The result is a derivative, barely functional copycat that doesn’t deign to tutorialise itself. When every tenth game is inspired by Balatro, JokerJack needed to be so, so much more than whatever this is.

I have a theory. Anyone with eyes and opposable thumbs would have told EpiXR Games that Wolf Pack – Howling Spirits wasn’t ready for release. It’s a miracle that it even passed certification.

Unless Monster Ramp Racing drops its strange determination to only use two buttons - an accelerate and brake - it’s going to remain virtually unplayable.

I can imagine people looking at the price and number of wordsearches and hovering over the ‘Buy’ button. But Word Quest Pirates isn’t worth it. It’s a Groundhog Day of the same puzzles, the same words, and the same layouts. If you manage to reach the end of all 210 puzzles then you’re a better pirate than I.

Even cozy games need variety, pay-offs or moments of interest. Legends Aligned: Land of Order has none of those things. As a cozy game, it’s too one-note to instill feelings of comfort.

Alex the Rabbit wasn’t a big hit in our house. While we appreciated the Mario-like presentation, it was sorely lacking some important elements. It didn’t offer any challenge for three out of its four worlds, and it didn’t offer any innovation to replace it.

Alpacapaca Double Dash is not what the average person would call good. It’s a little shy of bad, in all honesty, as I’d have stronger words. It’s a clumsy, buggy, garish mess of a platformer, and I wanted to put it down after the first level.

I’m at a loss. There’s no good way of playing Sora - Winds of the Jungle, and I’m not convinced EpiXR Games know how they want you to play it, either. It’s a flying conundrum, and we reached the game’s end wondering why anyone bothered.

In tycoon terms, Baking Time is a bit of a dud. By some margin it’s the worst of the genre that we’ve played; a monotonous trudge through bakery after bakery. It’s even got the temerity to make you do it for dozens of hours.

Ultimately, it’s the controls that doomed Lara Returns to the Castle: when the basic hopping about turned out to be less than enjoyable, there was only one way that things were going to go.

Garten of Banban 8 misses the target by some way. A puzzle horror game this is not, with activities stretching the definition of puzzle, and an adventure devoid of scares entirely. It’s a big step backwards for a series; one that was improving incrementally with each release.

Any game that lets you pull on your Velociraptor suit should, at the very least, be thrilling. Somehow, Raptor Revenge can’t even manage that. It takes one of the coolest animals to have ever lived, files off their claws and makes them a bin collector. That’s where Evolution takes you, I suppose.

Apartment No 129 is a tricky game to review because, essentially, there are a lot of broken elements, and the control system is mayhem at times. But if you can somehow get around that, there is a reasonably decent, creepy game underneath.

There’s only one group of people who would get anything from RoboHero, and that’s achievement hounds. For everyone else, RoboHero is the most challenge-less puzzle game that we can recall. It’s a sudoku with only one number still to be filled out; a wordsearch with all the irrelevant letters redacted. It’s a puzzle in search of a point.

Hidden object fans, run away. There is no story to speak of, the art is a washout, and it never seems to end. Enchantment 2 Sun’s Tear is what happens when hidden object games go wrong.

I can see the appeal in making One Button Games 5-in-1 vol 2. There’s a challenge in creating these games. You can see how the designers have done back-flips to make them function, incorporating hold-presses of the A button just as much as taps. But as fun as they must have been to make, we are the ones who have to play them. And I rarely found that process to be fun.

Gridz Keeper is 25-minutes of random lever pulling and the odd jolt of satisfaction when a puzzle is solved. If we’re honest, we’d rather spend that time head-shotting undead hordes in a more conventional zombie game.

It feels like there is potential for a good game in there somewhere, but there is not enough content in El Coco to fulfill it. The game plays like a prototype or a tech demo rather than a fully fledged product in its own right.

S. Prysm Destroyer only has a sheepish answer to the question of ‘why should run-and-gunner fans play this game?’. It’s got some quirky PS1 graphics and wasp-woman butts. That wasn’t enough for us, and it’s probably not for you, either. We like a little more substance to our shooters, even at a budget price.

Ah, Love! Season 3 somehow holds the crown for the best of the series so far. No, it isn’t for interesting gameplay, stellar puzzles with thoughtful level design, or any other innate value associated with gameplay. It’s simply because it made the correct choice of halving the number of stages included.

Ah, Love! Season 2 takes everything it has from its previous entry, and that leaves it scrambling for any reason to exist.

As a side-scrolling beat ‘em up, Terrifier: The ARTcade Game is very generic, with nothing to really shout about. And as a Terrifier tie-in, it feels like the license hasn’t been utilised well at all. It is a game with little substance, and a missed opportunity.

Aery - Winter Wonderland is horribly jarring. ‘Wonderland’ is not the term we would use.

Ah, Love! combines puzzles and brainpower to achieve its narrative. But despite the singular positive of introducing various mechanics, issues such as not using mechanics past their introduction, mediocre level design, and abysmal presentation, all result in a game slightly above the worst of the genre.

Adrenaline Rampage fails to provide any appreciable adrenaline hit. It isn’t particularly rampage-y either. Unfortunately, Adrenaline Jump-and-shoot-a-bit doesn’t have the same ring.

I’ve struggled with Cards We’re Dealt. Yes, it all runs fine, and the multiplayer works okay, but I’ve been left disappointed by pretty much everything else – the visuals, the sound, the gameplay and the controls. If ever a game has failed to click, this is it.

If you’re curious about retro-inspired horror and don’t mind rough edges, Acre Crisis might scratch a weird itch. But if you value polish, consistent mechanics, and coherent design then you’ll likely find more frustration than fright.

Axis Football 2026 allows you to customise a team and playbooks and comes with a good-looking Franchise mode, at least on the surface. But it seems to forget the proof is in the pudding and it will be judged by some really bad gameplay on the gridiron itself. If American Football had a treacle mode, then Axis Football would have its gameplay speed nailed

Goat Out of Hell might work better had it been titled Game Out of Hell, as that is how it feels. A lack of innovation or introduction regarding stage design and mechanics, leaves the couple that are present to burn out and fade away about ten minutes in.

Windborn - Echoes of the Night has none of that trademark Aery calmness. Its entire focus is on relentlessly hitting checkpoints against a strict time limit. To be honest, the whole package feels a bit half-baked. It's a real shame.

Mel The Cat won’t hurt anyone. It’s an inoffensive title designed for about half an hour of fun, yet sadly it can’t even achieve that, with no second of your half an hour playthrough introducing any resemblance of enjoyment.

Football Manager 26 Console is incredibly disappointing right now. I have a strong feeling that in six months’ time, after a load of patches and optimisation updates, this might be a different beast altogether, as framerate issues and bugs are pushed to one side. But we can only review what is in front of us, and the sad reality is that Football Manager 26 Console, at times, borders on the unplayable.

Bee Flowers: Save the Garden is an amalgamation of letdowns, missed potential and repetitive gameplay and level design.

If you played the first Electronics Puzzle Lab, then there is absolutely nothing new here in Electronics Puzzle Lab 2. It feels like a majorly missed opportunity to add something, anything, new. Instead, there are fewer levels, fewer components, and the same frustrations. To many, this will exist purely for achievement fodder, which, if you can believe it, is exactly how the first game felt too.

To use an apt metaphor for Knight Quest: Goblins Raid’s quality, a doubled edged blade would be most fitting; it’s a polished, fun medieval platformer, however a combination of perplexing gameplay and level design decisions, result in a self inflicted wound that damages the very platforming foundations so strongly needed for a title such as this to work.

There are times when Deepest Trench succeeds at pulling players into its dark, watery world, especially when two divers are working together to survive impossible odds. Yet these successes are fleeting, and the game too often feels rough around the edges. What is an excellent concept is sunk by the game itself.

Hot Stakes Casino – American Roulette does absolutely nothing that other roulette games in bigger titles already do. The only additions are the minigames, that are very luck-based, and the character artwork, that just aren’t very good.

I’ve played dozens of KEMCO games over the years, and most of those have very much been in the retro camp, but Dragon Ruins is the perfect blend of too retro, in terms of the visuals, and not enough gameplay.

If you thought Ed & Edda: Grand Prix - Racing Champions would be the next big racing game, your idyllic bubble will burst upon playing.

If you’re looking for a Zuma game, go and play the original. Or maybe even spend time with Zumania. Whatever you do, keep away from the Zumba - Treasure of the Marble Sea. There ain’t no treasures hidden here. Or if there are, they are buried so deep that you'll drown in frustration before you get anywhere near them.

The gameplay loop found in Idle Wizard is pretty dull, but if you are desperate for some Gamerscore, have at it. Otherwise, I’d leave this one well alone.

I wanted to like Demolish & Build 3 more than I did, and much of that is down to the awful controls. In fact, at times it just feels impossible to use. It’s not helped by a poor tutorial and some aged visuals.

Move over House of Wolves, for there’s a new worst Destiny expansion in town, and it goes by the name of Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate.

Zombies Overloaded, rather fittingly, is a soulless, mindless grind - a lifeless, repetitive shooter that buries any semblance of fun under six feet of poor design.

Blazing Trail is awful, not to put too fine a point on it. There is no fun to be found, it looks dull and I’d rather be playing anything else.

Crazy Cats vs Crazy Cyborgs is not worth your time, nor is it worth your money. Even at its budget friendly price, the game has next to nothing going for it bar visuals and speed of completion.

Cyber Tank Nano is only appropriate for those willing to endure a perpetual state of confusion from the rage inducing solutions, made all the more disappointing due to the few things this title does do right, and in turn, what it could have been.

Wizard Of Legend 2 starts strong but fails to deliver a compelling reason to continue playing once stagnation sets in. Unfortunately, that sets in sooner rather than later and mires the whole experience.

The frustrating gameplay and unintuitive design made this one a real slog to finish, hence I wouldn’t really recommend Wings of Endless unless you feel either the comedy will land for you, or the visuals can hard carry the experience.

Yes, Trident’s Tale looks fine when static, and yes the narrative is okay (if cliched), but from there, this one is a huge struggle.

War Robots: Frontiers does make a decent fist of most of the requirements of the online shooter genre, but fails on perhaps the most important - the actual online bit. The servers are flakier than a croissant factory, and as a result the whole game experience is affected, as it is impossible to rank yourself up when the game thinks that you have never finished a match.

The best I can say about Cyber Mission is that it runs okay, and that the two player side of things is better than the solo play. Other than that, it’s one to avoid.

With a cheap price tag and the promise of easy achievements and bags of Gamerscore, Pirate Trails is very much what you would expect from Afil Games and their seeming obsession with cheap games; a below average gaming experience that will be forgotten as that last achievement ping is heard.

Stellar Docks fails to deliver anything close to challenging with its Sokoban setup. Having forty levels is more of a hindrance than a positive when the same mechanic is heavily relied upon for the duration.

Pocket Puzzle on Xbox is lacking any substance at all, both in gameplay and presentation. And that means it is unfortunately another release that falls into the bucket of achievement fodder.

You’ll be glad when Windborn: Journey to the South is over, fully understanding why EpiXR have decided to separate this from the otherwise decent Aery series. With visual pop-in that is off the scale, whether you can complete a stage without hassle and annoyance very much feels like it is in the hands of the avian gods. And no amount of zen-like promise will ever overcome that.

We can’t walk away from Sokomonster and pretend we enjoyed our time with it, but aside from building frustrations at the solving of each puzzle, it rarely does anything wrong. We much prefer the pushing of SokoCrab over the sliding of this little monster, but your personal decision may vary.

Galaxy Kingdoms does the unthinkable and turns a twin stick shooter, one of the very finest of genres, into a dull gaming experience. The main problem is found in the speed of the gunplay; it is so slow, and it seemingly takes longer to reload a magazine than it does to empty it, that it totally kills any flow or urgency.

It’s almost criminal that Highway Police Simulator is available to buy when it’s such a mess, so please put your wallet down and step away peacefully.

Pure Mini Golf is far from a competitor in the world of virtual crazy golf. Mostly it’s a reminder that aesthetics alone cannot compensate for flawed gameplay.

Duck Run is weirdly addictive, slightly compelling, but far from decent. Come for the achievements if you must, but don’t say we didn’t warn you about the frustrations of the gameplay.

Kiki - A Vibrant 3D Platformer is a game low on ideas, which even then are poorly implemented. As platformers go, it’s a stinker.

Billy’s Game Show may be short but it is full of frustrations and lacking any real scares.

There is a good game buried deep inside Robin Hood – Sherwood Builders, trying to get out, but the layers of nonsense over the top do a pretty good job of smothering it.

Asphalt Legends Unite is a poor racer that attempts to make you buy your way up the leaderboards.

There's hardly any action to get stuck into in Cilla, the story is poorly presented, running a twist that can be seen a mile away and it doesn’t look great.

The big issue is that Foxyrush just isn’t any fun to play. It looks dull, the actual gameplay is dull, and there is no hook, no sense of needing to see the next level, to found anywhere.

Even the low price point and decent number of levels can't save Bouncy Chicken from being a frustrating puzzle experience.

99p or not, a broken game is a broken game. And that means Mr Trials should be avoided at all costs - unless you have the patience of a saint and are happy to run through completed levels over and over again.

Electronics Puzzle Lab hopes to inspire players into taking an interest in electronics. After playing it, the opposite may be more likely.

15in1 Solitaire bundles in some confusing, poorly tutorialised and - on occasion - broken variants of Solitaire, which is no use to anyone. Then someone ties weights to the controls, making them as leaden and inaccurate as you will ever find.

Despite the noticeable jump up in overall presentation, this third outing for the Shockmen is also their weakest. The novel approach of the first game, and the crazy boss designs of the second, have both been replaced in Cyber Citizen Shockman 3: The Princess from Another World, leaving an incredibly generic 2D side-scroller.

Argonauts Agency 6: Missing Daughter - an impossible challenge for any level designer. Can you create something new with no new materials? Can you deliver something fresh when there have been five previous games that have used the same ingredients as you? The answer is, inevitably, no. The problem was in the question. There was no way this was going to be anything but a chore.

Master Maker 3D Ultimate is the ultimate example of how not to make a game. It is boring, controls poorly and has almost no redeeming features. This is one to avoid.

Toadomination mostly left us bemused. It’s a perfectly fine twin-stick shooter and roguelike that feels like it’s been sabotaged. Nothing feels right, from the movement to the guns to the bosses. There are umpteen games like this on the market, and we’re willing to bet that most of them have Toadomination licked.

Aery - Stone Age is a poor example of a deteriorating game series. While it might have dodged the bullet of a game-breaking bug, it gets mown down by copy-paste levels, poor collectible placement, and a complete lack of anything resembling the Stone Age.

Emulating Space Invaders was always going to be a challenge, mainly because some bells and whistles were needed to update that classic for a modern audience. But SHMUP Mania goes the other way. It takes things out, making a minimalist game even more minimalist, and the result is a snooze ’em up that you can safely ignore. ‘Mania’ indeed.

Chemically Bonded found our weak spot and jammed fingernails into it for three hours. We don’t imagine that it will be this painful for everyone: you might have a greater resistance to what we found to be aimless descriptions, rambling plotting and terrible voice-acting. But reviews are opinions, and our opinion is that you could randomly pick pretty much any other visual novel and feel less tortured than we were in Chemically Bonded.

I know it is an old game reworked, and many do have a hankering for the retro, but it’s hard to make a case for Blade of Darkness being the game to advance the case of the old getting remastered.

You get fifteen minutes of on-rails shooting where you don’t get to move or even aim - not really. Green Soldiers Heroes does all of this for you, whether you like it or not, leaving you to hold RT and watch as enemy life bars deplete.

Aery – Calm Mind 4 is about the twelfth regurgitation too far. The same levels arrive in the same arrangements, and we’re meant to pay for the privilege. When visual issues and game-breaking bugs reduce the playable levels from eleven down to eight, it’s hard to make a case for anyone to pay for it.

We implore you: read the myth of Sisyphus or snuggle up with the works of Camus instead. Heavy Burden is no way to brush up on either. It’s a mashup of some of the things we hate most in games - escort missions, first-person platforming and cruel failure states - with a half-hearted gesture towards philosophy. Praise Zeus that we only had to push this rock up the mountain once.

Pipe Dream has the barest whisper of a puzzle-platforming idea, and only gets ten minutes into exploring it. We wondered if we were missing something. Did we take a wrong turn? Did we download a demo and not the game? No, it really is a sliver, a crumb of a game - one that can’t even justify its low £4.19 price tag.

For fans of pinball, Smoots Pinball is a definite avoid. Even for younger gamers, arguably who the game is really pitched at, there still isn’t really much to recommend here.

Crashy Laps very much does what it says on the tin, chucking you into an old school racer that is intent on crashing. Poor visuals, terrible audio and a 'feel’ that is nothing short of unique fail to help this racer speed away from the grid, let alone be able to compete for podiums.

Heads Up! Phones Down Edition is not a bad game: it’s just an unnecessary one. Slap £33.49 on that unnecessary game and, well, we creep slowly out of the room to play The Jackbox Party Pack games.

Someone clearly believes in Yuko and the Akuma Menace. That someone isn’t us, though. The only thing that gave us enjoyment while playing Yuko and the Akuma Menace was working out what the designers were trying to achieve.

It may have a penguin on the cover, but The Super Penguboy is a lame duck. He comes with a jetpack that barely works and a gun that’s more effective at sending him to his doom. You could buy this shoddy little morsel for 2000G and the cheap £4.99 price, but you’d have to wonder if you were giving up a little fragment of your soul.

There is a lot of potential in a game adaptation of A Christmas Carol, and Ebenezer and the Invisible World makes a valiant effort. But this pudding needed to sing in the copper a little longer.

There is probably a good game in here somewhere, but it feels like Stray Souls needed more time in development to iron out the bugs and hone the mechanics.

The Sisters 2: Road to Fame alternates between being awkward to navigate and fundamentally broken, which aren’t the best two outcomes in the world. We could make excuses for it and say the minigames are fine, but ‘fine’ isn’t going to make us cough up £33.49.

I really wanted to like Hellboy Web of Wyrd, from the announcement trailer reveal, it looked amazing. Technically that is still true - it does looks amazing. Yet sadly it doesn’t have the substance to back up the fantastic style. Maybe hardcore fans will find more joy, but Web of Wyrd feels tricky to recommend to even the most dedicated fans.

Truck Driver: The American Dream needs a few patches to get up to speed. This American dream is far from being fully realised.

Skull Island: Rise of Kong is an empty series of valleys where it’s easier to get lost than killed. We wanted the kind of bad that is stupid, ridiculous and embarrassing - we might have had fun with that. Dull-bad, though? That’s the worst.

We’ve hate-played games before, but hate is a strong word in the case of Royal Roads 3. It’s more that we persisted in a state of bored disbelief. Surely something interesting is going to happen. Surely we’re going to end up somewhere less brown, rather than more. It’s almost impressive that no, it makes no attempt to do anything of the sort.

The real test in Ball laB II is not in how many levels you will actually manage to complete. It's more to do with how many deaths you'll be able to take before you switch off and uninstall.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Quest for Balance tries to do way too much. The gameplay is unfocused, inconsistent, and unpolished. And the refined storytelling that made the original show so beloved is completely absent.

Rainbow High: Runway Rush is a series of fetch quests in a joyless maze. We found ourselves lost in identical crossroads, searching for Studio 2 (it was in class #93, obvs). Our mascara was running and our brain frazzling. We’ve talked to our kids, and apparently that is not what the show is about.