. It may look and sound like a good game but it doesn't play like one. Poor controls, pointless story, and some crazy difficulty spikes leaves VS-Force missing the mark in almost every way.

There's promise going forward, for the story at least, but this is an otherwise messy episode on several levels.

City of Light may shine on occasion, but it too often slips into the darkness of bad writing, plot development, and characterization. A season finale that finally kills the hope of redemption for what has been a thoroughly disappointing Batman outing.

Bus Simulator 21 offers a cathartic toy box for the most dedicated of bus fanatics, with dozens of hours of gameplay hidden beneath its flaws. Unfortunately, it misses the mark too often and in too many ways to warrant a recommendation to anyone outside of its extremely niche audience.

A promising adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's novella is squandered with illogical solutions, childish humour and too many unsatisfying endings. Completists may enjoy finding all the content, but old school 'choose your own adventure' fans should look elsewhere for their fix of interactive fiction.

Remothered: Broken Porcelain should have been a good game but instead ends up as one of the year's biggest disappointments. The great soundtrack and atmosphere can't save it from terribly broken enemy A.I., an overly complicated and confusing story, and the plethora of bugs and glitches that plague the title. This final release is here, but it feels like Broken Porcelain needed at least six more months of development time.

Late Shift is an interesting update on the idea of the interactive movie. While it brings decent tv-quality production values and soap opera level acting to a genre notoriously riddled with far worse, it still doesn’t do enough to stand out as a film, nor offer enough interactivity as a game. There’s potential for this template, but the interactivity needs to be much more ambitious.

Painkiller: Hell & Damnation is an old-school FPS that is sadly dated, boring and tedious to play.

Element Space looked like such a fun game to play but ended up being a nightmare. In 2020 your game shouldn't be crashing every hour of playtime Element Space simply isn't optimized and need a lot more time in the testing stages.

Basement Crawl tries hard to recapture the magic of Bomberman but has a hard time with its horror theme, lack of a real tutorial, and online connectivity issues. Overall, Basement Crawl can be a fun game but it's hard to justify a purchase when half of the game just doesn't want to work.

Even with its impressive character customization options and solid visuals, Valhalla Knights 2 falls short of being a must-own title on the PSP by a very wide margin.

For the double pack - having two classic strategy games on console for the first time should be a cause for celebration. Unfortunately Praetorians and Commandos 2 have received incredibly lackluster remasters that only serve to highlight just how much both have aged. With this double pack, War is (Disappointing as all) Hell.

The best thing about Iron Man 2 are the cut scenes, where some competent writing and voice acting makes the game seem like it just might be worth ploughing through, even though it isn’t.

As Soulslikes go, The Last Hero of Nostalgaia certainly boasts a neat hook on account of its smugly cynical narrative and frequent bouts of cheeky humour. However, the occasionally imprecise combat, uninteresting enemies and worlds coupled with a raft of frustrating bugs and a general lack of polish all serve to commit The Last Hero of Nostalgaia to an oblivion of mediocrity.

A bare bones concept, lacking any consequence to choosing to pursue what the game is supposed to be about: strategy. Only the most diehard of Dynasty Warriors fans will try it out, otherwise buyers are better suited to sticking with Dynasty Warriors 8.

A voxel based console RTS that tries to simplify things for the platform but comes up short. There is a whole lotta game here but the simplistic controls and poor AI end up making the whole experience hard to enjoy unless you really love the RTS genre.

Dollhouse takes good ideas and puts them behind clashing mechanics. The randomly-generated landscapes all look the same, causing many issues with navigating and retrieving much-needed items. This pool of ideas lacks cohesion, and the minuscule payoff makes the tedium feel like a complete waste of time. Very little works in Dollhouse's favor.

Between the poor, blocky visuals, the array of glitches and bugs, the sub-standard UI and lack of any attention given to making the game more accessible to a contemporary audience, it saddens me to admit that Blade Runner: Enhanced Edition should be avoided at all costs. Tragically, this is because under all of this scarred and badly implemented design, there's a roundly excellent and atmospheric detective yarn just bursting to come out, but is now seemingly condemned to be lost to time, like tears in the rain.

A sadly failed tribute to one of the greatest RPGs of all time, Underworld Ascendant is simply far too flawed to recommend to either fans of the original Ultima Underworld, or in-depth RPGs in general.

While Foamstars has a strong foundation in terms of core gameplay, I found myself quickly growing weary of the small annoyances that kept rearing their heads. Awkward navigation, ho-hum singleplayer offerings and egregious monetisation and design choices bring down an experience that is really fun if you can ignore those things, which is something that shouldn't have to be done. I hope updates are able to address some of these issues in the coming months, but for now this party has left me feeling exceptionally mixed overall.

Knights Contract is essentially one, giant escort mission plagued by a myriad of gripes including horrendous AI. and repetitive combat. Despite its interesting concept, there is not enough on offer to salvage the game from the sheer magnitude of problems encountered throughout.

Extinction is a frustrating mess that has problems that in this day and age shouldn't exist. Camera problems, repetitive missions and frustrating climbing mechanics will have you rage quitting before you get halfway through.

Aragami 2 could be a good stealth game, with a good foundation of stealth gameplay and even an intriguing story, but it is plagued by constant bugs, performance issues, poor level design, pacing, rough implementation of gameplay mechanics and a visual style that only further serves to make its flaws even more evident then they already are.

What could have been a cheese-filled celebration of the history of one of the most famous movie monsters around instead winds up as a tragic and premature obituary.

A highly unsatisfying and directionless tennis game, with an abysmal character creator and career mode. Steer well clear and buy AO Tennis 2, bizarrely made by the exact same team responsible for this monstrosity.

Albedo is one of those games that, with a few small changes, could have been quite decent. The shlocky sci-fi B-Movie vibe is a good one to utilise for an adventure game, and it’s definitely the most unique facet of Albedo, but sadly, as a game, it never quite maintains any kind of consistency to recommend it to anyone but the most patient and understanding of adventure game fans. The game’s protagonist often says ‘I see something’ without any clue as to what it is he’s referring to. That sums up Albedo all too well.

A promising premise and some well-executed puzzles aren't enough to save The Station from the dull nature of its story and characters.

A broken mess in almost every way. Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris doesn't deliver on it's promised product. With so many technical issues it's hard to imagine anyone with the patience to get through the game. Alicization Lycoris should have been the crowning achievement in a beloved franchise but instead, it ends up being the worst title in the Sword Art Online franchise.

Babylon's Fall flat out needed more time. The graphics make the experience just horrible at times, with the filter even giving me headaches. The combat can be enjoyable, though there is a grind to it, it's something I still enjoy along with the music. Beyond that however, there are still just too many aspects of this game that can make your time with it headache-inducing more often than not.

King Of Seas ultimately suffers through a lack of visual polish, some frustrating gameplay mechanics, and dull pacing and sequences, which when all combined together create a thoroughly unremarkable experience that doesn't manage to hold its own against even some of the most average of pirate games on the market.

Though pretty to look at, and maybe fun to play for a bit with some friends, the combat system here just isn't meaty enough for any long-term or tournament worthy enjoyment. Really only just for people that still don't have an internet connection, or are just really into this sort of thing.

Stormrise's major innovations are also its biggest downfalls.

A game that will appeal to fans of the Gundam anime series and Dynasty Warriors franchise only. If you haven't played DW before, then steer well clear of this.

Trillion: God of Destruction is an SRPG that probably should have been a visual novel. Its great character design, and top notch writing are held back by constant micromanagement. Worse still by a combat system that's hard to comprehend, and isn’t even fun when you do. Come for the art, don’t stay for the gameplay.

God of War set the bar for this genre and Clash of the Titans takes it ten years back.

There’s a lot of potential with Archangel, but when so much potential is unrealized, then the end product loses its luster. Archangel is exactly that, starting off with a bang and tapering off too quickly to maintain its level of initial intrigue.

Looks good with some decent boss battles, but lack of content and replay value disappoints.

Though it boasts a resoundingly striking aesthetic, a haphazard save system coupled with a raft of glitches and a misjudged waypoint system all manage to tarnish what should have been one of the first major indie darlings of the year. Vane is simply too frustrating to recommend in its current form.

The setup for 2DARK holds intrigue, with a grim plot, and suitably creepy settings, but so much of how it actually plays out quickly diminishes the horror aspect of it. Respectable enough as a game, a failure as a horror.

A hollow, crude experience with very little to do or see. I found it quite boring and unrewarding. Its saving grace was the fact it was free and a small amount of fun can be found when playing online with friends. There are far better games within this genre, even if it means spending a small amount of cash on them.

There is an attempt to make Farming Simulator 17 entertaining, but it’s a rather poor one. Dull, uninventive, and drier than sandpaper on crackers.

A lacklustre RPG that lacks originality and playability, avoid at all costs.

A dry, unchallenging game that needed a proper remake far more than an underwhelming remaster. While it is refreshing to have a game like Praetorians on PS4, it’d be a bit more refreshing if it was a good one.

[A] subpar, scare-free effort.

Very little of Neptunia Virtual Stars makes it a franchise entry worth playing. Simplicity here lacks the success of other entries, instead offering something clunky and dull. Consider this a Neptunia title barely meant for die-hard fans and no one else.

Shooting in Warfighter is excellent, and the presentation is great, but it doesn't stop the game from being broken literally, and thematically.

Falling short in just about every way a title of this ilk can, everything Super Dungeon Bros attempts to do, the three year old Diablo III does better. Avoid.

Strictly a game to be played with friends, but even then Operation Racoon City will leave you wondering: why?

Initial intrigue brought upon by Soul Axiom’s cool concept and sharp art design quickly tumble downhill when you discover that everything else is a rough, unsatisfying husk that disappoints in a way that brings out your frustration more than your anger. This is one poor soul.

AO International Tennis does not have any competition in this current market when it comes to tennis games, but AO Tennis lacks both refinement and variety that a good sports game should have.

A novel concept is unfortunately lost in a muddle of confused mechanics and cheap presentation that makes me question exactly why this foregone Stadia game even made the jump to major platforms. Where I managed to have some small fun on the virtue of this still being the PAC-MAN we know and love, I found myself quickly wanting to reinstall other versions of the game. Given that this isn't even the first instance of a PAC-MAN battle royale, I'm sad that this didn't manage to emerge as a worthwhile competitor.

Despite having to rustle up the occasional cup of coffee or tea, this is one of the least interactive games to grace the PS4. A little more effort on the part of the developer with character interaction could have made the storytelling more enjoyable and given the game some depth. Otherwise if you're happy relaxing and reading the dialogue for a few hours, it could be for you.

A poor console port, a massively underwhelming remaster of a classic RTS game, and a game that really shows its age. Commandos 2 is a disappointment on multiple levels. What could have been a great opportunity to introduce modern audiences to a classic instead desecrates the memory of it.

A neat concept alone is not enough to save a poorly-designed, technical jumble of an adventure game. Divide flickers into life on occasion, but far too briefly, and nowhere near bright enough to keep it interesting.

Don't be fooled by the impressive visuals. This dated and deeply unsatisfying arcade shooter manages to make space combat feel flimsy, boring and anything but immersive. Perhaps on a mobile phone, its limitations can be overlooked but on a console it's not worth bothering with.

Wolfenstein Cyberpilot will be remembered as a curiosity; a failed side project with cool mechanics and no gameplay. Released without the Wolfenstein name, this would be a slight, middle-of-the-road title with little to recommend it. But with the Wolfenstein name attached, Cyberpilot becomes a debacle. Wolfenstein fans should not play this game. Neither should anyone else.