It's by no means a bad game, and is certainly a very admirable effort in the context of the Rush franchise, but its contemporaries ultimately outclass it.

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.

Though Lost in Blue 3 will probably never be anyone's first pick for their ideal "desert island game," it manages to be more enjoyable than the sum of its repetitious parts.

If you want a good dungeon crawl, play the punishing-but-oh-so-satisfying Shiren the Wanderer. If you just want to collect 500 cute little guys and power-level the hell out of them, you can't go wrong with Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

On the presentation side, with colorful, cartoony graphics and contributions from the voice actors, it should satisfy the legions of Simpsons fans. But as a game, it's decidedly mediocre-at-best fare, with levels that vary in quality and pedestrian platforming and beat-em-up action.

Lockdown got rid of everything that made its predecessors stand out and kept the bad A.I. and even worse backstories. Even without the burden of living up to its predecessors, Lockdown is -- at best -- a generic shooter with pretensions at realism.

The presentation is straightforward and functional, but it doesn't pull any punches about what it is -- a training application with a very specific purpose. It accomplishes that perfectly well -- just make sure that you're expecting gratification through progress and not just mindless enjoyment.

The Xbox incarnation appears more faithful to the animation, while GameCube and Playstation2 versions look slightly less crisp.

As an eye toward where Playboy came from, The Mansion is a compelling lesson--even the loading screen factoids are fun to read. But as a game, the unpolished graphics and stale gameplay keep the title mediocre at best.

While the multiplayer may be passable, the rest of VBR is so flawed that it tests your patience more than your boxing skills. If you've been waiting for a Wii boxing game, you should just keep waiting and go back to Wii Sports for now -- at least that was free with your Wii.

As I played through Dynasty Warriors 6, the series' first entry for this console generation, one thought kept permeating my head: "This is exactly the same game I played in college."

As a creative tool Unbound is great, but as a game it feels a little sparse.

This just doesn't feel like basketball: there's no drama, you'll go full quarters without bothering to glance at the scoreboard, and even the swish of the basket on a long 3-pointer feels off. Live 07 tries to bridge the gap between itself and its rival by adding features, but it doesn't come close to this year's clear basketball champion: "NBA 2K7."

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.

The inconsistencies and haphazardly-borrowed elements keep Headhunter from ever realizing its potential and drag it down to mere "mediocre" status. It has a certain underdog charm... if only it were content to be <I>good</I> instead of clumsily striving for <I>cool</I>.

Saw's derivative gameplay -- which even includes sliding around crates (or racks of frozen pig carcasses) and searching dressers for hidden valves to shut down nearby pipes spewing hot gas (did that happen this often in the movies?) -- has all been done before, and done better by titles like Silent Hill and Condemned.

But decent two-player co-op's just ketchup on a crap sandwich. The game's buggy as hell, with severe slowdown, characters getting hung up in the level geometry, and stuttering audio. Those problems are amplified in the PS3 version, whose only other major differences are unneeded Sixaxis flight control and a noticeable lack of Trophy support versus the Xbox 360's Achievements.

While this won't replace MLB 08: The Show -- the best portable hardcore baseball game out there -- it's tailored for tots and casual seamheads on the go.

Intermittently, flashbacks are thrown into the game's progression by heavily blurring the screen and overlaying some audible forgotten memories. This style isn't very effective -- the blurring gets old and it's a forced narrative that gets old fast.

This series serves no viable purpose anymore, nor does it really warrant yearly release.

While the uninspiring movie didn't help matters, it's the lethargic gameplay that winds up making King Arthur an equally disappointing game. Repetitive and frustrating, it fails to live up to the potential of its cinematic presentation.

The game's mash-up of a story never amounts to anything meaningful or groundbreaking, and the single player campaign is pretty short -- clocking in around five hours or less.

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

The core "side-scrolling submarine action game with a bit of realistic physics" campaign is either way too short or frustratingly padded.

Sure, it's cool that you'll find references to some of the more popular third-person action titles, such as Prince of Persia's balance-beam act and hand-over-hand wall crawling, but nothing in here screams innovation.

Coming back to the franchise after several years away has been frustrating for me, because it reminds me how good these Mega Man RPGs could be... and also how little Capcom has actually done to realize the concept's potential. There's the foundation here for something great, but the games continue to plod along in unambitious mediocrity.

As a casual rhythm game, Battle of the Bands gets big points for charm and humor, and the intended audience is sure to appreciate the ability to actually play this without too much difficulty. Guitar heroes looking for their next challenging digital wankery, however, are advised to move along. This one's just for laughs.

A competent, if not actually great shooter that introduces some novel ideas that don't always work all that well.