“Song of the Deep” can’t seem to get out of its own way. While the small-scale project from Insomniac — and debut of GameStop’s new publishing wing, GameTrust — has glimmers of greatness, it constantly feels just slightly off in ways that could have been easily adjusted for a more pleasant experience.

2016 was a good year for games. There’s just no other way to put it. Sequels lived up to their predecessors. Original titles were refreshing and fun. The Last Guardian and Final Fantasy XV were both real things that really happened. And 2017 is looking even better.

“The Witcher” series is one of my all-time favorite video game trilogies, and it was with great sadness that I went into “Blood and Wine.” I wasn’t sad because I thought the expansion would be terrible, quite the opposite in fact, I was sad because this means we’ve come to the end of Geralt’s storyline.

There are certain games that require Commitment to play through — yes, with a capital C. These are games so ambitious and vast that you just cannot get through them in anything less than 50 hours.

The first ever “Mario” game for iOS devices has finally arrived. Does it live up to the massive amounts of hype? Our review.

The road to Final Fantasy XV has been so long, so turbulent, that I had persuaded myself no small number of times that I just didn’t care. Like, whatever. It’s not Versus XIII anymore. They kicked Tetsuya Nomura off his passion project. It’s not what it originally was supposed to be.

As the clock winds down to zero, you backtrack in time to drop a perfect pulse bomb on the enemy position, blowing apart the greedy robot-turned-turret and his teammate, a slick sniper assassin who was too busy tracking her prey to notice your explosive gift.

Last week was full of unusual game announcements to finish off the year — more Death Stranding from Hideo Kojima, now starring Mads Mikkelsen, Guillermo del Toro and 100 percent more fetuses than the last, Norman-Reedus-crying-on-the-beach teaser.

“Final Fantasy XV” is a road trip that comes dangerously close to running out of gas, coasting on fumes long enough to deliver a rich and rewarding open-world experience that embraces the bond of friendship just as much as the thrill of hunting for rare treasure and beasts.

It’s no coincidence that World of Final Fantasy made its debut in late October. Everyone knows the real prize is waiting to be unveiled Nov. 30. This light-hearted romp of an RPG is merely … a stopgap, as it were.