It's pretty good as a game that casual players can fly through on the easiest difficulty setting, and its production values are as good as you'll find on the market. But it doesn't hold up as well for those looking for a story or a challenge. It's a fun evening, basically.

Many new buildings (and new gameplay modes) are already available in free patches, so if you're not interested in Destinations' vacationing layer (which, to be fair, adds another honest-to-goodness challenge to the game), you don't really need to drop another 30 bucks -- unless you really, really missed that monster-attack disaster.

It's an acceptable rendition of a time-tested classic -- a little too complex to stand beside its classic inspiration, a little too primitive to stand up to contemporary releases, but still decent.

Wanton destruction is still a lot of fun -- I just hope that future installments innovate instead of sticking squarely to the foundations set by the original game. And please, next time around, give us multiplayer that feels like more than an afterthought.

I want to like Flashpoint 2, but instead, I just feel like the game is telling me: "war is hell, sorry."

It does a lot of things right (great looking graphics, fun multiplayer, and quality voice work), but it's constantly held back by unfortunate design decisions that replace satisfaction with frustration.

The concept is quite good, but the problem is that...well, that's it. Once you've mastered the tricks, the monotony of routine sets in. Your Sim barely requires any care.

Shadows is halfway there. I experienced plenty of cool "Spider-Man" moments throughout thanks to the basic locomotion and combat and the occasional well-done cut-scene...but Shadows never really hits any sort of stride. Rather, it settles into a rhythm of repetition and drags out as its third act self-destructs.

If you've loved the Warriors games in the past, then I wholeheartedly recommend Warriors Orochi. It has all the hack-n-slash action that fans of the series want, with the add convenience of portability.

Ultimately, Secret Agent Clank just feels disjointed. Whereas developer High Impact Games' previous PSP effort, "Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters," played it safe with overly familiar levels and mechanics, this Clank spin-off squeezes a hodgepodge of half-baked concepts into the basic framework of a proper Ratchet & Clank game.

If nothing else, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is an apt representation of what you'd expect from a Transformers movie: a disposable, explosion-laden piece of mindless entertainment featuring robots beating the crap out of each other.

So while I'm excited about the changes to the formula for Galactrix, the downsides aren't sorted out nearly as well as I'd hoped, making this huge bundle of gameplay seem more like a chore than a boon.

Presentation isn't everything, so Hammerin' Hero's flaws and frustration take away from Irem's admirable effort in putting a fresh coat of paint on an old form of action game. Though even that can be detrimental, as those who expect something fairly easy to get into -- on the level of a classic Mario game -- should take note that underneath, this is some devious arcade-borne action.

If the developer had tried to keep anything from Silent Hill, they should have ditched the faux plot relationship to past games and gone after what makes Silent Hill truly unique: the psychological scares.

At 1,200 Microsoft Points on Xbox Live and $15 on PSN, Madden Arcade simply isn't the bargain of the $10 NHL Arcade. While it's $5 more, the experience isn't appreciably better -- in fact, I'd peg it as slightly worse.

It's by no means awful, as it's smartly-designed for what it is, but it asks for a certain amount of dedication that those who don't have an affinity for early '80s arcade hits may not have.

A pretty face only goes so far when there's no soul beneath the surface, and Shake It! is as hollow as they come.

A title that isn't all that great and doesn't make a hell of lot of sense.

While casting adorable MySims in a kid-friendly, superspy adventure is an idea filled with potential, the game suffers from the one thing a superspy shouldn't have to endure -- boring and repetitive cases.

It was only a matter of time until the PSP caught microgame madness, and while it's fun in bursts, it's also derivative and disappointingly insincere.

A really disappointing (but, as mentioned at the start of this review, inevitably still entertaining) Wii debut for the series. Perhaps the next game will truly take advantage of the Wii controls through and through.

The combat is engaging, the controls can be mapped however you like, and the load times could be worse. But the minigame additions to this version aren't nearly enough to justify a PSP port.

Gameplay aside, in a lighthearted adventure like this, the biggest crime is not being consistently funny...an offense of which Harvey Birdman is regrettably guilty.

The minimal presentation, weak interface and comparatively paltry selection of titles hardly seems worthy of a golden anniversary.

A kinder control and save system would've been nice, but as is, Gladiator will test the limits of your gaming patience.

Conan isn't really a horrible game. There are moments when all the flaws fade away and you'll experience a great animation that slows down at just the right times and chops off just the right heads and you'll start to think that the game is actually pretty fun, but it's all extremely straightforward and lacking a lot of polish.

In the end, it's a definite thumb-basher, and not necessarily the worst game of its kind. It's just that the pedigree of the developer's past works suggests that NanoBreaker would turn out much better than it did, and that's a disappointment.

If you're hoping for something with the depth and substance of a true sequel to the likes of Ape Escape, the discovery that you're getting a party game is a bit of a letdown. It's like working up an appetite for a deluxe pizza and being given a plateful of "Bagel Bites" instead.