Horizon Zero Dawn is disappointing. It has a story that I struggled to care about (complete with massive expository dumps—yay), a bland protagonist, and overtly repetitive and constraining missions that worked against its open world sensibilities. When Horizon Zero Dawn hit its rare strides—from its gloomy Cauldrons to traveling across its sprawling vistas—it only made me wish the rest of the game were as worthwhile.

It's still a far cry from the top-tier classic puzzlers, but Dr. Luigi manages to be fun enough... even if there is that nebulous whiff of tragedy about the whole affair. On the other hand, it doesn't leave the nasty taste in your mouth that you get from exploitatively designed free-to-play puzzlers like Candy Crush Saga, so that's something.

Observation has no trouble grabbing you from the go, with gripping central mysteries and questions that demand answers. Painstaking progress through even the simplest commands and instructions counteract any sense of progress in Observation, and ultimately dilutes and cheapens the experience.

Shenmue 3 suffers from hamfisted exposition, tedious repetition, monotonous grinding, and a heap of other fundamental flaws that are inexcusable in 2019. However, its environments are so confident in their sense of place that exploration is a capable redeemer, and the game is at times, on that ground alone, worth playing.

With a bit more time in development, Dead Rising 3 for PC could have been the definitive version. Unfortunately, an above-average game is hamstrung by a port that runs poorly on stronger PC hardware. Crashes and framerate issues abound. If you really want to play Dead Rising 3, your best bet is to wait or pick up the Xbox One version.

It's tough to recommend Civilization: Revolution 2 in its current state. It makes few meaningful improvements to the original game, and in some ways its even takes a step back. Depending on your taste for 2D art, I would actually recommend the original Civilization: Revolution over this version. This sequel that feels like a missed opportunity to improve on a good idea.

Disintegration is solid, but uninspired. The gravcycle and squad gameplay that defines it works when it's allowed to, but pacing proves inconsistent in the campaign and the FPS/RTS hybrid mechanics are only mildly interesting in multiplayer. A commonplace story and what feels like missed opportunities to fill in more of its universe threaten to drag things down further, but when provided with a good mix of weapons and squad abilities, the core combat and mission design show V1 Interactive can craft something engaging. Disintegration is not the next great sci-fi action franchise (as if we really need another), but hopefully, it can be a stepping stone to something more distinctive and unique from V1 in the future.

Miitopia, by its end, is too redundant, too bland, and saves its best parts for far too late in the game—in the post-game, assuming its players have stuck around that long to begin with.

While Star Ocean started as an innovative series full of fun, bold ideas, its current form amounts to the most middle-of-the-road RPG experience you could possibly have. It's not particularly awful, but in a reality full of RPGs, so many better options exist.

Together, Broken Age Acts 1 and 2 make a solid game that players will look back on fondly. Unfortunately, the second act doesn't live up to the promise of the first. Themes are dropped, puzzles seem a bit more obtuse, and the environments feel like a retread of the first act.

While Super Bomberman R brings back the classic Bomberman action, the package could stand to be better. Once you've polished off the short Story Mode, you're left with multiplayer. Local and online multiplayer is solid, but lacks match customization options found in older Bomberman games.

The Platinum spark exists in Mutants in Manhattan, which is why it's tragic the developers couldn't spend the same resources they would on original IP like Bayonetta. As licensed games go, you could do much worse, but this TMNT outing feels like a collection of good ideas in need of a second pass.

There are times when Just Cause 4 is amazing, but the final result is a game that loses parts of what made Just Cause great in the first place. The new mission structure repetitive and causes the series' staple destruction to take a backseat. The tether customization is top notch and the new weapons are a winner, but things like throwable C4 are gone. And the extreme weather, which is exciting when it appears, doesn't make its presence felt during most of the game. I had fun with Just Cause 4, but it's a game I want to love more than I actually do. Temper your expectations.

Anthem is a frustrating experience. There's a core gameplay idea that's fun, but it's not enough to keep the experience alive in endgame and beyond. It wants to sell us on flying and combat, but Grandmaster levels stop that dead. It offers a wide world to explore, but offers no reason to do so. Anthem ultimately doesn't feel like the best BioWare can do, and that's a horrible shame.

Yo-kai Watch has a great degree of potential, so it's tragic to see Level-5 squander it over fears of upsetting their massive cash cow. (In Japan, anyway.) This sequel carries the same sense of spooky whimsy as the first game, but unfortunately doesn't lose the underlying tedium. If you're looking for an alternative to Pokemon, you might want to see if the next game fixes Yo-kai Watch's woes—if it gets localized, that is.

Yo-kai Watch has a great degree of potential, so it's tragic to see Level-5 squander it over fears of upsetting their massive cash cow. (In Japan, anyway.) This sequel carries the same sense of spooky whimsy as the first game, but unfortunately doesn't lose the underlying tedium. If you're looking for an alternative to Pokemon, you might want to see if the next game fixes Yo-kai Watch's woes—if it gets localized, that is.

Ark: Survival Evolved is a game full of rough edges. It's also a game full of some amazing moments over my total playtime. It's the kind of experience that has a lot of boredom and tedium, and a great deal of looking the other way in the face of bugs, but also some clear water cooler moments. There's something very cool buried in here, though I can't tell if that's because of some developer decisions or in spite of them.

There's talk that Zip Lash could be the final Chibi-Robo game, and that's a shame. I'd prefer to see him go out with a bit more style than Zip Lash offers. The irony of this game focused around acquisition and collecting is that it's not really worth acquiring for your collection. Even if that Amiibo is awfully adorable.

There's a lot to like about We Happy Few, with its unique psychedelic dystopian setting and well-developed story, but it's the moment-to-moment action that crashes down on you like a bad dose of Joy. So-so survival elements, the lack of mission variety, frame rate issues, prolific bugs, and tedious stealth and combat will make you want to cook up some Joy for yourself, so that maybe you too can forget the bad stuff and remember only the bright side of things.

For every cool "a-ha!" moment in Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, there has been something that has me on the verge of rage quitting. There's a fascinating, novel concept in Ancestors, but with so many bugs and other tedious issues blocking it, the joy of this survival game feels like it's constantly kept millions of years and a bundle of evolutionary feats away.

I really wanted to like Murdered: Soul Suspect, but -- like L.A. Noire -- it's a detective game that manages to gets its most essential quality absolutely wrong. The backdrop of Salem lends a lot to its central mystery, but at no point will Soul Suspect ever put your deductive skills to work. That's fine if you're indulging in an episode of CSI, but I like my thinky games to require more than just passive interest.

In many ways, that unbridled sense of creativity serves as the source of Legends' problems. It's constantly throwing new concepts and mechanics into the mix, but there's no discipline to it, no restraint.

If you're looking for anything measurably different than your prior experiences with the series, though, The Pre-Sequel won't satisfy. And this lack of ambition only serves to disappoint: there's a fantastic game buried in here, somewhere, if only its caretakers would perform a serious overhaul.

Outside of combat, it suffers from poor design decisions, dated visuals, and a disjointed story. Its biggest shortcoming, though, is that doesn't live up to the promise and potential set by its superior predecessor.

Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX is, without question, the best version of Kingdom Hearts to date. But it also serves as an excellent reminder that the things we love aren't always built to last.

Homefront: The Revolution is a very ambitious game that has all the ingredients of a blockbuster, but somehow doesn't quite feel fully-baked. The single-player game has aspects that are interesting and challenging, but unfortunately it's let down by average gunplay and flawed AI. Add to that a multiplayer mode that's fun, but limited in scope, and you have a game that falls short of its considerable potential.

NHL 15 is right to focus on improvements to the gameplay and the presentation, but they aren't nearly good enough to justify the cuts made elsewhere. It dazzles out of the box, but it doesn't take long for the upgrades to feel shallow in comparison to what's missing. Ultimately, NHL 15 feels like a major misstep.

Playing Cyberpunk 2077 is like suffering a death of a thousand cuts. If the bugs don't get you, the bad quest design, the insensitive writing, or a million other small problems will. All told, Night City might not be worth the visit.