The Vanishing of Ethan Carter is an early narrative adventure game that outdoes some of its later counterparts in ambition. That ambition is sometimes misguided and ultimately problematic for the storytelling, but a moving final scene with a major reveal salvages the overall story. Mixing in lots of different game mechanics and puzzles is an interesting pre-Edith Finch look at the genre. It still looks gorgeous now four years on from its original release, and it delivers a strong sense of time and place, but above all else, Ethan Carter is trying to move you with its narrative. In that regard, it's a story worth telling, but not always a story well told.

If you've played Baseball Riot, or frankly any one of the hundreds of similar games on the smartphone market, you've already played Tennis in the Face. The bland design means that it doesn't stand out from the crowd, but the stages are competently built.

If the game worked smoothly, it would be easy to recommend purchasing the game. As it stands, I would recommend waiting for an update before taking the plunge.

Gravel attempts to create a full arcade racer with a serious side. It feels like a welcome amalgamation of a number of familiar arcade titles, distilling the racing elements and doing away with distractions and diversions. While this allows the player to jump into race after race after race, it makes it feel one-dimensional at times. However, the arcade racing is certainly fun and engaging, and it's fully adaptable to any racing level. Fans of old-school racing games should certainly enjoy Gravel. Milestone has created something that's been missing in the genre, and though imperfect, it's a good start to what may be a new recurring franchise.

Cities Skylines is an essential metropolitan simulator, but some of its DLCs aren’t all that necessary. Parklife might be the least essential of the major updates so far. Its mechanics don’t impact or benefit the systems of the main game enough, and individual building objects aren’t attractive either. However the ability to shape a park space on both a larger and smaller scale does make cities feel more alive, more lived in and more like mankind has carved a space into the natural landscape. Die-hard fans of the game will jump at the chance to fine-tune and beautify their creations, but the casual city planner probably won’t find enough here to be worth the investment.

Underneath its flaws, Rogue Trooper Redux is good, old-fashioned fun. Its linear levels are solidly designed and offer a variety of ways to approach the objective at hand. Different play styles are also encouraged with stealth, distractions or running in and mortaring everything in sight all being viable tactics. Multiplayer exists, and that's about all that can be said about that. However, Rogue Trooper is a 2006 game, and Redux still feels like one. Just to name a few of its flaws, the cover system is clumsy, attempts at platforming are awkward, switching weapons is imprecise, the enemy AI have a collective IQ of seven, and it occasionally checkpoints when the entire room is shooting at you. Simply put, when you're not annoyed with Rogue Trooper, you're going to be having a good time with it.

If you grew up playing Q*bert, the Rebooted package is both a revitalization of a formula that you already enjoy, as well as a nostalgic trip down a colorful and snake-infested memory lane. For everyone else, however, it doesn't have the lasting appeal of a contemporary puzzler.

It's not all bad. The combat and the flying are legitimately amazing in Anthem. They're so good that, despite everything else about the game being quite bad, I still thought about playing the game during my hours away from it. In a few years, Anthem might be a good experience. Today, it's hard to recommend.

The mixture of resources and weapons can create exciting scenarios as rockets and lasers fly across the screen, but there is still a large element of strategy in what you're doing. The game leans more towards those who are a fan of the genre and others won't feel the need to play past the story, but it still does a serviceable job at trying to cater to a wider audience.

Livelock at its core is a simple and enjoyable twin-stick shooter that faltered due to an equal amount of hits and misses in the heart of the experience.

My Hero Academia: All's Justice is an exceedingly generous fighting game that, unfortunately, disappoints in a lot of key areas. If you've got a tolerance for some sloppy fighting mechanics, or if you're enough of a My Hero Academia fan to look past the issues, you can still have a good time here! However, there are definitely better 3D arena fighters out there.

Hunter's Legacy is an action-adventure game that offers a story that has been told over and over in many forms without offering much that is different. With different locations to explore and teleporters to help you get around, the game feels quite large. Ultimately, though, you'll end up annoyed, potentially lost and feeling defeated on a number of different occasions whilst playing it; this lets the game down. The appearance of the game is one of its strongest points, but while it is fun in parts and generally an enjoyable experience, Hunter's Legacy just isn't quite the cat's pyjamas.

The game is slow-paced and simple, a strategy title much in keeping with checkers. Although not the same game, it's fun in the same way; it's simple yet surprisingly hard from time to time as you adjust to new opposing skills. Unfortunately the campaign can become monotonous, while multiplayer lacks online capability and much purpose. Overall, the game is no more than average in any way.

While there is fun to be had here, Super Mutant Alien Assault quickly gets repetitive because of the short levels and the fact that you only have 12 levels to complete.

If you've played the developer's other titles then this one isn't any different; it largely works as intended and still provides a quick Gamerscore fix if that's what you're looking for. If you're new to the developer's output, while the game is a decent entry point for those new to the genre, it's not their best work. With Noir Chronicles: City of Crime, Artifex Mundi has made you an adventure game you can refuse.

While playing Trackmania Turbo, the same two words kept cropping up -- missed potential. The game does have some very creative tracks, and the trackcreator is a fun mode if you want to simply mess about and see what happens, but a lot of the game takes some unexciting turns.

Impact Winter can be an immersive survival game for those who are able to look past the technical issues that could possibly hurt the gameplay for some. Stepping out into The Void in order to scavenge numerous locations while trying to keep your team alive means having to brave the constant stuttering. Discovering new landmarks is addictive, but the odd loading screen slowdown along with some other grating issues threaten to overshadow what should be a tense and gripping experience.

Doodle God: Ultimate Edition is the most complete version of the title to be released to date but compared to some of it predecessors that are available on other formats, not much has changed.

Has-Been Heroes is an initially appealing title that quickly becomes bogged down by a lack of good instructions, too much luck-based randomness, and permadeath that never quits. The clunky controls are very non-intuitive, making it hard to get comfortable with gameplay. The game does have a huge number of unlockables that fans will enjoy discovering, but for anyone struggling with the game's difficulty, it's doubtful that most of these goodies will ever be seen. For those who enjoy rogue-type games and don't mind a stiff challenge, this title could be a gem. For those of us defeated by that boss just one too many times, however, Heroes is an exercise in frustration.

Mighty No. 9 fails to fill the shiny blue, metallic, oversized boots of its predecessor. The game manages to capture the essentials of the previous titles without capturing the essence.

Whilst initially amusing, killing the bad guy soon starts to feel like a chore. The killing is originally hilarious, becomes annoying in the middle and seems to pick up again towards the end. The deaths and the animations are amusing, as are the bonus levels, and the story of each bad guy is funny and unique. Unfortunately, the game is let down by some jerky controls and the fact that, essentially, you are just doing the same thing over and over.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with Aliens: Fireteam Elite and aside from a handful of bugs, the game shows promise of a solid third-person co-op survival game. The rich lore and stunning level design put it on par with other successful Alien titles in terms of presentation (if not in terms of being faithful to the source material with its hordes of papier-mâché Xenomorphs), and although there isn’t anything revolutionary about the gameplay, the experience itself feels well crafted. I hope to see some of the issues resolved in the near future, but can happily say that this isn’t just another game to toss on the Aliens failure heap.

Runestone Keeper is a game that may give back as much as you put into it. Mechanically it's extremely simple and anyone will be able to get to grips with it. However, if the core gameplay features frustrate you, it can be tempting to give up after a short while due to the fact that luck is regularly against you. If you do persist, though, it is an enjoyable title that offers a rewarding experience.

The game should be given credit for its incredible performance with a lot of enemies onscreen, and the different graphical settings that let players relive the past are a nice touch. But on the content side, Hyper Sentinel is thin, with only 12 levels and three game modes that don't do enough differently to hold the attention of anyone except hardcore fans.

The presentation is cute and fun, and most of the gameplay is generally challenging without being too difficult. As a player, it is quite satisfying to puzzle your way through the roguelike levels defeating all of the foes, uncovering the secrets and grabbing all of the collectibles. Unfortunately, all of that hard work feels short-changed when the difficulty spikes so sharply at the end of a multistage level.

Earthfall is a decent try at filling the Left 4 Dead 3 hole in our hearts, but it's rarely strong enough to be anything other than a lesser imitation of that classic series. Occasionally, the AI director will put on its best show and it'll feel exactly as fans of this sort of game want it to feel, but those moments are too few and far between. With flat characters, AI issues on both sides of the war, and above all else, some glaring pacing problems, Earthfall is a tough sell when the game it's cribbing so closely is backward compatible and still superior a decade later.

Through The Woods is a horror game that delivers some good scares, just not really in the way that was intended. Enemy encounters are easy to overcome and at worst take just a bit of trial and error. The more effective scares come from the many stories you'll read as you span the woods of Norway looking for your son. Throw in some solid sound design, including an infrequent but effective soundtrack, and it's a game that's worth playing for horror fans, so long as you know it's not just some branches that are broken in these woods.

With competent, if simple, hack and slash action, a short but varied story mode and a decent amount of outside content to encourage replaying, it's a game that fans of the show or the genre may find enjoyable. However, if you're just looking for a quality game to spend some time with, RWBY shouldn't be your first or second choice thanks to a total lack of character development that leaves half the game's heart simply gone and enemy design that would be worthy of a low score.