This game's perpetually unnerving ambience, interesting puzzles, and unique ghost story may very well help you forgive its graphical flaws. [Nov 2003, p.129]

The VC are dirty cheaters in this lush but restrictive and nonsensical portrayal of sniper life in the Vietnam War. [July 2003, p.78]

There are only two view levels, and they’re both fairly distant. This makes it not only hard to find animals or workers in a crowded zoo, but also, frankly, less fun to watch. [Feb 2002, p.98]

It doesn't work consistently, but it's entertaining when it does. [Dec 2002, p.134]

Your troops waste their limited ammunition like they're in a John Woo movie. [Mar 2004, p.91]

A tad creaky, but pepped up with plenty of spine-tingling and head-scratching action. [Jan 2005, p.106]

It looks like, well, a badly ported PS2 game with washed-out colors, graphical glitches, and only average textures and modeling. This, along with the appallingly bad driving sequences, horrible characters, plentiful cliches, and cringe-inducing dialogue, proves that unlike "Splinter Cell," not all console/PC marriages are made in heaven. [Sept 2004, p.77]

Unpatched, UFO will drag, stutter, and ultimately die a repeated death while a weird save-game bug devours hard-drive space. It's a profound shame, too, because lurking under the seven layers of ugly is an otherwise very good game.

Yet another great console game undermined by a sloppy port. [Jan 2005, p.104]

This is about as simple as you can get without stumbling into the action genre. [July 2002, p.74]

A war game for casual gamers. [Jan 2005, p.88]

A textbook case of glorious buildup and shattered expectations. [Feb 2004, p.72]

Lacking ideas, Area 51 plays up its license (and lessons learned from finer shooters) for a solid but unsurprising foray into the FPS field. Pity that it isn't more.

A tedious, tasteless mess. [Aug 2005, p.76]

A solid "X-Com" clone, tailor made for grognards and entomologists. [Feb 2006, p.86]

I'll live with the skewed strikeout numbers and the other quirks, because there isn't a better game. [July 2002, p.70]

More cute than funny - unless you're seven. [Feb 2005, p.85]

Adds a refreshing twist to what could have been a tiresome game. [Sept 2002, p.85]

A no-frills port of an aged, derivative, repetitive shooter. [Apr 2004, p.85]

You'll sleep through most of the challenges, though, as your vampiric superpowers are so unbalanced that you'll cut a bloody path through the action in no time...even if you suck at these kinds of games. [Oct 2005, p.80]

For casual gamers and casual Harry Potter fans - diehards may be let down. [Nov 2004, p.82]

Black Thorn’s multiplayer additions will be its main attraction. The rest is fine, if unexciting. [Feb 2002, p.86]

Just a bunch of single-player missions that could have been made with the scenario editor. [Jan 2003, p.118]

Ultimately, this is a fifth-rate way to experience the joys of Virtua Tennis. Your $30 would be better spent going toward a used Dreamcast from eBay along with a cheap copy of the original game. [Feb 2003, p.96]

Not nearly as amusing as the host of yesteryear, this one delivers a couple of groaners between the 300 questions. [May 2004, p.83]

Gorgeous, with great lighting effects, tremendous fireballs, and richly detailed models. [Mar 2002, p.79]

Snazzy graphics, professional voice acting, and captivating gameplay combine to create what is easily the highpoint of the series. [July 2002, p.78]

Add in a console-style save system that only lets you save progress at the start of a level, and you've got a guaranteed recipe for infuriation. [Jan 2005, p.96]