The battle system reeks of incomplete, unfinished ideas.

The only real change-up in the whole game is when the Turtles get shiny cybernetic-looking gear when they travel into the future. It's literally wave after wave of enemies through eight stages that serve as mere backdrops. And that wasn't really what was worth remembering from the old days.

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.

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.

While some hardcore dungeon-crawler fans might get some enjoyment out of Valhalla Knights 2, I'd rather skip the grinding and play a game where the combat accentuates my exploration of a rich, engaging world.

The Transformers formula was meant for videogames. Giant robots destroying cities as the forces of good and evil struggle for supremacy. It's too bad the PSP developers weren't able to parlay that into a semidecent game.

Like the "real" Matt Hazard, Eat Lead is best left to fade into obscurity.

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.

And the state of the A.I. is deplorable.

If you play the game on 360, there's a Kinect mode that consists of a series of gameplay challenges (hold out against the Death Eaters chief among them), but the implementation is awful.

With the exclusion of co-op -- what people really want to play -- and the constant hint that a sequel's already on the way, Beast Rider feels like a difficult, drawn-out, $60 tutorial. Why bother?

So much in this game speaks to either a lack of time or pure laziness on the part of the developers.

Absolutely nothing about Rise of the Argonauts stands out as special, and just when you think the game's about to take a turn for the better (at least in terms of reworking the Jason and the Argonauts story), its fundamental and technical problems -- including some annoying loading times in the Xbox 360 version -- bring it way back down.

A slapdash title like this shouldn't take anyone's time or money.

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

Reviving Dreamcast games for the HD generation should involve a little more effort than putting out a slapdash port of the original.

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.

I don't know what it would take to make a game of Spore's scope on the DS, but I know it requires an entirely different approach than the lamentably simplistic Spore Hero Arena.

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.

0 Day is a complicated mess of imbalanced levels, ineffectual A.I., and ghost-town online multiplayer, culminating in no incentive to keep playing.

What little tactical challenge commanding these brain-dead battles presents still manages to overwhelm the game's signature whip select system.

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.

Reviving Dreamcast games for the HD generation should involve a little more effort than putting out a slapdash port of the original.

With the exclusion of co-op -- what people really want to play -- and the constant hint that a sequel's already on the way, Beast Rider feels like a difficult, drawn-out, $60 tutorial. Why bother?

The miserable camera system often zooms in too close to see what you're doing, or makes it impossible to see a necessary location without moving.

The miserable camera system often zooms in too close to see what you're doing, or makes it impossible to see a necessary location without moving.

All of the game's step-by-step recipes are available in the game, but instead of buying it, I'd recommended taking your money and picking up the actual source, the aforementioned How to Boil Water. It'll has the game's 12 dishes, plus a couple hundred more. Not to mention that you'll be able to appreciate the smell of real bacon coming from your kitchen as opposed to seeing it sizzle on your TV and waiting two minutes to virtually flip it with a remote.

The difficulty quickly jumps from simple to insane, before you're equipped to tackle the tougher challenges.

Ultimate Band embodies what I call the Grinch Effect -- unwitting parents buying terrible games that mimic popular ones, stealing Christmas away their children in the process. Kids, don't let the back of the box fool your parents -- make sure they know that you do, in fact, need instruments to rock.

Its eminently forgettable title notwithstanding, the significant flaws lie in core mechanics and not the story framework.

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.

Despite all of Wonder World's menu problems, generally terrible visuals, and inane writing (which at times seems pulled directly from some obscure Bulgarian translation), the actual minigames themselves are surprisingly intuitive. If you can take the punishment to unlock them, a few of the minigames are actually fun.

Its basic design philosophy is one of laziness and glossing over problems rather than really putting out the effort to make a decent game. That's a bitter pill to swallow for a kid who just shelled out 50 bucks of lunch money.

Despite the years of work Realtime Worlds poured into their latest creation, APB still comes off as being woefully underdeveloped, and ultimately unfinished.

The difficulty ramps up so much by the game's finale that I'm not convinced it's even possible for a solo player to finish this thing. And even if you could, I'm not sure why you'd want to; Sanctum of Slime has little to offer the die-hard Ghostbusters fan, and even less for the twin-stick shooter crowd.

The difficulty ramps up so much by the game's finale that I'm not convinced it's even possible for a solo player to finish this thing. And even if you could, I'm not sure why you'd want to; Sanctum of Slime has little to offer the die-hard Ghostbusters fan, and even less for the twin-stick shooter crowd.

By the time I'd defeated my 10th werewolf, I was already tired of needing to cut or shoot its head off so it didn't regenerate. By the time I defeated my 200th, I just wanted to turn the game off.

But the inadequate drum peripheral and minimal extra content expose the fact that development's been problematic since day one. Konami's always been synonymous with awesome rhythm games, but with Rock Revolution, the rock crown and scepter have officially been passed to a new generation of games.

DBC's trouble goes deeper than simple poor design; there's no vision here, no sense of what the "point" of the game is.

Rogue Warrior isn't simply dumbed-down in its final incarnation -- it's just plain dumb.

I was initially excited about the prospect of a top-down shooter to play on the go, but my excitement quickly turned to disappointment and frustration. EA tries to stuff too many peripheral gameplay components into The 40th Day, which loses focus of the point of the shoot-em-up genre. Coupled with the extremely poor AI, there just really isn't much to recommend about this game.

Söldner-X tries to mimic Japanese shooter sensibilities, but in execution, it takes on the trappings of the worst so-called "Euroshmups": stages that don't seem to have had a lot of thought (or maybe too much thought) put into their design, and an art style that's mostly, well, art rather than eye candy to compliment the action.

Its basic design philosophy is one of laziness and glossing over problems rather than really putting out the effort to make a decent game. That's a bitter pill to swallow for a kid who just shelled out 50 bucks of lunch money.

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?"

By the time I'd defeated my 10th werewolf, I was already tired of needing to cut or shoot its head off so it didn't regenerate. By the time I defeated my 200th, I just wanted to turn the game off.

Some will likely fight the flaws for another chance to terrorize their '70s-era brethren, but if the name "Crypto" doesn't bring to mind a litany of past quips, Furon will simply seem like an out-of-touch, thoroughly unpolished romp through mediocrity.

Rogue Warrior isn't simply dumbed-down in its final incarnation -- it's just plain dumb.

Its basic design philosophy is one of laziness and glossing over problems rather than really putting out the effort to make a decent game. That's a bitter pill to swallow for a kid who just shelled out 50 bucks of lunch money.

Unless you're obsessed with all things Sonic, or you simply must own every Kinect title, stay away from Sonic Free Riders.

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.

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

The broken controls, derivative enemies, and maddening attack moves remove any ounce of fun. The saving graces are the cut-scenes, but we don't even <I>play</I> that part. So in short, it's at its best when you're not touching the controls, and when a game plays this badly, you don't want to.

By the time I'd defeated my 10th werewolf, I was already tired of needing to cut or shoot its head off so it didn't regenerate. By the time I defeated my 200th, I just wanted to turn the game off.

Namco Bandai wisely placed heavy emphasis on the sensory overload graphics, and the reason is clear: if you aren't laughing at the craziness, the game itself might actually drive you mad.

You'll spend so much time fighting the Wii Remote and accidentally building towers in the wrong places that you might as well just go to a backyard sandbox or actual beach.

Much like Altair himself, Assassin's Creed for the DS is an unlikable mess.

For those looking to relive some of the fun of the movie, avoid this mediocre flight combat game; you'd be a thousand times better off sitting around with your co-workers and seeing who can recite the most lines, or figuring out who can chomp their front teeth the loudest.

The best part of Reshef of Destruciton is the three free trading cards that come with the game.

The game is an embarrassment to the Gundam name, and raises suspicions that it was rushed for the PS3 launch. Clearly, the series -- and the fans -- deserve better.

And while it's true that every brain training game is probably assisted with a healthy dose of pseudoscience, it's Brain Boost that shows its seams the most. And because of that, Brain Boost feels the most condescending.

It's being sold now for $20. In a week, when they are selling it for $4.99, it will still be overpriced.

There is no joy to be found within the data contained on this disc. Only crushing disappointment, suffering, and weak shin muscles.

A budget priced video game is usually associated with a development involving with minimal effort and cost to the publisher. Sometimes there's a sincere effort made to provide gamers with a good deal (read: "Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution"), but Gotham Games and Big Ape's Celebrity Deathmatch doesn't even half-ass an attempt.

The combat is too difficult for young fans of the books to enjoy, but the adventure lacks the depth that experienced gamers crave. Because of that, it's impossible to recommend this game to anyone.

It never becomes fun. It looks awful and sounds even worse. It could almost be recommended ironically as a game so bad that it's entertaining or as a basis for some sick drinking game (take a shot every time an enemy gets stuck on a corner), but it's even too bland for that.

No, the problem here is that getting to the naked women is a painstaking chore, and the few seconds of a girl going wild does not make up for the five minutes of inane videos leading up to it.

The dictionary entry will read, "Rengoku ren - go - ku n: 1 A game design flaw in which great effort is expended on concept art but little else. 2 An activity that presents itself as entertainment but is, in fact, a form of torture."

No, the problem here is that getting to the naked women is a painstaking chore, and the few seconds of a girl going wild does not make up for the five minutes of inane videos leading up to it.

It's being sold now for $20. In a week, when they are selling it for $4.99, it will still be overpriced.

When you start seeing the same character model serve as two different people during an in-game cut-scene, you'll truly know all is lost. There's nothing remotely unique or engaging about Driver '76 (or its lifeless multiplayer) to balance the endless parade of frustrations. Steer clear.

And just in case Super Army War wasn't stripped down enough, there's no battery backup -- just a password system. It's true that portable games don't need to be as full-featured as console titles, but people have e-mailed me Flash games that are deeper than Super Army War (not to mention more fun).

Of all the painful aspects of Dark Messiah, the bulk of the problems lie with the controls. It feels like you're moving through a bowl of thick, hearty pea soup; simply walking through the game is exhausting.

A truly awful experience. Put simply, it's a portable piece of ugliness that lacks any humility or wit. It is singularly unpleasant in the way it handles its subject matter, and lacks the style or panache to carry its inadequacies with any dignity.

There's a decent flying game in Blazing Angels, there really is. It's just buried under so many obtuse design decisions and horribly awkward Wii controls that it's not even worth looking for. On the Xbox, Xbox 360, and PS3 it was a decent experience for WWII flight fans despite a handful of quirks; on the Wii, it simply doesn't work.

Bug Island fails and frustrates so thoroughly throughout its 10-plus-hour playtime that its greatest feat may be fooling someone into finishing it who isn't paid to do so. It's easily the Wii's worst showing yet.

Lacking the excitement, humor, and creativity of the infamous TV show, Celebrity Deathmatch isn't even recommendable as a rental to fans.

I can still hear the ba-thump ba-thump of the paused game behind me, begging me back for more abuse, and I'm caught in a spiral of disbelief. Nothing can be this awful, yet I find myself straining to look over my shoulder. I don't know how long I can hold out. I am lost, but you may yet save yourselves. Save yourselves from this game.

If throwing cubes of trash at buttons is up your alley, then we've got just the thing: Heavy Iron's game-itization of Pixar's WALL-E is an offal-chucking aficionado's dream come true. What it isn't, though, is much fun at all.

Sega Studios San Francisco's final game, Iron Man 2, based on this summer's movie, combines the worst pitfalls of both genres, leaving me with one simple conclusion: Iron Man 2 the videogame is not for anybody.

An unmitigated disaster.

Skate taps into a state of mind. Shaun White is just a succession of awkward obstacles posing as challenges in a game with bad controls and clunky animation.

An unmitigated disaster.

Skate taps into a state of mind. Shaun White is just a succession of awkward obstacles posing as challenges in a game with bad controls and clunky animation.

NeverDead is a game, and it can be completed. In my opinion, those are the two truths that cushion the space between a D- and an F. Remove those two facts, and you're left with an amateur effort that redefines the boundary between bad game and flat-out punishment.

NeverDead is a game, and it can be completed. In my opinion, those are the two truths that cushion the space between a D- and an F. Remove those two facts, and you're left with an amateur effort that redefines the boundary between bad game and flat-out punishment.

If throwing cubes of trash at buttons is up your alley, then we've got just the thing: Heavy Iron's game-itization of Pixar's WALL-E is an offal-chucking aficionado's dream come true. What it isn't, though, is much fun at all.

I can still hear the ba-thump ba-thump of the paused game behind me, begging me back for more abuse, and I'm caught in a spiral of disbelief. Nothing can be this awful, yet I find myself straining to look over my shoulder. I don't know how long I can hold out. I am lost, but you may yet save yourselves. Save yourselves from this game.

Sega Studios San Francisco's final game, Iron Man 2, based on this summer's movie, combines the worst pitfalls of both genres, leaving me with one simple conclusion: Iron Man 2 the videogame is not for anybody.

Unless you're a huge Dead Space fan and absolutely can't contain yourself around anything remotely related to that universe, skip out on Dead Space Ignition.

Unless you're a huge Dead Space fan and absolutely can't contain yourself around anything remotely related to that universe, skip out on Dead Space Ignition.

WALL-E is a particular sad movie tie-in failure, because Pixar, the company behind the film, is known for projects that appeal to multiple age groups. By contrast, the WALL-E game holds virtually no appeal to anyone.

It's the game part of this game that stinks, and the rest of it should have just been a DVD.

It's the game part of this game that stinks, and the rest of it should have just been a DVD.

It's the game part of this game that stinks, and the rest of it should have just been a DVD.

WALL-E's just a bunch of schlock that shares a marketing department with a much, much better movie.

That each best-of-three contest lasts no longer than perhaps three minutes is the final nail in a coffin that should remain firmly closed.

While your first few moments with Grave Danger might actually fool you into thinking it could be fun -- especially if you're getting some co-op play on -- you'll ultimately be brought back to painful, boring reality.

As a fighter, Castlevania Judgment employs too many design ideas that are neither well planned nor well executed. It's a strange misstep for the beloved series, one that Konami hopefully learns from.