Call me a purist, but I like my traditional racers on consoles -- not my DS -- where I can sit on my couch, marvel at the crisp graphics, and feel the feedback coming into my racing wheel as I drive along the road. But if you really want to race on the DS -- and it's your only viable option -- GRID works as intended...mostly.

Really the only thing Ace Combat has to offer that its predecessors don't is a couple of new flight modes and real world locations. This would be enough to recommend the game to die-hard fans, but the camera cut aways make the game a worse experience than its predecessors. If you want a good Ace Combat experience, you should play an earlier game in the series.

The GameCube version, on the other hand, slows down horribly with too many cars on the screen (at the start of a four-car race, for instance) or in certain areas of town with a lot of background architecture. It's bad enough that the absence of online multiplayer is just a little extra salt in the wound.

Really the only thing Ace Combat has to offer that its predecessors don't is a couple of new flight modes and real world locations. This would be enough to recommend the game to die-hard fans, but the camera cut aways make the game a worse experience than its predecessors. If you want a good Ace Combat experience, you should play an earlier game in the series.

In the end, there's absolutely no reason to choose this one over these other versions: Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, Xbox, or even PSP. If you're a Madden beginner, just play an easy level on a different console.

Kingdom shelves any cleverness, attaching training wheels to your creativity for the first two-thirds of the game. It's not until the last few islands that you're given an invitation to be creative.

Save for a tedious gimmick level in the Hundred-Acre Wood, each stage follows the same basic structure: work towards the first cutscene, which provides the key to the second cutscene, which provides the key to the boss. There are no puzzles or complex paths to work through -- once you've solved one, you've solved them all.

Edited down to a tight package this could probably make a pretty good machinima feature (or Sci-Fi original motion picture for that matter). But as a game, it fails.

It attempts to emulate the spirit of its bigger cousin, but it falls short.

If you're masochistic and don't mind awkwardly paced gameplay, you may actually enjoy Uprising. For everyone else, playing this game feels like paying someone $15 to punch you in the face over and over again.

Perhaps worst of all, the sense of place is gone.

A disappointing compilation of ambition without practical delivery. It's a game broken into several fundamental components that never work on their own and never contribute to a whole that can be appreciated.

DDR Universe is the gaming equivalent of an alien fetus belching out "The Star-Spangled Banner" -- a disaster of a title that digests any good DDR has given us into one of its many stomachs, producing something so foul that it could power Earth for centuries.

At almost $16 on the PlayStation Store it's hard to justify this pack of frustrating challenge levels when you can get a far superior and more balanced game in LocoRoco 2 for just $20. This masochistic traipse through nightmarish levels will probably appeal to some hardcore gamers, but if you've enjoyed LocoRoco in the past, you'll want to hold on to your good memories and just wait for the next chapter.

Edited down to a tight package this could probably make a pretty good machinima feature (or Sci-Fi original motion picture for that matter). But as a game, it fails.

Too many corners were cut to ensure the timely shipping of this PS2 release, and Rockstar Vienna's lack of care shines through.

Impressive a feat as creating a 3D shooter with cinematic aspirations for the DS may be, it doesn't mean much when it's not fundamentally fun to play.

It's shame that this port has been borked so badly; I don't think No More Heroes found the audience it needed on the Wii, and Heroes' paradise isn't going to do this franchise any favors.

Bully's biggest problem is that it's a shoddy port job, rife with technical missteps that wouldn't warrant comment if they weren't so profoundly damaging to the game.

Omega Five isn't anything special -- a blessing in some respects, but ultimately its curse. It's a side-scrolling shooter, highly reminiscent of the 16-bit era (even the music is in line with the best shooters of the late '90s), and while it's a short game on the whole, its challenge is nearly insurmountable and definitely not for the mass market.

UGnG gets the superficial bits right, yet the fundamental elements that have always made the series so compelling despite its esteem-crushing difficulty are either missing, compromised or broken in this sequel. And without those crucial underpinnings of quality in place, the entire affair collapses in a morass of mediocrity.

But whether you're playing online or off, you just can't shake the feeling that the PC version of Blazing Angels 2 is a messy afterthought, made all the more disappointing for wasted potential.

It's quickly clear that Dark Messiah is a "Half-Life 2"-style rail ride, but with "Deus Ex"-style character development.

It might be a worthwhile purchase to someone who needs an object lesson in how not to take advantage of the platform, but for anyone else this is just a more expensive version of a game that's been cluttering bargain bins for a while now.

The days of Jedi Knight, Rogue Squadron, and TIE Fighter are quickly becoming distant memories of what it was like to sit down and feel like we really were in a galaxy far, far away -- The Force Unleashed on the Wii can't hold a candle to those classics.

As it is, it feels like a one-night brainstorming session came up with a whole bunch of random ideas thrown in a pot and clumsily stirred. There might be a good game in here somewhere, but it needs to cook a lot longer.

From 2K8's tricky new controls to the number of gameplay hiccups, we simply can't recommend this skater over EA's for this hockey season.

Underneath the frustrating instability, behind the graceless chat window, and beyond the procession of NPC dialog boxes, you tickled that deep primordial need to gather more stuff and get stronger. Loot and leveling are the essence of any RPG, and you're equipped to satisfy that jones.

It feels like a one-night brainstorming session came up with a whole bunch of random ideas thrown in a pot and clumsily stirred. There might be a good game in here somewhere, but it needs to cook a lot longer.

In the end, this one poses as a tennis game for beginners, but even tykes will only be mildly amused.

Instead of providing a streamlined alternative to the more ambitious console iterations, the PSP version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is an abridged disappointment.

Sometimes, stereotypes exist for very good reasons. Korean role-playing games have a reputation as low-rent incarnations of their more polished Japanese counterparts, and Magna Carta 2 does nothing to combat that perception -- instead, it embraces it wholeheartedly.

The biggest issue with the game, besides the slow pace, is that each level feels roughly the same, despite the shifting settings of each stage.

I'm taking Blue Dragon Plus for what it essentially is: a flat, RPG-like outing, which is mostly the fault of a design platform that needs revising.

Genre enthusiasts, beware: Golf: Tee it Up! hits the basics of the sport, but it lacks both the necessary finesse and panache to match up against the pros.

What would've otherwise been a fun multiplayer shooter is marred by a series of technical issues.

I'm just not convinced that this grab bag of half-baked ideas and gratuitous filler makes for a great videogame. And I learned something about myself, as well: It takes a lot more than sassy books and hermaphrodites to keep my interest these days.

Brink is unfinished. And that doesn't mean it's full of technical problems. Well, it's got those too. But mostly, it's just an unpolished, poorly executed mess of ideas.

A game that desperately needed another six months of beta-testing.

The game's run-and-bop antics unfold in the charming SpongeBob universe, but the portrayal of the characters falls flat and feels like a joke that never reaches the punch line.

It just doesn't have enough substance to stand out on it's own.

There are some really cool ideas here that belong in a better game: the tech tree, the random encounters, command ratings, and the shipbuilding, for instance.

Viking: Battle for Asgard falls far short of its potential.

Much like Wii Play before it, Wii Party has about a night's worth of uneven entertainment in it before it's ready to take up a life of farming dust on your shelf.

The venerability of these selections combined with the substandard interface (exiting out of a given game is performed inconsistently and tends to be very confusing) and paltry selection of titles makes this one you can skip over without losing any sleep.

Despite the limited enjoyment found in figuring out how to kill the game's enemies, none of the tired, tentacle-porn clichés conjured here are of that much interest.

People who like deliberately campy, cheesy premises (like a Tarantino film) might find some subversive pleasure in this unique-yet-half-baked effort, but those looking for a little more depth would do well to pass this one by.

It's maddening to repeatedly fail a mission because you simply can't maneuver that well...especially when the only control you have over your character is movement. If this is the epitome of cooperative games, then I'll gladly go back to playing by myself.

It's more flattering to look at Killer App as another handheld arcade collection with a great upgraded multiplayer version of Light Cycles and a simply bad adventure game thrown in as a bonus.

I'm just not convinced that this grab bag of half-baked ideas and gratuitous filler makes for a great videogame. And I learned something about myself, as well: It takes a lot more than sassy books and hermaphrodites to keep my interest these days.

It just doesn't have enough substance to stand out on it's own.

Outside of the charming (and yes, very girlie) story and genuinely humorous dialogue, all that's left is a short, extremely easy, and sometimes confusing RPG.

It's technically playable and, despite its best efforts, probably won't plunge the industry into a period of navel-gazing and political sanction. Everything else about it is largely forgettable.

The lack of a versus mode is a gross oversight that makes versus battles an uncomfortable chore (the winner can't switch characters without resetting the entire game -- just like in the arcades!).

Unless you fancy yourself a hardcore DC comics fan, you'll find little to hold your interest in DCUO in its current state after the first several hours of gameplay.

Nothing says a simulator can't be fun. I love the idea of plotting out my draft board, targeting free agents, cutting dead weight, and juggling the salary cap. But Head Coach 09 just left me frustrated and angry.

The venerability of these selections combined with the substandard interface (exiting out of a given game is performed inconsistently and tends to be very confusing) and paltry selection of titles makes this one you can skip over without losing any sleep.

Most importantly, though (especially for fans of the PC Fallout), you've got an RPG without any sort of enticing story.

Worse than simply being tedious, though, is how jaw-grindingly frustrating Zombie Apocalypse becomes.

How two quality ops managed to screw up Theatre of War is anyone's guess.

The battle system reeks of incomplete, unfinished ideas.

Dragging the game out with endless fetch quests and terrible combat makes getting to the end more of a chore than anything.

Like Mario Bros., the Famicom Mini version of Dr. Mario suffers from a single terrible flaw: it was completely obsolete long before it was ever released.

The most frustrating thing about Octomania isn't the awfully voiced rapping tree with a rainbow 'fro or having to play through the same few short story mode battles over and over in order to unlock new characters -- it's that winning not only takes a bit of patience and strategy (as you wait for enough colors to be available for large combos), but it also takes a heaping help of luck.

Lights Out more resembles a student project for a gaming college than a finished retail product (and not necessarily a passing one either).

Take those problems and add on yawn-inspiring and occasionally frustrating level design and a grand total running time of about six hours for all but the slowest of gamers, and you've got another licensed movie game that's decidedly mediocre.

Only a revisit after about six months will reveal whether or not Sword of the New World manages to reach its potential...if anyone's willing to wait that long.

While the uninspiring adventure mode is excusable, the camera and the framerate problems are not; those two factors break the game.

Sega fails to make a good platformer -- pretty much everything Sonic Unleashed does has been done better in tons of other games.

The selection of missions is a little sparse, and the game demands a near-perfect performance to unlock extra content, but that's far less of a problem compared to a control scheme that just isn't any fun.

AC4 feels like a house that's been added onto so often that it's a maze of twisting passages, oddly shaped rooms, and doors that go nowhere. There may be something worthwhile hidden within, but it's not worth the effort to find it. Time to tear it all down and start over.

Too Human is also not a good action game. While it deserves some applause for a reasonable translation of PC classic Diablo's mouse-driven controls, its reliance on the right analog stick as a means for attack only works at the most basic level.

Ultimately, Afro falls into the same pitfalls as almost every other game based on a movie/television license: It presents an edited down version of a story that's familiar to fans but indecipherable to newcomers, wrapped up in a generic game housing. It looks great. It sounds great. But, otherwise, it's a mashup of characters and situations that makes little sense.

That the game outperforms its 3D siblings seems to have happened almost by default: the other games are so poor that this mediocre product seems sterling by comparison. Taken on its own merits, though, it's just not particularly good.

The survivor mode is like the game itself in a microcosm. It's rote and uninspired, a desultory thoughtless collage of bits and pieces surgically removed from the movies and dropped lifelessly into a dated engine.

Viking: Battle for Asgard falls far short of its potential.

The venerability of these selections combined with the substandard interface (exiting out of a given game is performed inconsistently and tends to be very confusing) and paltry selection of titles makes this one you can skip over without losing any sleep.

AC4 feels like a house that's been added onto so often that it's a maze of twisting passages, oddly shaped rooms, and doors that go nowhere. There may be something worthwhile hidden within, but it's not worth the effort to find it. Time to tear it all down and start over.

Ultimately, Afro falls into the same pitfalls as almost every other game based on a movie/television license: It presents an edited down version of a story that's familiar to fans but indecipherable to newcomers, wrapped up in a generic game housing. It looks great. It sounds great. But, otherwise, it's a mashup of characters and situations that makes little sense.

It's hard to shake the feeling that Mercenaries 3D is the slimy result of a Capcom executive meeting titled "What can we get away with this time?"

Nintendo's portable system is the popular girl in school these days, which makes Cookie & Cream an embarrassing photo from back in junior high. Back when she had acne, braces and Coke-bottle glasses and hung out with the kids who weren't cool enough to be on the chess team. Let's put those dark days behind us, shall we?

Despite those nice touches, BBB could have been more fun had it adopted a few modern touches and included online multiplayer (co-op is limited to local play only). Instead, it feels like more effort was spent on ensuring that the Team Fortress 2 section looked exactly like the Dustbowl level than on making sure the game played as well as possible. At $15 BBB is just $5 too expensive to justify picking up.

The problem with Mario Party is this: the downtime is completely ridiculous. In a game where the sole purpose is to entertain you in a party-like environment, sitting out for periods of up to 10 minutes at a time, waiting for everyone to roll the dice, run around, shop for items, use said items, compete in stale, single-player mini-games, pointless microphone games and other random events drives one to tears of boredom.

Most importantly, though (especially for fans of the PC Fallout), you've got an RPG without any sort of enticing story.

The survivor mode is like the game itself in a microcosm. It's rote and uninspired, a desultory thoughtless collage of bits and pieces surgically removed from the movies and dropped lifelessly into a dated engine.

I love the idea of plotting out my draft board, targeting free agents, cutting dead weight, and juggling the salary cap. But Head Coach 09 just left me frustrated and angry.

When I'm in the market for an RPG, it's for a select few reasons: I'm looking for an epic story, rad loot, combat that stimulates the tactical chunks of my brain, and beautiful environments. White Knight Chronicles does none of these things well. To top it all off, the game inexplicably ends after less than 30 hours with most of the major plot points left wholly unresolved.

The game has some ambition, and I admire that. But in the end, a score is based on how much fun I have (that's why we play, right?), and I had very little fun playing Wild Arms XF. This says it all: I can't wait to whip out strategy gems like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea on my commute...but I had to force myself to drag out XF.

Long stretches of each stage can be severely frustrating and annoying, but when they're not, it's still pretty fun -- and getting "in the zone" to complete an especially hard part in one try is always satisfying.

A game that tries so hard to prove that the series is progressing, but ignores fixing the issues that have plagued it for years: poor defense, sloppy animations, and catering to the home run mar any greatness this game was hoping to achieve.

It's a terrible system and it's sure to alienate all but the hardcore C&C nerds. But those of you who stick around, those of you who are willing to put up with the ugly graphics, the pointless online-only requirement, and the mandatory grinding are liable to end up as the small dedicated player base for yet another one of Electronic Arts' disastrous attempts at online gaming.

The game does provide a few improvements, bringing revised flight controls and new cooperative mission modes, but For Answer lacks what a great series needs in order to stay relevant: progress.

I understand that the game is meant for a younger audience, but there are quite literally hundreds of other titles out there that provide a far more enjoyable experience.

For all its flaws this one's still fun for a short kickaround, but in the end it's really nothing more than a softcore novelty.

For all its flaws this one's still fun for a short kickaround, but in the end it's really nothing more than a softcore novelty.

While the game does a solid job of recreating the console tracks and maintaining a steady frame rate, the scaled-down visuals don't always depict how your competitors are wrecked, which sucks away a lot of the appeal of the experience.

Despite those nice touches, BBB could have been more fun had it adopted a few modern touches and included online multiplayer (co-op is limited to local play only). Instead, it feels like more effort was spent on ensuring that the Team Fortress 2 section looked exactly like the Dustbowl level than on making sure the game played as well as possible. At $15 BBB is just $5 too expensive to justify picking up.

You can play a few pointless sandbox maps that demonstrate the straightjacketed city progression, whether you're in Capua, Venice, Sparta, or Memphis.