The Judge System and a few other gripes do keep this game from being truly excellent. But hey! At least there's no slow text like in the original.

On the visual front, everything about Runaway: A Road Adventure screams style. Rather than going with pre-rendered backdrops and stiff CG animated characters, Runaway instead gives us beautifully detailed cartoon landscapes populated with very animated, and believable 2D and 3D characters.

What Bombastic offers is a new take on a classic puzzle game. Unfortunately this new take is far too complex for its own good as it attempts to build on an already terrific game.

The PS2 controller provides a much more intuitive fighting game experience than either the Gamecube or Xbox.

If you’re looking for a showcase title to impress your friends, this is it. But, I think focusing so much on the visuals takes something away from the game. Its gameplay is far more impressive, and the fact that the art design has trumped every other action title out there is just icing on the cake.

The controls in Soul Calibur II are nearly flawlessly executed, and considering the Xbox and Gamecube controller configurations, just making a fighting game playable, let alone as fluid as Soul Calibur II, is a miracle unto itself.

The controls in Soul Calibur II are nearly flawlessly executed.

Delivers breathtaking visuals, set against a fairly average game.

It is a fine pinball game, though the difficulty of it seems to be lacking severely, the “Catch ‘em All” theme is still prevailing. At first, the game does catch your attention and shows its depth, but after a while, repetitiveness does drag down the fun factor a bit.

Speaking of unlockables, diehard players will find it near impossible to get everything.

At no more than 7 hours from start to finish, I’m sure most players can spare an evening.

There are enough bells and whistles to make Alter Echo appeal to some, such as the title’s unique combo system that serves to make combat quite entertaining. Sadly, however, the game is far too short to be considered anything other than a weekend rental.

It is fun, plain and simple. Any fan of racing games should give this one a try, at least as a rental. I promise a worthwhile experience.

Provides a decent PC role-playing experience, but it is simply not as refined as the Fallout games that it is derived from.

I defy there to be a better football game this year.

For a racing game, Freaky Flyers offers a good deal of entertainment value. My main gripe is the speed, which is just too slow for a game centered on racing. Still, the game is fun.

My only minor complaint is an aesthetic one: I like to see my guns in a FPS, and not seeing anything at all except an open screen with a cursor on it is somehow not as satisfying and can tend to lead to some inaccuracy when shooting.

This game also has quite a bit of replay ability to, with 3 different endings to see, and additional scenes to be seen on replay. My only qualm with this game is that it’s too short, at only 5 hours on your first play through and maybe half that each additional time.

It is a sad fact that there are simply not many people playing the game, and I was hard pressed to find a single person to play with.

100% completion can be had in a few days play, and after that I am afraid the game will be yet another dust magnet on the shelf. In that time, however, players can experience a truly well made, and magical game.

I have spent well over 50 hours with this game thus far, and I find myself still revisiting it. It has deep, rewarding gameplay, as was as an immensely satisfying multiplayer experience.

While I applaud the developers for shedding the trappings of contemporary role-playing games that opt for style over substance, that does not excuse the fact that the actual gameplay is many times awkward and cumbersome.

What it all boils down to is a game worth playing if only to see how great the GBA can look and sound, but an average player shouldn't expect to get more than two or three long road trips worth of play out of this one.

If you can get the multiplayer to work for you, or have friends in the room with you to play with, the game can really show its colors. Still, with the single player campaign only taking 8-10 hours to complete, this may be best played as a rental.

Although it is one of the silliest game concepts in years, these 5-second games are somehow able to hold your attention for hours on end.

With all of its unique features and amounts of item/soul collection, Aria could be considered second to only one other game in the Castlevania series – the masterpiece, "Symphony of the Night."

The single player campaign, while enjoyable for what it is, pales substantially to its online multiplayer counterpart.

The ability to communicate vocally is hand over fist an improvement over the keyboard and icon based communication in the other versions of the game.