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.