The Real Bout spin-offs are not the best of the entire series (and I will not introduce a debate over this, except that it's Mark of the Wolves), and much of the system has been one-upped by the King of Fighters series in the decade since.

There are some good ideas in Pride Run, but none of it really comes together to create an experience that's tough to put down. The music may be good, but the rhythm game is too easy unless you bump it up to the highest difficulty. The strategy game, although novel, doesn't do enough to get people interested. If you're willing to take the time to figure out the game, the strategy portion might be worth looking at, but for everyone else, the rhythm game would be a good warm-up title before you try something meatier.

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

As a stand-alone title, Knowledge is Power: Decades is fine. The mechanics taken from the first game still hold up well enough, and the small improvements give the game some more depth, such as the ability to remove power-ups and the new modes that remove trivia questions or challenge rounds. The easy and straightforward questions and the small selection of available decades make this feel like it should be DLC instead of a full-fledged game. Decades is a better purchase if you didn't pick up the first game, as owners of that are better off waiting for a big sale before adding this to the rotation.

Fallen Angel is certainly the better of the two DLC packs so far, but that isn't saying much. Angel is certainly more interesting, even if they barely give her a backstory, and the story is more interesting once you see it as part of the bigger picture.

While it is honorable that it at least attempts to make an interesting piece of a game, with platforming and racing mixed together and a nifty clashing element thrown in, the core gameplay just isn't strong enough to really make this terribly memorable.

I recommend this game only with the caveat that you find it available at a budgeted price point.

Need for Speed Payback is a game with some good ideas and more than a few bad ways of executing them. The story gives you a good basis for a non-traditional racing game, and aping Forza Horizon isn't a bad way to go about it. The handling is purely arcade in style and fun to play, and the environments can give you some pretty good racing areas. However, even if you discount how bad the story plays out, you'll hate the fact that you'll never get to play the more exciting segments. Worse, the promotion of grinding makes the game drag on far longer than it should, making you want to put it away without even finishing the campaign, let alone try the multiplayer. It isn't the worst racer on the platform by any means, but it's certainly not worthy of the full asking price.

Everything about the game feels old: the gameplay, graphics, control scheme and sometimes insensitive humor. It’s a tough combination to swallow, and the maddening difficulty doesn’t improve the situation one bit.

The lopsided AI isn’t the least of the problems in the single player campaign. Most of the levels involve marching down a single path, with the level typically coming to an end when you reach the end.

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.

The game does have its perks, and those would all belong to the graphics, which are very well done and match the TV's character design.

No matter how shiny the car's wheels, no matter how diligently you clean out the ashtray and how often you wash the exterior, it's just a big lump of metal unless you've got the engine running smoothly, and Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars fails in that regard.

The developers for EA Sports WRC have said they are working on the issue, but after so many Unreal Engine 4 and 5 games have suffered similar issues upon release, it is harder to accept this wasn't fixed before release. It's harder still with a rally game, which demands fine control from the player but undermines itself with stutters that often result in significantly punishing outcomes. There is a lot to like about EA Sports WRC, and with a future patch it may become buttery smooth. That isn't how the game was released, though, and while a smoother version of this game would be easily recommendable, it's best to avoid EA Sports WRC in its current state.

As a straight-up action platform game that eschews depth for adrenaline, Bionicle Heroes nominally succeeds.

SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis is a mediocre minigame collection that doesn't want to admit that it's a minigame collection.

MotoGP '08 is a game that is unabashedly lacking in features, and if it weren't for the visuals, it could easily be mistaken for a racing game out of the '90s, as it does nothing to keep up with what other titles are doing in the genre today.

Every once in a while, a glimpse of the intended gameplay shines through in Stronghold 3, and you can see the strategic elements for what they should be. However, there are so many bugs and flaws with the game that it can be really tough to get a true look at its potential.

As it stands, I think that judicious use of patches can iron out many of the issues with Loki. Until then, I'd still recommend it, but see if you can find it for a good budget price.

Overall, Typoman had an intriguing premise and managed to tell a decent story with great atmosphere, good visual design, and interesting puzzle mechanics. In the end, however, the title doesn't on many of the gameplay mechanics, with good but inconsistent puzzles and often awkward and awful platforming. Coupled with its short runtime, Typoman isn't bad, but it's certainly a long way from being as good as the idea and visuals behind it.

With mostly bland story elements and tedious gameplay really bringing down the level of fun, Paradise fails to live up to its potential, especially when glitches interfere with the ability to properly play the game.

With few moments of exciting action and no real choices to make as you storm through the short campaign, the game fills the void with an uninspired use of gadgets and loads of cut scenes to gloss over the essential un-Bond quality of the shooting experience.

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.

Before the backtracking kicks in, the game is a lot of fun and had me thinking that I'd be getting a good gaming experience. As you continue to play, the technical problems start to rear their ugly heads, and many of the new platforming sections just aren't a lot of fun to play.

NHL 23 has a few nice additions, but they quickly wear thin. There's nothing of substance, except perhaps yet another year of the same grind in HUT to eventually get a team together that is worthy of competition by the time the next installment skates around. That doesn't seem appealing to me, and unless you've already skipped several years' worth of NHL entries, NHL 23 isn't worth the full asking price.

The barely tolerable story mode does little to cover up the fact that Urban Reign is little more than pummeling goons in the face for three hours, and then bam, you're done.

Oninaki certainly has plenty of ambition, promise and talent, but unfortunately, it didn't substantially deliver on any of them. There are many layered game mechanics and an intriguing story that don't stand a chance against extremely easy and repetitive gameplay. It's quite obvious that the development time and budget were limited, which results in an experience that is mediocre at best, regardless of how great this could have been. The almost-AAA price of $50 makes it a hard sell that should only be considered by determined fans or those who have played and enjoyed the demo.

I don't want to close with the impression that I had a bad time with Gungrave G.O.R.E. I didn't. But I didn't have a memorable one, either. It was a nice bit of action nostalgia for a short while, but in a world where less glitzy action titles feature so much more depth, agility or even wit, Gungrave G.O.R.E. will have a tough time separating itself from all of the bullet-fare that's out there.