An archaic tri-click method of delivery, a truly awful interface, a bunch of sorry camera angles and some ridiculous environments/opponents for you to play in/against.

A slow, moderately discomforting wheelbarrow ride into an Xbox-green sludge-pool of grump-making mediocrity. [PSW]

Like "Burnout" on horse tranquillizers. Only marginally less interesting.

It's so gangsta. It's so street. It's so shite. Painfully forcing every urban cliché going into every line of dialogue, the cutscenes reduced us to fits of laughter. That's laughing at, not with. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

Fists of Vengeance makes no pretence at being anything close to intelligent - it happily revels in its shameless idiocy, but it's fun through and through.

Dead to Rights II feels like a stripped down, budget version of the first game but at a top-whack price. It's content to retread old ground, which wasn't all that solid to begin with, and fails to bring anything genuinely new to the series. [PSW]

Once you enter the realms of multiplayer, Ape Academy really comes into its own, with enormous pleasure to be gained from events like the one metre dash, dodge ball, scissor, paper and stone or Geronimo. Ook - drink deep from the banana inspired mayhem.

So for all the weak enemy AI and graphical glitches, ABZ remains a decent and carnage-filled team-based blaster, worth checking out when the price drops.

The combat quickly becomes repetitive, simply involving mouse-clicking on-screen to shoot at the blindingly stupid enemies blundering towards you, retreating if they get too close, then shooting again, maybe using a barrel of explosives for a bit of a change.

Nano Breaker degenerates into a slew of mindless button-bashing encounters. It's fun in a retro kind of way, but it isn't quite intelligent enough to keep you coming back for more.

Playing Medabots: Infinity is about as much fun as eating poisonous glass.

The levels are dull-looking and you might have a job seeing what's happening on a standard GBA. If you are a fan of the films, even the third one, don't expect to relive the adrenaline rushes in this mediocre, disappointing GBA effort.

More bungling thief than Entrapment-esque vixen, this is a criminal excuse for a stealth 'em up. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

There's plenty of depth here, but at the end of the day, races become a repetitive flatbed of short, sweet dashes from A to B. And that's what stops BMT2 from being a really good game. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

Novadrome packs it all in in terms of options and modes, but fails to capture any of the charm of classic car combat titles like Twisted Metal or even its less good rip-off merchant of a friend, Vigilante 8.

If Shade was scrapped and given yet another redesign, the to-do list would be endless - wishy-washy combat, braindead AI, insipid level design, soul-crushing puzzles, a towering stack of bugs.

The interface is nigh on impenetrable. The system of exploration is ludicrous (the whole map is blacked out at the start, so at first you don't even know where the mountains lie). The scenarios are uninspiring. The combat is pointless and passes practically unnoticed. [PC Zone]

Eorzea is a beautiful world with huge potential for vast adventures, but it's just a shame that this first voyage into it is such a mis-step.

An empty shell of a shooter with a bottle of Costcutters own-brand vodka at its core, Kreed plays like a badly translated Russian tech demo from two years ago.

If you're a die-hard and quite old Sonic fan, Shadow the Hedgehog will probably disappoint with its weird mish-mash of styles and the same awkward and flawed 3D play of "Sonic Heroes." [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

An interesting game that's too-often a dog-egg to actually play. Sorry Duke, take fourteen years and try again...

The dialogue is so bad, the voice-acting so hammy and the text interludes so laced with obtuse meaning that you'll be reaching for the quit button before you can say perestroika.

It's an engaging scrap that just about manages to keep you hooked. Worth taking a chance on if you like fight-heavy action adventures with a seedy, skuzzy undercurrent and plenty of face-smashing. [PSW]

Sadly, the developers have completely missed the point of the TV show, knocking out a second-rate two-wheeled racer that will disappoint fans of the programme and appear pointless to anyone else. Even the ever-excitable Teutul boys sound bored of it all. We can't blame them really. [PSW]

Bulletproof is one of the darkest video games around, with its combination of gritty storyline and moonlit night-time setting. [PSW]

Don't get me wrong though, even though the end product is useless, creating your own game is fantastic fun - just don't expect to become the next Carmack. If you want to do that, start learning binary now. [PC Zone]

Maybe if Japanese development team Tranji had spent less time trying to show off Kurenai's posterior and more time tweaking the basic mechanics Red Ninja could have been a half decent alternative to Tenchu. As it is, much like Kurenai herself, this is one game that may look nice from a distance but turns into a right horror show when viewed up close. [Official UK Xbox Magazine]

There are redeeming features, a few nice touches of scripting here and a cool boss there, but generally the fabled shitty-stick of non-touching is going to have to make another one of his increasingly common appearances. [PC Zone]