Red Goddess may lack a touch of the polish that players find from big-budget, AAA games, but it more than makes up for this with what it offers. Gorgeous lands to explore, artful storytelling, and well-designed controls come together to forge a great experience.

In essence, In Nightmare is a narrative heavy puzzle game where all too often you must engage in more action heavy scenes in order to progress. That, coupled with frequent sections where you must navigate a room of either a single monster or multiple and avoid detection, caused the game to wear out its welcome sooner than it should have. When it’s just puzzles where you have have all the time in the world to reason out is when the game works best, and I found myself wishing for more of that as the game went on.

Bugs, choppy frame rate, and some finicky controls make exploring the drab and sterile environments a clunky chore. There is something here, though.

Bedlam is like a love letter to gaming’s history, and a relatively well-written one. By staying true to the idea of the game in which Quinn/Athena is trapped, it keeps itself well-centered.

When looking at #KillAllZombies as nothing but a time waster, the game stands up as “ok.” If you have 10 or 15 minutes to spare and want to play a video game but don’t have time to really become immersed into a game’s world, there are worse choices out there. The problem is, the complete lack of story and lack of maps makes this title feel pretty shallow.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted is a great collection of FNaF titles for the series veteran looking for Switch versions, or for those searching out the additional bonus content, but the issues that come with the VR conversion, as well as the fact that the base games as a whole can easily lead to boredom and frustration for those not fully invested in the timeline and lore mean this is a niche collection for a niche audience.

Despite my issues connecting to servers and the poor graphical performance on PS5, I’ve quite enjoyed my time on Solar Crown’s Hong Kong Island. The driving mechanics are easily the best the series has ever had, and the cars sound and feel viscerally dynamic. It’s a shame that a game that places such a strong emphasis on realistic immersion and map detail is dragged down by poor graphical performance and always-online server issues. Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown has the potential to overtake its rivals but it has too many faults slowing it down in its current state.

Despite efforts to include a vast collection of Dragon Ball characters and references in The Breakers, going as far as to provide a somewhat logical explanation of why it is possible for dead villains and normal civilians being able to transform into your favorite heroes, the game is ultimately let down by its poor mechanics and systems. Instead of giving players a chance to sink their teeth into a new way to enjoy the storied franchise, Dragon Ball: The Breakers will only be consigned to the place of a bad memory, much like a poor filler episode of an anime.

Forcibly pushing players together in order to tackle the later main quests isn’t the experience fans wanted, nor is a PvP system that requires consent before it really kicks off, regardless of where you are.

There’s potential here, and a lot of the game’s promise is steeped in maybes and the possibilities that lay behind future updates; right now, Eternal Crusade is an undercooked, bare-bones affair that can, at times, produce a compelling shootout, but on the whole remains a rote and subpar game.

Everything that was added to keep this from being a straight rip-off only ended up getting in the way, and that brought the entire experience crumbling down.

Arguably the biggest flaw with Overkill’s The Walking Dead is just how generic and bland it feels.

With its soothing overall look and feel, Koi isn’t likely to appeal to those who prefer their games gritty, dark, or driven by intense stories. For fans of a more casual sort or those who just want a break, though, it fills its niche very well.

While its soundtrack does a very solid job of engrossing you in its established world, the aesthetically unpleasing presentation takes away from this emotional adventure.

Aside from some brief fun to be had with the three machines, Wolfenstein Cyberpilot is hugely disappointing. What could have been a perfect way of getting a different perspective on Wolfenstein’s world is actually a tedious action game with a severe lack of content and none of what makes the series great.

If you’re all about settlement building then Wasteland Workshop will be right up your alley, but ultimately, these new additions aren’t going to change anyone’s mind who wasn’t already a fan.

Ultimately, Guards embraces a design so simplistic that it feels as though it’s falling short of itself. The gameplay can be fun and challenging, but it also falls into a rut pretty quickly. Unlocking and upgrading all of the available heroes takes a considerable amount of time, with most of your time spent retreading the same roads over and over.

There just isn’t anything strong enough to keep you interested after the fifth time a Quetzalcoatlus drops you into the jaws of Terry the T-Rex, or off the side of a mountain, or into the depths of hell, or — you get the picture.

Extinction has some fine enough ideas, but every aspect of its execution, from the narrative to the combat, feels generic and half-baked.

Right now, 7 Days To Die is an extremely shoddy release on the PS4. Hardcore fans who love crafting and survival games may find a potential time sink here, but I find it hard to recommend this title to anyone else just looking for a game to occupy themselves with during this summer drought. Don’t Starve is available on PS4. Try that one instead.

The only people who should consider Agony are people that want a truly hardcore, even at the expense of enjoyment, survival horror game that will put your patience to the test. Or, someone that really wants to experience a truly horrifying take on hell that we’ve never seen before, complete with actual torture. That’s the only value I can eek out of Agony, and that’s a damned shame.

You won’t find anything that’s truly groundbreaking here, but you may find a relaxing experience if you’re the type of person that’s always wanted to grow a desk plant but just haven’t had luck with the real-world variety.

Nobody expected the latest Bubsy game to be any good and I’m sorry to say that those expectations were completely correct. Stay far away from it. Go play Mario or something instead.

All in all, I Can’t Escape: Darkness is a very simple, though difficult, game. It’s squarely rooted in the past, with the only modern touch being the Steam-based scoreboards.

Funk of Titans is a game full of missed opportunities and it’s really a shame. The game has a solid premise that would be good for some great laughs and varied gameplay, it just never seems to deliver.

While the story behind the Mandrake Facility staff’s disappearance is engaging enough, the slow pace and technical issues make it a disjointed one to follow.

One Way Trip was an extremely hard story to find any fun in. Its biggest asset, the strikingly accurately-written “California bro” dialogue, is offensively overused to the point of exhaustion.

The true problem of Babylon’s Fall is that it has no sense of identity. There’s nothing that sets it apart from games like it, and it only shows itself as a poor comparison to other, free, games. Babylon’s Fall feels like it was made to check a box, because it is just so empty and slapped together. The cookie-cutter levels only serve to wear you down as you just want to make it through main missions that are just about your only way to play the game.