The game's short levels are made longer by the lack of a save feature. There's only one checkpoint per level and no health pickups anywhere; this kind of artificial difficulty gives nothing to the player but more frustration.

In the end, it turns out Dungeon Lords wasn't so much released before its time, as it was given up on in an admission that time had already long since passed it by.

Uneven production values have wound up creating one of the cleanest and quietest "gritty" games ever. While the fighting environments are rich with lots of detail and natural lighting, they also appear to have janitors on duty 24/7.

Just play the old NES game. We don't remember the Jaws movie where they had to collect seashells and bomb jellyfish with airplanes, but it was more fun than this.

The amount of recycling involved in the level design here is abominable -- some areas repeat the same pair of linked rooms as many as three times in rapid succession, and the problem gets distinctly worse as the game progresses into its later levels.

Pandering to every college student and aspiring rap artist's deep-seated Scarface fantasies, 25 to Life is a 3D action-shooter that not only fails to innovate on any level, but rolls back design and technological advancements to the early PSone era.

Chief among Time Ace's tripping points: an autoengaging autopilot with a knack for tossing you into buildings if you wander too far from the preset flight path. Add spotty hit detection into the mix, and you end up dying more from crashing into obstacles than from taking enemy fire.

It's easy to spend an hour watching these nifty starships float around a two-dimensional plane, but as soon as you start mousing, you'll want to quit.

The core problem with Napoleon Dynamite: The Game is that it totally disregards the humor of the film (and, as such, of the audience it's attempting to reach). The whole joke of Napoleon Dynamite was that Jon Heder's titular character constantly claims to have more skill than he actually possesses. In the game, you have all that skill and more.

The looseness of Conflict: Vietnam, from the lack of comfortable and immediate controls to the boring progression of the game, just doesn't cut it. While the idea of squad-driven combat set in the tense, emotionally-charged setting of Vietnam has potential, Conflict: Vietnam falls short in execution.

Also worthy of note: the stupid, unforgiving, scripted button-tapping events (think God of War, only terrible). The only reason these do not throw me into a fit of vein-bursting rage is that you can retry them infinitely.

The entire multiplayer aspect of Academy is so poorly implemented that it begs the question as to why they even bothered.

The core problem with Napoleon Dynamite: The Game is that it totally disregards the humor of the film (and, as such, of the audience it's attempting to reach). The whole joke of Napoleon Dynamite was that Jon Heder's titular character constantly claims to have more skill than he actually possesses. In the game, you have all that skill and more.

Considering the basic concept the series is built on, Full Auto 2: Battlelines has perhaps the most needlessly confusing plot ever put to disc.

Except for true masochists who believe that hair-pulling frustration equals enjoyable realism, Hammer & Sickle offers nothing worth paying for -- except maybe time to catch up on your reading while waiting for your turn to load.

As I painfully maneuvered my Charlie from room to room, I grew more and more desperate in my attempt to find redeeming qualities in the game.

The thread holding Jericho above that pit of legendary awfulness is thin and fraying. Mr. Barker, you're better than this.

Fails for a few different reasons, but the big one is a simple lack of consistency. A good fighting game is governed by clear, well-defined rules and directed through precise, responsive commands. Chaos doesn't have either.

When a game about giant robots flying, shooting, and fighting with each other makes it this hard and unpleasant to actually do any of those things, it's time for change.

A disaster in far too many ways to count.

It's never a good sign when I nearly fall asleep while playing a game...multiple times.

The looseness of Conflict: Vietnam, from the lack of comfortable and immediate controls to the boring progression of the game, just doesn't cut it. While the idea of squad-driven combat set in the tense, emotionally-charged setting of Vietnam has potential, Conflict: Vietnam falls short in execution.

Locking on to a specific enemy is a crapshoot. The character faces are bad enough that we were actually shocked to find that they had the rights to use the actors' likenesses. We could write a book about everything wrong with Superman Returns.

A system this young doesn't need any more titles like this potentially damaging its rep. The only thing keeping the game from absolute worthlessness is the fact that a competent SRPG can still be found within.

If the theory of natural selection holds true, The Adventures of Darwin will find its way into the bargain bins of the world in no time flat. And if you have any intelligence in your design, you'll stay far, far away.

The fact that this game is fun for exactly 20 minutes, and only in a group of two or more, should keep you from buying this game. In the end, Boogie is light on dancing, light on karaoke -- a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none moment of fluff.

As I painfully maneuvered my Charlie from room to room, I grew more and more desperate in my attempt to find redeeming qualities in the game.

A not particularly attractive game that provides neither the twitch-based thrills of an arcadey flight game nor the intricate controls and challenge of flying a realistic virtual aircraft.