Though this arena fighter starts off fun, repetitive missions, boring arenas, and randomized fight elements cause that entertainment to wear off quickly.

Tempest Citadel makes large promises and misses the mark on them all. While it’s certainly playable, it’s a frustrating experience that lacks player engagement. The most redeeming part of this title is the original artwork, which may entice the unsuspecting consumer into purchasing a lackluster entry into the already crowded strategy genre.

A fun RPG with strong tabletop theming held back by poor AI, repetition, and lack of clear signposting.

While it draws upon influences of games long past, it ultimately fails to incorporate more recent innovations in its genre.

We Are Chicago raises real issues that still plague parts of America, and encourages young people to stay away from gang violence, and this goal is praiseworthy – but between the flat graphics, the uninspired characters, and the nausea-inducing camera movement, We Are Chicago isn't an enjoyable gaming experience.

La Résistance is an overpriced package of underwhelming mechanics and bloated focus trees. You’d do best to avoid this expansion until it goes on sale.

While City of the Shroud, a real-time strategy RPG, has some interesting design ideas in theory, in practice these designs fall flat.

Book of Demons is a beautiful roguelite dungeon crawler with enemy variety and a plethora of interesting systems built upon a sheer lack of player-side input. A decent time waster, but difficult to recommend at launch prices.

This metroidvania has great 2D graphics, but is marred by an overplayed storyline, bland enemies, and serious bugs.

Though full of beautiful art and interesting lore, this point-and-click adventure is hindered by bugs, poor mechanics, and is in need of much more environmental interaction.

While a serviceable dungeon crawler, the lack of polish keeps Conglomerate 451 from being truly engaging.

A follow-up to Job Simulator that loses most of the humor that made that title so great.

Though the atmosphere is beautiful and the sound design is immersively eerie, plot holes and disturbingly accepted character choices greatly hinder this walking simulator.

When a game isn't visually appealing, nor long, and when its puzzles are as simple as clunky controls make them painful, then it better be good in terms of story. Bucket Detective is not. And the frustration from the lack of a good narrative is made all so much more frustrating by the fact that there is potential here in pockets, including some good humor, silly art, and cute music.

With deadly bugs that prevent key gameplay mechanics, zero replayability, and an astonishingly small amount of content (<30 minutes to complete), Beat the Game is a visual masterpiece more akin to a brief bad trip at a Tomorrowland than an actual game. If you’re into audio or music production and are looking for something that will let you develop and explore it in a different light, you will be disappointed. However, when it comes to cinematography, BtG is a high nine. With a bit more care and effort from solid game and sound designers, this novelty release could have been great. And if you need drugs to enjoy music, you’re doing it wrong.

With Sonic and Mario in the spotlight again, Bubsy takes another swipe at being a lovable mascot, but doesn’t succeed in capturing the same sentiment. Ultimately, Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back (Bubsy), the platforming game, arrives as the two-decades-too-late 5th entry in the series. Despite excellent controls, the title does not overcome some of its more pressing shortcomings, such as level design, resulting in a sub-par gaming experience.

WOUNDED is a visually striking and atmospheric indie title that needed better core mechanics.

Indie platformer The Free Ones currently struggles with the absence of simply too many game essentials to be forgiven. Its fast-paced grappling action does lend a touch of excitement to its otherwise stagnant gameplay, and its potential, while imprisoned now, could be unleashed with future developer updates.

While there are a few interesting concepts at play in Jon Shafer’s At the Gates, they frequently go underdeveloped, leading to a lackluster experience.

Solo is a meditative relationship questionnaire under the guise of an aesthetically-simple puzzler. Its desire to play the love doctor lends a unique flavor to its otherwise bland and hodgepodge puzzle gameplay, but it’s not enough to save it from its painful inability to let its hair down and stay awhile.

Though the narrative and moral questions presented are interesting, this horror game is marred by frustratingly tedious gameplay and lacking mechanics.

Yume Nikki: Dream Diary is a visually faithful recreation of the original Yume Nikki, but beyond that, it falls short. A slew of game-breaking bugs and unintuitive gameplay creates a disappointing experience not worth the asking price.

Suicide Guy caters to the underserved demographic of people who enjoy 3D puzzle platformers, except this serving is more of a home-cooked meal from Grandma’s house after she had gotten dementia. It’s made with love, and is good at certain parts, but in the end, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Graphics and level design can be clever at times, but are essentially ruined by the frustrating physics and collision, lack of any good music, repetitive sound effects, half-finished animations, and stale platforming. I want to love Suicide Guy, and I do, in a way -- I appreciate the effort that was made, but when I was done I felt unsatisfied and dead inside.

This entry in the Just Cause series has taken itself too seriously, sucking the fun out of what should be a blast.

Subject A-119 makes a strong showing with a variety of abilities, but the puzzles, through mechanical and logical limitations, quickly fatigue the player. Puzzle addicts might be tempted to explore this title but, overall, Subject A-119 mechanics are more confusing than the actual puzzles, ultimately leaving players underwhelmed.

The development team behind Alder’s Blood has clearly put a lot of thought into crafting a striking experience, and while the game has style and an engaging core gameplay loop, it’s also so shaky and unpolished we find it hard to recommend.

While fans of turn-based strategy might find some features to be enjoyable, long-time players of the Jagged Alliance series and strategy connoisseurs might feel shortchanged of the beloved gameplay of this genre.

Raiders of the Broken Planet just isn’t there yet. While an alpha build of the title showed promise, the title has much development ground to cover yet. Raiders of the Broken Planet isn’t half-baked: it barely got into the oven before players were encouraged to start eating the dough.