The Guild 2 works just fine with its original four classes, but toss in three bor-ing derivatives and it veers toward generic.

Middle age is looming, Disgaea. Maybe it's time to consider the video game equivalent of moving out of your parents' basement and getting a job.

Instead of creating a wide variety of situations, the dev team relied on key-card hunts, escort missions, and (surprisingly pointless) vehicle-piloting sections ad nauseam.

A more appropriate name would've been "Star Wars: The Force Mildly Contained" -- rarely does the Force truly feel like the ultimate weapon, something that separates you (Darth Vader's not-so-secret apprentice) from the rabble of stormtroopers, Rodians, and Felucians.

Overdose doesn't look as good as the original Gungrave -- less texture detail, less variety to the environments -- and the soundtrack is a bad joke.

The classic games are completely underutilized due to the time limits placed on them, causing each to offer no more than a few minutes of gameplay. There's fun to be had -- just don't expect it to last very long.

Useless analog steering, weird collision issues, and the lack of a decent multiplayer mode keep it from being a winner.

Sadly, aside from the malaise-inducing offline modes, most of Vigilante 8: Arcade's issues are technical in nature. Framerate drops, floaty steering and physics, a shaky camera, and environmental clipping are all things you'd expect to be addressed by release (some are likely leftover from the earlier releases), and with just five total arenas available until the premium DLC comes out, it's hard to believe that gamers will stick around long enough to make Vigilante 8: Arcade an essential Live Arcade purchase.

This might make a good present for your nephew's upcoming birthday, but for those looking for a good Naruto game worth sinking your teeth into, you're better off plunking down for one of the Ultimate Ninja games.

The problem is that every positive quality is hopelessly undermined by a single flaw: the game just doesn't work.

It's all not as bad as it could have been, but nothing you can't get from dozens of other games...as average as they come.

Manages to be solid, yet terribly underwhelming, and ultimately poorly-designed for its intended platform.

Stacked does have one hook (aside from the Negreanu name), but it's not a terribly compelling one. You're in control of a customizable avatar, and you can convey some basic poker information through your character via frowning, smiling, calling tentatively, or raising aggressively. Trying to simulate body language and table presence is a fine idea, but with such limited options it's more a gimmick than a viable gambit.

Ultimately, this simply isn't the fresh start Sonic fans were so desperately hoping for...but at least it's not as execrable as the last two efforts.

It feels like a grab bag of ideas, none of which got fleshed out enough to work perfectly. There's fodder here for a much better Guilty Gear sequel -- it would be a shame if the old Factory closed for business after this game -- but for now, there's not quite enough in the grab bag to justify a $50 asking price.

It's downright cruel -- the fans who might be able to stomach the interface are exactly the ones who will be let down by the A.I. And the casual players who might not realize how bad the A.I. is won't get past the interface.

The overall effect is that you're playing an unholy union between an old -- and not very good -- point-and-click adventure and a five-year old first-person shooter.

Unless you're hung up on the prospect of collecting the entire NES Classics/Famicom Mini sets, you're definitely better off with Namco's "Pac-Man Collection." Or better yet, the fantastic NGPC version of the game.

Perhaps the biggest issue with the game from a hardcore perspective is a lack of precision. With many weapons, you only have a small amount of control over where you can fire -- at your opponent, just to the left of them, or just to the right.

The best puzzlers work for all gamers, and Magnetica lacks the staying power to keep more seasoned puzzle fans interested for long.

KOF12 fails to seize the windfall in online matchmaking. It uses an archaic, even backwards, system that serves only to frustrate the player.

Adding to the repetitive mayhem is the insane decision to have "This Is Halloween" from the soundtrack play whenever Jack enters combat. No, not every once in a while or during a boss battle, but every single freakin' time you encounter an enemy, that familiar tune kicks in.

Talk about the old sound and fury saw -- you'll finish Lost Planet too soon and won't go back for seconds. That's really the definition of why not to buy something, isn't it?

It is not in the new interpretation that this package fails to deliver, but in its presentation of a classic that demands a lot more respect and attention to detail than Special Edition delivers.

Moscow to Berlin has decent graphics, and the gameplay is no worse than the rest of the genre, but spending money on this would be like paying to see the same movie for the 20th time.

Exciting as cinematic set pieces are, K&L is a game, not a film. By that standard, it fails to do what a game should do: provide you with meaningful choices and tests of skill.

City Folk just seems like a huge missed opportunity - either that, or a lazy cash-in on Nintendo's newfound casual audience. If it's the former, they ought to just call it Wii Mortgage Payments.

While the gameplay does have its high points (again, mostly surrounding Nightcrawler), it's also quite often littered with monotony thanks to seemingly nonexistent enemy A.I., confusion (poor level design), and frustration (glitches, a sometimes lack of checkpoints, and uneven challenges).