After spending a while with this game, you'll realize you're not actually playing Ace Combat. You're playing a quick-and-dirty flight game with the words Ace Combat slapped on the box, and entering eight-digit passwords whenever you want to pick up where you left off. This undercooked turkey barely earns its wings.

It's definitely preferred to the average character-based kids' games; just don't expect to cast your Tony Hawk or Katamari aside to play it.

Imagine an M-rated RPG set in the Virtua Fighter universe with the real VF combat engine. Until that day comes you’ll experience more virtua pain than virtua pleasure with this one.

Its fundamental flaws and dearth of good music makes this also-ran even more pointless.

Dark Summit is rated H for half-baked...Though pretty, [it] manages to be both repetitive and too short.

The game can be completed in less than two hours, cut scenes included. Yes, there's much beauty in a simple control scheme, but not when it reaches the point of redundancy.

You're better served dusting off your copy of "Parappa" or "DDR" when you want to feel the rhythm move you.

The humdrum gameplay won't convert anyone. Clumsy combat with fists or firearms makes up the majority, and the rest of the game is usually a glorified switch and key hunt... and not a particularly complicated one, either.

The theory of evolution may not apply to Tork as a character, but it should darn well apply to video games.

For the hardcore action fans that really need a fix, I suppose Time Ace might be worth a look. There are multiple difficulty levels, plenty of planes and power-ups to collect, and multiplayer battles for you and all your friends who also bought a copy of the game. But really, your money is probably better spent on a game that’s at least trying to be fun.

Everything about the game feels clumsy. The graphics are mediocre, the gameplay is middling and repetitive, and the completely shallow glorification of drug use is either appalling or just plain stupid.

Diehard Pokemon fans might get some value out of Pokemon Dash, but it’s hard to conceive of anyone else enjoying the incredibly flawed gameplay of this wrist-wrenching racer.

Light on substance and heavy on style. If you're a One Piece madman who simply has to have everything to do with the series, it's not a horrible game. It's just not exceptional. As a multiplayer party game, it's good for a quick fix every once in a while.

None of the quirks and flaws in the game would have been quite so damning if it weren’t for UbiSoft’s insane decision to release WarTech at the full $60 price tag.

Sadly, I don’t review games based on what they might eventually become. This is the game the developers put out (and already patched twice), and this is the game that was reviewed. It still feels unfinished, it has tons of technical problems, it takes forever to get into games, and given the number of high-profile titles coming out over the coming months, there just isn’t any room for eventual quality.

There’s something decidedly satisfying seeing your hard work and meticulous planning pay off with a trip to the Super Bowl. But that trip is fraught with so many pitfalls – the most annoying being the rigid scheduling issues – that you’ll need superhuman patience to see it through to the end.

Though it has numerous pros, courts, and options - including a player creation section that would make World Of Warcraft jealous - and looks as good as Wimbledon on NBC, it is ultimately undone by the most obvious of gaming mistakes: bad controls.

The games not terrible, but it's not great. The most important element in a boxing sim, the tactics, combos, and impact, are watered down to a button mashing spit bucket.

Daredevil had potential, but the result is merely an uninspired, generic movie tie-in that doesn't excel in any particular area and stumbles when it comes to meaningful gameplay.

Dull, and not just because of its subject matter or slow pace. Obviously, fishing can only be so exciting, but the repetitive nature of the gameplay, the lack of rewards, and the high frustration level make for a tiresome experience.

A mostly brainless fighter that manages to capture the magic and appeal of the source material.

The game is flawed on so many levels (and in so many ways), that its occasional glimpses of greatness almost get lost in the Bespin Clouds.

Those who enjoyed World Heroes in the arcades, all twenty of you, will adore this collection from SNK. The conversions are as close as you'll get without owning a Neo Geo and several hundred dollars worth of cartridges. Yet the titles here are far from classics, especially considering SNK's extensive library of 2D fighting games.

Since the game’s storyline and restricted gameplay keeps you from ever just branching off and doing your own thing, what you’re left with here is basically a sub-par pirate-themed adventure game that offers some fun sea-based combat and some boring sword-to-sword stuff.

The story mode is boring and full of repetition, the controls are overly simplistic, and the lack of online play on the Cube hurts the game even more.

Oh Sonic, you’ve raced so far to only find yourself where you started. While Sega inches ever closer to finding that magical combination to create their Sonic empire once again, the rest of the game drags down whatever hope gamers had for reliving the better parts of their childhood instead of the parts where they were sorely disappointed.

Why the presentation is so flat is a mystery worthy of Veronica Mars, since there are only two athletes on-screen at once (four during doubles matches).

Capcom may have moved to true 3-D environments, but its design philosophy is still stuck in the old pre-rendered graphics days of the PS. This is a good series. Its third installment deserves a whole lot better.

What we have here is the most basic and elementary of fighting games. It's nothing to look at, listen to, or play.

Replay is a non-factor with no Xbox Live support, and the only way to enjoy it is to get your mates to enlist with you. But in the end, this one’s as much of a mess as the real Vietnam. Aim to avoid it.

A decent party game with a great cast of cheesy giant monsters, but it's just not scaly or radioactive enough to command much respect.

It’s not that the game is incredibly difficult. It’s just that it’s very particular and gives you a terrible viewpoint from which to perform specific actions. The loose controls only make matters worse.

Ancient Wars: Sparta just isn’t an enjoyable game. The only reason it’s not getting one star is because technically, the game is very proficient and quite polished.

Even for an arcade action game, Maximum Chase is short and easy. You'll blow through the entire game in less than an afternoon. There are special objectives to beat in order to unlock things such as new cars and camera filters, but there isn't much incentive to replay this game once you've beaten it.

The fighters look great... until they move, anyway. But they've looked pretty good for years now and the lack of innovation combined with the gimme-some-Viagra blahness is disheartening to say the least.

An average-looking game with a number of above-average ideas that ultimately fail to elicit the sense of excitement you should have while playing.

Though you can certainly do worse than Wings of War at its budget price point, the gameplay ultimately has more holes than the Red Baron’s adversaries.

Though on the surface Jackass looks like it has strong replay value, the content is as shallow as Steve-O’s take on world peace. Players will breeze through the story mode within a day, and the challenge mode simply offers the same events with slightly higher score requirements.

For those who aren’t so loyal to this particular brand of gigantic Japanese robot, enjoyment of the game will be seriously hampered by control issues and the payoff--tons of extras and unlockable content--just isn't worth it.

While being well-coded, it just doesn't offer the excitement which should come with the Race of Champions.

Tag Force had a chance to reinvent itself and blew it by not adding in elements missing from the series and making room for extras that no one wanted in the first place.

With its anemic presentation, difficult jumps, and random and completely obscure puzzles, it's tough to enjoy everything else Buffy has to offer.

Yet the biggest sticking point is the camera, which has trouble remaining steady in tight spots or in close encounters, making many sequences needlessly frustrating.

Spyro Shadow Legacy isn’t a terrible game, but it’s painfully repetitive and just plain dull.

Mana and magic system aside, the game’s primary selling point is the same as so many other RPGs: a couple dozen hours of content. And if merely killing time is the goal, then it could fill the bill.

An excellent "pick-up-and-play" title. The trouble is most will be satisfied enough by "picking up" the controller just once to play this.

Imagine an M-rated RPG set in the Virtua Fighter universe with the real VF combat engine. Until that day comes you'll experience more virtua pain than virtua pleasure with this one.

Although it's an excellent representation of "Law & Order" in playable form, there just isn't much to play.

Even the game's menus and overall presentation offend.

Like so many other licensed games, seems to focus more on the presentation and style of the characters than the actual game itself.

Even as a generic 3D platformer Pac-Man World 3 fails to satisfy.

A game needs more than good atmosphere. Monster House could have been a spiritual successor to the GameCube launch title, Luigi’s Mansion, and rips off plenty of elements from Nintendo’s haunted, vacuum cleaner-endowed game. It just doesn’t do it very well.

Everything from the pointless showdown mode to the almost complete absence of anything to unlock makes the game feel raw in a negative, unfinished way. Not the hardcore, wrestling kind of fans know and love.

The developers' attempts to create a zany story, the game leaves you without a sense of purpose.

Once you get used to the quirky, low-budget sensibility One Must Fall: Battlegrounds is a decent fighter, especially for online play. But the random crashes really put a damper on the fun.

There’s something decidedly satisfying seeing your hard work and meticulous planning pay off with a trip to the Super Bowl. But that trip is fraught with so many pitfalls – the most annoying being the rigid scheduling issues – that you’ll need superhuman patience to see it through to the end.

Suffers from outdated technology being applied to a game design that doesn't really know what it wants to be.

It's too bad more attention wasn't paid to crafting a more compelling gameplay engine, but this is one case where style over substance isn't such a bad thing.

The physics appear sound and there are plenty of ways to tweak your vehicle, but the game has no spark. Easy mode is too dull and not at all true to the sport, and normal and pro modes are too demanding.

Quaint graphics, recognizable characters, easy gameplay, and many mini-games give Barnyard some staying power with its target audience. For older gamers, the game is entirely standard and boring.

Yet, gameplay is still the biggest flaw, with inconsistent AI (the computer never runs and doesn’t manage the clock effectively in the second half) and electric football-style physics.

If every mission is going to take place around the same five blocks, try giving the different areas a bit of character instead of exploding walls. Make bosses that are fun to beat up and not just another thing you throw cars at until they stop moving. Just getting rid of the multitude of minor glitches could have easily raised the score.

The real lesson here is that there's a place for a run-of-the mill shooter. Just keep those aspirations modest. Throw in teammates and base defense, and you can throw your entire project into turmoil.

The laughably bad voice acting will irritate, the ornery puzzle situations will annoy, and everything will be over so quickly you’ll wonder why you bothered in the first place.

Just not a good game, no matter how much you love the Gundam universe. It's repetitive and unchallenging and not at all up to the system's capabilities.

It’s a shame that the one good idea in this streetball title had to be overshadowed by bad execution and a mediocre presentation.

The overall speed of the game slows down substantially when there's too much activity on screen.

Between the dull punchfests, the insanely accurate enemies, and the extra difficulty created by forcing the player to rely on autotargeting, completing Dead to Rights quickly becomes an act of will.

Driv3r tries to be more than just a driving game, but it looks like Tanner should get his butt back behind the wheel and stay there.

This is more in the line of a free Flash game on the web, or something Namco could have pitched at DS download kiosks.

As lousy as the dragon combat is, when someone picks up a dragon game, they want to eat humans, not be one.

Visually, the game has a rather muddy and faded look -- it just isn't up to snuff. Although car damage can affect driving, none of it shows up in the visuals.

There's almost nothing to recommend here save for the novelty of doing a flipside grind into Frankenstein.

If you can't go anywhere without your Chococat pencil case, go ahead and pick up Roller Rescue. We're sure you'll manage to delude yourself into thinking it's great.

The load times sometimes last longer than it takes to complete a few of the actual minigames, and there’s nothing novel going on in this game, but with no competition on the PSP it's a decent choice for quick, clean fun.

Keep this one on the bench and hope that some off-season workouts can elevate it to starting status.

Plays just like it looks: a lumbering version of "Crazy Taxi."

It’s got some excellent gameplay ideas that are marred by sloppy execution and balance issues. A lot of these problems could have been fixed in the PC port, but they haven't been.

It's a good premise but the game proves to be boring over the long haul... it's just too simplistic and easy to hold your attention for more than a couple days.

A good-looking but brain-dead, thumb-numbing game.

Van Helsing really isn’t a good game. Which means, in the context of flick-based titles, it's about average. If you’re tired of the "Devil May Cry" clones, then Van Helsing is definitely not for you.

By diluting the elements that set NFL Blitz apart from other football games, Midway has left the door open for its game to be compared to "Madden NFL 2004" and "ESPN NFL Football." Unfortunately, there is no comparison.

For a budget title, Will Rock will paralyze you with excitement and is a true test for the first-person shooter hard core. No thinking allowed.

Nothing but the sum of its parts -- a mediocre action game painted up with some licensed characters and a recognizable name on the box. Fans of the property deserve better.

An otherwise solid playing game that comes up short in the control and play modes, especially when compared to "NBA Street V3," which is clearly the better option for those new to the arcade b-ball franchise.

It’s not a terrible game, just a terribly underwhelming one.

Textured well enough, suitably brutal, and sporting fairly evolved team-management options, it's too bad the gameplay experience weakens the overall score.

There's a peculiar lack of in-game music that, when paired with the spartan sound effects, makes the game feel lifeless.

Although games of this type don't need to be flashy to be enjoyable, Dungeon Dice Monsters takes an embarrassing, bare-bones approach to presentation that does little to bring the player into the game's world.

Performance gets choppy in certain parts of the city (Istanbul especially). Cars tend to pop into view and there are never more than maybe four or five other cars onscreen at any given time.

The action and violence are satisfying enough to make the game marginally recommendable, but only barely. Add in the complete lack of any multiplayer options, a terrible ending, and Clive Barker’s Jericho feels like a game where the good parts are overwhelmed by the shortcomings.

The greatest crime depicted in the game isn't Syndrome's machinations, but the speed with which the lame design renders dull action out of such cool characters.

Remarkably lacking.

Improving your rider's living conditions aside, there's nothing here that hasn't been done countless times before.

But the lack of definable strengths and weak multiplayer options make it really easy for the average gamer to leave it on the store shelf.

Bruce Campbell voices Ash's dialog, which should please fans of the movies, but his deadpan delivery might come across as bad acting to those not familiar with the distinct style of his character.

Even the most determined Man U follower stuck in the bowels of America would be better off editing together a team in Konami's masterpiece than taking the easy way out offered here.

Even as a budget title, Elite Warriors: Vietnam is an underwhelming game. The AI is buggy and ineffective, the missions are stale, and the strategic elements feel hollow and, ultimately, pointless.