Good, and worth the time of BattleTech fans, but unless Microsoft fixes the performance issues it will never be a great game.

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.

From start to finish, Circle of Blood is a professional, polished work of art. All elements of game play are refined to the extreme, and as with any great novel (or after you've thumbed past the picture section of certain adult magazines,) you'll feel a sense of loss when the story concludes.

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

Perhaps the biggest plus is that these Elves aren't fey forest pansies like the usual Tolien-influenced woodland folk. They're as dark and pissed-off as everyone else in the Disciples world. [Mar 2004, p.71]

Running a multiplayer league pretty much works as advertised, but it feels tacked on...It's the kind of game that is worth wading through its warts to get to the good stuff. [May 2004, p.64]

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

Ingenious new ways to beat the typically insane Myst enigmas lends a fresh feeling to an old hat, and gives you a greater sense of control. [Dec p.59]

At a good 20 hours and packed with loads of collectible cards, Acid 2 is classy, original work for the PSP. [July 2006, p.89]

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]

Games like this are the reason micromanagement is a four-letter word. [July 2005, p.57]

A useless co-op mode feels tacked-on. [Feb 2006, p.86]

Some of the best medieval hack-and-slash to come along in quite a while. [Jan 2003, p.78]

Who would have guessed that some of the most seasoned real-time strategy veterans on the planet would take one of the most well-worn licenses in gaming and turn it into one of the most inventive game in years? [May 2006, p.45]

As is typical of city builders, combat is mainly a hands-off resource sink. An RTS this ain't. [Feb. 2007, p.62]

For action-game fans, Otogi 2 is one of those titles they won't be taking out of their Xbox any time soon. It's stylish, fast-paced, and loads of fun. [Nov 2004, p.NP9]

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

It's a beautiful, creative tale told in the desert of originality, a startling flower in a wasteland of murder-and-loot online games. [July 2003, p.71]

More content for a brilliant strategy game.

It doesn't help that the rubberbanding AI makes every race a formality until the last quarter of the last lap. [June 2005, p.92]

Too random to be called a strategy game, too non-scary to be classified as adventure; think of it as the Cliff’s Notes version of Star Control. [Mar 2006, p.64]

One of the most in-depth strategy RPGs ever. [July 2004, p.6]

Brings the game to another new level of entertainment and challenge. [Sept 2003, p.82]

It's impossible to ignore all of the changes and the improvements made in this version. It looks as if this formerly stagnant series has finally turned a corner. [Feb 2005, p.63]

"Situation Comedy" is very much in the same style as "Culture Shock", though it's a bit easier and even shorter, clocking in at a couple of hours. [Mar 2007, p.67]

Jumpgate is a huge exception to the unofficial rule for online-only games. It is stable, solid, and virtually lag free even over a dial-up connection.

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.

DoD still has incredibly good gameplay, and with things like realistic gun recoil and the near requirement to stand still or go prone for any sort of firing accuracy, it's much more difficult than most WWII games. [Sept 2003, p.84]