Will Borger
PlayMagic's XIII may get better after several patches, but right now it's a broken, buggy mess that plays like a generic shooter and looks worse than the 2003 original. If you really want to play XIII, go play that instead.
Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance has good ideas, but poor enemy variety, samey levels, bad puzzles, a shockingly poor story, the lack of local co-op, several quality-of-life issues, and numerous bugs that affect every aspect of the game make it hard to recommend to anyone, no matter how much they like the source material.
Daymare has some good ideas, but it has too many flaws to do anything besides remind survival horror fans of better games.
Fade To Silence's cool weather system and interesting ideas can't make up for a derivative combat system, samey open world design, poor story, and several severe bugs. This is an adventure you won't want to survive.
In an era of standout fighting games, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT's lack of content and character customization and mediocre gameplay mark a step down from previous games in the series and an unacceptable lack of effort from Square Enix. Fans of Dissidia should stick with the PSP games. They're better.
Mighty No. 9 is not a good video game. It's is loaded down with lots of cool ideas that it never fully explores, and frankly it feels unfinished, unpolished, and unplaytested. It has potential, but right now this game serves as a warning about the dangers of stretch goals and crowdfunding, and only the most die-hard Mega Man fans will find something worthwhile here. Everyone else is better off sticking with the Blue Bomber.
The irony is that Aspyr has done a nice job with remastering the visuals in both games and we enjoyed seeing the results. But the reality is that these games often feel old, they're extremely buggy, and the online play is hit-and-miss. This should have been a slam dunk. Instead, playing Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection made us feel sad. If Aspyr can fix the slew of technical issues, this might one day be worth picking up on Switch. Until that happens, though, the Force isn't with this one.
NBA Live 2014 marks EA's return to the basketball sim, but there's little reason to play it when NBA 2K14 exists.
When everything clicks, Anthem is great. But it is a game with major flaws, and how much you enjoy it will depend on both your ability to tolerate them and BioWare's ability to fix them.
When Verdun works, the mixture of tension and uniqueness it provides is unlike anything else and utterly engaging. Too often, however, the game gets in its own way, either due to technical issues or poor design decisions. It’s an incredibly interesting and unique game, but its tedium and technical issues should be considered before you enter its trenches.
EA Sports UFC will undoubtedly appeal to fans of MMA, but a convoluted control scheme, poor tutorials, few modes of play, bad acting, and an offensive use of DLC make this a game for hardcore fans only.
NHL 15 may be a step forward in terms of gameplay and presentation, but it's a step back in nearly every other way. New players and those dedicated to the franchise will probably find something to like here, but everyone else will be left with a huge sense of missed opportunity.
Toren is an imaginative game with an interesting narrative and beautiful game world. For every moment of striking art or good design, however, there's something wrong with the game technically or in terms of its moment to moment gameplay. Ultimately, like Moonchild herself, Toren would have benefitted from a bit more time in the tower, exploring its own design and ideas before rushing to the top. There's very few things that are more ironic than a game that plays with the notion of time feeling incomplete.
Grime is a beautiful, well-designed, challenging game with a ton of content, but it runs extremely poorly on Switch, to the extent that it's hard to recommend this version of the game if you can get it on another platform. It's disappointing, because Grime does so much right, and developer Clover Bite has clearly put a lot of love into it over the years. But all of that love can't save an action game that just doesn't run well. In this genre, that's a deal-breaker. It's a shame Grime's Switch debut is so rocky, because playing as a rock creature with a black hole doubling as its cranium is really cool. Don't get us wrong: Grime is playable on Switch, but until (or if) things get ironed out with updates, this brutal world is one you might want to avoid.
Star Trek: Infinite does a great job of capturing the look and feel of Star Trek, but those enticing bones splinter under the weight of its bugs and glitches.
There are some good ideas in Resident Evil Re:Verse, but balance issues, a lack of content, and aggressive monetization make it little more than a sometimes-fun curiosity.
Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed's love for the source material shines through, but its good ideas are hindered by a lack of content and repetitive gameplay.
While Enhanced can't hide Terminator: Resistance's budget origins, this is a solid licensed game that honors the franchise that spawned it. If you can overlook its budget-related flaws, this is a fairly enjoyable take on the Terminator license.
The combat feels good, but that doesn't stop it from being an aggressively mediocre game that lifted most of its gameplay ideas from better titles. Play those instead.
Crysis Remastered is an uneven remaster that highlights the greatness of the original game while failing to deliver a definitive edition of the game. Crysis deserved better.