All the complexity and depth of a frying pan.

In the end, the thing you remember most isn't the graphics engine, the nifty spell and item construction, or even the awful voice acting; it's the frustration of slogging through a poorly balanced game that substitutes saving and reloading for gameplay.

What sets Cossacks apart from other games is its spectacular visuals and its attention to historical detail.

It's the perfect game to sit down with for a couple of hours, with a margarita in one hand and the mouse in the other, and just tinker with your whacked-out island.

Geared toward hardcore baseball fans, but it fails to relay some of the information that many serious fans want.

Provides a justification for buying a Pentium V; the best of its genre.

On the whole, Evil Dead isn't horrifically bad—just surprisingly limp-wristed.

Despite the amount of promise left unfulfilled in this second add-on, House Party will be a welcome addition if you are still actively nurturing your sims.

It's a brilliant toy but also a jumbled mishmash of original ideas and mundane gameplay that fails to deliver a cohesive single- or multiplayer experience.

Only those hungry enough for the challenge to overlook the stodgy game engine need apply.

Its mix of classic adventure-style gameplay, intriguing storyline, logical puzzles and just a touch of action make it a topnotch choice for fans of thought-inducing gameplay.

Lavish aesthetics notwithstanding, Adventure Pinball also plays a mean game. Only the inevitable onset of repetition dulls its luster.

Summoner's biggest fault is the party AI. Sometimes your party members seem incredibly intelligent; other times they seem to have trouble outthinking the average lab monkey.

This is the best dose of pure visceral excitement to hit shooters in years.

A potentially good tactical strategy game marred by a lack of inspiration.

Despite the bugs, this is a great baseball game boasting more than enough improvements to keep you from going back to High Heat 2001.

Kohan is the slickest, most polished, and the most entertaining fantasy strategy game to come along in a very long time.

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

This latest effort seems mired in a war between greatness and mediocrity—and mediocrity has the upper hand.

If you like big bangs, you'll get unlimited enjoyment when nuclear explosions pepper the late game carnage and shake the entire screen with powerful force. Along with this visual feast, audible devastation also drives the scene.

To get an accurate sense of what playing Star Wars: Battle for Naboo is like, find a heavy object and bash yourself over the head with it.

Unfortunately, at $30, the shot is foul. Guys, it's called a roster patch. Look it up.

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

Once Undying gets up a head of steam, it woos you with sheer atmosphere and production values. On looks alone, it sucks you in for hours at a stretch. Its landscapes and architecture are spectacular.

If there is a patch by the time you read this, and you're the type who pegs the name Peter Johnson as a redundancy, then you'll probably get a kick out of it.

Playable enough, but it's also devoid of personality.

This add-on won't win over any new converts, but it will keep the old ones happy. That is what expansions are really all about.

Mixing down and dirty hack-and-slash action with some light puzzle solving; Blade of Darkness makes a simple concept work. With enough blood spurting and gib spraying to send Joe Lieberman and his cohorts running for cover, this is slicing and dicing at its finest.

One design feature that reduces this game's charm is the limit of eight items in active inventory.

Completely without substance and fails to match even the primordial games from the DOS era.

This is an attractive and challenging game that, unlike so many other racing games, really does penalize you for running the pedal to the metal all the time.

The game grows on you, however, mostly because of its kooky style.

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.

For longtime fans of the series there simply isn't enough new stuff to get excited about, however, and for every improvement there are missing features and lingering problems that drag the game down.

This game will definitely bring a smile to your face when that black number three bumps you, just before he takes the lead away from you on your last lap at Daytona.

One mean mother of a four-wheeled game. Warts and all, it still offers classy pick up n' play handling, efficient interface, and stupendous presentation.

If you like your strategy games historical, complex, and deeply stimulating, Europa Universalis is more than a mouthful.

The entire experience is crippled by an obtuse interface and abysmal documentation. All in all, this is one of the most unstable and frustratingly erratic games to anchor in software stores in quite some time.

Design philosophy aside, Battle of Britain is still too rough, unwieldy, and unbalanced. These problems ultimately make it more tedious than enjoyable.

Woody Woodpecker Racing brings little to the genre; even if you don't expect more than a few cheap thrills from a game like this, you're still better off playing... well, you're better off buying a console and playing one of the innumerable superior kart-racing games on your platform of choice.

It's a fun diversion and an enjoyable game in its own right, but ultimately the emphasis on objectives and challenges grows a bit annoying.

It's so close to being a masterpiece that you'll inevitably be disappointed, but when you step back and look at the whole instead of focusing on the parts, the one thing that stands out more than save limitations or the lack of configuration is the spectacular action.

May be too complicated for many real-time strategy players and a little too silly for hardcore wargamers. If you don't mind making some compromises in either direction, however, there is ample fun to be had.

Simply isn't interesting enough to merit sticking it out that long.

The only thing it really adds to the Carnivores series is snow and hair, but if you enjoyed the previous hunting games and wanted more, then, well, here's more.

It shamelessly copies two Blizzard classics, "WarCraft II" and "Diablo." The problem is that it doesn't copy from either classic particularly well, and the result is a flat, lifeless experience that quickly becomes more of a chore than a pleasure.

Has all the trappings of a good game: its setting is unique (there are far too few games set in the old west), and it copies a highly successful formula all the while adding enough flavor to separate itself as a distinct product. But limited game options coupled with bonehead AI make a recipe for disaster in the crowded market of the real time strategy game.

Sadly, as egg-cellent as that premise sounds, thanks to some monotonous gameplay and a lazy job of porting it from the PlayStation, Chicken Run ends up being merely medi-yolk-re.

Not everything in Konung is bad, but the game's virtues hardly add up to a ringing endorsement. It can occasionally be fun, but by the end it's the repetition that you'll remember.

Decent graphics, an efficient interface, and a massive technology tree with a wide array of units. On the other, its slow speed, awkward unit movement, and abysmal A.I. add up to a less than stellar experience.

It has a nice wrapper and the budget price is right, but as soon as you hit the second or third mission, you'll be ready to break the disc in half and return the pieces to the store for credit.

What it was designed to do, it does very well. It barely makes a pretense of doing anything else, however—extra bells and whistles are definitely not part of the package.

For grand tactical combat poured sweet and clear, Boku's Combat Command 2: Danger Forward is an excellent choice.

Anyone looking to quickly dismiss it as just another ripoff in the same vein as "MTV Sports: Skateboarding Featuring Andy Macdonald" had better take a long second look, as this game is a great experience in its own right.

It's not a bad game; but with better AI and a few simple options (such as the ability to choose your equipment before a mission, or a "save anywhere" feature), it might have more to recommend it.

Your best bet? Leave this game at the store and pick up a VHS copy of the "V" miniseries if you really need a cheesy alien invasion fix.

The most incomprehensible issue is the lack of multiplayer support. It is interesting that Hasbro found the resources to include multiplayer support in the computer version of Battleship while omitting it in a game that literally begs for a human, network-connected crew.

Clearly not ready for prime time. Abundant bugs, unbalanced campaign prestige, and a non-functional multiplayer campaign all mar an otherwise classic game.

When you take the game as a whole you realize that the stunning art direction writes checks the gameplay can't possibly cash. Playing Alice is a stunningly average experience.

Of drive-in movie reviewer Joe Bob Brigg's infamous three B's, Giants' developers in a politic move took out two (Blood and Breasts). The third, Beasts, is still enough to carry the game, though the addition of a fourth B—Bugs—is certainly regrettable.

For the adventure purist, Riddle of the Sphinx is an intriguing journey that should not be missed. For those who do not typically enjoy lonely exploration, this game may still be a trip worth taking for the sake of learning and experiencing a bit of the Toblers' Egypt.

There's one thing that really distinguishes the EverQuest phenomenon from all pretenders to the throne, for better or worse—difficulty. Slaving for weeks through one of the higher "hell levels" isn't just time-consuming, it's quite often toil.

It's more of a walk down memory lane for lapsed PlayStation devotees than a real game, though it can pack plenty of appeal for those so inclined.

While Earth 2150 clearly takes its inspiration from the best of the RTS breed, it fails to establish any identity that is clearly its own.

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.

Delivers its money's worth for true fans of the series, but which is much too hard for anyone not utterly devoted to Jagged Alliance.

The game oozes style, with high quality sound and nifty visuals that make it a simple matter to know at any time what weapon you've picked up, what your current ranking is, and which players are nearby.

The learning curve is extremely steep, so if you decide to take the pilot's seat, be prepared for a bit of a bumpy ride. It's exactly the sort of title you would expect from a small, grassroots developer—made with obvious enthusiasm but lacking a lot of the polish of its market-dominating competitor.

Take ("F1 2000") and speed up the graphics a bit, add a new training mode, polish the AI, and offer rainy day racing and all the real-life grids from the 2000 Formula One season and you've got F1 Championship Season 2000.

While Sheep isn't a good choice for the die-hard fragger on your shopping list, puzzle fans, Monty Python lovers, bad punsters, and anyone with fond memories of Lemmings will find hours of challenging fun within this appealingly ridiculous game.

Succeeds despite some serious problems, but only if you're persistent and willing to put up with its quirks, style of gameplay, and pacing.

Provides a very satisfying wrap-up to this series and, in some ways, is the best gaming experience of the group.

The game is so addictive that it's difficult to put down—even though a bug could strike out at any moment, or the screen could turn black, locking up your keyboard and forcing a reboot.

Simulator-style combat, scripted missions, spectacular graphics, and most of all, honkin' big robots.

It all feels very tired; same dated graphics, some laughable environments, level editor is beyond complex.

An ideal game for the 4X gamer who prefers managing armies over micromanaging cities. It doesn't quite have the panache of "Civilization II" or the drama of "Alpha Centauri," but it's colorful, relatively fast-paced, and it has that "one more turn" addictiveness that will keep you burning the midnight oil.

Provides a fair amount of enjoyment, but it's doubtful that the enjoyment will last long enough for most gamers to see all of the beaches.

It contains many individual elements that are quite good, but those elements don't pull together into a cohesive—or enjoyable—whole.

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.

Stick some embalming fluid in this one—it's done.

For those who would rather explore than shoot, this game is cause for celebration.

It's still the best mass market chess game you can buy at your local software shop, but with a few bugs squashed and the fuller featured online features of last years' version revived, it could be a much better program.

The best pure simulation of pool currently available for the PC, but it lacks much in the way of frills and simple user-friendliness and warmth.

Rises above its own occasionally clichés and standard third-person action gameplay with an effective atmosphere, solid voice-acting, and an episode-quality storyline.

As a playful arcade game, this offering is betrayed by its simulation fetish.

From opening the box to viewing the end credits, playing Timeline in its entirety takes roughly an hour and a half...Are you still here? What the hell is it going to take to convince you not to buy this?

Its refreshing setting, exemplary dialogue and acting, and downright fun game mechanics are a shock to the system.

Even though the overall experience is filled with cheesiness, clichés, and dumbed-down antics, that's what makes it fun. Those in favor of quick thrills and instant gratification can't go wrong with this title's campy, supernatural shenanigans.

A port of a three-year old Swedish game called "Svea Rike III," a lighter precursor to the original "Europa Univsersalis" with weaker AI, sparse strategic options, and an unfriendly hotkey-heavy interface. [Dec 2003, p.95]

A heart-pounding, visceral experience that gets under your skin. The "just one more round" addiction factor is very high. When you play it properly, with team work that clicks like a well-oiled machine, the game offers a sense of accomplishment and comradery that is simply amazing.

The lush ground terrain and scenery make this one of the richest looking settings for some quick action. Just don't bank on realism.

The voice acting in this game is probably the most widely competent you'll ever come across in a recent computer game.

Too long and uninspiring to hold your attention. The game would have been far more entertaining with half as many levels. More can be better...but only if it's good.

If your teammates are dumb, the enemy is positively moronic. "Braindead" doesn't begin to describe the terrorists you'll face.

The element that sets Space Empires IV apart from other games in the genre is common sense, which is the glue that binds its components together.

Gorgeous, polished, groundbreaking, and a lot of other impressive-sounding adjectives, but it's also chaotic and lacking in the precise micro-management and complex planning that endears many people to the genre.

A very linear game. Like a puppet on a string, you are pulled along a straight path between cut scenes and have almost no control over the sequence of events. Couple this with a rather short story, and you have a release that provides an excellent entry point for those who are new to video gaming.

You can finally enable player names to appear below each player on the pitch, and this makes is so much easier to tell who is who. The game is loaded with modest and subtle changes like this that end up adding a lot to the game.