Legion feels like the realization of the hacker fantasy the first Watch Dogs tried to capture. Between the fun team-building, fantastic mission design, strong narrative, and a gorgeous world, everything comes together in a largely entertaining and cohesive package. Whether you’re controlling a trained super spy or a gassy grandmother, Watch Dogs: Legion is a ton of fun.

Payday obviously comes with some caveats, but it's a great game when everything goes right.

Color Splash’s RPG elements might be paper thin, but fans of the series won’t be disappointed with this latest adventure. While the game’s combat isn’t much deeper than Mario’s paper-thin body, this plumber’s antics and colorful world are worth the price of admission.

Superfly's career mode doesn't have the kind of depth found in other sports titles these days, and that's the next step it needs to take. [August 2002, p.79]

Easily reigns as the best dungeon crawler on the PS2, and one of the most engrossing RPGs around. [Nov 2002, p.122]

One of those game where you can actually enjoy driving. [May 2003, p.83]

The game's disarming voyeurism, bizarre camera angles, and exceptionally well-placed tension is what the series has been trying to do all along, but The Room is the first entry to do it right. [Sept 2004, p.104]

Despite some slightly better AI, a new defensive swarm button, and setting up a qualifying schedule (then monitoring your roster to see who's morale is low), there isn't much here. [July 2004, p.112]

If I didn't know better, I'd think I had mad skillz. The computer is a pushover, and easily stolen from, dunked on, and blocked. [Jan 2002, p.86]

In all honesty, I enjoyed the main bulk of gameplay about as much as I do that throbbing sensation when a Q-tip is jammed just a little too far into my ear. [July 2003, p.115]

Even with so much of the gameplay clinging to the formula Traveller's Tales created for its first LEGO game, The Clone Wars offers a vastly different experience that captures the best of both of the LEGO and Star Wars licenses. It's easily the best LEGO game to date.

Artifact pulls a ton of flavor from Dota 2, but it’s not necessarily a game for Dota 2 players. Artifact is instead a highly cerebral card game of push and pull, with intense resource allocation and randomization management. Artifact is absolutely not for everyone, but it excels at creating a crazy strategy cocktail pulling from every bottle on the shelf. For card game fans, Artifact is not to be missed.

I played through the game once and was disappointed by its unsatisfactory ending. After running through it again and making different choices, I have a better appreciation for how well the dialog is crafted and delivered, even if the mystery’s resolution was just as flat the second time around. My initial feeling of “That’s it?” gave way to a bittersweet feeling that, just as in real life, “That’s it?” is sometimes all there is.

Reverts back to the old formula, taking the existing mechanics and just adding a few new bells, whistles, and (inexplicably) the chance to become a day-fearing vampire. [Oct 2005, p.148]

None of these sports are fully fleshed out, and they simply represent a range of motions to perform with the controller.

The library with history, trivia, and details for each game, as well as galleries of old artwork are a nice addition to this collection. However, I can’t recommend this to anyone other than fans of the old games.

Spidey's acrobatic moves are also captured perfectly, and experimenting with his powers is the most enjoyable aspect of this adventure. [Nov 2005, p.142]

Relic's Dawn of the War series remains the best video game adaptation of this universe, but Space Marine is a close second. The combat – for both single and multiplayer – pumps out barbaric excitement and continues to improve as the adventure unfolds.

The only glaring ommision from the original Scene It was online play. Now that it's implemented well in Box Office Smash, you won't have to cajole your friends and family into a game every time you want to play a session. [Jan 2009, p.71]

It doesn’t change the reality that Destiny 2 feels greatly stripped back at the moment, even with the addition of several new ventures in these early weeks of Beyond Light. As an expansion, Beyond Light introduces some captivating narrative beats and missions, but it’s not enough all on its own to carry the load of the Destiny universe. I’m left ambivalent, with plenty of enthusiasm for the new content, and excitement about what comes next, but also the sense that for the first time, my longtime hobby game feels lesser than before.

There are plenty of RPG's that manage to be consistently solid without dragging the player kicking and screaming through the first 25 percent of the story. [May 2006, p.101]

Demigod is a solid implementation of a unique concept.

There simply aren't enough changes to make this a must-buy. [July 2005, p.126]

Tales of Hearts R is an adequate RPG, but it doesn’t do much to make itself memorable.

Despite some missteps, Sports Champions is a solid offering for gamers, provided you can accept the shallow nature of a compilation such as this.

Overall, Stray Gods rocks. Between the cast's fantastic performances, a fun twist on Greek mythology, and a genuinely novel game mechanic, it's a game I didn't know I needed, but one I'm happy to give a standing ovation to.

Although Max may provide a better realization of the "draw-in-your-solution" sub-genre of creativity-driven platformers than what has come before, the Wii remote still cannot offer the accuracy truly needed to make a game like this shine.

In tone, Underworld hits the target dead center, delivering the perfect mix of isolation and discovery with larger dramatic encounters. No modern cities mar Lara’s excursion this time – this is tomb raiding from beginning to end. Remarkable visuals sell the experience, and a moving score deepens your involvement. The formula behind the game is ready for some fresh ideas, but as a wrap up of old ideas, Underworld hits the sweet spot.

The camera lock-on and Wii-exclusive split screen co-op are nice additions, but the simplified combat and truncated levels ultimately leave this game a little flat. [July 2009, p.81]

Despite repetitive gameplay, Floor Kids presents a distinct approach to the rhythm genre and allows you to enjoy the music in unique ways. I had a good time in small chunks, but the gameplay of every track just blends together extended gameplay.

With its faults, this title is a good hack-fest with a high body count (which makes for an awesome multiplayer component), but still leaves it short of what it wants to achieve. [Jan 2004, p.148]

The game offers two different story modes that each last a couple hours, but aside from a thin combo challenge there isn’t much to do here other than test your might online. Still, fans of both universes are sure to squeeze hours of entertainment out of this package.

Phenomenally polished and plays incredibly well. It just stalls out early on and gives players little reason to stick with it. [Nov 2005, p.155]

Dead Space 3 is still creepy, but this entry is more action-packed than previous games. That’s a good thing. Isaac’s intuitive new dodge roll makes avoiding the larger nercromorph attacks more manageable.

I don't even need to write a review, this one writes itself. All these games... Buy it. [Dec 2003, p.150]

The only fault I find is that Atlus' otherwise solid RPG (with good-looking graphics) lacks its own compelling reason for being. Just another RPG village? Well, at least the townies are friendly. [Apr 2003, p.96]

Still solid, but it's no "Rogue Leader." [Dec 2001, p.109]

A sexy goth vampire chick shooting and slicing skeleton spiders and Nazis in the 1930s? You gotta love that! [Dec 2002, p.144]

This series has lots of potential, but has yet to live up to it. [Sept 2002, p.85]

Strayed Lights is short, sweet, and mostly excels at what it asks players to do. Its unique parry-required combat brings something new to the table, and I enjoyed nearly every instance of it, especially in the larger boss-fight setpieces sprinkled through the journey. Its exploration doesn’t require much effort, which is a good thing because it largely doesn’t feel great to platform through areas. Its misses are easy to put aside, though, when what I’m looking at and hearing throughout the game is such a delight. Strayed Lights is a strong debut from Embers in almost every way and serves to highlight the importance of a game’s foundation. At its core, Strayed Lights revolves around a simple, intuitive, and unique combat system, and with this strong base in place, it’s no wonder the game shines as bright as it does.

Second Evolution feels like an anonymous and formalic RPG most of the time, but extraordinary moments occasionally rise to the surface. [Feb 2009, p.87]

The game is recommended for anyone who likes taking a close look at a piece of art that goes against the grain of the medium. You should consider checking out Dear Esther the same way you'd appraise a film. If you're interested in absorbing an intellectual story and gorgeous visuals without having to exert a drop of effort, take a chance on this curious experiment.

For zombie fans, this one is a no-brainer - pun definitely intended. [Dec 2005, p.180]

Take 2's under-rated Mafia is still the closest video games have come to capturing an atmosphere similiar to that of this legendary film in a gameplay context. [May 2006, p.99]

MX vs. ATV: Reflex features some great racing moments, but the game's technical ambitions sometimes get in its way. The possibilities of reflex racing with the right analog are clearly there, they just haven't been mastered yet.

Tiny & Big is short; most gamers should finish in under five hours. It's not terribly taxing of your brain or fingers, as the puzzles aren't tough to figure out and action segments have generous checkpoints. It is, however, an excellent way to fill an afternoon or two with a playfully absurd story and godlike power over a heavily physics-modeled world.

It has a cool concept, and when you finally set up your domino effect and see your work play out perfectly, it makes you want more. Those moments are few and far between, and the difficulty ramps up to a point where you're dreading each incoming level, as opposed to looking forward to a new challenge.

2K14 complements its historical angle with deep mechanics. 2K’s first stab at sports entertainment is a lot of fun (especially for history buffs), but the feeling of déjà vu left me wanting the developer to move the full experience forward with the same enthusiasm that it embraced the past.

Galactrix succeeds in all the ways a sophomore entry should. It maintains the core approach of its successful forebear, but isn’t afraid to integrate a bevy of new ideas along the way. Not every one of these new concepts pans out, but it hasn’t lost the flavor that made so many devote themselves the first time around.

Plenty of people can put up with a bit of ugliness if there’s still a pretty good time to be had overall. For Modern Warfare II, the good time offered by its multiplayer and in glimpses within its campaign may be enough.

It may not have the built-in fanbase of Pokémon, but in terms of gameplay and visuals, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker puts up a good fight.

This is my number one frustration, as any mistake puts you back much closer to square one. Any contraband you've hidden in your desk remains, but the on-hand keys, equipment, and weaponry you spent your time crafting are gone, and it's not quick or easy to regain. It wouldn't be so frustrating if the game allowed for manual saves, but the individual levels are tied to their online leaderboards and autosave every few seconds. I wish I could have turned this off for local play.

Mystery Room departs from the Layton series’ signature elements, and can’t measure up to the other interactive novel titles it attempts to emulate. The story and characters are interesting at times, but aren’t strong enough to keep the whole experience afloat. Mystery Room has bright spots, but the uneven execution and shoehorned-in Layton connection make the case go cold.

This is a surprisingly big and challenging release, and not one to be overlooked as just another simplistic rail shooter. It may not be the next big release in the franchise, but Umbrella Chronicles deserves its place right beside the other games in this venerable series.

Please, someone put a hit out on this one before it commits more crimes against gaming. [Sept. 2006, p.93]

Stepping into the shoes of the lead guitarist adds a new layer of excitement to the Rock Band formula, and the new gameplay mechanics are fun to mess around with, even if it feels completely different from the original gameplay style. Harmonix has always prided itself on giving players new ways to experience their music, and Rock Band VR succeeds in that regard. Though lacking in content, Rock Band VR is a fun, new way for the long-running series to let you live out the rockstar fantasy.

With guns firing at full tilt, and mindless carnage taking center stage, Midway has a surefire hit on its hands. [May 2005, p.108]

Outlast 2 asks more questions than it answers, and too much is left to your interpretation. This ambiguity might have worked, but it makes the conclusion unsatisfying. Even with its hiccups, it is nonetheless an intense ride that makes you question your sanity. If gory thrills are something you seek, Outlast 2 provides plenty to keep you on the edge of your seat as long as you can look past the clumsy storytelling.

The main problem I found was that this type of game needs to tread a fine line between player control and AI, and I don't feel that Space Colony does it all that well. [Dec 2003, p.181]

The first Tropico offering was a bit wittier, and a touch more engrossing, but the Pirate theme is done as well as possible in this title. [June 2003, p.116]

If market trends and supply/demand curves don't set your blood aflame, Patrician III will have you napping in no time. [Jan 2004, p.157]

Since I was a Huffy riding, "Dukes of Hazzard" watching child of the 80's, I found playing these old classics particularly appealing. [June 2002, p.87]

You get just enough time to either shake that turd out of your shorts or to start firing - but not both. [Dec 2002, p.133]

I look forward to the day when Tak gets the game he deserves. [Oct 2005, p.128]

For the second year running, "NHL" best encapsulates the play and and authenticity of the sport. [Sept 2004, p.103]

When you go up against "RE Code: Veronica" armed with only a flashlight, you just aren't going to win the battle. [Nov 2001, p.125]

Stylish action games have evolved a lot in recent years, and this release skillfully straddles the line between new and old. The extra characters offer more variety and versatility that any fan of the genre should appreciate. They don’t completely mask the other problems, but the inventive twists on the content ultimately outweigh the legacy complaints.

Overall, Top Spin 2 gets the job done with an attention to detail that might be a bit offputting to casual fans. [May 2006, p.104]

Had The Old Blood been injected with more new blood, maybe it would have matched or surpassed the quality of The New Order. But by over-relying on nostalgia to drive the experience, it's well-crafted fan service rather than an attempt to push the series in new directions.

The gameplay is alll that really matters. [Jan 2006, p.147]

For a by-the-numbers space shooter, you can't go wrong with the second installment of this DS franchise. [Jan 2008, p.102]

As the novelty wears off the C&C setting begins to dissolve, you're left with a decent FPS that quickly becomes as easy to put down as it was to pick up. [Apr 2002, p.84]

One year after the initial launch of Job Simulator, Virtual Rick-ality doesn’t do much to expand on that VR experience; Owlchemy Labs has applied a new coat of paint to an old foundation. This game achieves its modest ambitions of letting fans to dive head-first into the Rick and Morty universe. While I enjoy the faithfulness to the subject matter, Virtual Rick-ality doesn’t have the depth or variety to make it successful on other levels.

Deck13 included a number of new weapon and armor types, all of which can be upgraded extensively, again putting heavy weight on the act of grinding, which is a bit excessive, but thankfully it ends up being fun. If you like the idea of cobbling together armor sets earned by felling difficult foes, give The Surge 2 a try. You may get a bit lost in the world at times, but every encounter is fun and well thought out. The bosses in particular are nicely designed, exotic in look, and push you to play with brutal precision.

The current free and paid mini Battle Passes and daily quests kept me busy throughout my time with MultiVersus. While I enjoyed unlocking content, the need to grind out repetitive bot matches to hit some numbers in a reasonable amount of time can be a slog. Completed seasonal goals annoyingly didn’t clear out for me so I had to dig into the menus and turn past a page of grayed-out items to check my progress constantly. Living games have the potential to go in frustrating directions, but MultiVersus has a strong foundation. If it can meaningfully roll out content and smooth out its rough edges, this could become a new crossover obsession for years to come.

Filled with amazing battles and worthy strategy, and anchored by strong gameplay. [Dec 2004, p.166]

If you can put up with a few outdated cliches, and the occasional irritation, though, this collection has a lot of prime gaming packed onto the disc. [Feb 2006, p.103]

Despite its shortcomings, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit still brings hours of fun. While firing up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is more convenient and fully featured, Mario Kart Live’s unique take on the series is worth checking out for those looking for exciting twists on a well-worn concept.

While it certainly doesn’t feel like we need a third faction in the Galactic Civil War, the balancing has been well conceived. The Zann Consortium manages to be a worthwhile addition, even if their campaign is a tad bland.

Not a bad second outing.

While Sega clearly put some effort into this reissue, an HD coat of paint can't correct the Jet Set Radio's fundamental control flaws and repetitious design. I'm sure this sounds like heresy to Dreamcast faithful, but it's the truth: This game wasn't that good in the first place.

It just doesn’t play well. The controls are clunky, the pacing is unsatisfying, and the multiplayer feels tacked-on. While the original Overlord was a compelling game at heart, Overlord II just feels like an unpolished retread of ­familiar ground.

The steep learning curve and sometimes confusing objectives detract from the fun. [July 2002, p.83]

NHL 18 may not win every scrum in the corner or go top shelf with every shot it takes, but it still shows enough grit and hustle to earn your respect. The new offensive and defensive tools are welcome additions on the ice, and the entertaining Threes mode could become a party staple for hockey fans.

Aces delivers as a competent arcade tennis game, and the new mechanics are fun and important enough that I would be surprised to see them removed in a future Mario Tennis. The difficulty spikes in the campaign are frustrating, but not impossible to overcome. Leveling Mario even as you fail makes the losses sting less (though I would have killed for a quick retry option) and I was always eager to see what I would be doing next.

There isn't a huge selection of RPGs on the 3DS, and Tales of the Abyss will definitely appeal to the handheld gamer that wants to take this particular genre on the go. It hits all the beats of your typical JRPG, for better or worse.

Regardless of the fact that you can pass now with the right analog, this game is for anyone who yearns for a simpler time when hockey was arcade-like and EA wasn't afraid to hit it on the ice--unlike the next-gen version. [Oct. 2006, p.94]

Combat feels like a necessary part of the game's design, rather than something that was begrudgingly added to provide interaction between cutscenes. I left the game feeling that I made my mark on Gransys the way I chose to, instead of being escorted from plot point to plot point. When you're talking about an open-world game, I can't think of higher praise. [June 2012, p.90]

Even with some unpolished technical aspects, the way the story unfolds is innovative and engaging, and the number of ways around every problem is impressive. [Sept 2004, p.106]

Sticker Star is absolutely worthy of the Paper Mario name.

While some may argue that Sega Rally fits their bill for arcade racing, I don’t think there’s any forgiving this game for how shallow it is. Apart from unlocking tracks, cars, and paint schemes, it simply offers very little else.

If you want to know the setup for the next big entry, you have to play this game to find out what's in store for the conclusion of the Xehanort arc. You could just watch some cutscenes online, but you'd be cheating yourself out of a lot of fun.

For the second year running, "NHL" best encapsulates the play and and authenticity of the sport. [Sept 2004, p.103]

It's about as fun as a bowl of wheat. [Aug 2004, p.107]

A slightly above-average game with unrealized potential. [July 2003, p.122]

Rebel Galaxy appears complicated out of the gate, but it hits a steady pace after some acclimating to the ship controls and menu-based features like upgrade shops and the commodity market. The progression loop of grinding out missions, earning credits to beef up your ship, then taking it back out again is fun, but the mission design felt too familiar to keep me hooked for the long haul.

It’s not that Clear Sky is a bad game. It just doesn’t strike the same resonant chord that made the original’s many flaws forgivable.

By building on its already strong foundation and adding meaningful new gameplay and modes, UFC 3 delivers a terrific MMA experience from top to bottom. Whether you want to play against a friend in a single bout or develop a fighter from local favorite to greatest all time, UFC 3 allows you to live out the fantasy of stepping into the Octagon like never before.