I give a bloodthirsty thumbs-down to Colosseum's frustratingly clumsy combat - and blame the slow-to-respond controls that make both dodging and striking needlessly difficult. [Aug 2005, p.113]

I felt like I was on my way to pick up the kids from school rather than racing. [Nov 2002, p.306]

But pick up the controller and this one hits the mat hard...and I mrean very hard. [June 2005, p.106]

A tough but unrewarding arcade-action game that's fun to look at and worth checking out..for about 10 minutes. [Nov 2004, p.144]

Finally, the vague puzzles and unhelpful map also had me questioning whether this was next-gen. [Jan. 2007, p.78]

Well, for what it's worth, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam wins the distinction of being the first game that made me fall asleep while playing it. [Sept 2007, p.92]

Monster Madness is a train wreck if you happen to be an only child or lack nearby friends. [June 2007, p.89]

Sure, you've got to pull off a few tricks here and there to keep up your momentum, but "SSX" it ain't. [Apr 2006, p.96]

Do not buy this for yourself or your kids or anyone you know - you do not ever want to be in a room where it's being played. [Feb 2004, p.127]

If you can get past how limited it all feels, you'll have a modicum of fun. [Nov 2007, p.123]

The sheer length of the Career mode will draw you in, and you can use the cars and levels that you unlock there in the Arcade and Multiplayer modes. [August 2002, p.136]

A frantic pace and wonderful sense of creeping doom keep players running and gunning smoothly - well, except for that flaky camera. [May 2003, p.136]

Maybe I’m sadistic, but it’s the funniest stuff I’ve seen in a long time. [Feb 2002, p.152]

Just another slow, plodding giant-robot game that doesn't add a speck of novelty to the genre. [March 2005, p.128]

Too frustrating to be fun. [June 2002, p.114]

Matches are slower than molasses on a flat surface and play out like blooper reels, with fighters facing the wrong way, refusing to pick up tables or pull off signature strikes. [Sept 2004, p.99]

This latest NBA Ballers seems to have been built in a vacuum. [June 2008, p.79]

I smell what THQ is cookin', and it's damn foul... Wrestlers spouting generic one-liners while engaging in car wars is just plain dumb. [May 2003, p.130]

It was the mission objectives that put fear in my heart. Many are downright illogical to the point where I could only figure out what to do by screwing up over and over. [Oct 2003, p.142]

Playing Boomstick is more excruciating than having your sphincter sewn shut and being force-fed prunes. [Shawn, July 2003, p.118]

The developers got so many of the visual details dead-on...didn't they think that maybe the gameplay should be at least marginally decent too. [July 2007, p.86]

How could a game with so much potential end up such a mess? [Feb 2005, p.100]

Circle of doom indeed. [Feb 2008, p.81]

Though it's a solid entry to the staid genre, World Rally is a bit too kid friendly to recommend to anyone who reads past a fifth grade level. [Sept. 2006, p.99]

You can button mash your way to victory, trust me. Even the hardest of hardcore UFC fans should pass on Sudden Impact. [Bryan; July 2004, p.98]

It took me exactly four hours and seven minutes to finish Astro Boy, which (if you buy the game at list price) comes out to around 10 dollars per hour. It's not a particularly memorable four hours, either. [Oct 2004, p.107]

Where’s the freaking Dynasty mode? [Mar 2002, p.138]

This game isn’t anything more than a drab "Destruction Derby" with added sirens and donuts. [Aug 2001, p.112]

Playing DHV makes me feel like Hans Gruber at the end of the first "Die Hard" film: falling backward toward the pavement, flailing and screaming. [Dec 2002, p.228]

Unfortunately, the actual battles aren't that great; they're a tedious exercise in repeatedly pressing the A button to advance dialog boxes. [March 2004, p.130]

Faceless-cyborg-smashing melee battles are repetitive, uninspired, and glitchy. And with each story line presented in a series of minimissions averaging 3 to 4 minutes apiece, you spend a lot of your time switching characters and saving and loading instead of just playing the darn game. [Nov 2005, p.138]

What we have here is a title that tries hard to impress with its flash, yet stumbles over fundamentally busted gameplay. [June 2005, p.99]

The only snag: You spend most of Combat Elite shooting at offscreen Germans, placing you at a natural and frustrating disadvantage. [Sept 2004, p.100]

The boring, repetitive, annoying missions will only frustrate you. If you must drive a Mini, buy the much better (and much cheaper) Italian Job on PS1. [Sept 2003, p.121]

It's a direct port of a 3-year-old Japanese Sega Dreamcast game, and, well...it shows. Try it if you're brave; you just might like it. [Aug 2003, p.118]

While I think it's kind of neat to have a big party of six tearing through dungeons, controlling them all during real-time combat is a bit cumbersome, and I wish the loot was a bit more inspiring than the generic fare you find here. [Mar 2007, p.95]

I guess the developer of this game didn’t get the memo about zone defense. [Nov 2001, p.220]

When it comes to graphics, it still almost looks like an N64 game…It’s worth renting QB Club 2002 just to play these mini-games. [Mar 2002, p.141]

Don't buy it if you want a dragon that does what it's told. [Sept 2007, p.82]

This Frankenstein seems to have been assembled from the Pariah spare-parts bin. [May 2006, p.104]

Play either of the other PS2 NCAA games and look smarter for it. [Oct 2002, p.184]

Newcomers to the series will enjoy the mindless destruction and blowing up people indiscriminately - I'm just getting tired of retreading old ground. [Apr 2008, p.70]

May your future romantic disappointments be less expensive. [Jan. 2007, p.96]

Battling enemies is both frustrating and boring thanks to touchy hit detection and extremely repetitive fights. [June 2002, p.122]

Never thought Vikings could be so boring. [Oct 2001, p.148]

The most frightening thing about this experience is how filled with hatred and rage I get when I find myself stuck in the environment or when the camera swings into "s*** view" for the billionth time. [Apr 2008, p.72]

Play Adventure for the solid traditional modes and adequate multiplayer, but don't expect to get too much enjoyment out of the dull platforming. [Sept. 2006, p.98]

The play-style variety may be decent--and you get to upgrade abilities--but each character's level sets grow horribly repetitive and pointless, with stingy checkpoint placement compounding the frustration [July 2006, p.91]

No matter who you play as, the near constant, incredibly frustrating puzzles paralyze the otherwise decent gameplay. [Apr 2004, p.122]

Pretty levels and power chords can't hide Dawn of Fate's real weakness: crappy gameplay. [Nov 2002, p.304]

Throw in boring unskippable intros and interstitials in every stage, and congratulations: Katana completely lost my attention. [Feb 2008, p.79]

The game will keep youngins busy, but if any gamer over the age of 10 gets stuck playing this thing, well, that’s gotta hurt! [Nov 2001, p.210]

Faceless-cyborg-smashing melee battles are repetitive, uninspired, and glitchy. And with each story line presented in a series of minimissions averaging 3 to 4 minutes apiece, you spend a lot of your time switching characters and saving and loading instead of just playing the darn game.

How could a game with so much potential end up such a mess? [Feb 2005, p.100]

Samurai Warriors 2 offers nothing new over any other single-button-mashing sequel. Pass. [Oct. 2006, p.110]

If only it featured more varied game types - instead of a dozen different ways of spinning the clam-collecting battles - I could get behind this one. [July 2008, p.78]

Do yourself a favor and head down to your local arcade if you want to play some 18 Wheeler. [May 2002, p.112]

If only the Eskimos had 144 words for "tasteless" in their language, I would totally learn Inuit just to describe 187. As a game, I give 187 a 40, but as a product, my score is a negative f*** you. [Oct 2005, p.115]

It is simply a portable piece of ugliness that lacks humility, wit, or any entertainment value whatsoever. It is singularly unpleasant in the way it handles its subject matter, and it lacks the style or panache to carry its inadequacies with any dignity.

No online support and "everyone's the same" characters mean no reason to bother at all. [Jun 2006, p.110]

Controls aside, almost every aspect of Legends feels dated. [Jan 2008, p.82]

It's as simplistic a platformer as you can get. [May 2002, p.108]

I expect "Seven Samurai" Director Akira Kurosawa's grave is equipped with some sort of industrial centrifuge to accommodate the amount of spinning he's doing right about now. [May 2004, p.96]

[It] has gotten faster with all the fluidity of a broken transmission. [Jan 2002, p.216]

The play-style variety may be decent--and you get to upgrade abilities--but each character's level sets grow horribly repetitive and pointless, with stingy checkpoint placement compounding the frustration [July 2006, p.91]

Please, someone invent a real time machine so I can zip back to early April and warn myself not to play this dog-tired-dogfighting-through-the-decades air-combat crapshoot. [June 2007, p.93]

It’s hard to take a game seriously whose hero looks like a plastic, blue Reboot reject. I think Paul Reubens would have been more believable. [Feb 2002, p.164]

The play-style variety may be decent--and you get to upgrade abilities--but each character's level sets grow horribly repetitive and pointless, with stingy checkpoint placement compounding the frustration [July 2006, p.91]

Aside from porn stars, no one likes sloppy seconds. But that’s what Majesco is shamelessly serving up with this effortless rehash. [Feb 2002, p.158]

Darkness' [control] scheme is more ponderous than ever and feels like it was designed by 10 people who didn't get along. [Sept 2003, p.128]

An overhead shooter mash-up of "Dead to Rights" and High Voltage's own "Hunter: The Reckoning", Fiddy's PSP game fails in the same way his songs succeed: by taking one element and repeating it over and over. [Oct. 2006, p.116]

It may be stupid fun - and it certainly gets monotonous - but at least it is fun. Apologetic kids should be thrilled. [Aug 2006, p.89]

The gameplay is the equivalent of chewing a piece of gum all afternoon - inoffensive, but you just want to spit it out after a while. [Sept 2004, p.99]

Playing from a series of static perspectives seems like a hearkening back to the days of clunky, older PS1 titles, and it's completely unsuited for a game that requires so much fast action. [Oct 2003, p.152]

If only it featured more varied game types - instead of a dozen different ways of spinning the clam-collecting battles - I could get behind this one. [July 2008, p.78]

If only the Eskimos had 144 words for "tasteless" in their language, I would totally learn Inuit just to describe 187. As a game, I give 187 a 40, but as a product, my score is a negative f*** you. [Oct 2005, p.115]

Don't count on using this stuff the way it was intended, though. Unlike the routines real wrestlers choreograph, these matches are absolute button-mashing chaos. [Dec 2003, p.194]

Too bad the actual b-balling action has been done before and better. [July 2006, p.92]

Bland gameplay, however, stifles what inspiration there is. The fighting action is fundamentally underwhelming, and a poor camera and constant loading further handcuff things.

A slapdash, sloppy and unimaginative retrofit. [Jan 2002, p.232]

The cold, hard truth is that unless digi-fans…existed, most would not care two digi-bits about DDCB after playing two digi-seconds. [Oct 2001, p.156]

The more time I spent with the game, the deeper I delved into its defects. [Oct. 2006, p.114]

Without the strategy element to back it up, combat (by which I mean tapping the same button over and over) gets repetitive quickly. [August 2002, p.124]

If Superman spent more time flying around the city and zero time fighting repetitive enemies, his game would be way better. [Jan. 2007, p.102]

What we have here is a title that tries hard to impress with its flash, yet stumbles over fundamentally busted gameplay. [June 2005, p.99]

Where Ape Escape Academy should feel like a festive minigame extravaganza, it comes off as more of a collection of half-assed prototypes due to the overly complex challenges, unresponsive controls, and complete lack of coherency. [Feb 2006, p.111]

Play Adventure for the solid traditional modes and adequate multiplayer, but don't expect to get too much enjoyment out of the dull platforming. [Sept. 2006, p.98]

The players look horrible in comparison to Madden and NFL 2K2, and they move more sluggishly than Oprah after brunch. [Feb 2002, p.154]

All of Death by Degrees' good points - impressive graphics, entertaining sniper scenes, solid upgrade and combo systems, unorthodox analog fighting that actually works well - are offset by poor enemy A.I. and one of the most user-unfriendly camera systems I've encountered in a long time. [March 2005, p.121]

The overly sensitive dirt bikes simply don't have the physics for the rigors of competitive driving, leading to spill after spill. [Aug 2006, p.90]

It ain't particularly exciting, but it ain't exactly bad, either. [Dec 2002, p.272]

The story spews more cheese than blood, the wonky camera hides foes, and the duo of poorly placed save points and lack of health pick-ups can turn Nanobreaker into a controller-smashing affair. Proceed with caution. [March 2005, p.120]

While intriguing, the game is never captivating. [June 2007, p.94]

This premise would still be stupid even if Shadow didn't suffer from slowdown issues, a nonexistent lock-on system, a horrible camera, and bottomless pits in which to fall. But it does, and it is stupid--just like this is a stupid way to spend 50 bucks.

The levels are too drawn-out and repetitive, and I odn't really care for the theme, but underneath it's a no-bull shooter steeped in classic gameplay juices. [Sept 2002, p.148]

It doesn't take a mutant psychic with precognition to figure out this one's a renter. [Feb 2003, p.138]

Any joy you might glean from Tao's progressive treasure collecting and monster slaying will be completely drowned by your tears of boredom. [May 2006, p.108]

Despite its adventure game pretentions, Dino still suffers from annoying time limits and short overall length. [Oct 2002, p.179]