So, let's sum up: lag so frustrating you want to gouge your eyes out with a spoon, tiresome deliberate disconnections that make a mockery of the ranking system, and a d-pad designed to make you jump around the screen like some deranged monkey on speed. Not particularly positive.

Despite the whopping size of your new stately mansions, Hearthfire feels cold and empty.

Rainbow Islands Evolution is a disappointment, and more of a devolution than its title would have you believe. It will likely only succeed in frustrating fans of the classic retro game, and confusing newcomers to the once joyous world of Bub and Bob.

Detroit: Become Human wants to move you. It wants to elicit an emotional response through its story. The thing is, it really doesn't. The flowchart is a nice inclusion and adds some variance, but when the narrative is as cringey and ham-fisted as it is you won't want to play through it multiple times.

I just find the whole thing to be a terrible gameplay experience with the exception of the dancing.

As a bizarre curio of video game history, Duke Nukem Forever's appeal cannot be denied, and there is some entertainment derived from overlooking the end product of one of history's most troubled productions. The main thing we can learn looking backwards, however, is that no game should be like this going forward.

Golden Axe is the latest classic franchise to disappoint on new hardware, and we can't help but think it's a huge wasted opportunity. Beast Rider even fails to include multiplayer support, something that was core to the original game, confirming its fate as a sub-par hack 'n' slash.

We're all for multiplayer sports games that follow the Track and Field mould, but Vancouver 2010 offers none of the classic game's gratifying gameplay. Stick to watching this year's Winter Olympics on the TV.

Most of the games are dull.

As a bizarre curio of video game history, Duke Nukem Forever's appeal cannot be denied, and there is some entertainment derived from overlooking the end product of one of history's most troubled productions. The main thing we can learn looking backwards, however, is that no game should be like this going forward.

As a bizarre curio of video game history, Duke Nukem Forever's appeal cannot be denied, and there is some entertainment derived from overlooking the end product of one of history's most troubled productions. The main thing we can learn looking backwards, however, is that no game should be like this going forward.

RICO has a cracking central idea, but it's strained by awkward mission design, shaky performance, and a whippy aim that often misses the mark.

Devil's Third is impossible to recommend as anything other than a curio. Coming from Itagaki, this is a huge disappointment.

A mess of a game in all senses of the term. Its gameplay is at least one generation behind the competition, its presentation is like a collection of every graphical effect thrown into a mixing pot and poured onto the screen and the online implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

Shrek the Third's main problem is its complete lack of spark.

If only House of Ashes were possessed with something malevolent enough to actually scare us; sadly, it commits a litany of sins, none of them original.

Stop playing, though, and it melts away: there's nothing memorable about Alekhine's Gun on its own terms, because it doesn't exist on its own terms.

It's seriously lacking content and of those included only two of the sports are worth bothering with for more than one match.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance has some nice ideas and pretty countryside, but is ultimately still buggy, broken and, perhaps worst of all, boring.

This is yet another cash-in designed to pull the wool over your eyes. Poor games don't deserve your attention, no matter how much you liked something in the past.

The gameplay is fundamentally broken, the presentation is average at best and there is never a challenge; in fact, I don't think I've ever played an easier game.

It's obvious that adult gamers should avoid Republic Heroes. But, more damning, it's also impossible to recommend it to anyone wondering whether they should buy it for a young fan of The Clone Wars.

Throw in some truly dreadful writing (the newspaper clippings that tell the story are so nakedly expositional and poorly delivered as to be laughable) and an enemy that actually runs away from you at times and you've got a stinker.

Apparently existing only to serve as a strawman for future arguments against the whole genre, Elder Scrolls Online is a game of exposed weaknesses and failed potential. If you’re hankering for Scrolls, I recommend modded Skyrim. If you’re after an MMO, I recommend any other.

Fallout 76 is an ambitious game that’s burned by it. The online features hamper what could have been a great Fallout game.

What we have here is a developer that is happy to nudge us with knowing jokes, but who doesn’t dare to frighten us. We might call it a Craven effort. As for the ending, there isn’t one—just a montage of postscripts, detailing the fates of the various characters. Only, we already know their fates, having been at least partially responsible for them. As the credits rolled, the sweetness of the humour had grown stale, and I felt distinctly unsated, though hardly hungry for more. I hate to say it, but Supermassive has made a Butterpop.

The problem with the new Saints Row is not just that the characters are boring, or that the combat is by-the-numbers and benumbed by unempowering perks, but that the brief snatches of fun—the wingsuit deployed from a high rise, the hand-brake turn through a curtain of tyre smoke—are nothing new, and are done better in other games.

Credit must go to Bloober Team for setting a different course for its sequel; it's just a shame that it didn't bring the chills and scares that littered the last outing.