A Sims title in name alone. Sure, you can decorate and dress up your character in various clothes and make some limited customization, but at its core, this is an adventure title.

Ultimately, Octomania comes off as a shining example of what a puzzle title can do despite being burdened with cultural barriers a mile wide and irritating characters.

Sure it costs a bit more than a deck of cards, but it also provides you with digital opponents, dealers and even a couple of games you cannot play solely with a deck of cards.

Somerville is a game where both the new and old ideas don't work in the game's favor. The platforming is nonexistent, while the puzzles are hampered by either a lack of creativity, an uncooperative physics system, or a combination of both. The use of 3D produces situations where your objectives can become obscured due to the camera angle and distance. The shock and awe one would expect from the game's pedigree is greatly dampened, and the wordless story doesn't do much to carry a narrative that seems pedestrian and doesn't care about its characters. Some will still find fun in the various situations, and the runtime is brisk enough if everything works in your favor. If you are still interested in Somerville, wait for a sale before checking it out.

The original game remains a fun beat-'em-up since it tries to do something different from its contemporaries. The additional characters make the game lean heavily toward being goofy, but few will complain when it also means expanded online play for all. For genre fans who want something breezy, this is well worth checking out.

Universe at War: Earth Assault is a fantastic game marred by technical issues aplenty.

In terms of gameplay, the new boss fights are a huge chunk of the challenging content, and they're a ton of fun to play. If you enjoyed Kingdom Hearts III's combat enough to want to see it at its best, then Re Mind is for you. The Organization XIII fights alone are worth the price of admission in this case. If not, then $30 is difficult to justify for what amounts to a couple of add-ons to cut scenes that you've seen before and boss fights that you might not be able to beat.

An enjoyable, if slightly simple, way to spend a few hours. It's as addictive as side-scrollers come but is overly reliant on its film inspiration to fill in the gaps of the story and create a pre-existing bond with characters.

In the end, your enjoyment of Close to the Sun will depend on whether you want to be surprised. If you've played some of the previously mentioned games, you know exactly what to expect in terms of pacing and story, even if the subject matter is different. The lack of combat is an interesting choice, but the simple puzzles and slightly frustrating chase sequences dull the experience, while the inability to view collectibles after you leave a level significantly diminishes their value.

Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is a strictly by-the-books Warriors-style game. There's enough value here for die-hard Berserk fans, if only for collecting Behelits, which unlock artwork and galleries, and they can enjoy the fun of mowing down tons of helpless foes. However, in comparison to most other recent Warriors titles, Berserk feels unambitious. As an anime adaptation, it's a darn sight better than something like Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage, but it seems to coast on its popular license rather than trying to do something special.

Even if you only play Life Is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection in handheld mode and you've never played either game elsewhere, this offering isn't great. At $40 for a slightly worse version of two older titles, I can't recommend the Arcadia Bay Collection in its current state. It may be worth a pickup at a steep sale, but even then, if you can play it on another platform, do yourself a favor and do that. Both games are still enjoyable narrative adventures with some cool moments, but the Switch iteration simply doesn't do justice to the original releases.

Visually, Front Mission 3: Remake is a sideways upgrade. You have fully 3D maps and environments and higher-res models than the PS1 version, but the upgrade is rather lackluster. In some cases, I preferred the PS1 design for the Wanzers to the Remake's version. I also found the map a tad harder to read at times, since enemy mech designs would sometimes slightly blend into the background. It looks far better on high-resolution screens than the blurry and pixelated PS1 version, but I think the art design took a hit. The music is quite good, offering both the original soundtrack and a new remastered modern version that did a good job of remixing the music.

State of Decay 2 is imperfect, but it's still a very good time. The presentation may not be up to snuff and the AI can be a hindrance, but the overall experience is fulfilling enough that you'll overlook those shortcomings. There aren't many games that execute the community aspect so well or are as accessible to those who aren't deeply into survival titles.

Despite these problems, Agatha Christie: Evil Under the Sun is still a solid title that adventure fans will love.

It is actually above-average, and one of the better games out there in comparison to the majority of what has been released these past few years.

Battletoads isn't bad, but it is boring. It starts off relatively strong and quickly devolves into uninteresting minigames. When the title returns to beat-'em-up gameplay, it shows the potential to be something more, but then you're forced to play "rock paper scissors" or mash buttons for a few minutes, and it all fades away. The concept, characters and visuals are excellent updates of the original, so it's a shame that the gameplay isn't.

Some of the new items and treasures in Knothole are simply must-own material, and the resurrection shrine is truly a thing of beauty for those still anguishing over the loss of a certain loved one.

The ball-rolling stages alone are reason to knock down the score several points. However, for a family with kids around eight or nine years old, My Frogger Toy Trials is easily worth the $30 price tag more so than many of the licensed kids' cartoon games out there.

If you don't mind a drip feed of soul-crushing events, then This is the Police will work for you. The actual gameplay is littered with questionable content, but the core is engaging for both quick and marathon sessions. The story is what holds things together; the many twists are fascinating, and the presentation is charming due to its artistic simplicity. It may not be for everyone, but for those looking for something a little different, This is the Police is worth a shot.

Dark Sector isn't a terrible game. It's just a game that is built around one great idea and surrounded by mediocrity.

City of Brass brings some interesting features to the dungeon-crawling genre, but its overly generic style and atmosphere don't break any new ground. It's a game that can be picked up and put down easily, which would make it a good candidate for a Nintendo Switch port. City of Brass' qualities are unfortunately marred by its lack of personality and other technical blunders.

Terribly flawed audio, bland visuals, cut scenes that make no sense in the context of the preceding or following gameplay, miserable Quidditch, horrible potion-making and awkward dueling all add up to make this title a train wreck from which you can look away.

The biggest knock against Death Tank is the price. As one of the more expensive titles on the Xbox Live Arcade service, it provides less than half of the gameplay of R-Type Dimensions.

Sorry, Wizards; we know what you're up to, and we want to let you know: Try harder next time, and you just might make off with a bit of cash in the end.

Obscure: The Aftermath is a cheap thriller. It has a few stand-out features, but it still does nothing exceptionally.

Serious Sam Double D isn't for everyone, but those looking to blow off a little steam at a bargain price ($8 USD) won't be disappointed. Go ahead. Check your brain at the door, kick back, relax and enjoy a little carnage. It's worth it. Seriously.

Those who aren't wired for the Korean MMO experience of heavy grinding and repetition will probably find that level 1 to 20 is just enough to sate the urge to try something new. I personally think Sword of the New World is very well done for what it is, but I don't quite gel with the style of gameplay.

The game itself should appeal heavily to Yu-Gi-Oh fans, with the online gameplay adding a near-infinite amount of replay value while saving the player the hefty costs of real cards. However, be prepared for a massive amount of grinding in order to unlock all of those cards, as well as a confusing interface and poor game manual.

The only audience Commando 3 is likely to pull in are those who remember the originals fondly and wish to take a moment to go back to the games of their childhood. Quickly, these same people will remember that games of their childhood were awful by today's standards, and vow to never be suckered in again — at least until the next Contra remake comes out.

Does a lot of things right, yet for some reason, they tend not to matter as much because it's just so hard to get into the game and stay there enough to appreciate them.

The gameplay's got certain unavoidable flaws, but with a player-controlled camera, some more evocative set design, and another few hours' worth of gameplay, Obscure could've been one of the greats.

Lucky's Tale hasn't aged perfectly since its 2016 release, but that's its only offense. It was — and still is — an excellent introductory VR title that offers a relaxed environment to get accustomed to VR within a family-friendly format that oozes charm. It's a great title for all age brackets and gaming abilities, but some may be put off by its short length, dated game design, and simple VR integration. Lucky's Tale may feel generic, but the enjoyable, colorful VR title delivers short bursts of happiness.

The visuals are nice, but the environment can be hard to discern. The story is fairly interesting, but it's told in a completely non-engaging way. The combat is fun, but it's also highly repetitive, and the same strategies work on almost all enemy types without fail.

I am genuinely impressed by the excellence and speed of the races, and my only complaints are with the often-annoying agent in the "Fight to the Top" mode and the poor sound effects during the races.

In the end, Vikings: Wolves of Midgard is good. It retains most of what makes the genre so appealing, and the other changes, like environmental dangers, amplify the formula instead of watering it down. It doesn't move the genre forward, though, and the lack of a custom preset combined with spotty performance on middle-of-the-road hardware will make some people see this as rather unpolished. For those who want something new in the genre, Vikings is worth a shot.

It's not insta-classic material, but it is a fun game that exhibits solid gameplay and a good sense of humor.

The biggest bummer about the game, though, is the absence of last year's entirely enjoyable story mode. The new Dragon World mode is simply not fun enough to warrant the lack of a fleshed out story mode.

A good game worthy of a sequel to build off of the concept of run-for-cover game play. Not too many shooters promote this sort of tactical thinking.

If you are an adamant fan of "Duel Masters," this may be your new best friend. However, due to the repetition and because it isn't at the same level as "Magic," this is not my cup of tea.

Much like Chicken Little before it, Ace in Action features rather large, surprisingly well-animated boss monsters, and just like Chicken Little before it, these bosses can be a downright bear with which to deal. Thankfully, in a game such as this, one is prepared for such difficulty, instead of it blindsiding you like in the earlier title.

A completely average experience that ends up being more work than fun.

It includes an incredible amount of fighters from the series, and with all of the unlockables and story modes to complete, the replay value simply shoots through the roof.

The aspect that should pain gamers the most is the unfulfilled potential that the series has had since the first sequel.

Behind the flashy graphics and the brutal depiction of gore, the game is surprisingly mundane, eschewing what made the original work while including no new features of its own.

One Piece: Unlimited World Red is good. Although the combat is quite messy when facing waves of normal enemies, the excitement of the boss fights more than makes up for it.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong is a really engaging romp into the world of the masquerade. I really appreciate that it focuses on the less combat-oriented elements of the tabletop game, something almost every title in the franchise puts on the backburner. Some glitches and a relatively unimpressive presentation drag it down a little, but if you were looking for something focused more around politics and investigation instead of tearing people in two, Swansong is the game for you.

While the concept is good, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD fails on execution. The game just can't hold a candle to its predecessors. Playing the remake is like listening to a classic band on a reunion tour. The song lyrics haven't changed, but the magic just isn't there.

Home Sweet Home is a decent horror title. It mostly relies on jump scares, but the brilliant use of sound builds up suspense where needed. The puzzles are decent, but some can be too obtuse for many to solve on their own, and the breakdown of AI at times means that some of your escapes are due to dumb luck. The explanation of Thai mythology would've been nice, and the VR use should've been better, but the fact that this isn't labeled as an episodic game will annoy players the most. Home Sweet Home is worth checking out — but only if you aren't already tired of the genre.

If you were trying to decide on a racer before "GT4," I would say that this is the title for you if you are looking for a solid single-player game. If you're in the market for a good multiplayer racer, I would suggest "Need For Speed Underground."

Detached is the sort of game where you'll enjoy your short time with it if you aren't easily susceptible to motion sickness. The atmosphere is absolutely gorgeous, giving you a good sense of the beauty and loneliness of space. The puzzles aren't bad, but the lack of direction about where to go can be an annoyance when you have a constantly depleting oxygen meter to worry about and a finite amount of fuel. It may not be a VR showcase title for everyone, but those who can stomach it will enjoy their time.

Overall, Disney's A Christmas Carol is a really solid adventure title on the DS, and while it's not going to stand the test of time compared to other adventure classics, it's a pretty solid way to waste a few hours.

The mini-games are actually quite fun, and only Tetherball and Wall Ball stand out as weaknesses. If you're looking for a great family game or something to hold the kids over until the next Spongebob or Naruto game, then EA Playground is a great choice.

As it stands, Carnival Island isn't that bad of a minigame compilation. It looks and sounds fine, and the controls are exactly what one expects from a Move title.

Take four parts "Secret of Evermore," two parts "Legend of Zelda," and one part "Mega Man X5" (most notably in the "constant tutorial" mechanic), mix together for a few minutes in your backpack, and you've got Juka and the Monophonic Menace. This title is truly an example of the flaws making the masterpiece.

At the end of the day, The Outer Worlds succeeds in being a story-driven RPG that offers a lot of freedom for you to experience and play the game as you see fit. It doesn't look particularly good or run incredibly well. I don't want to downplay the importance of the story and quests, but The Outer Worlds feels like either a calculated cash grab or a team obsessed with making a game run on an inferior system for the sake of it, rather than trying to find a new player base. It's all here and playable, but play it anywhere else if you can because the trade-offs are larger than the benefits of playing it on a portable format.

I feared that the sensation of firing a weapon would be completely lost on the handheld, but Point Blank DS does as good of a job as possible with only a stylus in hand.

You may not be worthy of playing Izuna. Chat with the Oracle a few times, and maybe you'll figure out if you are.

The main thing that it has going for it is that it recreates its franchise so faithfully that you feel as if you're completely in control of its world.

There is essentially nothing about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that is any fun at all. I know this sounds harsh, but in my professional opinion, there is no excuse for a company like EA to have done such an uninspired and lackluster job with this franchise title.

Taken as a whole, Concursion is an interesting and fun title.

Ride 2 is certainly an improvement over the original game. There's still a grind to experience as you get through the World Tour, but it isn't as severe as before. The physics and general bike handling are balanced now, so both beginners and more experienced players can handle it, and the frame rate is more stable than before. With long loading times and an AI that hasn't evolved at all, it feels like the changes in Ride 2 aren't significant enough to attract people who weren't already enamored with the first game. Bike aficionados will certainly have more fun with the game, but if you really want to race something that's not on four wheels, try this out as a rental.

A must-have for fans of the board game. The promise of future DLC is invigorating and the sheer amount of content out of the box is already impressive enough.

It's hardly the Playstation 2's perfect platformer - it's a bit too linear, and it's obviously got a slant towards a younger audience with the puzzle solving at points - but Tokobot Plus is a game enjoyable by young and old alike.

At its core, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus isn't a bad action game. The action is still very combo-heavy and less tolerant of simple button-mashing tactics. The story is decent enough for those who can tolerate the typical plots of action-heavy anime, and there is a decent amount of gameplay to be had.

Barnyard marks one of those rare occasions where the game totally outclasses the film upon which it is based. Despite heavy repetition, you have to believe that children are going to get a kick out of the game.

It's not likely to set any records, but at the budget price of 800 MSP ($10 USD), anyone picking up this game is going to get their money's worth.

Smurfs Kart is pretty smurfy, at least in some parts. It nails the mechanics of Mario Kart quite well, the presentation is quite nice despite the low frame rate, and it has a good sense of speed. That said, the small number of tracks, vagueness on weapons, and basic modes mean that most Smurfs fans will knock out everything in an afternoon and struggle to return. It's not that bad of a kart racer for the Switch, but only die-hard fans of the recent cartoon will want to make this their main kart racer.

Kingdom Hearts: Re:Coded is one of the low points of the franchise's history. The game has some great ideas buried within, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

Appeals to a more dedicated fan of this genre. It requires some reading of the manual and experimentation. There are many nuances and frustrations that will lead the casual gamer to frustration and ultimately to other games.

I can feel its charm and want to like it, but at the end of the day AFDS doesn't deliver what it is supposed to: high velocity action with white knuckles wrapped around your controller. What you are left with feels worn out, slowed down and paper thin. A shame really.

I found Medieval Conquest completely unplayable, a confusing mess of a game that beat my sensibilities as a gamer to a pulp. It's entirely possible that someone else more in tune with the wavelength of this title will have a ball with it.

It's not going to make anyone's "Best of" year-end lists, but it's a perfectly decent little game for folks who miss the bygone days of marbles racing around improbable tracks. At its discount price, it's the sort of game you can take a risk on and not feel too bad about if it isn't your cup of tea.

It's got some serious RPG chops, too, so if you're a fan of lighthearted RPGs, you'll enjoy Citizens of Earth.

The Wii port, New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis, doesn't fare any better now that the product is several years old. Normally, the graphics take the brunt of the criticism but here, it's the control scheme which, by default, makes the game much easier than it should be.

In the end, Myths of the Eastern Realm feels like an abbreviated version of the core Immortals Fenyx Rising experience. The main character and the gods have been swapped out, but little has changed in the overall feel. It's not a bad expansion by any means, and if you enjoyed the original, this is a good excuse to fire up the game again to explore a new region. The superficial treatment of the underlying content feels like a real missed opportunity. Given the care that Ubisoft typically puts into research for its games, Myths of the Eastern Realm comes across as more akin to Cliffs Notes than a novel.

The game setup is also much easier than any others in the Contra series that I've played, but at the same time, it still more difficult than a wide variety of games.

Armored Core 4 delivers more of what the series is known for: fast-paced, arcade-style mech action with highly customizable robots in which to fight. It does this with some very nice visuals to boot, although it fails to be really great with the extremely short campaign, forgettable missions/story, and a clunky user interface for the garage and shop.

It's a fun, quirky little game, but it's the same fun and quirky little game we've been playing for a while now.

Too Human has been in production in various forms for 10 years, but somehow, it still feels like an unfinished game. The plot is half-baked, the gameplay is simplistic, the replay value is hurt by the lack of variety, and glitches are commonplace. While the very basic framework of a fun game is there, it's weakened by all the flaws.

My only real big problem with LEGO Battles is that the pathfinding of your army is generally poor, especially if you need them to traverse a big chunk of the map. You can easily highlight a large group with the stylus by dragging a box over everyone, but they tend to get bottlenecked easily in tight passages, and you'll often find units that are still highlighted but have stopped moving for no reason other than because they've run into something.

If you can get past the shaky controls and low replay value, you'll have a fun experience, especially if you're a Dragon Quest fanatic. However, if the controls aggravate you, the entire experience is going to be more of a chore than a game.

Your enjoyment of Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal is going to be dependent on how much you value the lore of the series. As this contains both the early wacky adventures and introspections of each of the shinobi, fans of the characters will love the treatment. Otherwise, the combat holds up, even without the use of items and combo moves. Although the other modes are filler, the presentation looks and sounds excellent. If you're a fan of the series but didn't play this game on the 3DS, Burst Re:Newal is worth checking out.

A glorified map pack for the original Portable Ops. While the changes are going to appeal to the gamers who played Portable Ops online, they are the only possible audience for this title.

Armored Core: Verdict Day is exactly what you'd expect from a half-sequel/half-expansion pack: It offers more of the same and not a lot else. There are mechanical fixes and cleanups, and the expansion pack has somewhat revived the quickly fading online community, but in the end, it's more Armored Core V.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection is for a very specific type of Yu-Gi-Oh! player who favors battles against the CPU instead of real people. That player also knows all of the rules of the game, wants a fixed set of cards, and doesn't want further updates from new cards. For them, most of the games in the compilation will be fine if they can get over each title's shortcomings. For everyone else, especially newcomers, the games are cumbersome and unintuitive, so only those with an immense amount of patience would want to give the titles a shot.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed isn't a bad port. Warts and all, it's a faithful reproduction of a Wii game that is fun but not exactly a title that too many would consider to be a timeless classic. At a low asking price, it can be good for those who really want every Star Wars game they can get on the system. That said, it would've been more interesting if Aspyr were more ambitious and went for porting the PC/PS3/Xbox 360 version instead. That would've been a treat for longtime Nintendo die-hards.

Afro Samurai has a ton of style with some nice combat, but once you require the camera to do anything other than sit calmly behind you, the game starts to fall apart.

In the end, Deadbeat Heroes is undone by its own mechanics. The faster fighting is hindered by a lack of targets to aim for, while the lack of attack variety means that the excitement of combat can quickly be diminished. It is the grading system, however, that hinders any enjoyment that can be eked out of the game, as forced replayability just isn't fun. It's good to see a developer do something different in the genre, but gamers have better options before giving this title a spin.

Atelier Rorona: Alchemist of Arland isn't a bad game, but it isn't a particularly great one, either. Like Atelier Annie, it's focused more on the social aspects instead of the RPG aspects, almost to the point where the RPG elements drag down the rest of the game.

If you want a good hour or more racing around real-world tracks with small cars, or even ten minutes, this game is one you should check out. Fast-paced racing action mixed with great graphics and a solid physics engine makes this title an excellent one to have.

Altogether, I think it's a pretty good value for $20, and while it's a budget title intended for kids, I think it would be a pretty solid game for any casual gamer.

Players are looking for charm, nostalgia, and pun-filled quips within a beloved universe, and in that regard, LEGO The Incredibles delivers. The game can be completed within 10-15 hours and has a decent-sized open world, 12 story missions, and tons of characters spread across various Pixar universes. LEGO The Incredibles offers just enough content to put a smile on your face without overstaying its welcome.

Absolutely "worth playing." Pick up a copy, turn out the lights, and get yourself some quality heeby-jeeby time.

It's a disappointment to see a promising series end in this way, especially now that Transmission Games is no longer around to potentially fix issues in a sequel. Flight sim fanatics who are eager to take a break from reality and fly around in an action-packed arcade shooter on the PC may still want to give Heroes Over Europe a whirl. They'll just have to put up with its sometimes annoying characters, its total disregard for realism, and its lack of basic gauges and indicators.

88 Heroes: 98 Heroes Edition is a crazy and entertaining game with a cool concept. However, the execution is not where it should be. It's not a bad game, and fans of the genre will appreciate it. At the price point of $30, there are better 2-D platformers available on the Switch. If you've already explored those and long for something new, you can't go wrong with 88 Heroes.

Nearly every element of The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame can be described as basic or simple. It doesn't hold a candle to other LEGO games, and while the world-building can be interesting, it is much more limited than LEGO's proper sandbox title. The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame game is the definition of average mediocracy. Rent if you're curious, but don't bother with a purchase unless you find it on deep discount and want the Achievements.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness has a lot of potential to be good, if you are willing to put in the time to have it pay off.

If you need a quick sword-and-sandals fix and want to fight epic battles in real-time and on a detailed 3D landscape, then Legion Arena might just be for you.