Kirby Star Allies is a fun, but short romp that doesn't do much to push the franchise forward.

Unfortunately, Mass Effect: Andromeda picked up some unwelcome visitors on its long journey to your gaming machine. Though it has some stellar moments, “Andromeda” tries to cram too many ideas into one package, turning its obsession with the bigness of space into a crutch for uncharacteristically shoddy workmanship.

Its mysterious world, artful narrative and moving character work is the reason we play games. It’s depressing that its singular vision is hampered by the most basic video game building block — the ability to control your experience — but beneath its finicky handling and aggravating programming lies the same magical hoodoo you find in great Pixar films. It’s fitting, really, that a game this difficult to birth would be equally difficult to enjoy. But if you take the time to love it, it will love you right back.

It struggles to get out of its own way, featuring perhaps its most complicated buy-in system yet. Creativity knows no bounds, but your checkbook certainly does.

For all its brilliance – and there are undoubtedly some very special moments here – Mafia III never manages to maintain its initial momentum. There are too many other open-world games that do what it does better, smarter, and with more stability. Like its motley cast of gangsters, Mafia III is simultaneously likable and unpleasant, a tempting offer that all but the most dedicated gamers would do well to refuse.

We buy video games to play them, not simply marvel at what they can do. Its technological advancements and sheer scope may indeed be incredible, but No Man’s Sky’s repetitive world and gameplay are decidedly less than stellar.

This kind of thing only works when you’re invested in the characters and plot, and with little emotional payoff, the branching narrative feels more like a fun gimmick than anything else...And despite its impressive vision, “gimmicky” is a pretty accurate description of Quantum Break. I give Remedy credit for having the stones to actually follow through on its promise of combining a TV show and a video game, and perhaps there’s indeed a future here. But in a world crammed to the gills with great shows and great games, an experience that does neither particularly well just isn’t worth your precious time.

Despite its frustrating lack of modes and features, I freely admit that I have had a blast playing Super Street Fighter V. It’s a genuinely fun fighting game that has a bright future. But its troubled present gives this mighty combatant a black eye.

Unravel might look like LittleBigPlanet, but in practice it’s the kinder, gentler Limbo.

Despite its casting issues, Marvel Avengers is a decent enough LEGO romp — better than the disappointing Jurassic World and Batman 3: Beyond Gotham but not quite as good as Marvel Super Heroes. Fans of its spandex stars should certainly suit up. The rest of you might want to wait for another hero.

Too often while playing The Witness, I realized that there were a lot of other things I’d rather be doing than playing The Witness. I respect it; I admire it. I just didn’t enjoy it all that much.

Though it’s not the best game in either series, Paper Jam delivers enough well-executed turn-based combat to please fans of both Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi. It’s unfortunate that the writing and humor aren’t quite up to snuff, but fast-forward through the dialogue and you’ll soon find yourself staring at another gang of bad guys just asking for a fire flower to the face. That’s a jam worth playing.

Despite its supernatural trappings, this is a game very much about the human condition, about love and loss and how even the most innocuous decisions can leave the deepest footprints. There’s some great work here, and while Oxenfree isn’t without flaws, like its teenaged cast, it points to a promising future.

Underneath the silly cash grab lies a genuinely fun multiplayer game. Siege took me back to the early days of Counter-Strike, when I would lose weeks at a time to endless late night sessions with friends. Find some buddies and Siege really settles in as thrilling game of calculated chaos. But between the paltry offline offerings and the slow, microtransaction-gated drip of goodies, I wouldn’t advise breaching this door alone.

I appreciate that developer Vicarious Visions has tried to steer Skylanders in a new direction, and there’s certainly plenty to do here. But I’m not sure the future of Skylanders lies in mediocre kart racing, and unfortunately, there’s just too much of that in Skylanders SuperChargers. Hopefully the next entry will get the series back on track.

Most egregiously, this game costs $60. That’s about $50 too much. A better choice? Go crank Goldfinger’s “Superman,” fire up your old PlayStation or Dreamcast, dig up a copy of the original game, and relive the glory days the right way.

Overall, the first episode of this family-friendly adventure is engaging enough to keep you playing through its brief 90-minute run time. The cliffhanger is also a doozy that nicely sets up the next episode.

Guitar Hero Live is a classic rock star: talented, interesting, bipolar, and filled with questionable ideas. The new guitar is a hit and the streaming mode is plenty of fun, but the full-motion video fail and annoying song rental model mar what could have been a legendary comeback album.

Rising Tide sometimes feels all wet, but Civilization’s ship can still be righted.

Despite its good intentions and ocassional co-op fun, Tri Force Heroes lacks the depth — and charm — we’ve come to expect from the franchise.

Considering its wallet-friendly $40 price point, Sword Coast Legends’s core campaign is easily good enough to warrant a recommendation — provided you’re content with a rather leisurely, low-stress stroll through the Forgotten Realms.

Need For Speed’s solid driving and fantastic graphics are worth experiencing, but I wanted more darkness, more danger out of this game. I wanted consequences. Without it, we get an odd Need For Speed that presents a strangely empty, Disney-fied version of an “underworld” — one with guardrails on the sides of the road.

An artistic triumph, Star Wars Battlefront poses a difficult question: Do features make a game? If they do, this one’s got problems. Stand Battlefront next to most other multiplayer-oriented shooters and you’ll find it lacking in variety and depth. But none of those other shooters let me blast Slave-1 out of the sky from the Millennium Falcon, or take out an AT-ST with a well-timed thermal pod, or block ten laser blasts and force push a stormtrooper into a pool of lava.

Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is a reasonably solid game of arcade tennis that’s accessible for newbies, yet challenging enough to give more experienced players something to chew on. But despite the glitzy visuals, it’s a predictable serve that lands well inside the line, rather than a decisive, smashing ace. Tennis fans — and Matthew Perry — deserve a little more.

The good news is that you'll have some fun with NFL Tour, especially with friends. But the joy will be short lived when you realize that the feature set is comparable to the original NBA Jam -- just pick a team and play. It's a thin package that comes off as more of a $30 budget title than a full-fledged effort.

A satisfactory update to the franchise, but still has yet to really hit its stride on the next-gen platforms. It took the FIFA team years to get it right on the PS2. Let's hope we don't have to wait quite so long for this FIFA to reach its amazing potential.

It can be a lot of fun -- but anything that has "Sims" in the title should probably hew a little closer to the franchise.

It's not the most sophisticated of offerings. There's not much here other than the destruction -- the levels are repetitive, and most encounters play out similarly. Little differentiates the game's weapons, and the plot is threadbare.