Mayhem Brawler is a fun indie beat-em-up that feels like a hybrid of Final Fight 3 and Streets of Rage 3. It has a cool comic book/twitter feed style presentation for it's story which is told between stages. Gameplay what you expect from a beat-em-up, along with a block button and the ability to run diagonally. Three playable characters, each an expert in either speed, strength or balance; with one character being unlockable. There isn't much replay value compared to something like Streets of Rage 4, and the short length means you'll finish it in under an hour. Still worth it if you've played every other beat-em-up out there.

It actually does hit different, in a good way. 2K22 throws out the simulation experience and adopts a refined, streamlined control scheme for faster-paced, arcade-style gameplay. There's a lot to like here from the detailed creation suite that allows for unlimited user created content, to a variety of match types, all the way to a new Career mode and the return of GM Mode.

Controls are basically identical to WWE '13 and though 2K22 is of course a wrestling game, it adds in some fighting game elements. You can press a combination of punch, kick and grapple buttons to throw out quick combos. Breakers have been added, which are rock-paper-scissors guessing style counters that allow you to counter your opponents' attack.

As fun as 2K22 is, several bugs have been present throughout the game which have caused crashes and annoyances. The game modes even feel largely undeveloped. The new MyFaction mode (a WWE card-collecting mode similar to NBA 2K's MyTeam and EA's Ultimate Team) comes off as frustrating and grindy, relying more on cheap tactics rather than skill. The new MyRise Career mode provides fun, but gets repetitive due to the fact that the mode consists of short stories lasting anywhere from 3-5 or so matches, with cutscenes being few and far in-between. GM Mode is severely lacking compared to it's SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 counterpart. NBA Live 19, a game known for it's weak Franchise mode, is more fleshed out than WWE 2K22's take on Franchise. Lastly, while Showcase mode is fun, the mode plays more like an extended tutorial with a checklist of objectives. It's definitely a mode most people will play once to unlock everything and never look back.

WWE 2K22 is a fun wrestling game that feels more like the later THQ WWE titles (SvR 2010 through '13). More time ironing out the issues and developing the modes would have made this one of the greatest of all time.

Backbreaker Football is a unique American football simulation game plagued by a lot of issues. It boasts a physics engine that throws canned tackle animations out of the window in favor of a physics system that makes no two tackles or animations the same.

On the field, Backbreaker's gameplay is messy. When controlling a receiver or defender, the camera switches to an over-the-shoulder view that obstructs your vision and makes it difficult to see incoming players. It makes the game feel more immersive, but results in a lot of frustrating play calls. Controls also feel very weighty and clunky; coupled with the obstructive camera, Backbreaker is often challenging to play.

Modes are pretty standard. Season mode allows for custom leagues, but lacks basic options like player trades and signing free agents. Road to Backbreaker, the Franchise Mode, plays as you expect as you take control of a low-rated team and develop your team into an all-star squad throughout a season.

The two best parts about Backbreaker are the team customization and the Tackle Alley mini-game. While Backbreaker is unlicensed and does not have real NFL players or teams, the game has a very detailed logo creator that allows players to create teams of interest along with the ability to name players. Quite cool to see people have created a full-on NFL League within Backbreaker. Tackle Alley (originally an iOS mobile game) is a 100 level wave-based arcade-like mini-game where you try to score from deep in your own territory all the way to the end-zone down field. Early waves are easy with few defenders, while higher waves get more challenging with more defenders, obstacles and out of bounds areas.

Backbreaker was truly something different and ahead of it's time. It's unfortunate that the game never lived up to its full potential and lacked a lot of features compared to EA and 2K's sports titles.

This has to be one of the worst wrestling games ever. The only positives I can say are the controls are simple, and the combat is easy to pick up and play. During matches, you can get access to power-ups like health buffs, freeze your opponent, damage buffs, etc. Some of the environments are pretty cool like a chop shop, swamp and subway. It goes downhill from there. Every wrestler has the same move-set. Only difference is maybe one move and a finisher. Graphically, it's worse than WWE All-STARS, which looked way better. Severe lack of match types and glaring omissions (no Triple Threat or Fatal 4 Way Cage, no Ladder, no Elimination style modifier). No Create-a-Move-set. Create-a-Superstar/Woman is super bare bones, even more limited than WWF War Zone. Campaign mode is decent, with a comic book style story presentation. Too bad the difficulty ramps up to the extreme near the end and trades fun and skill for frustrating cheap tactics. There are a ton of playable characters including a lot that were added via post launch updates, but they are all so expensive with stingy in-game currency payouts that make it a boring grind. Not like it would be worth unlocking AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, John Cena or anyone since they all play 99.9% identical to each other. Worse? Game would even crash and slow to a crawl at single digit frames in multi-man matches.

The tagline says "Become a badass mage," yet the gameplay doesn't make you feel like one. It's an FPS game but with spells instead of guns and bullets. Very linear, similar to PS2-era shooters. Gameplay is repetitive with no objectives. Similar games like Hexen and Heretic gave you more involvement like keys to find and puzzles to solve for progression. Battlemage just has you going from area to area, killing enemies, then rinsing and repeating. There's a lot to dislike about this game, and the performance was the worst. Even after a patch, the framerate would dip and just chug along in areas with multiple enemies on screen. Possibly the worst game I played on Xbox One.

Mediocre game that has an identity crisis. It's pretty much a 3D-beat-em-up with a single player campaign, Mass Effect-like hub area, and the endgame of Diablo 3 post-update. Think of it like Diablo 3, but with an Avengers skin and just not as great. The campaign was solid. Not groundbreaking or epic, but serviceable with a great performance by the likeable Kamala Khan. Fun combat that plays like a 3D-beat-em-up with a decent skill tree. Problem is, environments, mission objectives and enemy variety are minimal and get very repetitive. Performance is also not so good on a PS4 Slim with the framerate tanking with many enemies on screen and loading times taking 30-45 seconds. Even with the new playable heroes being added, it's difficult to really have fun with the game due to the level of repetition on the gameplay structure.

Best basketball game ever made, which is a great hybrid of NBA Jam, NBA Street and the popular pickup basketball game 21 along with it's own flair.

Gameplay is superb. Games are played on half court in either a 1v1 or 1v1v1 format where the first to score 21 points wins (though this is usually split into two 3-minute rounds where the first to score 11 points wins the round). You can perform NBA Street like jukes and tricks to fill your house meter, which is this game's version of Street's Gamebreaker that gives you an automatic win. Ballers also have various abilities like a hot spot to increase shot percentage, on-fire after making 3 consecutive shots, the ability to put back missed dunks, pass to a friend in the crowd, etc.

Story mode is great, as you create a baller in a Rags to Riches mode that has a classic TV Guide style presentation. As fun as this mode was, it had a few annoyances. Some matches throw in some frustrating rule-sets like 5 second shotclock, No fouls, Must get 5 steals and win, hold your opponent under 10 points, etc. It does offer some variety and switches things up, but can drag down some of the enjoyment.

Gameplay-aside, all other elements are top notch. Presentation hits hard and embodies the 2004 era of hip-hop, NBA and streetball. All the best and notable NBA stars at the time are present and playable. Since this is a Midway game, there's even the versus screen tonight's matchup codes from NFL Blitz and NBA Jam that add for more zany, crazy arcadey fun.

The lack of a 2v2 NBA Jam mode is disappointing (which was added into the sequel), but NBA Ballers is a top notch basketball game in the same league as NBA Jam and NBA Street Vol. 2.

No Mercy is great, but Day of Reckoning is almost the perfect clone/successor to the AKI N64 wrestling games, due to the similar control scheme with grapples and strikes and the ability to spam finishers as many times as possible in 30-seconds among other things. It takes the classic AKI game formula and modernizes it by making the DOR games play at a faster pace, allows for any move to be broken up with any move, a momentum shift mechanic where you can switch your health and spirit status with your opponent, and lets you store up to 3 finisher states among other aspects (yeah, you could literally hit 9 finishers on someone!) The enjoyable story mode and great Create-A-Wrestler mode with a Paint tool for creating logos has given me hours of enjoyment.


Biggest drawback is that being a Gamecube game, it lacks in modes and features compared to the PS2 SmackDown games. No championship defenses or title matches outside of story mode. Very limited roster with only 5 or so divas. Limited CAW slots (about 16) and somewhat long load times. Match types are also pretty typical. You have Cage, Table, Ladder, Hell in a Cell and Hardcore which can be played in Single and Multi-man variants, but anything more special than that like Slobberknocker, Backstage Brawl and 3 Stages of Hell don't exist. Amazingly fun wrestling game that would be the G.O.A.T. with the features of a Smackdown game!

Decent, mostly average wrestling game and an improvement over '08. Road to Wrestlemania replaces season mode. It's a condensed Season mode where you pick one of 5 characters and play through their own story leading up to Wrestlemania. Enjoyable for what it's worth and the way to play to unlock everything. Just don't expect any branching paths or anything special.

Career Mode replaces 24/7 mode for better or for worse, mostly for worse. You take an existing or custom wrestler and basically fight through a ladder of opponents, earning enough stars to be able to fight for championships. Unfortunately, the way you gain attribute points is awful. For instance, strike ability is increased by doing strikes, grapples from doing grapple moves, technical ability by reversing, charisma from taunting, etc. In theory, it's a neat RPG-like idea, but comes off so unnecessary and tedious that it really makes you not want to touch the mode or even use created wrestlers. Stats are leveled up at random like a JRPG, not the classic tradition where you earn points to freely distribute.

The addition of Create a Finisher is a cool addition, similar to Create a Taunt in the old SmackDown games as you put together animations to create realistic finishers, or hilarious crazy finishing moves.

Gameplay wise, it's quite standard. A few new elements have been added like hot tags, since the game focuses on tag teams. Fighting styles are gone, meaning there are a lot more moves per character. 09 does play a bit faster and feels slightly more refined and smoother compared to 08, except for this weird obstructive camera view when you exit the ring. Create a Championship and GM Modes have been removed.

Overall, SmackDown vs. Raw 09 is a flawed, decent improvement.

This game was heavily marketing the fact that it was the first MMA game to feature female MMA fighters. Sad thing is, it only featured 2 (Felice Herrig and long retired Michele Gutierrez) who can only fight against each other.

Supremacy MMA is an unlicensed MMA game that plays more like a fighting game in a cage rather than an MMA game. No refs, no rules. Only win by knockout or submission. It's not too bad as the controls are easy and the mechanics are simple to grasp compared to other complex fighters. Problem is, combat is stiff and janky and comes off as too simple as you can oftentimes spam punch to win (even though every fighter has a different fighting style). Cuts, blood and bruises show when you continuously pummel your opponent and bones break in a "Blitz The League" injury fashion when you K.O. or submit someone.

As far as the roster goes aside from the 2 female MMA fighters (and no create-a-fighter feature present) the other 15 or so fighters are either real or fictional ones based off real fighters. Music is, well, very loud instrumental death metal from underground bands.

Modes suck. You can play through every fighters' story mode, which is told between fights through hand drawn animated backgrounds and voice acting, but there's no real character interaction or consistent plot and the endings are nothing special. None of the stories are overly long, just a ladder of opponents. There's a tournament mode, your standard versus mode and some confusing fighter progression system... which is about it.

Fight Night Champion released about 5 months before this and while it doesn't have all the bonebreaking knockouts and unlicensed freedom, it does the gritty aesthetic and feel much better.

This was a giant leap forward for the SmackDown vs. Raw series. For a yearly franchise, many improvements and features were added, which made it very difficult to go back and play SvR2009.

Create-a-wrestler mode had a more realistic look where CAW's could now stand next to in-game superstars and look very similar to them. More parts look 3D and realistic rather than being painted on. An in-game paint tool was added for creating logos. There are 50 CAW slots, along with CAW's now having a total of 4 attires. Story Designer made its debut, allowing players to create storylines and set up shows and PPV's within them. Road to Wrestlemania mode added a playable Diva (which I remember being like an early version of the real-life WWE Women's Evolution storyline) and CAW storyline.

While Divas could no longer fight male wrestlers, they could not be used in any gimmick match type. A new Training Facility/Control Tutorial was added. Royal Rumble mode introduced a few new button based elimination mini-games. Championship Scramble match was introduced. Best of all? Community Creations, the long-standing feature where players can upload, rate, share, search for and download creations was introduced.

Gameplay felt mostly the same, with a few small touch-ups and refinements. UI was cleaned up to give it a more WWE HD TV like feel. Career Mode was still present, but mostly useless since the annoying stat increase system carried over to matches played with CAW's in Exhibition matches.

Some parts of SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 could have been done better and minor glitches can occur, but it was and still is an amazing blueprint for features, tools, refinements and creations added to the evolution of an installment in a franchise.

SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 has the best physics system out of not just any SvR game, but even the WWE2K games. Tables, ladders, chairs and other weapons move, break and bend realistically. Slamming your opponent through a table no longer makes it slam into pieces, as tables fall and move in a life-like manner. Moves now have a directional throw tag, which means some moves like suplexes and throws allow you to control the direction you want your opponent to fall. Wrestlers literally sell and act realistically when being slammed on and thrown through steel steps, ladders and other weapons. This really adds to a lot of fun and mayhem.

Universe mode would make its debut, a mainstay throughout the series. Basically, it's a showrunner mode that allows you to edit the rosters, alliances, tag teams and rivalries, champions and lets you simulate or play out matches, all while seeing random cutscenes happen. It's a fun mode, but now very dated and lacking compared to Universe in future installments.

Match creator was added, allowing players to create matches not in the game like Fatal 4 Way First Blood, Ironman Cage Match, 6-Man Finisher Only Battle Royale, Extreme Rules 2 out of 3 Falls, Submission Only, etc.

Road to Wrestlemania even brought back the classic backstage free roam between matches, which added more interactivity like the older SmackDown season modes.

For all the good SvR 2011 introduces, there's also the not so good. The soundtrack on the menus has a tendency to loop songs or even play the same song back to back. If you use custom music for entrances, it can sometimes randomly play during matches. Rare, but random glitches can occur that can cause the game to freeze or black screen. AI (namely tag team partners) can have weird behavior, voice acting during backstage RTWM sections is laughably bad, and some of the hit detection with the new physics engine can be wonky at times.

The thing I liked about Shadow of the Tomb Raider was more of an added emphasis on puzzles, making it closer to the Legend-Anniversary-Underworld games. Rise was great (a masterpiece), but Shadow just adds in more here and there. The narrative is just not as strong as Rise or 2013. It starts strong, then drags in the middle with a lot of optional side-quests, picks back up and no spoilers, but has the weakest, unsatisfying ending in the trilogy. Action combat was fine, but I was quite taken out that one section near the end of the game played more like something out of a Rambo or the Expendables movie. There's a good bit of stealth combat, which was a lot of fun to sneak around with and adds to the classic feel. Exploration and puzzles feel strong with a nice difficulty.

While I would have preferred story-based DLC and a Croft Manor to explore rather than 7 separate challenge tombs, the DLC tombs are well-thought out, engaging, and provide that classic Tomb Raider challenge that I felt with some of the main game puzzles. Most of them are quite different enough to add some variation and mixes things up. Challenge tombs can either be played traditionally, or in a score attack mode or a time trial mode with leaderboards.

I consider Shadow of the Tomb Raider my favorite out of the Survivor Reboot trilogy, but wish the narrative and story was as strong as its predecessors.