CrossfireX

Based on Smilegate’s super-popular free-to-play shooter, CrossfireX garnered attention because Remedy was behind its campaign. However, this was little more than two short “Operations” with bad writing, cliched and boring gameplay, and terrible AI. The studio’s trademark panache was missing here, though the Northlight Engine looked decent, and the “revamped” multiplayer didn’t offer much either.

Gungrave G.O.R.E

Some games are developed for years, and you hate to see them launch as Gungrave G.O.R.E has. Any notions of style that Overdose may have had all those years ago are overridden by an ugly visual style, from the characters to the levels. The story sounds like it could make for some B-movie-level fun but ends up confusing and outright time-wasting. Gameplay-wise, the sheer amount of jank in animations, movement, and combat are just awful all around.

Source of Madness

In theory, Source of Madness sounds cool. It uses procedural generation to create its Lovecraftian-esque nightmares and neural network AI to animate them. Unfortunately, this results in unpredictable enemies, further adding to the brutal difficulty alongside the shoddy controls. Even if you can appreciate the aesthetic, the sheer lack of strategy that enemies display, horrible bosses, and lackluster progression ensures little payoff for surviving this nightmare.

Winter Ember

As a dark fantasy stealth title, Winter Ember felt pretty ambitious with its 30 arrow types, 70 passive and active skills, and open-ended gameplay. The interesting aesthetic and setting are hampered by poor combat, awful enemy AI, shoddy cover while sneaking, and the same repetitive gameplay loop. Even the audio design, an essential part of a stealth experience, is not good, executing any hope one could have for this mess.

XEL

A sci-fi adventure inspired by Zelda with an appealing art style – what could go wrong? As XEL proves, quite a lot. The sheer number of bugs and lack of polish will put you off immediately. Once you make it further in, the combat and visuals can be somewhat satisfying, but the awful story undercuts them. Too much repetition and some baffling design decisions will further kill your interest if you’re still somehow playing.

The Last Oricru

Serving as one of the poster games for the new Prime Matter label, The Last Oricru takes clear inspiration from other Souls-like titles. But that’s all it is – a shallow inspiration where everything sticks out for all the wrong reasons. It may be the annoying main character, user interface, controls or how clunky everything looks. Whatever it may be, The Last Oricru doesn’t feel good to play, look at or think about.

Dolmen

Like The Last Oricru, Dolmen is a Souls-like but sci-fi with cosmic horror. It’s also terrible, with combat missing many key features and melee combat feeling janky and poorly tuned overall. Despite how interesting the sci-fi premise looks, it’s all fluff with no real purpose or sense that fails to hook you.

MX vs ATV Legends

MX vs ATV Legends isn’t bad enough to be truly awful, but it’s enough to be annoyingly mediocre. Multiple types of vehicles to race with? Good. The slippery controls and haphazard AI? Bad, though the former has reportedly improved. The open world aspect? Good. The lack of anything to do in it? Bad. We could go on with the physics, sound design, polish, and so on. While the new Trails mode and regular tracks are decent, it’s not enough when everything else is undercooked.

The House of the Dead: Remake

With all the remakes we’ve seen in the past few years, The House of the Dead: Remake could have been something good. Maybe not great, but still good. Developer MegaPixel Studio kept almost everything as is, but the visual upgrades look too dark and ugly. The remixed soundtrack comes across as bland, and the lack of much new content (save for the missable horde mode) makes it feel overpriced. The less said about the controls and performance issues, the better.

Diablo Immortal

Maybe it’s fun on mobile, but Diablo Immortal on PC is a travesty. Its user interface is horrid, with annoying pop-ups – especially during gameplay, resulting in misclicks – and the combat is an even more dumbed-down version of Diablo 3. The campaign is there, but any interesting plot is offset by the stupid progression blockers and grinding required. The sheer scale of monetization is also appalling, to the extent that certain end-game activities are just locked off to free players. Even without it, Diablo Immortal would still be a mess as opposed to the ongoing trainwreck.

Monark

Lancarse’s track record has been a bit spotty this year, as anyone who played The DioField Chronicle will attest. There was some hope for Monark, developed by a few former Shin Megami Tensei series members. It has a school setting, Egos, and an Otherworld to explore, just like SMT and Persona. It differs, however, in the awful pacing, repetitive gameplay, and troubling characterization, to say nothing of the shallow visuals and environments. With so many other great RPG efforts this year, like Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Trails from Zero, and so on, Monark hardly warrants a look.

LEGO Brawls

A platform fighter based on LEGO sets sounds appealing in theory. The execution leaves a lot to be desired. Originally released for iOS in 2019, LEGO Brawls made its way to consoles and PC this past September. Despite its looks, the gameplay quickly becomes boring (with little difference between characters), and the sheer grind required to unlock things is a chore. The lack of stuff to do doesn’t help either.

ELEX 2

I found ELEX to be a drag, but Piranhabytes’ sci-fi action RPG garnered a dedicated cult following after its release. ELEX 2 seemed a good time to capitalize on this and deliver something better. Sadly, it’s also full of clunky combat, dull writing, boring open-world design, monotonous side quests, and an underwhelming presentation. Being able to fly with a jetpack doesn’t count for much when there are so many bugs, and the DirectX 12 rollout is a whole other rigmarole on its own.

IKAI

Despite its low production values, IKAI could have been a nice little horror title, weaving in Japanese folklore in unique ways. Alas, it falls flat. It’s very short, the plot makes little sense, and it abruptly ends with almost no payoff. This wouldn’t be too terrible if the gameplay and horror were up to par, but the former is too restrictive and lackluster, while the latter offers bland jumpscares.

Blackwind

In some alternate universe, Blackwind would have been a decent twin-stick shooter/action RPG hybrid. Unfortunately in this timeline, its premise can’t withstand the horrible story, mind-numbingly dull exploration and progression, and awful combat. The glitches and poor controls further hamper your attempts to squeeze any enjoyment out of the experience.

The Waylanders

Developer Gato Studio’s recent The Waylanders is an interesting concept with hints of promise here and there, but all of these good aspects come with their own sets of caveats. While the story is interesting on some levels, it’s marred down by unimpressive voice acting and pacing that’s all over the place. Then there’s the gameplay, which is engaging but is plagued with bugs and glitches galore. Taken as a whole, however – it’s recommended that you pass on this game.

Diablo Immortal

The day it was announced, nearly everyone expected Diablo Immortal to be a pay-to-win shitshow. The final product somehow exceeded their wildest expectations with a battle pass, premium battle pass, empowered battle pass, materials, bundles, cosmetics – anything and everything was for sale. Let’s not even get into entire endgame mechanics – like Awakening – only accessible by spending money. The real tragedy is that even if that was all stripped away, you’re left with a middling, dumbed-down clone of Diablo 3 with a terrible UI and loot.

Though an official and formal announcement has yet to be made, publisher Forever Entertainment has confirmed to its shareholders that The House of the Dead: Remake will launch for PS4, Xbox One, PC (via Steam and GOG), and Stadia later this month, on April 28, and will cost $24.99 / €24.99.

The House of the Dead: Remake uses the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con and motion controls to replicate the light gun gameplay of the original arcade game, so it should be interesting to see how it handles that on other platforms. Of course, the remake also has a mode that allows gameplay through regular gamepad inputs, which should work fine on PC and consoles.

In our review of The House of the Dead: Remake, we gave it a score of 5/10, saying, “The House of the Dead: Remake will appeal to fans of the original for obvious reasons, but several significant issues hold the disappointingly threadbare experience back in several ways.” You can read our full review through here.

An image of a Microsoft store listing for the game has been doing the rounds on social media platforms, suggesting a release could be imminent. Additionally, a Reddit user recently also found a similar listing for the game on the PSN backend, meaning a PlayStation version might be due to release sometime soon as well.

Of course, we don’t know when these versions will be released, or whether these rumours will end up being true or not, since no official announcements regarding the same have been made yet. As such, it’s important to take it all with a healthy pinch of salt until something official comes up.

You can read our review of The House of the Dead: Remake through here.

@purexbox hey yo pic.twitter.com/aPNBQKGeIS

— Joey Bimmy Jeff Banes (@joey_s_banes) April 12, 2022

The House of the Dead: Remake is a very faithful recreation of its source material as far as its primary content is concerned. The game sees you playing as one of two different agents, tasked with heading into the mansion and lab of the villainous Dr. Curien to put a stop to his evil experiments- which, of course, have spawned a deluge of zombies and all sorts of mutants and monstrosities that you have to blast through as you make your way further in.

"Though it’s still an enjoyable arcade shooter at its core, The House of the Dead: Remake is held back in some ways, making for a decent but rough experience."

The story is threadbare and often bafflingly refuses to provide context where it feels like it should, while the voice acting and writing, appropriately enough, are the epitome of campy and just all-around hilariously bad. It’s very much on-brand, and didn’t particularly bother me much – that stuff isn’t the main appeal of these games anyway – but newcomers should still be warned not to go in expecting something that emphasizes production values or storytelling in any way, shape, or form.

Thankfully, The House of the Dead: Remake’s main attraction is its rail shooting, and that’s an area where the game sticks the landing, for the most part. Going through the game’s constantly changing environments is a lot of fun, especially on your first run through- there’s just something uniquely appealing about the campy horror trope of heading through mansions and into caverns and underground labs while contending with all manner of monstrosities. It’s simple and effective.

It helps as well that there’s a solid variety of enemies that you run into this game. Starting off with regular old zombies and having everything from mechanical spiders and bat-like creatures to mutant humanoids and more, The House of the Dead: Remake has a pretty impressive pool of enemy types that it keeps diving into. Landing hits on enemies and watching them explode into chunks of gore and viscera also never gets boring, while the game keeps things interesting in some other areas as well, from optional and missable challenges in environments to different paths to take and multiple endings to see.

The House of the Dead: Remake does have one pretty significant issue with how it controls. On the aiming side of things, either with gyro aiming or with the analog stick, things are mostly fine. It never feels as intuitive as an actual light gun shooter, of course, but it’s not a massive gulf by any means. At its core, aiming and shooting still feels fun. The problem, however, is the new reload mechanic.

"At its core, aiming and shooting still feels fun. The problem, however, is the new reload mechanic."

As a result of transitioning from light gun shooting to gyro/traditional controls, The House of the Dead: Remake has players reload by hitting the left trigger rather than aiming off-screen and shooting in the original game. That means there’s nothing stopping you from simultaneously shooting and reloading literally non-stop. The original House of the Dead placed a lot of emphasis on having to carefully place your shots, since reloading was a manual act that interrupted shooting. In the remake, you can go through the entire story without ever interrupting the simultaneous reload-shoot loop for even a second. It cheapens the action by a great degree, and makes things significantly easier. Again, it’s still fun, because the simple act of aiming and shooting is fun, and because the game does a lot to encourage replays, but the new reload mechanic does take something away from the experience.

It helps that the main story mode has some of the replay appeal, because it’s not a particularly long experience. You can blow through The House of the Dead: Remake’s four chapters in well under an hour- which makes sense for an arcade game, of course, but might be disappointing to newcomers looking for a meatier experience. And honestly, there’s only so many times you can run through the same four levels before getting bored of them, even with the variation the game does throw in here and there. At $25, The House of the Dead: Remake isn’t necessarily expensive, but some might still find its content offerings inadequate with respect to the price.

Of course, there are a few additional offerings in The House of the Dead: Remake outside of its story mode that help improve things. In addition to in-game achievements and multiple difficulty levels, the game also has two co-op modes- cooperative mode sees players sharing their score total and continues, while competitive mode has different scores and continue counts for each player, with both trying to outscore the other. Competitive mode in particular is a neat mode if you have sometime that you can jump into the game with every now and then for a quick run through its story.

Meanwhile, The House of the Dead: Remake has a new horde mode as well- which, honestly, feels a little redundant. You go through the same four levels in the horde mode, only things are harder here, with more zombies attacking you at any given time and taking more shots to go down. It’s a nice bit of added challenge, but it doesn’t do enough to bring more meat to the package’s bones- which is something that it feels like it needs.

"You can blow through The House of the Dead: Remake’s four chapters in well under an hour- which makes sense for an arcade game, of course, but might be disappointing to newcomers looking for a meatier experience."

On the visual side of things, this isn’t a very good looking game. The House of the Dead: Remake goes to the effort of completely re-creating the entire game from scratch, so it’s a shame that more effort didn’t go into its visuals. Zombies exploding into gore looks alright, as it always will, and the environments have cool art design, but by and large, this is a pretty rough-looking game. Performance, too, is an issue, and while a Performance Mode does reduce the visual quality (even below than its already-not-impressive baseline) to have more consistent frame rates, it still doesn’t feel like a perfectly smooth experience.

The House of the Dead: Remake has quite a bit going for it- it’s inherently fun, it’s got decent replay value, and above all else, it’s a faithful remake of a beloved classic that does a solid job of paying tribute to the original. It’s got issues though, and not minor ones- which does drag down the experience. The new reload mechanic cheapens the gameplay in significant ways, the game doesn’t look gate, and it’s way too short, and doesn’t have enough content on offer, to justify its price for someone who doesn’t have a strong attachment to the IP. The House of the Dead: Remake is a decent throwback, but with a little more meat and a little more polish, it could have been more.

This game was reviewed on the Nintendo Switch.

Two player local multiplayer is supported and contemporary controls should make it easier for new players to hop in. For long-time fans, there are multiple endings, Achievements, an Armory with various unlockable weapons and a new mode where you battle hordes of zombies. Almost like a “Horde Mode”, if you will.

Photo Mode and Gallery Mode, allowing one to capture images and check out the various foes and bosses respectively. The House of the Dead: Remake is currently exclusive to Nintendo Switch but could come to other platforms like PS4 (based on an image found on the PlayStation Network’s backend, as per Reddit). Stay tuned for further announcements.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Switch)

As a remaster of the Nintendo Wii version, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed tells the story of Galen Marek aka Starkiller. Raised in secret by Darth Vader and serving as his apprentice, he embarks on missions to hunt down any rogue Jedi and kill anyone that gets in his way. While titles like Jedi Knight emphasized more grounded lightsaber combat, The Force Unleashed embraced hack and slash style combos and the power fantasy of hurling TIE Fighters at enemies. While it’s unknown if the Switch version will have motion controls or multiplayer duels like the Wii, it should be a fun way to revisit the franchise when it releases on April 20^th.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

Of course for those who want to experience everything Star Wars-related from a LEGO veneer, there’s LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. It packs all nine mainline films, from the prequels and original trilogy to the new trilogy, into one massive game with over 300 playable characters, 45 story missions and tons of side content. Venture to Tatooine and engage in quizzes to find out who shot first; roam space and get into a dogfight with Star Destroyers; or enter Freeplay mode and control whoever you like. It’s out on April 1^st for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch.

The Serpent Rogue

The premise of Sengi Games’ action adventure is fairly straightforward – the Serpent Rogue is spreading its evil from Mount Morbus. Play as an alchemist known as The Warden and venture forth to defeat it. As you explore the dark fantasy world, you’ll gather ingredients, craft potions, pursue quests and even shapeshift to grow stronger. Be careful though since certain actions have serious repercussions, like ghouls being attracted to unburied corpses. The Serpent Rogue releases on April 26^th for Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

The House of the Dead: Remake

The 1997 arcade rail-shooter is making a comeback, courtesy of Forever Entertainment. Along with remade visuals which give new life to the grotesque zombies of old, it also sports modern controls, local two-player multiplayer and multiple endings. A new game mode where players gun down hordes of the undead has also been added along with Photo Mode, Achievements, an armory with “unlockable” weapons and a gallery to better inspect all of the enemies and bosses. The House of the Dead: Remake launches on April 7^th for Nintendo Switch.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (Switch)

Releasing on April 14^th for Nintendo Switch, Vanillaware’s 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is part visual novel/adventure and part real-time strategy with pause, teeming with mechs, time travel and much more. As the Kaiju invade Tokyo, it’s up to the 13 different characters piloting their Sentinels to stop them. Of course, there’s much more to the story than that as players unravel multiple perspectives and piece them together into a cohesive whole.

MotoGP 22

If you need a break from the Forzas and Gran Turismos of the world, then Milestone’s MotoGP 22 may be worth a look. Releasing on April 21^st, it offers 120 riders and more than 20 circuits. Delve into the 2009 Grand Prix in over 17 chapters with legendary riders like Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa, or enter the Academy to undertake training and challenges. You can also create a team and manage everything, from customizing the bikes to hiring staff, or engage in some split-screen racing. MotoGP 22 will be available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Hologram

For a relatively unknown developer like Enlighteneer, Hologram looks intriguing. Set in the future, you play as Woner who must rely on the power of time manipulation to push back against the “evil horde.” Along with third person shooting, there’s mountain climbing, flying – which can be used to travel the length of planets – and “story-driven gameplay.” Despite some scuffness, it should be interesting to see how the full game is when it releases on April 26^th for PC.

TIC-TAC: Twelve o’clock

Unfortunately, this isn’t a game about calmly playing Tic-Tac-Toe at bright and sunny noon. Instead, you’re exploring Bluebird Middle School, which has somehow become a hotspot for scary creatures and dark forces. Along with puzzle solving and checking your shelter, there are random events that will test your resolve. Survive enough nights and eventually, you’ll find out what’s really going on. TIC-TAC: Twelve o’clock releases on April 29^th for PC.

Holomento

A curse has been wrought upon the land, caused by the strange book known as the Holomento. As a Traveler, you’ll take the book and venture through Eventide Hollow, restoring the region to its former glory. Fight off a variety of enemies (with weapons ranging from swords to grenade launchers, don’t ask) and explore the world for secrets, relics and other resources. Upgrade the Hollow for new stores and shops but beware – dying means starting over as a new Traveler (though you have multiple different classes to choose from). Holomento enters Steam Early Access on April 22^nd.

MLB The Show 22

Sony San Diego’s vaunted MLB The Show series returns, releasing for Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S along with PS4 and PS5 on April 5^th. Featuring Shohei Ohtani as its cover star, it also includes a dynamic Stadium Creator for current-gen platforms, online co-op, and a new commentary team with Jon Sciambi and Chris Singleton. This in addition to the classic gameplay that fans know and love along with crossplay, cross saves and cross-progression.

Chernobylite (Xbox Series X/S and PS5)

If you’re seeking that classic S.T.A.L.K.E.R. feel, then Chernobylite may be worth checking out. Set in the Exclusion Zone, you play as Igor and search desperately for a loved one. That’s easier said than done though with mutants, stalkers and other foes prowling the area, not to mention the dangers of radiation. Recruit companions and assign tasks to them; build your base and craft weapons; and take a variety of approaches when playing through the story. The Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions are out on April 7^th, and will include two graphics modes – 4K/30 FPS and 1080/60 FPS – along with ray tracing support. This is along with the Enhanced Edition PC, which is free for current owners.

Slipstream

A retro-style arcade racer in the vein of Sega’s OutRun series, ansdor’s Slipstream features gorgeous sprite-scaling and a pulsing soundtrack. It comes with five cars, 20 tracks, and four cups in Grand Prix Mode coupled with five additional modes like Time Trial, Battle Royale, Cannonball and more (along with online leaderboards). Though currently available on PC, Slipstream launches on April 7^th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and Nintendo Switch.

Chinatown Detective Agency

Pixel art and gorgeous character portraits coincide with cybernoir and shady streets in this point and click adventure from General Interactive Co. Releasing on April 7^th for Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch, it focuses on new PI Amira Darma who travels across the globe to solve cases. Puzzles and a reliance on real-world trivia are necessary for success, reflecting its Carmen Sandiego inspirations, but there’s a rich narrative to discover as well. Manage your resources accordingly though or bankruptcy will come calling.

tERRORbane

Meta gaming (no, not that one) is fairly niche but it’s produced some good games from ICEY to There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. BitNine’s tERRORbane is the latest to join the pack, starting out as a fantasy RPG that quickly falls apart due to The Developer. Venture through the world and seek out different bugs, oppose The Developer at every turn, and exploit everything in the faulty code to progress. tERRORbane is out on April 1^st for Nintendo Switch and PC.

Ed-0: Zombie Uprising

A zombie horde slayer from D3 Publisher is hardly news but Ed-0: Zombie Uprising takes a roguelike survival approach to the proceedings. Set in Edo era Japan (hence the name), players choose from one of three characters – the Samurai, Sumo Wrestler and Ninja – and embark on randomly generated runs. Launching into Steam Early Access on April 4^th, Ed-0 will have two playable characters to start with, three main quests and bosses (along with five sub-quests), multiple difficulty options and over 100 skills and items.

Developed by MegaPixel Studio, this remake of the classic 1997 arcade shooter offers contemporary visuals and controls while retaining the same gameplay. Along with support for two players in local multiplayer, there are also multiple endings and Achievements to unlock. Photo Mode and a new game mode where players take on hordes of zombies is also included along with an “Armory” of unlockable weapons.

If that weren’t enough, there’s also a Gallery mode where players can take a closer look at enemies and bosses encountered through the game. Pre-orders for the title kick off on March 31st so stay tuned for more details and gameplay in the coming weeks.

Earlier today we got several announcements as part of the Nintendo Indie Showcase that displayed a lot of smaller scale games to look forward to. One of those games, tucked away in the presentation, was the return of a classic franchise with The House of the Dead: Remake. Seemingly out of nowhere, the remake has been unveiled with a new trailer.

The game is being done by developer MegaPixel Studio and publisher Forever Entertainment. They are licensing the IP out from Sega, the original creators of the property in a deal that seems to be similar to their Panzer Dragoon one that saw a remake of the first title in that franchise last year. The trailer highlights improved visuals, but the same old zombie shooting fans know and love. If you aren’t familiar, this was originally an arcade title developed by Sega where you navigated a mansion filled with zombies and other undead threats that released way back in 1996 for arcades, and then was ported to the Sega Saturn. Forever Entertainment actually announced they were working on a remake of the game, as well as its sequel, way back in 2019, but this is the first official reveal.

The House of the Dead: Remake has been announced to release on Nintendo Switch, but as of now, no release timeframe is set.