With the various methods of strategic growth, tactical conquest, and diplomatic gains, Diplomacy lives up to its table-bound namesake’s reputation. It is easy to learn, play, and master.

The biggest problem with Gore is a lack of originality: None of its dimensions live up to the level of the best first-person shooters on the market in the last few years.

In part, it is valuable enough for me just as a collection of gorgeous artwork and thoughtful story design. And for people more interested in concepts and beauty than gameplay, it is a work of excellence of seldom parallel. But as a computer game in the traditional sense, there is not enough there to sink one's teeth into.

The shoddy camera system and somewhat unintuitive controls cause far too many headaches.

Recycled gameplay, overused mechanics and jarring shifts between mini-challenges and exploration will leave you slightly disconnected from the overall experience.

Below average in every sense of the term; the title contains some interesting gameplay mechanics and concepts, but never executes them with any measure of success.

There's too little here that's original and engrossing, there's not enough variety in the obstacles and environments, and the linearity is extremely confining.

If what you’re hoping for is an intense and challenging shooter that harkens back to the classics, with lots of interesting monsters and a few wrinkles added in the form of special abilities, then you’ll be largely satisfied by what you find.

It’s a noble attempt at a solid strategy / action hybrid, but Defender of the Crown feels more like an amalgamation of disjointed gameplay elements than a single, coherent experience.

The developers may have been trying to recreate the success of "Devil May Cry," but instead found themselves in the realm of its disappointing sequel, as an underachieving, run-of-the-mill action title.

The gameplay is often as static as its antiquated graphics, and ultimately doesn't present anything that hasn't been done before.

There are certain novel features and innovative efforts present, but they cannot overcome an annoying patch requirement, clunky interface, multiplayer instability, and an unfriendly gaming environment.

Right down to the familiar trapezoidal box, Tomb Raider Chronicles is completely lacking in significant innovation.

While there are minor deficiencies, such as an over-dependence on timed sequences, a short duration, occasional tediousness, and an absence of novelty, this well-scripted and audiovisually pleasing title has assets that make you forget about these limitations.

Full of promise, with a textured plot premise and unorthodox, and at times, stunning visuals. But the sub-par execution of the confusing backstory and lethargic gameplay, confounded by the limited viewing perspective, sinks this release right from the outset.

Lionheart is to RPGs what "Serious Sam" is to first-person shooters: It's a strict genre game that's stripped down to its essence and is pleasantly devoid of the all too common overarching that happens when too many disparate parts are crammed into the same code base for the sake of widening the target audience.

The backstory is fascinating, and plot hooks keep the player interested; you'll want to uncover Harbinger's secrets. The glue that holds it together, however, fun as it might sometimes be, never seems to change.

The storyline is half-baked, the graphics and sound are substandard, the music is intolerable, and weak enemy AI makes for boring gameplay.

Primal tries to interest gamers with its Viking and fortress theme, but without smooth camera controls and decent pathfinding, the effort feels a bit wasted.

Not as good as "Blade Runner," but about on the same level as "Spycraft." In other words, its better than most adventure games on the market today.

The on-foot aspect is near abysmal and takes the wind right out of the sails. The numerous graphical glitches and bugs don't help matters, either.

Drawing inspiration from obvious predecessors such as "Submarine Titans" and "Star Trek: Armada," The Outforce unfortunately does precious little to expand or even successfully imitate either of these two.

A middle-of-the-road little action shooter -- nothing more, nothing less. It has enough charm to make it kind of fun, and enough senseless violence to leave an impression, but that's about it.

The extremely behind-the-times graphics, frustrating interface and game mechanics, and lackluster plot all lead to a gaming experience that's more tedium than it's worth.

It is neither a compelling first-person shooter, nor a worthy role-playing experience, failing on both fronts.

Driven's acceleration feels sluggish as it tries to drag the combined weight of unresponsive AI, strange physics, overly unforgiving challenges and pedestrian multiplayer modes.

While it’s hard for UFC fans to go too far wrong at that price, Sudden Impact isn’t exactly a joy to play with its dull visuals, antiquated sound and clumsy, monotonous gameplay mechanics.

The game's outdated look and obtuse artificial intelligence make it hard to recommend.

A straight vanilla shooter. It does many things well, many things not so well, but nothing exceptionally.

Atlantis: Evolution hangs its hat on being an adventure game, but it doesn’t present the fine challenge that those who are serious about the sport expect, plus it includes too much tedium for those who are casual players.

The imbalance between the pace of the stalking compared with the near impossibility of the hunt once you actually spot a creature makes the gameplay more of a chore than anything else.

It’s a very serious niche simulation that’s got some lumps which will be unappealing to the average player. If you want to “get it,” you’ve got to be willing to pour the time into learning the nuances of the title.

War Times struggles along and ultimately becomes a casualty of its own conflicts. The shallow tech tree, paucity of unit types, ineffective pathfinding and tedious gameplay make enjoying it a losing fight.

A lot of creativity is embedded here beneath the surface. However, the absence of a story delivered in a compelling way, along with several other questionable design decisions, hinders your motivation to make it all the way through.

As a multimedia computer game, it's a swing and a miss. Players will likely give this title only a few chances before putting it back on the shelf due to its static presentation, limited gameplay, and painfully annoying animated host.

A mediocre offering. While it has its fun moments, and some of the maps are intriguing, Legends ultimately comes across as lacking ingenuity.

Blade & Sword has style. Style enough to make up for the shortcomings of completely unoriginal mechanics, style enough to compensate for the excessive difficulty and style in such quantities to make other developers turn green with envy.

While the multiplayer mode's forgettable, and there's not a ton of replay value, the first run through the story is surprisingly long, and filled to the brim with some of the most amazing scenery conceived outside of a Toy Story film.

Unlike mindless shooters, Bionicle's well-developed characters and plot give it a real sense of adventure. It's able to leave the player with the feeling of visiting a strange and mystical place while still offering fun and varied gameplay.

The foul language, twisted humor, nudity, gore and violence are beyond what most gamers will appreciate, unless "Postal" is your idea of fun. When compounded by the obscure hotspots, redundant puzzles, archaic control system and strictly linear gameplay, the audience for which this offering would be a treat becomes really small.

The weak interface, annoying gameplay, and lack of variety and balance between the races make the game a failed experiment.

So many crucial touches could have been added to spice up the action but are sadly omitted, especially the ability to play some of the gambling games yourself, tinker with the payoff pattern of some of the machines, research new tables or even design your own attractions.

The offering boasts masterful artistic design and a beautiful score, but fails in the most important aspect - gameplay.

If flawed controls don't kill the experience for you -- and as a plaform jumping, blade wielding title they certainly do affect the quality of gameplay -- then the constant backtracking and key hunting will eventually drive you to the point of distraction.

The visuals, sound and even the gameplay itself hold potential, but almost every aspect of the latest Tomb Raider feels incomplete.

The graphics are the one high point of this downhill slalom, they are neither innovative nor gorgeous enough to save this title from the abysmal control scheme and furious key tapping required to stay afloat in most of the events.

Solid graphics and music, decent level design and clever use of vehicles. The Achilles' heel is clearly the squad mate artificial intelligence, which virtually ruins the whole play experience.

Alpha Black Zero isn’t a bad game, but it’s hobbled by so many execution problems that it never really catches wind in its sails.

Unless Ford is your favorite car, I would not step behind the wheel of this lemon.

Despite this offering's versatility in station command along with a wide range of authentic ship models and weapons systems, the significant AI deficiencies, minor bugs, and the unavailability of the unique interoperability with "Silent Hunter II" creates rough waters.

With a little elbow grease and perhaps a dash of maturity, Postal 2 could've been a harrowing psychological tale of one man's collapsing psyche. Sort of like the movie "Falling Down" realized in an interactive 3D environment.

Sure, there is a deep convoluted plotline and beautiful backdrops, but the deficiencies in interface, action sequences, and conversations are quite serious.

Falls into line behind countless other film conversions, boasting low production values, an obviously rushed release and highly conventional gameplay that struggles with the controls.

Certainly replicates well the sounds and sights of the ancient Middle East, and the production values are quite high. However, it is extremely challenging for any developer to find the perfect blend of action and adventure in any release claiming to combine both elements, and the balance here seems a bit skewed.

The decidedly unreasonable degree of difficulty prevents any of it from developing into something entertaining.

The gameplay can't hold a match to even the most basic competition, since the distinct lack of modes, oversimplified approach and lackluster execution combine to make a release that's the exact opposite of what a party title needs to be.

A textbook movie-to-game cash-in. Everything in it is halfheartedly done; the graphics and sound are canned and formulaic, as is the gameplay.

Many of the puzzles are creative, and the graphical style is pleasing; but the frustrating ways that the dialog revelations and trivial sequencing of actions are implemented largely ruin the whole experience.

Because of its brevity, it doesn't come close to justifying the $15 price tag.

The game delivers exciting combat in all forms with intelligence and style.

It’s one thing to put original characters into an old game type, but it would be another thing entirely to use those same characters and impose new standards on the genre.

The Carmageddon series has clearly run out of steam. Providing the same old cheap gore and guts does not have the same impact in 2000 as it did in 1997.

Problems such as an awkward control interface, overbalanced gameplay, and easily confounded AI sadly undermine the innovations.

Entertaining, but somewhat difficult in design, and occasionally unforgiving in control.

As it stands, however, Championship Surfer should only be reserved for the die-hard surfing fanatics and PC owners who have an undeniable penchant for extreme sports.

What with so little variety in weapons, foes, or physical settings, the game loses what little charm it has in a mere matter of minutes.

In modern times, however, when even simple retro-games like "Frogger" get massive face lifts and hordes of options, there is little room for a game that prides itself on pure simplicity and repetitive action.

In many ways this is a generic quality game - not embarrassing in any area, while at the same time not being outstanding either.

It never should have been released on the PC, in part because it exploits none of the features possible on computers, such as saving at will, better graphics and configurable controls.

Fighters with minimal moves at their disposal, unbalanced characters, and an AI that can't hold up its end of the bargain conspire to make Kakuto Chojin feel like an empty shell.

Its interface is horrendously convoluted, its gameplay painfully tedious and sluggish, and its graphics are outdated.

Only the most desperate sled-junky should bother with Arctic Thunder. Clearly inferior to its ancestor, this jerky ride suffers from terrible frame rates, sub-par sound, twitchy controls and mindless, repetitive gameplay.

If you take the time to fully understand its mechanics and enjoy the menu-based format, then SaGa will prove to be a unique, rewarding experience. As the alt text for this section says, only hardcore fans need apply.

A bland experience with nothing innovative to free your mind from concentrating on the annoying aspects of the gameplay.

Despite the presence of distinctive licensed racing classics, the actual driving experience is both bland and homogeneous.

Gamers have already seen, heard and played everything Team Factor has to offer - and had more fun doing so.

The unnecessarily tedious unit movement coupled with the debilitating difficulty level of many battles leaves this title stranded with too many moments of frustration for the average user.

The combat is engaging, but it grows repetitive and is extremely time consuming.

It’s crippled by horrendous A.I., murky movement speeds, agonizing loading times, dated graphics, quirky controls and poor network code.

Misfires on pretty much all cylinders.

While a good story can sometimes save even the most mediocre of RPGs, and The Legend of Alon D'ar does provide a compelling beginning and plot, the pacing is so slow that only the most patient will make it through to the end.

Its beautifully rendered backgrounds and intriguing premise aren't enough to cover the fact that the program resembles an early 1990s point-and-click scavenger hunt, released ten years too late.

Contrary to what many hardcore gamers frequently assume, I believe there are still a lot of people who would enjoy this kind of brain-free, white-knuckle virtual leisure activity that brings back the simplicity of earlier days.

Though there are minor problems with the graphics system, control scheme and interface, the primary drawback is that an experienced player can fly though it in around three hours and thirty minutes.

With clearly low production values, this game is ultimately quite boring. Dreary drudgery is what you have to slog through to get to the end, and believe me it is just not worth it.

A key problem may simply be that the international system is too hard to replicate under its current condition of relative anarchy.

To paraphrase a writer from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," this game hurt me.

Had the absurdity of the setting been more efficiently exploited for humor value, the many shortcomings might be more easily overlooked. As it stands, this title comes across as a last minute, off-the-cuff port from consoles to PC that skimped as often as possible.

The complete lack of innovation and diversity, along with the utterly draining repetitiveness of the obstacles you encounter, suck most of the joy out of the gameplay experience.

Occasionally I came across against a scenario or mission that was entertaining for a while, but the game wasn't different enough often enough.

While there are some isolated elements of Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon that work, such as the extensive collection of moves and authentic sound effects, they are very tiny islands in a swirling maelstrom of poor gameplay and distressing visuals.

Possessing a sketchy storyline, abysmal artificial intelligence and repetitive gameplay, nothing about it engrosses you in the action and keeps you coming back for more.

Unfortunately, the unbalanced squad-combat and wrap-around maps are not enough to pull this one away from the Pit of Despair.

The vexing controls and camera system, combined with the poor enemy AI and simplified combat, make even a weekend rental of Dark Tomorrow tough to justify.

The title of this game is ironically accurate, as I have not encountered a platform side-scroller this lightweight in years. There is simply nothing to recommend.

The graphics are pretty and you get what you came for - cheap, mindless action. If you want even a smidgen more, however, pass.

The single-player campaign does a great job of going against the build-a-base-and-kill-everything grain that is the stock-and-trade of the RTS scene. Plus, it infuses some inspired missions into the mix, keeping you interested and coming back for more.

There are some good ideas, like the grouping banner and the ability to plunder, that should’ve come off a lot better, but instead thwarted the gameplay.