When a racing game's gimmick relies on un-seat-belted drivers forcibly ejected through windshields during crashes, you know you're in trouble. [Aug 2005, p.110]

Sex and violence are the stars, but clever, well-delivered dialogue carries an entertaining vampire apocalypse plot well above current game standards. [Holiday 2004, p.106]

Victory goes to the guy who can jam on the buttons faster. [Aug 2001, p.109]

The meat of this beast is decent - not great, but decent. [Oct 2002, p.184]

Gameplay is average first-person shooter fare bogged down by a convoluted control scheme – switching weapons on the fly is its biggest problem. [May 2002, p.113]

Still a user-friendly pigskin experience with lightning-fast over-the-top gameplay. Yet I'm forced to throw a penalty flag at the lack of big passing plays I've come to love from this franchise. [Nov 2003, p.172]

Fails to do anything exciting or revolutionary, nor does it execute anything any better than other basketball offerings do.

Tactically, it's pretty boring, but if you can get into the goblins' expendable-offense mindset, it's a smashing time.

After the blood-soaked honeymoon is over, you'll see the game in the harsh morning light and wonder if it was worth it.

Shockingly decent. [Dec 2004, p.170]

Breakdown is the most boring game I [Crispin] have ever played. Its pacing is just off - especially in the first half, when you dart through lame environments for too long, with nary a bulgy-veined monster to muss your hair. [May 2004, p.99]

Still a user-friendly pigskin experience with lightning-fast over-the-top gameplay. Yet I'm forced to throw a penalty flag at the lack of big passing plays I've come to love from this franchise. [Nov 2003, p.172]

It's spoiled by painfully awkward gameplay, lobotomized recruits (on both sides), and a million annoying ways to die. [Apr 2006, p.95]

It has some decent ideas(faceoffs are more interesting this year, and the simulation setting option is way better than the arcadey default), but 2K8's fundamentals are flawed. [Nov 2007, p.105]

Second-string sturvival horror marked by puppetlike physics and way too many exploding barrels. [May 2005, p.124]

The actual battles are ridiculously simple when compared to the well-developed strategy phase. [Mar 2003, p.116]

The levels are tight, fast, and fun - less about aimless exploration and more about reflex-testing action. But on the other hand, I'm a little disappointed that it's so short and simplistic, and that it doesn't take more advantage of the GC's hardware. [July 2003, p.114]

Inexplicably horrible graphics completely ruin an otherwise splendid title. [Feb 2002, p.156]

Rogue Trooper, I thank you for the important lesson you've taught me about judging a game by its cover art: That's now onlt accurate 99% of the time. [June 2006, p.111]

For an undead ruler, Kain sure has to flip a lot of switches and push around oodles of crates. [Feb 2003, p.144]

It's just mediocre all around. [Jan. 2007, p.106]

I'm stoked to continue to see improvement in this series, but it's a shame small problems (like lengthy load times) still pin SVR down. [Dec 2007, p.106]

I enjoyed watching the fireworks as my pyromaniac character exploded another radio tower/tank/U-boat/door, but between history class and explosions, Assault didn't keep my blood pumping.

The stiff difficulty, branching levels, and especially your severely limited inventory make cooperation among players essential, but the inexplicable lack of voice (or even keyboard) chat completely destroys all hope of real teamwork. [June 2004, p.100]

Yes, the storyline holds the power of cheese, but it did keep me wondering what would happen next. [Jan 2002, p.228]

Repetitive mission-based gameplay risks players preemptively abandoning ship. [Mar 2002, p.142]

A genuinely fun game that makes clever use of the DS's touch screen. [June 2005, p.107]

With 2K Sports nabbing the exclusive third-party baseball-sim rights to the MLB license, it had a golden chance to nab the hardball crown from EA's NCAA-license-relegated MVP series. Instead, we get this scattershot effort. [May 2006, p.94]