Too gentle and sweet to warrant the online bile, this board game spin-off is nevertheless a very limited and repetitive stopgap.
An entertaining but slightly unbalanced remake whose biggest draw is a regular distraction from one of the series' best stories.
Just deserts.
An accomplished follow-up to Triple Deluxe that is energetic and tactile enough to compensate for a handful of rehashed ideas.
Dino crisis.
Suck it up.
The Mario Tennis you know and love, only substantially less of it than usual. Still fun, but such slim pickings leave a sour taste.
Overwrought, unsatisfying storytelling takes the shine off a gorgeous and ambitious finale.
Such is the nature of a game that's trying to offer something for everyone; invariably, there's never going to be quite enough of the stuff you like. And perhaps Mario Party's desire to be truly inclusive will always hold it back from being a classic. This is, at least, in the upper echelons of the series: a little short of the Hudson Soft heyday, maybe, but better than every entry since the fifth, and certainly superior to the anaemic eighth entry and the pointless handheld versions. Wii U owners already have deeper and more substantial multiplayer options, but few - if any - of them are quite so welcoming to all.
The assumption seems to be that most players won't have the desire or the stamina to play a full round - though in light of the limited number of courses, it may simply be a way to minimise repetition. Either way, EA Tiburon has produced a game hardly befitting a player of McIlroy's talents. The so-called "next generation of golf" looks uncomfortably similar to the last, and there's substantially less of it. Only the quality of the underlying game saves this from the ignominy of an Avoid sticker.
It's a few minor tweaks away from something special, and the same applies to Screamride as a whole. While there's nothing in Frontier's latest to make your stomach churn - with the possible exception of its honkingly awful dubstep soundtrack - there's not quite enough here to get your pulse racing either.
Such is the quandary at the heart of every long-running game series. Type-0 HD bears all the hallmarks of a game simultaneously keen to escape its past while being forced to embrace its heritage. At its best, it's a fine, smartly-paced action-RPG with thrilling combat mechanics that just happens to be a better fit for a handheld than a home console. But, crucially, it represents a promise unkept: this isn't so much a blend of new ideas, more a melange of existing ones. It may have been conceived as a fresh start for Final Fantasy, but Type-0 is more often a false dawn.
A timely overhaul that should take a great game to new heights - though it's not quite on peak form this year.
Bruising, bonkers and frequently brilliant, Yakuza 0 is Sega's cult favourite at its very best.
World Tour is more than a match for Everybody's Golf in the quality of its courses and the breadth of its options.
It seems destined to be undervalued, but this is a pleasant surprise - a fine fighter that's just about essential for Pokemon fans.
But a small handful of highlights is not enough to save Entwined. It's a game that strains for profundity and meaning - that's particularly evident in its Trophy titles - but finds them ever beyond its grasp. Some will be soothed by its contemplative mood, others will relish the challenge of mastering those devious patterns, but to me the two felt like an awkward mismatch. Sony might have given Entwined a gentle shove into the spotlight, but there are surely better, more deserving PS4 indies waiting in the wings for their time to shine.
A flimsy remake of a flawed 16-bit favourite that exacerbates all the original's problems while failing to recapture its strengths.
This savage brawler has its moments, but swiftly moves from brutal to boring.
Some will no doubt relish these barbs as further encouragement to beat the system; others will see its steep challenge as a mountain that must be conquered, whatever the cost to their sanity. But for my money Stealth Inc. 2 falls short of the games I'd consider its peers, never quite capturing the simple ingenuity of Toki Tori 2, the nervy thrills of Mark of the Ninja, nor the physical comedic energy of 'Splosion Man. It's just too demanding and too laborious too often. It may no longer be Bastard by name, but by nature it's a bit of a git.