Grandia HD Collection is a hefty reminder of what a clever, heartfelt, unique JRPG experience looks like. Square Enix could stand to take notes. I have a history of starting Grandia and never finishing it, so I'm appreciating the chance to finally get through it. It's still really good. Holds up terrifically, with a famous battle system that feels as fresh as it ever did. Great game... albeit one that really shows off in the graphics department, sometimes a bit too much.

At $29.99, the price is frigging obscene for just how little you get, and how little of that is enjoyable....Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a short, flimsy, and overpriced beat ‘em up that offers so much less than its contemporaries in the genre. Skating by on brand recognition, it’s amazing how tired of it you become despite being able to finish the dire campaign in almost no time at all. The game’s barely done wiping its feet on the mat before outstaying its welcome, and it’s ready to leave soon after. Awful shite.

It’s definitely worth the time, especially being free to start, and I would recommend anybody with a PS4 and a love of brawling check it out. It’s a well put together little game with a good dash of trademark Grasshopper oddity. As a throwaway bit of violent action with some clever online features, it’s a good time...A good time, but not a particularly enthralling one. At some point, as with everything involved in this production, you’ll eventually just have to Let It Die.

Assassin’s Creed Unity is a beautiful game that’s fun to play with friends. It’s also an outmoded mess that incenses with its dated controls and shoves Ubisoft’s executive-minded priorities directly in the player’s face.

Despite a few missteps, Valley is an overall rush of an experience. Taking cues from BioShock with some Fern Gully on the side, there are few games that can claim to put players into the metal legs of an interdimensional necromantic freerunner, and be bloody infatuating while it does so.

Warriors Orochi 4 is mainly decent due to its total disowning of Dynasty Warriors 9. Even so, the reliance on older and overly stale content mixed in with the new stuff makes for a rather unexciting, if perfectly serviceable, experience.

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is basically Yakuza, but that isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, this is one of the most fun games I’ve played in ages. Hilarious, absurd, and full of juicy combat. Sega has done Kenshiro’s ludicrous adventures justice.

Until Dawn: Rush of Blood may be a brief and silly spin-off, something far removed from 2015’s fantastic adventure game, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a virtual reality game to date, and it’s just a brilliantly entertaining pop horror experience with enjoyable shooty-bang-bang combat.

A mediocre “remaster” of an utterly superb game, which rounds out to a pretty good package overall – provided you’ve never tried it before.

In several ways, Miitomo is the perfect kind of app for Nintendo to bring to mobile devices – it’s unexpected, silly, and it doesn’t make any sense.

Unfinished Business is pretty much a full game in an expansion’s clothing, likely not billed as one due to the single location and lack of story relevance. The premise and new toys are cool, but the brevity of touted additions like ED-209 is disappointing and OmniTower can get too samey. Lovers of Rogue City will get good mileage out of it though, even if it won’t blow anyone away.

the core of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is there, but it feels significantly held back by its adherence to only use MCU marvel characters. It hampered the roster and character design, two constant elements of the experience, and it’s hard to overlook those and see the strong fighting system underneath.

Scarlet and Violet is a pair of obviously rushed products that look so much poorer for following an excellent refreshment in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Regressive and outmoded, the ninth Pokémon generation still boasts some enjoyable content but I couldn’t in good faith say it’s a quality experience. The utterly shameful performance issues hammer home how crudely made it is. It’s staggering just how terribly it runs. We’ve pilloried games for less, but we’re supposed to just accept it here because it’s Pokémon...It’s still fun, sure, but that fun is not enough to excuse its many, many failings. Not at all.

A pretty decent, very well presented 2D action platformer, Death’s Gambit maybe could’ve done with aping Dark Souls a little bit less.

I dare say I’d have had a lot more fun watching someone else playing it as opposed to playing it myself. Simply soaking in the color and music is captivating. All that splendor, however, is balanced with equal weight by the troubling truth that it’s just really, really not that enjoyable to play.

Dead By Daylight is a fantastic concept that, in practice, needed much more work put into it.

It’s a fantastic example of how to do a free-to-play game correctly, and the fact it’s made so much money already through the carrot rather than the stick only goes to show what happens when you don’t treat your audience like cattle.

Scarlet and Violet is a pair of obviously rushed products that look so much poorer for following an excellent refreshment in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Regressive and outmoded, the ninth Pokémon generation still boasts some enjoyable content but I couldn’t in good faith say it’s a quality experience. The utterly shameful performance issues hammer home how crudely made it is. It’s staggering just how terribly it runs. We’ve pilloried games for less, but we’re supposed to just accept it here because it’s Pokémon...It’s still fun, sure, but that fun is not enough to excuse its many, many failings. Not at all.

New dawn, old gameplay! Far Cry New Dawn is perfectly acceptable entertainment. If you liked Far Cry, and want more Far Cry, then New Dawn is more Far Cry. It pays lip service to its apocalyptic premise, but it's still got plenty of Far Cry for you to enjoy.

Days Gone is by far the weakest Sony-backed PS4 exclusive to have come out in a while. Doesn't mean it's bad, it's just not particularly great. It takes inspiration from Red Dead Redemption, The Last of Us, and plenty other games, but fails to find its own voice or sense of charm. It's alright though, if you want yet another zombie game.

However, it does do its absolute best, and in trying still manages to be a fairly enjoyable, if somewhat frustrated, production. At the very least, it’s “more Battlefield“, which is by no means a bad thing – yet – and at its highest points, it’s a bit of silly, Vice-inspired fun.

Andromeda is an undeniable mess, one that is now being hurriedly fixed after it already “enjoyed” its most effective sales period. The state it released in – considering the money and publisher behind it – is hard to conceive, let alone forgive, but a game can be a buggy mess and remain fun. Andromeda is fun… sometimes. Other times it’s a dreary slog through recycled cutscenes, infantile character interactions, and a lot of badly masked loading screens.

The Sinking City revels in its Lovecraft inspirations and tries its very best to put you in the shoes of a detective without holding any hands. It's got a nice moody atmosphere, some great writing, and a heartfelt charm to it...It's also absolute rubbish, and I cannot recommend it. I like it. In fact I've grown remarkably fond of it. It's one of the worst games I've ever actually enjoyed.

Even with my expectations guarded, however, I did not expect just another survival/crafting game that used randomization as a crutch to the point of losing all potential personality...And I at least expected more to fu..ing do.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn isn’t a particularly necessary addition to the Soulslike genre. It doesn’t stand out in any major way, and it’s certainly rough. It is nonetheless amusing in its own scrappy way, the many tools at the player’s disposal are well presented, and after a touchy start it develops into a decent bit of fun...Just a shame they didn’t stick with the trench stuff. Quite a missed opportunity to separate itself from so many similar games on the market. Oh well.

I feel compelled to say again - this has pleasantly become one of my favorite Soulslikes.

I really want the Layers of Fear series to be good, but Layers of Fear 2 pretty much wallows in the same mediocrity its predecessor barely kept its head above...Though they've added tangible threats and a little more variety of gameplay, this sequel feels more like a retread through a bargain basement, severely outdated horror structure. The genre needs a shakeup, and this ain't it.

With its focus on player flexibility and experimentation, backed up by tons of special abilities and character classes, Code Vein offers something engaging, even if its combat can be a little on the irritating side.