It's idiotic. It's also pulse-pounding, addictive, cartoony, loud and grating, and essentially engineered to lay the audio/visual Stigmata on mom and dad hard if they happen to be in the same room trying to read US News & World Report.

The defensive controls for World Series Baseball have to be the best out there, bar none.

If the game was not so brilliantly presented with such rich characters, story and astounding art and voice-work (best voice-work to date in a videogame), you would probably take more notice of the simple and boring adventure elements (go here, go there, find this, talk to that person...), and the too-heavy reliance on melee combat, and the constant battles, and the frustration of having to take two steps back to level up before being able to take the all-important third step forward in a world.

Aside from these minor graphical niggles, the game does look mightily beautiful and plays smooth as glass, even in splitscreen multiplayer mode.

One of the coolest things about Fable is how your character's abilities and appearance change based on your choices. If you've been good, you'll look pure and sweet and innocent. If you've been bad, you'll look like you're touring with Marilyn Manson.

It's Kubrick's "The Shining" to most other developers' "Scream 2," and it's the kind of game to play alone, in the dark, with the back door open and a dose of prescription medication in you.

Perhaps the best party game for the PS2 out there.

The gameplay is truly a remarkable achievement... Aesthetically pleasing, lots to do, lots of options, lots of ships and weapons to buy, and a great story. Sounds good to me.

To say that the Snowspeeder freak in me is satisfied with this game would be an enormous understatement. This is one hell of a fulfilling interactive experience that plays and plays and plays.

It's funny, dramatic, mysterious, and full of satisfying moments. I find it's a great game to work out some frustrations on. Just picking up a bat and wading into a crowd of moaning, shambling monsters is a wonderful stress reliever.

What the franchise loses in the transition from console to handheld, it makes up with intuitive control and the best multiplayer the DS has to offer. You'll be playing this one for a long time.

It’s very frustrating, and enough to make more sensitive gamers nauseous. You’ll get angry and start swearing at the TV.

Turok's flashy stuff notwithstanding, it is the game's incredibly rich and complex level construction and enemy AI that will keep your heart pounding and the sweat beading until the very end.

Keep the same great game play but throw in more innovation next time please.

SimGolf does manage to provide a game that is especially simple to play and continues to be fun long after you've managed to turn a profit.

Its mists, textures, particle blood sprays and lighting make it the best-looking shooter on the PlayStation 2, and maybe even a competitor for best-looking overall game.

The game is chock full of innovations, yet retains the addictive play of its predecessors.

The replay value of Shogun: Total War is immense.

Solid and extremely stylish (if unrevolutionary) RTS gaming.

The save game system and the control scheme add to the difficulty more than they should.

Comic book fans will love how the game faithfully adapts the experience of being the Hulk, and people who have never even picked up a comic will enjoy the wanton destruction the players are capable of wreaking.

It doesn't have the enormous depth of play that some of the auto racers modeled on "Gran Turismo" have, with hundreds of vehicles and upgrades to collect and keep you playing, but it provides the most exhilarating and intense races anywhere.

Story and characters are excellent. Their personalities and motivations come through easily without a lot of overdone angst.

Titles such as "Etherlords" have blown the genre open, and in comparison Disciples II seems markedly dated.

In a game already so dark and visually menacing, the Xbox gives the phrase "jumping at your own shadow" a whole new shade of meaning.

The physics model of Train Simulator is quite simply dead-on. Your biggest enemy is derailment. There are all sorts of ways to derail a train when you drive it badly.

The game's artwork is simply astounding, and the play is fun, and the only little knocks against it are that gameplay tweaking options are very limited and the commentary gets a little tiresome.

Doesn't really add a whole bunch of new twists to the WipeOut-elegance we've known and loved since 1995 but you can't deny that the game is an extremely fast-paced, action-stuffed, super slick interpretation of the experience we found on the seminal PlayStation discs.