Zach Jackson
Spike Volleyball is a broken mess. Not even ardent volleyball fans will find this adaptation worthy of admission
Troll and I suffers from having champagne ambitions on a beer budget and is marred by a plethora of issues. Seriously subpar technical, design, narrative and gameplay elements make it a borderline insufferable experience, and as a result the game cannot be recommended to anyone at all, let alone at its AAA price
Gene Rain is a classic combination of generic game design and poor production that should be avoided at all costs
Quantum Error is a flawed, frustrating and unfun slog that collapses under the weight of its lofty ambitions to blend multiple genres and mechanics on a limited budget and developing skillset.
With dated design, LotR: Gollum is a slow and tedious slog through Middle Earth that even the staunchest LotR fans will struggle to enjoy.
Martha Is Dead fails to deliver any meaningful semblance of the story it wants to tell and ends up being nothing more than a colossal and tedious disappointment.
Street Power Football is a tedious and overpriced waste of everyone's time
Super Street: The Game is the epitome of decent ideas mixed with bad game design
Road Rage fails miserably to harken back to the glory days of Road Rash and capture any form of nostalgia
A cool concept can’t save Dead Alliance from being dead on arrival
Inheritance sums up of Layers of Fear as a whole: on paper it’s conceptually intriguing, but lacking in any real quality when it comes to execution
Agony is one of the biggest disappointments this year. Its excellent atmosphere is butchered by frustrating and repetitive gameplay and an abysmal technical performance
Past Cure starts off as a promising and ambitious shooter/thriller combo whose ideas are brought undone by inexperience
Despite a promising World War II setting where you're encouraged to steal from Hitler, the real thieves turn out to be the developers for designing a time and money wasting jaunt
While Maid of Sker delivers in the atmosphere department, it fails to execute on any of its gameplay ideas, and it results in a game that is simply not fun to play
Handball 17 lacks depth, staying power and overall quality to be a real player on the sports video game roster
After a promising start, Here They Lie tries too hard to tell its story and ends up turning into a nightmare to play
Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle wears its Resident Evil inspiration on its sleeve, but technical and design issues mean that it will firmly remain in its inspirator's shadow.
When AFL 23 delivers on its on-field vision it's the best Aussie Rules video game out there, but the lack of execution and content means that's it not quite the contender it could have been.
The Fabled Woods' short runtime isn't long enough to elicit the emotional response the narrative tries to evoke.