Almost engaging. Despite dripping with cliché, the world is a fun one to visit. It would be much easier to stomach the numerous design flaws had they delivered on their promise in the storyline.

Worse than the usual mediocre movie spinoffs, which is saying something. Youngsters might have the attention span to find completing the game entertaining, but everyone is better off playing Ultimate Alliance—a vastly superior game.

It's passable in short spurts, but if you’re looking for something deep and challenging, look elsewhere.

A generic click-fest with the occasional cutscene of Colin Farrell riding on a horse and the sounds of Vangelis blaring in the background. Ick.

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.

A depressingly face-value take on a dystopian future that works neither as a game or a parody, except of itself. There's some humor in each arrest procedure, but it wears thin quickly.

With its fair share of gameplay issues and dated presentation, this Samurai walks away with his blade between his legs.

It's just a shame that more care wasn't taken to make his life seem less repetitive and more diverse.

Dark Messiah is a frustrating title, since moments of fun are outweighed by long stretches of tedium.

Doomed to be a bargain bin special, Without Warning is strictly middle-of-the-road from top to bottom. There are a few shining moments in the game, but heed our warning and leave this one to rest in peace.

It’s too unresponsive, there are rare fouls (outside of the ridiculous dive button), the replays are appalling, and the game just doesn’t feel enough like soccer.

What frustrated us most about Republic is that we can see a hint of greatness. We saw many ways to influence the game, but they're all reigned in by the mission design. In its current state Republic: The Revolution plays more like a failed coup.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the way Reservoir Dogs mangles the movie's complex story.

Far Cry Vengeance is the game that will make you think twice about coming within 100 yards of a first-person shooter on the Wii.

The game just never firmly establishes a sense of direction. All told, you're basically thrown into a scenario and told to care, with no supporting material to help an intelligent human being establish anything remotely resembling suspension of disbelief.

A solid disappointment. Fans of the series will find nothing to like here and real-time strategy gamers have plenty of better games to play.

Perhaps the most puzzling element of Grand Adventure is the lack of a four-player mode, which is an essential ingredient for the fast-paced, item collecting, button-mashing style of fighting game.

While it's not the unplayable mess of the "World War II Online" debut, Eve is still firmly in the beta stage in all respects except monthly fees. [19 June 2003]

The story is surprisingly lengthy and more compelling than most video game stories, but it overdoes things with far too many low-brow jokes, childish innuendos and absurd parodies. Chances are you’ll find yourself laughing harder at the deplorable number of technical issues that plague the game than the actual jokes.

Constantly fighting the camera to get the view you’re looking for, sword duels with all the grace of a rusty robot, and unpolished graphics and presentation make Fatal Shadows feel like a much older title that hasn’t aged well.

While there are many characters to unlock and compete with, it takes a long time to see any of them thanks to the incredibly slow rate at which you acquire powerful cards.

The game feels like it was made a few years ago, took few risks, and was just now released. Now it feels dated.

If you like big-eyed cartoon girls and master/servant fantasies, go right ahead and grab this. They’ll even chirp at you in squeaky Japanese if that happens to be to your taste. Otherwise, though, you can rest secure in the knowledge that you’re barely missing anything here at all.

Even if there are some design tricks here that all developers could learn from, the game's negatives outweigh the positives, leaving this Galleon to be forgotten at the bottom of the bargain bin.

It retails for only $20, which is hard to beat. On the downside, you can probably find used copies of old UFC games for even cheaper than that, and many of them are better than Sudden Impact.

Beam Breakers could have been a fun, arcade-styled racing game, but the stop and start mission structure coupled with a distinct lack of depth really pulls its score down.

But there's nothing in the game that you haven't already heard blabbed around the water cooler. Besides, if you play the modest mess that is Lost: Via Domus you'll never again wonder if the TV series has jumped the shark. It can't possibly get this muddled.

By no means a completely wasted effort, just one that fails to live up to its alluring potential.

Top Spin 2 shares a lot of traits with its predecessor, but they’re overshadowed a bit by the maddening difficulty and A.I. fluctuations and graphics that don’t really scream “next gen.”

The game is too short, and doesn’t sport enough play options to keep it fresh past a few hours of play.

Astonishia Story offers no compelling gameplay, nothing like a gripping narrative, nothing much to listen to (the MIDI-riffic music hasn't aged well over 12 years), and a great deal of waiting.

The biggest issue with Purple Haze for Xbox is that the game simply isn't complete. Why the truncated campaign? Why the revamped levels?

If you don’t care too much about precise game play, Chosen One is a good, brainless time. Otherwise, the game just becomes infuriating.

Between graphics, story, and gameplay, we want at least two out of three to drive us to complete the large undertaking that is playing an RPG. Lunar excels at none of the above.

It's a budget title plain and simple, and as such it slacks on nearly every aspect. With about three million PS2 racing games and counting -- including Gran Turismo 4 as a $20 Greatest Hit title -- TXR Drift is about as essential as a two-foot high spoiler on the back of your mom's minivan.

Forcing the player to endure 100 repetitive missions just to unlock the meat of the game is an insult, as is the imbalanced fighting engine.

Survival horror veterans will be drawn to Extermination right up to the very end, but casual gamers might find this title hard to swallow because of its inconsistent presentation, low replay value and mediocre story.

Fans of the unjolly green giant will have some limited, isolated smash-bouts, but those who are gamers first and Hulk fans secondly will be better off investigating the console versions based on the film.

Pimp My Ride has that budget-game smell, with its lack of any Xbox Live support and flimsy content.

The dialogue frequently doesn’t make sense, then, and the plot often makes even less.

Someday, the Wii may host its own quality 3D fighter. If it does, though, it’ll be something like Super Smash Brothers Brawl – something built from the ground up for this console. Otherwise, maybe you just can’t teach a new dog old tricks.

Feels as if it's beneath the once-great franchise.

Dynasty Warriors has a rabid fan base, and so it stands to reason that Koei doesn’t want to mess with the formula too much. It’s disappointing that seven years and endless games later, this latest iteration feels like such a miniscule step forward in the series.

Seems like it is just trying to be a fancy 3-D version of an early-90’s platformer and that just doesn’t cut it today. Too many traps and too much repetitive combat with not enough challenge and fun in the mix do not make a great game.

Everything about the presentation has a rushed, sloppy feel that belies the game’s lengthy development cycle and preexisting source material.

The presentation is weak, the gameplay flawed, and the reliance on insanely in-depth customization will likely end up annoying most gamers.

There’s better acting in a preschool production of Equus than in this game. As atrocious as the voice-acting is—and it is unbelievably godawful—the writing is worse.

Its attempts to stand out are partially successful at best, but solid production values and a lower than average price tag could be agreeable to people predisposed to this type of gameplay.

Many faults in control, AI, and presentation, all of which should be at a higher level considering this is the fourth game in the squad-based series.

Nothing in it really drives you to play. The RPG elements are watered down, the dungeon and monster designs are boring, and even with all the different weapons and combat options, the fighting is just too simplistic.

Unfortunately, some good monsters and a decent multiplayer mode don’t really save the game from being mired down in its own mediocrity.

For slightly more money, those players could pick up one of the season box sets, in which even the commentaries would provide more consistent entertainment than this dry drama.

It has moments of inspired violence, and the story it tells is engaging, but there is too much monotony to the gameplay to make it addictive.

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.

While it does supplement the story exceptionally well, Enter the Matrix lacks anything that would make it stand out as a great or even good game.

Loose controls and repeating levels marred what could have been a break out hit for a series that desperately needed one.

The weak, shriveled heart of "Armageddon" can barely pump the appealing lifeblood of the comic book series into this hollow shell. It isn't terrible, but it offers few reasons to complete the 20 or so missions.

The game equivalent of bowling shoes: cheap, tacky, a little stinky, and something best left behind the rental counter.

Where the colorful Pokemon games are finely polished and well-oiled machines, Digimon World 4 feels like a junker thrown together out of rusty spare parts.

The wonderful graphics and cut scenes are nice, but it's solid, innovative gameplay -- not cut scenes -- that makes a game great. Highland Warriors sadly misses the mark.

There’s a good game in here somewhere, but it’s buried beneath a layer of unpolished graphics, clumsy controls, and boring missions.

Both the 360 and PS3 versions aren’t the greatest first-person shooters ever made, but they’re decent enough to satiate your apparently endless need to keep fighting the same war over and over and over again. Don’t bother with this game on the Wii, though.

Edward Carnby's return had the potential to be the next Silent Hill. What we ended up with is more reminiscent of Trespasser.

But in the end, it’s just freaking sudoku. And the inclusion of one MILF-ish brit doesn’t go a long way towards making the whole package more attractive.

The emptiness of the world, the poor quality of the graphics, and the decidedly easy-to-use interface and instructions cripple what otherwise could have been a fun little RPG.

The end result is strategy overload for the action gamer and action overload for the strategy gamer. Those in between won't be particularly impressed, either.

Its galling brevity combined with the inability to actually watch many of your tricky labors make it a one-shot deal at best, with little replay value -- except perhaps in real life.

Multiplayer action adds as a bit more life to this bare bones game. Coming from a series that understands character progression and massive battles so well, Circle of Doom seems more like a quick way to put out a title instead of a fully developed idea.

There's some shocking stuff, but nothing exciting happens. It's just like watching Jerry Springer. If you've seen it once, you've seen it all.

Larry's longevity will be directly proportionate to the amount of laughs you derive from bodily functions great and small.

The four-player online play in S.L.A.I. works just fine, but it doesn't make up for the fact that the single-player game wears thin within an hour.

Each positive aspect is saddled with a few misfires, from the limited customization options to the frequent, boring cut-scenes to the rather basic play modes.

If you have a burning urge to spend $20 and have already gone through the other puzzlers on the PSP, Luxor the Wrath of Set isn’t the worst puzzle game out there. It’s just really uninspired.

Sadly there’s no traditional one-on-one mode, so players aren’t given the chance to inflict heaps of damage on one another.

Enemies in Blade II display some of the worst AI to date. They tend to attack only when you get close to them. There are no variations in enemy attacks.

Worse than the usual mediocre movie spinoffs, which is saying something. Youngsters might have the attention span to find completing the game entertaining, but everyone is better off playing Ultimate Alliance—a vastly superior game.

If you're already wary of Japanese strategy RPGs, then be sure to stay even further away from Gladius. It's got as many menus, and its battles are slower and less rewarding. LucasArts clearly tried to make everything look and feel good, but Gladius is ultimately done in by the leaden gameplay.

We can’t stress how much fun we had with Super Off Road. It truly is one of the more timeless arcade racing games.

The camera is even worse than in the main mode -- odd, when it could've just taken a zoomed-in version of the isometric view that games like Baldur's Gate have used for eons.

"King's Field" was a slow, clumsy, fairly-boring-to-look-at first-person hack-and-slasher with a legendarily lousy framerate. Deep Labyrinth is all of those too, except that its framerate isn't bad enough to pass into legend.

The major control issues are a hurdle many gamers won’t want to overcome. They ruin what would be an otherwise fun game.

A beautiful but deeply flawed game whose mediocrity is all the more frustrating when you consider that gameplay could have been vastly improved with a few simple fixes. With a controllable camera or targeting system, the game would easily transition hateful to average.

If this whole review sounds a little down on what appears to be a competent video poker game, it's because in this reviewer's opinion, World Poker Tour is missing the two key ingredients in any good poker game. Money and intimacy.

More open-ended environments, greater character customization, trickier puzzles, and smarter enemies would have all made for a memorable trip.

Ace in Action is a mindless shooter that’s too short, too easy, and a poor fit with the source material.

It just fails to reach the bar set by the best racers on the system, not to mention it doesn't come close to enjoying the level of polish or fun present in the console iterations of Underground.

The most puzzling omission, however, is Garou: Mark of the Wolves (1999), which makes the Fatal Fury saga painfully incomplete.

Two years later, this doesn't look any better than Cavia's earlier efforts -- its visuals are marred by aliasing that's unforgivable at this stage, and the animation blending is so primitive that you can't even reload while moving -- while its design doesn't try very hard at much of anything.

Takes an amusingly bizarre sport and runs with it, but just doesn't run far enough. Even the power-up--laden off-road courses feel uninspired, with unremarkably physics and control, middling graphics, and a general air of boredom throughout the whole production.

From the bland characters and bland graphics to the underdeveloped control system to the weak upgrades, there isn’t much to this game.

The missions feel boring and repetitive after a while, and the combat is a mess. While the story is solid, and the overall presentation of the game is pretty good, the floundering gameplay manages to sink the entire fleet.

Just simply on the jittery, crunchy, slow, and empty side.

From the thin level design to the promising but ultimately limited combo system, Sidetracked seems more like a proof of concept than a final product. It does break out into some very cool moves once in a while, but most of them can be had for free, simply by tuning into "Adult Swim."

Certainly the higher-level player vs. player content has potential, but it should be a crime to require a player to wade through hours of mind-numbing gameplay to get there.

Here's the harsh truth about My Street: It's not a great place to visit, and you definitely wouldn't want to live there.

Suffers from a lack of replay value: Once you get the hang of its flawed controls, it is possible to get a gold medal in each event within an hour or so of play, leaving little reason to ever touch the game again.

The stuff that fills the holes between the normally brief – albeit mostly fun – combat takes up way too much time, and feels so banal and lifeless, it manages to overpower the good bits and drag down the whole experience.

Even though this is a budget title at about 20 bucks, there's no way the graphics and the frustrating gameplay justify the expense. You're better off saving up for something with more lasting appeal and more, well, fun.