A potentially great game with flawed execution. Still, the Inside Edge scouting reports are the best addition to any sports franchise ever; they should drive sim fans wild.

When Tactical Strike works, it works really, really well. In spite of the soul-crushing frustration I experienced, those moments of genius made it worth soldiering on for me. If you have an extraordinarily high tolerance for cheap deaths, long load times, and insubordination, you could have a pretty darn good time with this game.

OK, the individual missions may not all be epic, but the side story of this renegade squadron (whose tale weaves in and out of the events from the original movies) is one worth seeing through. (Hey, you can be done by lunchtime.)

When played on a PC, where you can tweak both the settings and the hardware to get solid performance, Quake 4 works because of it. Without those options on the 360 you're stuck, unable to really get into it because just about the time you do, the framerate breaks. And with that, the moment is gone.

Worth a tour if you really loved the movie, but maybe less so if you've already played the hell out of Vice City. We can't really blame Scarface for the familiarity of the setting, but the fact remains that we've been here before.

The main problem here is that it feels like Legends should have been a side mode in a proper Soulcalibur rather than its own game. There are some good ideas, but it doesn't feel like a complete game.

The final problem for me is that Nightshade doesn't provide nearly enough of an incentive to rise to the challenge.

Nothing else holds up to the visuals -- not the music, not the script, not the gameplay. Seriously, it's like you've managed to combine the worst bits of your own games along with the most annoying excesses of Japanese RPGs and came up with something so indescribably bland as to defy logic.

Perhaps the weakest addition is a new targeting mode that allows the actual aiming of shots.

Broken World does offer everything an expansion should, after all: new game elements, new characters, tons of content, and fan-suggested tweaks. But, somehow, it still isn't all that much fun. The only conclusion to draw from this evidence is that the base game isn't very compelling in and of itself.

For those who want a title like this on the PSP, there's a game to love hidden down deep in here. You just have to dig through a bunch of technical obstacles to get to it.

Other than the simple pleasure of playing in a sandbox and building a really cool version of the Big Apple, TCNY offers players little incentive to keep on trudging through it.

The game's not realistic enough to satisfy sim fans...and it's too realistic to be as fun as Rainbow's previous games. It tries too hard to be a jack-of-all-trades, and masters almost none.

What "Made in Wario" makes drastically evident is just how slow-paced Mario Party 5 is.

Compared to the majority of kiddie-oriented crap that's clogging up the GBA's arteries in its advanced age, MQ3 is downright fantastic.

This game is so boldly beautiful, but the gameplay just doesn't live up to the Champions League standard. The card-game element is superb, but the rest of the package doesn't completely justify the $60 price tag.

It's perfect for players who love kill-everything-that-moves games like "Dynasty Warriors" and movies like "300." It's not so perfect for those who fancy themselves "true" Shining Force aficionados, though.

The repetition waters down the game until you're left with the ridiculously overdone story -- which, admittedly, is all the die-hard fans really want and probably good enough for the financial bottom line. So to say "fans will love it" is not a lazy end to a review -- in this case, it's the plain truth.

Sims 2 for consoles is definitely not on par with the depth and ingenuity that its PC sibling offers but it's refreshing to play a relaxed version of the game that doesn't require as much surveying and emotional input.

It's still a good game -- lovely, and a little tired. But these days, even a favorite old dog like UT needs to learn more than a few new tricks.

No single aspect will blow you away, but there's enough variety, the puzzles are fun, the controls work well, and you keep moving quickly, so it's a fun ride that's unlikely to bore you unless you try to play through it a second time.

Perhaps the weakest addition is a new targeting mode that allows the actual aiming of shots.

Farming's hard, tedious, repetitive work. And don't let anyone tell you different.

If framerate problems doesn't annoy you, then the stupidity of the A.I. may force you to say, "that sh*t is wow, bananas." Enemies are stricken by stupidity, as they'll simply stand there and allow you shoot the living daylights out of them.

The uninspired title selection and painfully compromised presentation are heartbreaking disappointments, given the sheer amount of effort and love that Konami clearly put into the rest of the package. It's like sitting down for a meal at a four-star restaurant and opening the sterling silver lid covering your china plate...to find a cold White Castle burger sitting there.

I don't dislike this game. Aside from a few minor graphical bugs and hiccups, BlackSite is unquestionably competent at what it does. It's just that what it does isn't particularly notable, or innovative, or memorable -- in either a good or a bad way. It's not even memorably mediocre. It's just...diverting, for 10 hours or so. You could say worse things about a game.

What seemed really cool back when Namco first announced the original Dead to Rights -- the sweet disarming animations -- just aren't enough to carry another repetitive action game for more than a few levels.

Where's Knuckles Chaotix, one of the few decent games to see the light of day on Sega's abortive 32X system? Or how about Sonic Pocket Adventure for the forgotten Neo Geo Pocket Color? And what about the surprisingly competent Master System ports of Sonic and Sonic 2?