Risk System is well done once you know what you're getting into. The game is tough compared to even the busiest of bullet hell shooters, but the combination of infinite lives with no respawning gets you acclimated to the classic shoot-'em-up tactic of memorization. The focus on projectile grazing and knowing when to deploy your barrier breaker makes the game feel strategic. Even though the experience doesn't last that long, an alternate storyline path and online leaderboards are enough to keep you motivated to continue once the credits roll for the first time. Shooting fans who want something more cerebral will find this to be right up their alley.

If you're looking for an open-world RPG that tends to throw you into the deep end, Kingdom Come: Deliverance definitely scratches that itch. The game could still use some patches, and I suspect many people are going to want to dip into mods to smooth down some of the title's rougher edges. There's a fine game under the layers of clunky systems and punishing early mechanics, but Kingdom Come: Deliverance is enjoyed as much as it is endured, and how often that wavers back and forth is perhaps the game's largest shortcoming.

Embers of Mirrim is a solid puzzle-platformer with atmospheric visuals and storytelling woven into interesting puzzle segments. It's rather short and can sometimes be frustrating due to a few shortcomings, but the overall package is quite fun and engaging to play through once.

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is a game that stepped right out of the '90s. It's a fun little platformer that controls well and is a delight to play, and it evokes a remarkable amount of nostalgia for a game that is coming out in 2023. Much like Blazing Chrome, it's the closest you'll come to a new Strider game that plays like the old-school Strider. If that is what you're looking for, you'll be delighted, and if you love old-school platforming action, Moonrider offers it in spades, without the quarter-munching or rental fees.

Far Cry: Primal is an example of how ambition doesn't always translate to success. It's overly familiar and overly safe, and it does little with its concept.

It possesses the sort of open-ended gameplay structure that will nurture your addictive tendencies and have you tweaking and expanding your city way beyond the time you promised yourself you would stop.

The story makes more sense this time around, and the atmosphere delivers the right amount of unease, which is what will keep players plugging away to the end. The gameplay has been tweaked to be easier, but it's not to the point where you can go through without much trouble. Despite the presence of a few technical issues, TEW2 looks and sounds great, and it's certainly worth your time.

For $15, you get a campaign that's on par with retail games in terms of length and quality. You also get a solid multiplayer title with a good amount of maps and modes. All of this comes together with a solid technical package that combines some fresh elements with tried-and-true gameplay.

While not a true sequel, Alan Wake's American Nightmare does a fine job of expanding on the franchise's universe. It may not have the depth of exposition of the original game, but for 1,200 Microsoft points ($15), there's enough here to please fans and newcomers alike.

With the deep character growth system in place here I could have been content with twice that amount of game time.

Days Gone is a long and slow burn that is well worth it. It tells a relatable story that feels grounded, and the later stages have some truly memorable moments, both in terms of story and gameplay. With all previous DLC included, some nice improvements for PC gamers, and the capability to run at high frame rates, the PC iteration of Days Gone is the definitive version to play.

Twelve Minutes had me on a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. I started being let down by the game seeming too simple in premise. Then I got frustrated because I got stuck uncovering its hidden complexities. Finally, I can't and don't want to put it down until I'd turned everything over thrice. It executes the time loop mechanic meticulously, its story is twisting and turning constantly, and the excellent voice cast, environmental art, and music work together to create a new type of adventure game. It is not perfect, and you see some cut corners, but what it sacrifices, it makes up for with a satisfying payoff as you delve deeper into its time loop to unravel the mystery at the core.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions delivers a good Spider-Man experience for the current generation of consoles. The combat is done well, even in the first-person battles, and the feeling of being Spider-Man translates well, despite the lack of an open-world setting.

All in all, what Day of Reckoning 2 presents to us is a few tweaks to the original Day of Reckoning - some good, most bad.

Rise of the Ronin really demands that you give it a fair go. It starts off slow and takes a while to get running. Once it does, it's quite fun, with engaging and exciting combat that feels more demanding and intense than I'm used to from an open-world game. It's a big investment up front to find out if the game works for you, and enjoying previous Team Ninja games doesn't necessarily guarantee that you will.

Undertow is a good fit for the Xbox Live Arcade. The action is fast and uncomplicated, it has plenty of options for the single-player and multiplayer experiences, and the tight controls do a good job of making the player want to partake in the action.

The driving theme behind Band Hero seems to be an attempt to make it more marketable and friendly to a younger audience. This doesn't necessarily make it a worse game, but it does make it feel extremely different.

Wasteland 2 is full of player choice and replayability that will keep players busy for a while. With gameplay easily exceeding 80 hours of content, Wasteland 2 is not for the faint of heart. Those who appreciate challenging experiences and detailed world-building will find Wasteland 2: Director's Cut an important installment in their RPG library.

Despite some setbacks, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is a fun game.

Samurai Warriors 4 continues Omega Force's long streak of high-quality Warriors titles. It isn't as exceptionally good as Hyrule Warriors and veers a bit too heavily into button-mashing for its own good, but it remains a fun game to play.

This is nice to look at, but a lack of content prevents it from holding your attention for long. In that respect, Skydrift sort of serves as a distraction game to hold you over until the next major release shows up.

With a ton of content and a massive variety of ways to play, WarioWare: Get It Together! is a solid purchase for any Switch owner looking for a blissful and somewhat manic distraction from day-to-day life.

Though far from perfect, Heroes of the Pacific does a great job of combining a fun, loose aerial shoot-'em-up with real-life battles from the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Griping aside, Hard Corps: Uprising is a game that delivers exactly what it promises. It isn't going to be for everyone, but for those who appreciate the challenge of old-school gaming, it's a must-buy. For the rest who are going to whine that "it's too hard," go play Black Ops. This game is exclusively for the hardcore.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but when it comes to games, you have to bring some of your own improvements to the table. The Crew Motorfest is clearly trying to be very similar to its competition, but it can't help but fall short. In the many areas where its features are almost carbon copies, they aren't implemented as well and force the player into playing the game in an odd way between bouts of grinding for credits. In the areas where it tries new things, it barely commits to them and leaves them feeling like afterthoughts. If Forza Horizon could also be played on Sony hardware, The Crew Motorfest would have no reason to exist.

This is the most fun I have had with a role-playing game in a very long time. It drips with an attitude that is wonderfully anarchic and cynical.

The gameplay that made such addictive titles is no less compelling now than it was a decade ago.

While it's impossible to fairly compare NHL Slapshot to triple-A HD console hockey titles, this Wii game is a state-of-the-art effort in sports gaming for Nintendo's console, a system that is too often overlooked for proper treatment when it comes to pro-league licensed titles.

Marvel's Spider-Man: The Heist might not have been revolutionary, but perhaps it's not supposed to be yet. It is the first part of a series of DLC, and as such, it leaves a lot of unresolved questions. I feel like I've officially "met" Felicia Hardy, and I'm certainly looking forward to where her story goes next.

After all this time, our opinion of The Flame in the Flood hasn't changed. The presentation is beautiful, and the approach to survival remains unique because of the lack of a permanent home. The lack of combat means you can't make it on brute strength alone, and the many roguelike elements ensure that every playthrough is just as tough as the last. The Flame in the Flood remains one of the better survival games on the platform today.

The game is simple to learn, yet lends itself to intense, challenging battles that can really get your adrenaline racing.

Ultimately, Final Fantasy XVI: Echoes of the Fallen DLC is just another FF16 dungeon, albeit a fun one. There's a bit of scattered lore and a thin story to justify the exact events, but you're paying $10 for one more dungeon with a cool boss fight. If you were hoping for something a bit meatier or delves into some of the mysteries of the setting, you're probably going to be disappointed. Echoes of the Fallen feels more like fan service and a precursor to the upcoming The Rising Tide DLC.

All in all, Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption is a charming take on the Harry Potter-esque magical boarding school genre. The writing is clever, the world-building interesting, and the puns are omnipresent. The actual point-and-click gameplay is solid if unexceptional, dragged down only by a superfluous combat system. If you're a fan of point-and-click adventures, you'll find a lot to enjoy here, even if the Switch version requires more effort than the PC-based iteration.

Story of Seasons is a solid entry into the Bokujou Monogatari franchise. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's full of content, and almost all of it is fun.

From a gameplay perspective, Destroy All Humans! is purely inoffensive and average; it proves itself to be somewhat entertaining in small doses. In all other aspects, the game lacks a soul of its own, choosing instead to use what others have already done.

Evolve has rare highs hidden amongst tedious lows. When the title hits its stride, it is easy to see why it was designed in this way

Despite some high marks for depth, competency, controls (given the circumstances), and a general feel of polished design work throughout, Battlestations Pacific simply tasted a bit stale.

Just plain fun. I haven't been this addicted to a game in some time, and I'm looking forward to wrapping up this review so I can get back to playing it.

I still enjoyed Race Driver: Create and Race, and as far as racers go on the DS, it's definitely one of the better ones I've played.

Some minor flaws aside, Atelier Shallie doesn't break the mold and is an excellent ending to the Dusk trilogy. While the presentation lacks a little polish, it has the most refined and enjoyable version of the core franchise mechanics to date.

LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens probably would have sold well enough on the license alone, but TT Games wasn't content to coast on this one. The company put its best foot forward, and players are the ones to benefit.

Your enjoyment of Serious Sam's Bogus Detour is going to depend on your enjoyment of overly difficult shooters and your need for multiplayer. If the idea of having to traverse very large levels with the distinct possibility of starting all over when you lose all of your lives infuriates you, then this might not be the best game to play. If you want to engage in co-op or adversarial multiplayer, then make sure to convince friends to buy it since the online population is more interested in creating stages and mods than actually playing the core game. For everyone else, Bogus Detour is a solid shooter that is challenging, engaging and worth checking out.

Fans of the franchise and many gamers of a certain age, especially those who have a next-gen console in the hopper, will still find enough to like in Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War. I personally still replay the mission with the arcade shootout just to get a little '80s cheeseball energy going, but I think the strategy of overwhelming people with as much content and as many shooter modes as possible might be starting to wear thin. We're not there quite yet, but I'm hoping the next Black Ops might have just a bit more than poking at my childhood memories of a culturally iconic president.

Overlord delivers a fun experience and is well worth the $39.99 retail price of admission.

One of the best racing games currently available on the PSP.

Mega Man ZX is a bit of a misstep for the venerable franchise. While much of the gameplay is similar to what you've seen before, the wretched map system makes Mega Man ZX merely tolerable, rather than enjoyable.

While perhaps too Saturday-morning to capture the imagination of hardcore real-time strategists, Battalion Wars, existing as it does between playful and dramatic, warlike and dopey, feels at home on Nintendo's console.

The overall presentation is slick and inventive, and the controls are pretty intuitive, if not always correct, but the real fun comes from managing your orders, assigning tasks to your AI partners, and creating more and more complex dishes for each new restaurant you obtain.

Atomic Heart is a good game that buries itself in the shadow of great games. There's a lot of creativity, flair and intriguing design, but the game seems to lack confidence. This leaves the plot feeling a little halfhearted and some gameplay features feeling like they were there to check a box rather than actually add anything to the game. When Atomic Heart is on, it is on, but it spends too much time in the doldrums to keep it from truly reaching excellence.

It's certainly more Warriors than Zelda, but it makes excellent use of the source material, so it doesn't feel like Link's face was slapped on an unrelated title. Some may miss the Zelda dungeon-crawling and exploration, but Zelda and Warriors fans will find a lot to like here.

Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife has some very good and tense moments. It gradually lures you into quite a few scary encounters, and it doesn't rely on jump-scares but an atmosphere that is carried by its strong audio design. It isn't necessarily a looker, and the visuals are a bit janky at times, but if you get over the slow start and occasional annoyances, you're left with about eight hours of a creepy and entertaining VR adventure.

Sayonara UmiharaKawase+ is a fun but ultimately divisive game. The level of difficulty is certainly up there, and it escalates quickly, so you'll hit roadblocks very early

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Complete Edition is one of the best values that a JRPG fan can get on the Nintendo Switch. The games are fun if not particularly special, but they scratch the "got to catch 'em all" itch. They're marred by some issues, like inconsistent difficulty and a dodgy translation, but nothing ruins the experience. If you're a Digimon fan or just RPG faithful looking for something new to try, it's worth giving Cyber Sleuth a shot.

Batman: Arkham Origins is more of the same, for all the good and bad that implies. It is effectively more of the same gameplay, in the same locations and against many of the same villains.

Mediocre at best. The game just has way too much lag and load time to be truly enjoyable.

Phantom Brave: We Meet Again is not the worst thing you could play, but in the world of strategy RPGs, it's trying hard to be.

Journey to the Savage Planet an unexpected pleasant surprise that you don't expect in the typically dead month of January. The humor can be an acquired taste for some, but the focus on levity doesn't feel forced and actually enhances the overall experience. The focus on exploration also helps make this a lighthearted jaunt, as the exploration is enjoyable and the combat is light but capable. Combined with the game's classically inspired art design, Journey to the Savage Planet is a title that adventure fans should pay attention to, especially with so many other higher-profile titles getting delayed recently.

Overall, I really enjoyed LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. Even if you're not a huge fan of the LEGO titles, it's hard to deny that Traveler's Tales has managed to refine the formula of what makes these games work. Toss in the standard co-op mode, which is always a lot of fun, and you've got a great time-waster on your hands here.

A solid expansion, although I really wouldn't call it a must-have because it's a little light on content for its price tag.

A shining example of what a retro compilation should be.

The studio has done something in this title a lot more difficult than it may seem: They've formed a very good game of genre staples and straightforward shooter mechanics, dabbling in enhancements that succeed.

It's a pretty solid purchase if you've got friends to play it with, especially if you're just going with the $40 version of the game (minus the remotes).

The loving attention to historical detail comes at a cost of a truly arcane complexity level and rather plodding pace. However, in the right mindset, both quirks can be wonderful things, especially when the complexity also reveals just how deep and varied the mechanics can be.

If you can handle slight annoyances every now and then and can stomach a prologue sequence that makes the beginning of "Kingdom Hearts 2" seem brisk and concise, Suikoden V is most certainly one of the best RPGs on the PlayStation 2, bar none.

I really wish there were a couple of different selectable outfits for some of the characters, like KOF: Maximum Impact. King of Fighters characters have always had this weird trendier-than-thou type of style, and since trendy people tend to buy clothes quite frequently, this feature wouldn't have been incongruous with the series' overall style.

Midnight Fight Express is a solid beat-'em-up. The base move set is enough to make you feel dangerous, but a fully kitted out character makes you feel invincible. The combat is appropriately crunchy, and the game doesn't wear out its welcome despite having a ton of brief levels. It fulfills that fantasy of being an unstoppable action hero, and it keeps that fantasy going thanks to the game's overall replayability. For fans of action titles in general, Midnight Fight Express is well worth checking out.

If you're a Tales fan, it's worth your time even if it is weaker than its console counterparts.

Overall, it's safe to say that Touchmaster 2 is a fine compilation of time-wasting games, with a diverse and distinctive assortment of titles to please almost any palate. Accurate controls, entertaining game choices, and a pleasing presentation all combine to render the game's one real flaw comparatively minor.

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical isn't the roleplaying experience its title and marketing would have you believe it is, but the game commands your attention to the end. The story is a good, old-fashioned murder mystery with Greek gods. The various characters keep the tale feeling fresh and moving along at a good pace. The comic book look is striking, and the songs are outstanding, but the story and various choices grant the game longevity that endures beyond the novelty of using songs in almost every scene. Visual novel fans will love this title, and music lovers will be entertained by how the story doesn't slow down the proceedings. Players who are slightly curious about the visual novel gameplay style will find Stray Gods to be a good gateway.

Thankfully, the story and the platforming are the main focus, as they rightfully should be.

Red Fly has done an excellent job of building the game for the Wii from the ground up, and while it may not be perfect, taken as a whole Ghostbusters for the Wii is the best version currently available.

A slight disappointment. While it continues on the storyline, and brings back some familiar characters, it just fails to improve on an existing idea. All of the new ideas which were created specifically for this game just don't really cut it.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was really enjoyable and one of the better fighters I've played this year. Even if the concept seems ridiculous, it's worth picking it up if you enjoyed the previous Mortal Kombat games from the '90s.

Dead Space 3 is in the unique position of being a fun game but a bad sequel.

Its setting and antagonists are among the most frequently-used in the genre today, and frankly, neither of them add so much to the game that they couldn't've been removed. This could've easily been set in Baghdad or Somalia or some future city without compromising its gameplay.

I thoroughly enjoyed After the Fall for what it is: a VR Left 4 Dead clone with satisfying gameplay and some cool social VR settings that lay a solid foundation for the future. However, we don't know what that future looks like yet since we don't know how much content Vertigo will release in the coming years — and at what price. The included content is the bare minimum, and the game has a few issues to iron out before I can recommend it. That said, if you've been itching for co-op fun with some friends in VR regardless of the platform, AtF is a good choice if you can see pasts its numerous minor shortcomings at launch.

The combat is tedious and boring, the visuals are bland and ugly, and I can't remember the last game I played where so many words were spoken and yet so little of substantive importance was said.

It's the best rental you'll ever make.

Ultimately, if you enjoyed playing though the main game, then The Signal is going to be a welcome expansion to the adventure.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster is an average port of an exceptional title. Despite being almost 20 years old, it's still one of the best JRPGs ever made, and it still stands up favorably to the games that came after it. It's still a PS2 game at heart, but it's a rare one that has aged quite well, so it's still worth playing for the first time even without the comforting glow of nostalgia. Unfortunately, the actual HD upgrade is perfunctory and bare-bones, so what you see is largely what you get. It's basically a way to play Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne on modern systems, and it's good for that. It just could have been more.

It's hard to know if de Blob 2 was designed with a younger audience in mind, but that's really the only reasonable explanation for a game so simple, easy, short and boring.

This is one of the best uses of a film license I've seen in recent years. Controls can be a bit wonky, especially melee, but the gun battles are satisfying and reassuringly violent for you bloodthirsty wannabe mobsters out there.

MX vs. ATV Reflex shows that Rainbow Studios and THQ still have it when it comes to crafting a good off-road racer.

Those players who grew up wasting their time, energy, and no lack of their parents' money in places like Token Joe's, where the lights never worked but the monitors still glowed, this collection will hit just enough right notes to justify the price.

Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers is a good, but not great, indie puzzle platformer.

The issues with loading and presentation make the predecessor, "Challenge of the Warlords" , the better of the two titles as far as Nintendo DS gamers are concerned. However, the amount of content here in Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and the difficulty of the game make it leagues better than most other titles you'll find on the portable system. Most importantly, while the rules of the main game have changed, the fun and addictive nature still come through.

This is a game that people are going to really enjoy if they can get into it, but Joker does a player no favors when it comes to helping you get into the game.

All in all, The Escapists 2 is a bigger and better version of the original game. The core gameplay loop of improving your inmate and finding materials and resources to escape is really engaging, even if it can be remarkably boring at times. The new features are mostly hits, and even when they're misses, they just need to be fleshed out, rather than being bad additions to the experience. The Escapists 2 does a solid job, and it's fun to play. Its only shortcomings are some awkwardness with the controller and the general tedium and punishing nature of the game.

If Borderlands 2 was an example of the series coasting under its own momentum, the Pre-Sequel is something of a master class in how to refine the series into a step forward.

Umbrella Chronicles delivers, but it doesn't go beyond simple competence.

This game is what the phrase "close, but no cigar" was made for.

Edna & Harvey: Harvey's New Eyes isn't for everyone. The humor won't tickle everyone's funny bones, and the presentation of both the audio and graphical standpoints leaves something to be desired — despite some of the good things it does.

As a sum of its parts, Steamworld Dig: A Fistful of Dirt still holds up reasonably well. If you haven't jumped in yet, start your journey here before tackling the sequel. The gameplay may feel limited if you've already completed the sequel, but A Fistful of Dirt is still an incredibly fun platformer.

Katanaut is a perfectly fun but ultimately rather forgettable Dead Cells-style title. It's perfectly competent at what it sets out to do, and the strong presentation goes a long way, but at the end of the day, it doesn't manage to carve out its own identity. It's absolutely worth a shot if you're burned out on similar games, but don't expect quite as much replay value.

It feels like the best way to play Shadow of the Tomb Raider is to embrace all of it and take some time to sink into the world Crystal Dynamics has crafted so that Lara 's journey feels more filling. That 's when her journey and everything she does feels a little more ... right.

You will find yourself wanting to come back and try different tactics for your rise to fame. There is also enough to learn that you will have an almost constant discovery of new ways to make it to the top. I should mention here that the average gamer will find this game somewhat overwhelming.

Groovin' Blocks is a fun puzzle game that feels both familiar and fresh, thanks to the one gimmick it sports.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is a massive experience for fans that is fun to play and packed with content. On the flip side, the combat can quickly get repetitive, and the need for grinding doesn't help, either. Add a few technical hiccups, and the Nintendo Switch version is the least desirable one of all. It's still playable and enjoyable on the hybrid device, but it's not as good of an experience as on the other systems. Some may prefer the mobility of the Switch system over the downsides, but if you have the choice and don't care for mobility, I'd highly recommend picking up the PC, PS4 or Xbox One version of Xenoverse 2.