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.

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.

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.

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.

Next to Silkworm and Ninja Gaiden, these efforts are just warm-up practice for the real thing. Even at a budget price, spend accordingly.

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.

But the game runs clean and looks nice enough in action. For a budget price, you could do worse. Yeah, it’s not a ringing endorsement, nor is it meant to be.

On paper, it's got the potential to be more than a match for "San Andreas"; in practice, it's nowhere near it.

A cute idea with limited appeal thanks to the spotty quality of the minigames and the watered down multiplayer.

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

The online mode in PocketBike Racer is fantastic...when it works. If you can get through random crashes and dropped games, the title has a nice, robust, eight-player online mode.

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.

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.

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.

A tremendous improvement over its predecessor. It's just too bad that the original "Real War" needed way more improvement than this to make it a great game.

The game gets points for presentation but falls short when it comes to gameplay.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh offers a solid foundation with high production values and surprisingly good combat as the first of perhaps many episodes to come, but is it worth sacrificing your Jackson for a chance to slip into Rorschach’s trench coat? The answer is… up to you really.

Astro Boy would've been better as a straightforward genre game; instead, it's neither a full-fledged actioner nor an exploratory adventure game. It feels like a pasted together hybrid that never jells.

The controls handle adequately, although KITT's steering feels far too responsive. All in all, the controls aren't as good as the controls in most recent driving games, and the physics lack accuracy. The game also lacks a sense of speed.

There are some great bits of level design to be found here, but it's a shame that the stealth elements are used almost entirely as linear puzzles.

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.

Conquest hits the same beats that we’ve hit over and over again in previous titles. It’s not that they don’t hit them well, but they hit the exact beats we’ve come to expect from a Lord of the Rings title.

On the other hand, if all you want out of your video game is a bloody binge, Dead to Rights II is the gaming equivalent of sitting alone in a dark room and downing shot after shot of cheap, hard liquor. If you're in the mood, it gets the job done just fine.

Sneak King is the gaming equivalent of the Whopper – tasty at first, though nothing special, and it makes you feel kind of ill by the end.

Do yourself a favor. Take that money and go buy an old Sega Genesis and a copy of Streets of Rage. You'll spend less money, and have a much better time. Honest.

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.

But this brief, easy, and repetitive experience never comes close to the games it’s emulating.

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.