Collectively, the infuriating missions and maddening difficulty swings prove to be overwhelming, sucking away what little fun there is. [Nov 2004, p.136]

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]

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]

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]

As a fan of stealth-action in general and the Xbox Chaos Theory in particular, playing the DS version is like reuniting with an old friend...who's gained weight, lost his hair, had his limbs chopped off, his brain sucked out, and been through one of those car-crusher things. And smells. Like cat pee.

Wow, is Deep labyrinth ever boring. [Sept. 2006, p.106]

A bland flight-combat shooter. [June 2002, p.114]

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

One of the least exciting party games I’ve ever played. [Jan 2002, p.228]

Navigating your too-large cartoon plane among clunky cliffs and bluffs is akin to playing in a world of giant Duplo bricks. [Apr 2007, p.82]

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]

This game is a rushed, slapdash effort intended to prey on unsuspecting consumers. [Dec 2002, p.250]

There's nothing good to say about the gameplay, which ignores skill and encourages button-mashing. Stay away from this beast -- it bites. [Dec 2003, p.222]

An extremely frustrating, poorly programmed mess. [Feb 2005, p.106]

The story and voice acting offered me several unintentional laughs, but inexcusably stupid elements, such as unskippable cut-scenes and the inability to pick up fallen enemies' weapons, pair with rotten gameplay to make this one of the worst games I've played all year.

The throwaway storyline, endless loading times, small environments and barely Dreamcast-quality graphics are instant turn-offs. [Jan 2002, p.230]

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

The story and voice acting offered me several unintentional laughs, but inexcusably stupid elements, such as unskippable cut-scenes and the inability to pick up fallen enemies' weapons, pair with rotten gameplay to make this one of the worst games I've played all year.

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

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]

NFL Tour's last-team-with-the-ball-wins emphasis on offense deflates whatever air this pigskin had left in it. [Feb 2008, p.76]

Funny writing (courtesy of an ex-"Ren & Stimpy" scribe) can't save this uninspired rehash of antiquated Crash antics with lackluster visuals. [Dec 2004, p.170]

NFL Tour's last-team-with-the-ball-wins emphasis on offense deflates whatever air this pigskin had left in it. [Feb 2008, p.76]

A tamer, single-player "Time Crisis 2" with fewer unique enemies and lamer bosses. [August 2002, p.124]

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

The sad truth, however, is that the game pales in every conceivable way to its fellow pro brethren. [Oct 2002, p.184]

Funny writing (courtesy of an ex-"Ren & Stimpy" scribe) can't save this uninspired rehash of antiquated Crash antics with lackluster visuals. [Dec 2004, p.170]

Compared to smoother, more realistic titles such as "High Heat" (and to a lesser extent, "All-Star Baseball"), this is an embarrassment. [June 2002, p.114]

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]

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

It's not as mind-blowingly awful as the old N64 "Superman" stinker, but it is outclassed by nearly every other comic-book game out there. [Feb 2003, p.154]

I thought I’d sooner see Sasquatch ride a Chimera bareback through the streets than a bland series like Mega Man X last through six installments. [Feb 2002, p.172]

The scale of the town maps and the repetitive graphics make navigating around the map a laborious chore. [Oct 2001, p.148]

The dirty language and innuendo rules out kids. Grown-ups will despise its complete lack of gameplay (at least Japanese dating sims offer minigames). That just leaves inmates. But forcing them to play this crap would be cruel and inhuman punishment. [Jan 2005, p.140]

Too hard...too slow...too ugly. [May 2002, p.107]

The fact is, just about every task the game asks you to play is simply no fun. [Jan 2002, p.230]

As a game, Bulletproof is a disaster. Your G-Unit allies are so dumb they had to be made invincible to keep them alive.

The targeting system is useless, the levels are bland and filled with countless invisible barriers, and the camera is so hard to manipulate in tight spaces that you'll often end up staring right at 50's face as he gets ventilated by the dozen enemies he just can't see.

A game of chess could take forever, but when you pick up a piece, it doesn't take an hour to move it. But that's what Souls' slowdown-laden mess is like. Souls is one of the worst-optimized PS2-to-PSP ports I've played.

This game sucks. Unlimited Saga exemplfies everything that's wrong with RPGs today and throws it all together in one deluxe package for all to avoid like the plague. [July 2003, p.108]

Trying to master the game's unintuitive control system (with 12 different types of punches) was making my head spin, until I realized that mashing buttons and "circle strafing" my foe produced great results most of the time.

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]

Nothing but a disappointing concoction of fighting-genre cliches... Unquestionably the worst fighting game I've played in years. [Feb 2003, p.154]

With its forgettable characters, interminable load times, and mind-numbingly dull battles, Blade Dancer assaults players with such profound mediocrity that only the most tenacious questers will make it beyond the first few hours. [Aug 2006, p.93]

The debilitating, clunky controls had me spewing so many expletives in the heat of combat that passersby probably thought I had Tourette's syndrome. [Sept 2003, p.132]

This is a weak port that doesn't do Myst justice; it's not worth a revisit even for nostalgia. [June 2008, p.87]

T3's first-person shooting stages are plagued by poor controls, terrible level designs, brain-dead enemies, and just plain ugly graphics. [Feb 2004, p.106]

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

It's the general gameplay that's busted. Picking up an object is needlessly complex, tricky jumps seem to require more luck than skill, the camera is craptacular, boss battles are tedious, the vehicle-based levels are a joke, and the actual fighting action is bland. [Dec 2004, p.150]

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

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]

It's the general gameplay that's busted. Picking up an object is needlessly complex, tricky jumps seem to require more luck than skill, the camera is craptacular, boss battles are tedious, the vehicle-based levels are a joke, and the actual fighting action is bland. [Dec 2004, p.150]

C'mon, we're talking about a hack-and-slasher with stationary pinatas for targets here! [August 2002, p.126]

Trust me, the controls are sheer, unadulterated nonsense. [Apr 2002, p.141]

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]

T3's first-person shooting stages are plagued by poor controls, terrible level designs, brain-dead enemies, and just plain ugly graphics. [Feb 2004, p.106]

Difficult - even the homeliest guy on earth could get laid before he could complete the inane tasks required to unlock all the R-rated stripper videos (which aren't worth the effort, by the way). Only the most patient, hardcore, and masochistic will be able to play through XXX. [Feb 2003, p.152]

The in-game dialogue has all the creativity and wit of a Fred Basset cartoon. [Nov 2001, p.222]

Too bad the side-scrolling gameplay is so generic. You're best off staying far, far away from this galaxy. [Dec 2004, p.170]

This budget-priced shooting gallery would be more thrilling if your plane didn't control like a garbage truck sliding across ice. [Dec 2004, p.170]

Shamelessly uninspired. Trust me, you don't want to fly sortie after mind-numbing sortie of hour-long missions that almost always end in tragedy, forcing you to restart the whole flavorless affair. [Dec 2003, p.184]

Just too troubled to even bother renting. [May 2002, p.112]

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]

Shamelessly uninspired. Trust me, you don't want to fly sortie after mind-numbing sortie of hour-long missions that almost always end in tragedy, forcing you to restart the whole flavorless affair. [Dec 2003, p.184]

This is a snore-fest made all the more yawnsome when you discover you have to watch the computer players take their turns in their geriatric entirety. [Oct 2002, p.194]

It's the general gameplay that's busted. Picking up an object is needlessly complex, tricky jumps seem to require more luck than skill, the camera is craptacular, boss battles are tedious, the vehicle-based levels are a joke, and the actual fighting action is bland. [Dec 2004, p.150]

The whole damn experience is like watching your dad perform Who Let the Dogs Out? – you want it out of your line of sight as quickly as possible. [Mar 2002, p.135]

If you can handle inelegant controls, graphics, and story, and a text-heavy menu system, this might hold some appeal. Otherwise, avoid it like lycanthropy. [July 2008, p.81]

Besides 5-year-old girly-girls who like, love Britney, the banal set of revolving cominations and a suck-it-for-all-it's-got song list will send you surfing on a contagious yawn-wave. [August 2002, p.123]

Beyond merely bad - it's kind of depressing. [July 2005, p.119]

Combat is about as exciting as watching paint dry. [Aug 2001, p.112]

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.

The completely screwed-up camera, noticeable lack of sound effects, and gameplay bugs make it obvious no one working on this game cared about it - why should you? [Sept 2004, p.104]

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

Mentally handicapped enemies, repetitive mission objectives, and some of the least-intentionally humorous dialogue ever. [July 2003, p.110]

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

Sorry, B-Man, you went from hero to a big zero. [Sept. 2006, p.97]

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

And the game's twist will excite only fans of backtracking, who, as far as I know, don't actually exist. [July 2007, p.83]

On a system this powerful, nausea-inducing framerates should be a thing of the past. [Nov 2001, p.206]

Larry's surreal brand of dong-and-fart humor lost me somewhere between the fifth date-rape joke and the gay-bar sing-along...The meat of the game - the cheesy, lowbrow funny business - goes limp in mere minutes. [Dec 2004, p.148]

If you want a taste of the gritty underground fight scene depicted in the movie "Fight Club," you'd be better off paying somebody 50 bucks to beat you to a bloody pulp than wasting money on this game. It's unpolished, unfinished, and just plain bad. [Holiday 2004, p.102]

If you want a taste of the gritty underground fight scene depicted in the movie "Fight Club," you'd be better off paying somebody 50 bucks to beat you to a bloody pulp than wasting money on this game. It's unpolished, unfinished, and just plain bad. [Holiday 2004, p.102]

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

Mind-boggling travesty. [Jan 2002, p.231]

Larry's surreal brand of dong-and-fart humor lost me somewhere between the fifth date-rape joke and the gay-bar sing-along...The meat of the game - the cheesy, lowbrow funny business - goes limp in mere minutes. [Dec 2004, p.148]

Fantastically unfun. [July 2005, p.118]

It's pure boredom harnessed in cartridge form. [Feb 2004, p.128]

It's one of the worst games I've ever played. [July 2002, p.128]

One of the worst looking games to come out this year. [Feb 2006, p.110]

Combine this lame gameplay with gaudy graphics, wretched acting and a mercifully short quest, and you've got one of the worst Xbox titles to date. [Oct 2002, p.204]

While the fanciful racetracks are cute, they don't redeem the atrocious racing and so-bad-it's-good-oh-wait-it's-just-bad dialogue. [Dec 2004, p.170]

Shrek is full of dull, poorly constructed rip-offs that get recycled several times. You'll be utterly bored after a few minutes with these creepy diversions. [Feb 2003, p.158]

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]

Regis’s few spunky chime-ins will severely disappoint his extremist fans, as well as nauseate everyone else with how much they sound like assembly-line verbal by-product. [Sept 2001, p.148]

The graphics are a mess, the special moves are unresponsive, the animation is less fluid than a flip book, and the combat lacks strategic incentive. [June 2003, p.114]

It'd be a bit better with a saner control scheme, but as it is, Drake is an exercise in frustration and repeated death. [Jan 2004, p.148]