The game is mostly an exercise in frustration, although a good tutorial and easy early missions might draw in some players who are new to the genre. Overall gameplay is very disappointing. [Feb 2004, p.74]

Unfortunately, like a TV show, when the game's over, it's over. [Nov 2003, p.101]

Unwrapping the horror that is... Baltimore. [Dec p.60]

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]

It's about as thrilling as watching The English Patient on Valium.

Everything about BloodRayne 2 - save some of the snazzy 3D effects - screams "1998." [Nov 2005, p.72]

The team that developed Soul Reaver 2 took an intriguing saga and weighed it down with so much dialogue and so many confusing plot points that even David Lynch would be hard-pressed to wade through it.

A military planning simulation, not a game. The fact that it's being marketed as one says a lot about what our society is doing with its leisure time. [Mar 2003, p.89]

Taking the speed of a play down a couple of notches may give the game more authenticity, but everything else feels unfinished. [Feb 2004, p.62]

The worst abuse of all are the 'bot macros, that allow high-level character "bots" to farm areas for loot and experience, automatically attacking anyone who trespasses into "their" zone. [Aug 2004, p.68]

A game of moderately tactical chaos. [June 2005, p.55]

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.

A retread suitable only for hardcore Tom Clancy completists.

Quotation forthcoming. [Nov 2005]

The difficulty is mostly artificial—each mission has an arbitrary time limit—but despite this, the missions are oddly... entertaining.

There's not much here that's more challenging than slicking your hair into a Pierce Brosnan pompadour. [Feb 2006, p.93]

It's a half-hearted effort that meets with only limited success. [Feb 2006, p.66]

Invading Russia in the winter was never this hard. [Sept 2005, p.54]

The dullness of the story, the combat, and the character development ultimately overshadow the game's main draw. [Sept 2005, p.88]

Little more than a shooting gallery, especially in single-player mode. [Feb 2006, p.88]

The game plays as if it's on a cocaine buzz... It's packed with non stop dunks, supersonic fast breaks, and point guards that block three-pointers with relative ease. [Feb 2003, p.84]

Given the decidely mixed gameplay, you have to have a certain love of kitsch to get far in Hard Truck Apocalypse. [Oct. 2006, p.68]

Editing terrain can be an absolute beast, particularly since configuring certain animal enclosures requires painstaking detail. [Feb 2006, p.66]

There's a lot of physics to encourage you to turn over tables and throw things, but your time is almost always better spent just shooting. [July 2005, p.90]

What really sinks the game is an overly arcane interface that sacrifices accessibility for tactical depth. [June 2003, p.84]

The connection to other players is too abstract to make the game anything more than a vaguely interesting and simple business simulation. [Oct 2003, p.92]

A schizophrenic title, caught somewhere between its teenaged visual aesthetic and some moments of truly solid game design. [July 2003, p.84]

A moderately entertaining, if staid, entry that, at least in its PC incarnation, will probably be left out in the cold. [Aug 2005, p.76]