As a game designed for entertainment purposes, Restricted Area leaves a great deal to be desired. [Sept 2005, p.57]

Put aside the dated mechanics and grossly clumsy interface, and you're still left with a fairly half-assed port of a Playstation 2 game, barely gussied up for the big show. [Mar 2007, p.66]

The worst thing any game can be is predictable, and FIFA Soccer 2004 is one of the most predictable sports game in recent memory. [Feb 2004, p.72]

There's nothing at all wrong with arcade-style gameplay, but there's something wrong if the action is alternately dull and frustrating, as it is this game. If you're a Ducati devotee or fan of motorcycle racing, prepare for disappointment with this game.

Brutally hard. [July 2005, p.91]

Styled to appeal to the shooter crowd. Unfortunately, it feels as if the developer lavished too much attention on making the violence stylized and realistic, and then just threw a game around it. Great concept, extremely sloppy execution.

There's a few clever puzzles scattered throughout the levels; unfortunately, there's also a few incredibly painful flying and driving sequences as well. [Jan 2003, p.77]

The inevitable galaxy of patches to come will surely help, but for now, the vacuum abides. [Nov. 2006, p.82]

It's designed for people to whom the prospect of merely taking off from LaGuardia and landing at O'Hare is exciting. [Jan. 2007, p.66]

Playing with toy cars should be a lot more entertaining than this. [Oct. 2006, p.77]

It's good for about twenty minutes before it becomes a dull grind and you realize you're basically playing a tech demo ffor a game yet to be created. [Oct. 2006, p.81]

If you have been wondering why so many South Koreans are so excited about this game...well, you'll still be wondering after you play it.

Clever ideas don't make up for shoddy craftsmanship. [Jan 2003, p.75]

It's a hard lesson that designs are not always interchangeable, and is overall one of the most disappointing games of the year. [March 2005, p.72]

If you're looking for the thrill of a pirate's life, frankly, you're better off with the Disney ride that inspired it all. [Oct 2003, p.88]

Until things change, this series is treading water, and it's a tough sell at $40. [Jan. 2007, p.53]

The graphics engine just isn't up to the task. Clipping errors abound, the animation quality is generally poor, and you'll see weird things like floating dogs or soldiers firing their machine gun from two feet away.

More average than appalling. [Feb 2006, p.70]

It's incredibly hard and repetitive, and the stealth gaming is incredibly simple. [Aug 2004, p.59]

A ham-fisted and passionless retreat of "Halo." [Aug 2004, p.70]

A perfect example of how cheap ports don't help anymore. First and foremost, the port has no multiplayer at all. None, nada, zippo. [July 2003, p.78]

Individual combats are fast-paced but extremely repetitive, resulting in a truly brutal leveling grind. [Sept 2005, p.70]

Unfortunately, in the few sad stabs it takes at being its own thing, Field Commander misses the point. [Sept. 2006, p.81]

But there's just too little substance to recommend this to anyone but the "gotta catch 'em all" motorcycle nut. [July 2006, p.87]

Attention to detail doesn't go far when core gameplay is this scattered. You could make a good rugby game for the PC, but Rugby 2004 isn't it. [Mar 2004, p.83]

Farscape the series has been cancelled. The game was not. Nobody wins. [Jan 2003, p.75]

Lacking a concrete sense of direction and any evidence that tender loving care was exercised during its development cycle, the journey unfortunately resembles purgatory more than outright damnation.

But the problems with Eragon the game have nothing too do with the source material and everything to do with its dull and overly rigid gameplay. [Mar 2007, p.75]

Lacks the slightest spark of life or inspiration. It has no character, both literally and figuratively, and its action is stilted and crude. [Jan 2004, p.65]

The AI improvements make it worth picking up if you don't have a console system, and if you like big dumb vaguely hockey-like fun, but just barely. [Jan 2005, p.65]

It's like any flat stretch of road in the country, nice and smooth with some decent scenery that gets you where you have to go. [Jan 2006, p.89]

Offers a large selection of wrestlers to choose from, but other than their appearance, there is very [little] to differentiate one from the other, and noe have any character to speak of. [Mar 2003, p.88]

Thanks to dreary daily training and eating sequences, this might be the dullest game ever made about vicious duels to the death. Morituri te salutant, indeed. [Oct 2005, p.90]

It's simple and initially somewhat fun, but after a while it grows pretty monotonous.

At least the soundtrack is cool. [July 2006, p.66]

The most egregious crime is the game's interface. It's a monstrosity of a design, one full of unnecessary busywork. [Oct. 2006, p.69]

Although it's an admirable attempt, in a world with games like "Soul Calibur 2," ambition isn't enough. [May 2004, p.62]

Unfortunately, unless Crypto's race is looking to harvest tedium and repetition from our earthly minds, he's better off just harassing than destroying them. [Sept 2005, p.90]

It's too bad Midway is so caught up in the me-too game when it's just children like the Rush series who get hurt. [Dec p.93]

Nearly everything about this game screams half-singed: the "Diablo"-riffic graphics, the text that doesn't match the voice acting during the clunky cut-scenes, and the goofily written manual that gives away most of the game's surprises. [March 2005, p.81]

An experience that while extremely intense, is difficult for all the wrong reasons and ultimately more frustrating than genuinely enjoyable. [June 2003, p.80]

It makes the mistake of being repetitive and, worse of all, boring. [Aug 2003, p.86]

Majestic doesn't really need you. It's all about watching and waiting while other characters do stuff.

Ultimately, the game wears thin—and quickly. The first dozen levels are pretty manageable but then it becomes an exercise in frustration.

The cow is missing a lot of the inscrutability - and therefore personality - had in the last game. [Jan 2006, p.49]

If you got a Nintendo DS, there are just too many better way to, ahem, feel the magic. [May 2006, p.91]

It's about as realistic as an episode of Hogan's Heroes. Add poor path finding and sub-par combat AI, and you have a sure fire recipe for real-time strategy blandness.

There's simply not a sound gameplay model at work here. [Feb 2004, p.70]

The PSP version is similarly structured as a set of constrictive quests through three areas that are tied together by a contrived collecting game in which you gather coins, here called “secrets”. [Mar 2006, p.88]

The lack of difficulty is only surpassed by the lack of control. [Apr 2004, p.74]

As an urban sandbox, Tycoon City: New York is passable. As a strategy game, it's the dumbest deal since that urban legend about the Indians selling Manhattan to the Dutch. [July 2006, p.61]

But an obtuse and under-documented strategic layer with a bad interface can only get you so far when it comes to recycling the same Dynasty Warrior game yet again. [July 2006, p.93]

To be fair, the humor is almost invisible when you're actually playing S.W.I.N.E., which is an entirely conventional real-time strategy game.

The problem is that it's not very good action. The whole game has a tired feel to it. [Oct 2003, p.84]

It all comes down to you and a rock, floating together in space, with all the action and serene beauty of the docking sequence from "2001." Play some Strauss and go make another sandwich. [Sept 2003, p.78]

Black may not be terrible, but it's repetitive and mundane. [May 2006, p.89]

The only addition is Online Everywhere, which lets you check out the live ESPN ticker while still in the game, and it's hardly essential. [Apr 2006, p.93]

Adds two new main areas for adventurers to explore. But the puzzles found in each are sadistically hard and way too obscure. [Oct 2004, p.84]

Just say no to half-assed porting, folks. [Mar 2007, p.69]

It's quite faithful to the movie in that it also sucks. [Dec 2004, p.92]

It's pretty much more of the same. [Feb 2004, p.79]

As you spend more time with the game, you realize that much of it is out of your control, thanks to the most annoying and unpredictable AI since HAL 9000. [May 2003, p.76]

Only hardcore, completist fans of the franchise and those who play new games to relive old ones should appy here. [July 2005, p.59]

Game-crashing bugs? Check. Horrible enemy AI? Check. [July 2005, p.66]

Even while you're getting a few laughs out of certain moments, the whole enchilada fogs your brain to the point where you don't know how you're supposed to play the game. [Nov 2003, p.92]

Republic is further hobbled by a linear storyline that discourages replay. [Dec 2003, p.93]

All told, it's big loss if you decided to give Tony Hawk a rest for a year. [Jan 2006, p.91]

On the easier levels, it's a silly exercise in mashing buttons to spew ammo throughout a world of bad physics, cheap animation, and tinny sound. [June 2005, p.90]

When the core gameplay is lacking, any variation on "blah" comes out as "bleh." [Jan. 2007 p.52]

Silly, balking, chuckle-inducing for the wrong reasons, Cold War is the sort of pretender-to-stealth-throne that makes you squint, pinch your nose, and wave your hand rapidly in front of your face.[Feb 2006, p.59]

The racing is at best mediocre and at worst awful, so it's a good thing they included missions you can complete for cash. While they're a terrific idea (more variety is a very good thing), they're also completely brain dead.

If you sometimes had the feeling that less is more while playing "San Andreas," you'll be convinced by this game at nearly every turn. [Feb 2006, p.92]

Toss in s shoddy padlock system that provides dramatic views of your plane but tends to throw off your aim completely, and you end up with an arcade game that's more difficult to play than a full-blown simulation. [July 2006, p.63]

It matches intense, fast-paced action with a squirrely camera and imprecise aiming. Needless to say, that isn't a particularly compelling combination. [Feb 2004, p.77]

You can see some interesting ideas buried beneath the never-ending combat, but overall, it suffers from a serious case of kitchen-sink-itis. [May 2004, p.62]

The gameplay is just monotonous, which slams the nail in its coffin. [Dec p.57]

There just isn't enough new here to make FIFA 07 a worthwhile purchase. [Jan. 2007, p.63]

It's just a trucking game, where you pick up and deliver cargo...It's not awful, and that's part of the disappointment - it's merely boring. [Feb 2004, p.85]

It features great graphics, a slightly modified version of "EverQuest's" gameplay model, and lots of frustrating problems. True to its theme, you should only consider playing it in the future.

It plays sort of like "Team Fortress" on crack, with a lot of visual flash provided by a new version of the Lithtech engine, but not a lot of substance when it comes to gameplay. [Sept 2003, p.86]

Basically, there are just enough tactical elements in Lockdown to ruin it as an action-oriented shooter, and just enough action elements to ruin it as a tactical shooter. [May 2006, p.50]

If you sometimes had the feeling that less is more while playing "San Andreas," you'll be convinced by this game at nearly every turn. [Feb 2006, p.92]

The real missed opportunity in Ground Control II is that such great visuals are built into a game design that smothers you in too much busy work to enjoy them. [Sept 2004, p.64]

There is a significant difference between the two games—"Age of Empires" is a lot of fun. "Fate of the Dragon" is not.

it's downright provincial. It's a game about buying buses, setting them up to drive in a circle, and then watching them.

What makes the game so irritating is that the flat gameworld textures are laughably dull. [Oct 2002, p.79]

Unfortunately, the arcade game is neither unique nor exciting. It's probably best to save your spare change for better things.

Once you've exhausted your ability to be offended, what's left is a sloppily made and at-best mediocre game. [July 2003, p.70]

Although the anhancements are certainly welcome, spotty AI and blatant computer cheating make it impossible to appreciate the game as a whole. [Jan 2003, p.84]

Enemy AI is shoddy, as is the hit-detection. The graphics are also deficient, with nearly every element in the game looking bland. [Apr 2004, p.9]

Dear Tricky, we miss you. [Jan 2006, p.91]

Another second-rate port of a mediocre console shooter. [Feb 2004, p.66]

The economic model guilding the action is ridiculously off-kilter. [Feb 2006, p.66]

Ironically, the real sorrow of Seven Sorrows is how laughably, arrogantly short it is: two players can easily finish the entire campaign on the hardest setting in a night. [Mar 2006, p.91]

As ridiculous and entrenched as its name. [June 2005, p.87]

As tedious and redundant as "Dead Man's Chest", this cash-in distills the whole appeal of the original "Pirates of the Caribbean" into simple, repetitive, and boring button-mashing combat. [Oct. 2006, p.80]

Romping through "Diablo" one more time is both more gothic and more fun. [Apr 2004, p.75]

The legacy at hand offers only frustration and disappointment. They made it so. [Apr 2007, p.62]