If you want to watch John Rambo mow through waves of baddies in violent and satisfying fashion, watch the final half hour of the 2008 film. Don’t spend your money and time to recreate any moments in this cheap, broken wreck.

Player choice has always been a key feature for the Fable series, shaping a hero based on your decisions and actions. In Fable Heroes, the only choice is a forked path at the end of every level. One path leads to one of the game's repetitive boss battles, and the other takes you to a mind-numbing minigame. Sadly, both choices are wrong. When you find yourself standing at this fork in the road, reach for the power button and turn off your system.

It's simply so boring that my mind wanders to the chores waiting for me at home. [Jan 2004, p.151]

MLB 2K13 is one of the most embarrassing whiffs I’ve seen. Whether I was playing CPU or human opponents, games frequently hinged on something that shouldn’t have happened on the diamond. Only play it if you have a YouTube account dedicated to archiving video game glitches.

It’s been awhile since I played a game that butchered so many of the basics of gameplay and design. [Sept 2008, p.103]

The problem is that many of the tricks you do with the ball simply don't work. Worse yet is the abyssmal AI - particularly for the goalies. [Feb 2004, p.109]

Yes, the cars look great, and their damage is awesome - but getting there isn't half, or any of the fun. [July 2002, p.87]

So many other titles offer a richer, more fulfilling experience that it's hard to imagine why someone would want to tackle this anachronism. [Nov 2004, p.156]

It’s been awhile since I played a game that butchered so many of the basics of gameplay and design. [Sept 2008, p.103]

Worst of all, the game is glitchy; I phased through a few walls and got gunned down after getting stuck behind some invisible cover.

Winback 2 is an abysmal relic of gamings that sets a new low bar for itself and fails miserably to even hit that. [Jun 2006, p.112]

Movement is stiff, and you'll often be next to your enemy but miss him completely. It's like whiffing in T-ball. [Jan 2005, p.122]

Unfortunately, the result of the long wait is something that feels like an abandoned mod.

Ghostbusters is a slog from start to finish.

Remember the time when we were playing Cy Girls and we had to backtrack to the bathroom in an earlier part of a level to get to the controls of a robotic vacuum cleaner so we could open that door? That was awesome! [Mar 2004, p.107]

You can go bargain-bin diving and come up with a better purchase for five dollars than this disaster, so do yourself a favor and take that option. [July 2005, p.125]

Unfortunately, no amount of options can overcome the inane gameplay. I’ve defended the series in the past as harmless, dumb fun, but Island Tour is wholly unenjoyable.

There is one and only one good thing to say about Two Worlds: the game truly gives you the freedom to align with any faction and change the gameworld by your choices. Everything else – and I mean everything else – sucks.

Unless you despise the X-Men movies and simply want more ammo that can be used to insult your friends, I strongly advise that you avoid this game like you would a French kissing toad. [July 2006, p.104]

Rail shooters don't get much more tedious, lifeless, or ugly than Attack of the Movies 3D. [Issue#206, p.96]

Stormrise doesn’t suffer simply because it’s on a console. In trying to introduce a new, supposedly user-friendly unit selection system, developer The Creative Assembly instead destroys almost all of the game’s playability.

Despite all the technical problems, I still managed to finish Homefront's campaign, but I can't say I had fun. All of the game's ambitions are undone by its flaws, offering only the rare glimpse of what could have been. Dambuster has already stated they are committed to improving the game with additional patches, but given everything that's currently wrong, the studio faces a greater uphill battle than Homefront's desperate underdogs.

The poor A.I., repetitive design, and technical problems had me waving a white flag long before the war should have been over. If Starbreeze plans to turn this into a long-running service game, it has a lot of work to do.

The recent Clash of the Titans film was a mildly entertaining display of special effects. The game contains all of the film's camp but lacks the spectacle of million-dollar CG krakens to help save it.

The poor A.I., repetitive design, and technical problems had me waving a white flag long before the war should have been over. If Starbreeze plans to turn this into a long-running service game, it has a lot of work to do.

The recent Clash of the Titans film was a mildly entertaining display of special effects. The game contains all of the film's camp but lacks the spectacle of million-dollar CG krakens to help save it.

I wish I could say something positive about Stronghold 3. The closest I can come is to call it Stronghold 1 with better graphics. Even that is unfair to the 2001 original, which at least worked on a basic level – a task sadly above Stronghold 3's capabilities. As much as I wanted to like this game, I can't recommend it in good faith to anyone.

On its surface, Realms delivers the experience it promises. However, a closer look reveals too many missing elements that come standard in comparable games. Realms is like a first-person shooter without a reload button. The game works, and you still get to shoot, but you're going to notice that button is missing and it's going to frustrate you to no end.

Deadfall Adventures tries its best to mix first-person shooting with the puzzle solving of adventure titles. Unfortunately, the gunplay is buggy, the puzzles are hackneyed, and the story is hopelessly bad. If you're expecting anything remotely fun, prepare to be disappointed.

The new gun combat is horrid. [Jan 2006, p.138]

There is one and only one good thing to say about Two Worlds: the game truly gives you the freedom to align with any faction and change the gameworld by your choices. Everything else – and I mean everything else – sucks.

Pencil Test Studios clearly needed time to fix the litany of embarrassing bugs that plague Armikrog at launch. Even then, it wouldn't have helped the overly simplistic story and bland puzzles. If the developer ever plans on doing a sequel, I hope it's an animated film – the visuals are the only thing Armikrog has going for it.

In trying to introduce a new, supposedly user-friendly unit selection system, developer The Creative Assembly instead destroys almost all of the game’s playability.

The only good that can come from this game is sending it as a prank gift to Jake Lloyd with a note reading "You aren't the only one who ruined Star Wars." [July 2005, p.126]

Gives you plenty of targets, but no real reason to keep pulling the trigger. [Dec 2001, p.113]

Like a pizza covered in chocolate, this game's touch screen swing is appealing for about half a second before you swear it off forever. [Feb 2005, p.125]

During my playtime, my emotions always registered somewhere between mildly annoyed and just plain bored. [May 2004, p.94]

The problems with the series have reached legacy status, and although it’s clear Major League Baseball tried to make a better game, the efforts were not enough. The focus should be shoring up the gameplay first and foremost, not making sure some of the star players shake the bat the right way. For six years we’ve been saying “maybe this is the year,” and the result is once again “maybe next year.”

Long story short, this is a flawed game through and through. Even the most devout Spyro fans should avoid it.

I want to preface my statements that way, so that when I tell you how awful Pirate's Carnival is , maybe, just maybe, you'll believe me. [Sept. 2006, p.92]

Unless you despise the X-Men movies and simply want more ammo that can be used to insult your friends, I strongly advise that you avoid this game like you would a French kissing toad. [July 2006, p.104]

This level of sub-mediocre FPS boredom isn't even close to worth its $20 price point. [June 2005, p.126]

At the most, this game is great for punishing ill-behaved children.

Soulcalibur Legends is a trap, luring in gullible gamers with the promise of two-player co-op and a cast of characters from the series. Once you take the bait, the whole rusty contraption snaps shut – and you will carry the scars of playing it for the rest of your life.

This lack of polish wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if not for the fact that the game's primary feature – the dismemberment of the main characters – makes the game less fun than it would have been as just a plain old third-person action game. Sure, it's a unique idea – but not every idea is worth pursuing. In the case of NeverDead, this concept should have been left on the cutting room floor. You could say the same about the game itself.

This lack of polish wouldn't be nearly as frustrating if not for the fact that the game's primary feature – the dismemberment of the main characters – makes the game less fun than it would have been as just a plain old third-person action game. Sure, it's a unique idea – but not every idea is worth pursuing. In the case of NeverDead, this concept should have been left on the cutting room floor. You could say the same about the game itself.

This is "Fuzion Frenzy" with one-liners about stuffing ballot boxes and endless, boring minigame repetition. [July 2008, p.86]

You know you're in trouble when you can tally the number of frames per second on one hand. [Dec 2002, p.152]

Unless you despise the X-Men movies and simply want more ammo that can be used to insult your friends, I strongly advise that you avoid this game like you would a French kissing toad. [July 2006, p.104]

One Way Trip is a bore from beginning to end. I was never invested in its story despite trying to force myself to be, and was instead either bored or annoyed the entire time. Relief washed over me when the credits finally rolled.

It hasn't changed, and has made little effort to improve itself. [Dec 2001, p.111]

Not only is Dead Or Alive: Paradise a bad game, it also drags down whatever reputation its namesake carried.

This level of sub-mediocre FPS boredom isn't even close to worth its $20 price point. [June 2005, p.126]

The new gun combat is horrid. [Jan 2006, p.138]

This is "Fuzion Frenzy" with one-liners about stuffing ballot boxes and endless, boring minigame repetition. [July 2008, p.86]

The gameplay is just so generic that even the track designs couldn't save this title. [Jan 2002, p.83]

The difficulty wouldn't be so frustrating if you could quickly retry the mission, but the load times are unforgivably long. [Dec 2001, p.93]

Apart from the controversial violence contained within, there's little of real value here. [Jan 2002, p.83]

This game has about as much play to it as a crusty green booger. You'll marvel at it for a few seconds, only to realize that it's one of the world's most appalling abominations, then will flick it away. [July 2003, p.122]

Outside of the occasional thrill of blowing some fool away with a shotgun or breaking a baseball bat over someone's head, there are no redeeming qualities to Final Fight: Streetwise. [Mar 2006, p.100]

We're talking like Weather Channel boring here. Guinness World Record boring. [Oct 2004, p.129]

It’s simply unacceptable for a retail game to have a major component of gameplay be as broken as Seven Kingdoms’ pathfinding and unit AI.

A mess of a title that's uninspired at best and nearly broken at worst.

What kills this title for me, though, is the ridiculous emphasis on scouting. How am I supposed to conquer the continent when I can only see what's happening on 20 percent of any given battle map? [Jan 2006, p.138]

It's a bad game when it's working, but there are plenty of moments that make you wonder how it even got cleared for release. Enemy AI frequently freaks out, causing soldiers to endlessly sprint against walls (often firing their guns at the ground). At one point, the framerate dropped to unplayable levels, except it wasn't during a firefight – I was just walking around.

Given its diehard fan base, it would be easy for Nintendo to forget that the point of first-party launch titles is to sell consumers on the capabilities of a new system – especially when it has Breath of the Wild up its sleeve. But most consumers would like more than one reason to buy a new console, and 1-2-Switch is insultingly shallow. Nintendo has created an intriguing piece of hardware, but its default runner-up launch title presents the Switch like it's a cheap gimmick machine.

The motion controls are complete slop. [Dec 2007, p.146]

What kills this title for me, though, is the ridiculous emphasis on scouting. How am I supposed to conquer the continent when I can only see what's happening on 20 percent of any given battle map? [Jan 2006, p.138]

You could reductively describe tennis as a sport where you hit the ball back and forth. That would be unfair, since it strips away the strategy and physical feats – which is exactly what Tennis World Tour does to the sport. In real-life tennis, when you're so frustrated that you yell and throw your racket like a brat, it's decorous for your opponent to ignore you and tighten the strings on their racket. At least the A.I. in this game mutely shares a sense of embarrassment, hoping that the moment passes.

We're talking like Weather Channel boring here. Guinness World Record boring. [Oct 2004, p.129]

Maybe some gamers will be pulled into the aquatic world of Steel Diver despite the limited content, tech demo quality, and seemingly broken multiplayer. For the majority of Nintendo fans, though, it's destined to become a strange and forgotten footnote in the publisher's history.

Winback 2 is an abysmal relic of gamings that sets a new low bar for itself and fails miserably to even hit that. [Jun 2006, p.112]

The visuals are a throwback to the early days of PS2, if not Dreamcast. [Aug 2003, p.91]

The gameplay mixes first-person action with a rune-drawing-like spellcasting mechanic similiar to "Lost Magic", but every aspect is unresponsive, sluggish, and repetitive. [Oct. 2006, p.114]

Everything else, from collision detection to control to having only three different cars as traffic, adds up to this game biting the big one. [May 2003, p.94]

Rabbids Land's dull and repetitive minigames ruin a party already soured by slow pacing and tedious dice rolling.

While Ice Nine is based on the "Duke Nukem Advance" engine, it doesn't offer the wit or intelligence (or shooting accuracy) of its precursor. [Apr 2004, p.110]

Ugly and boring. [Jan 2003, p.121]

Needless to say, I played this entire game tense, angry, and praying that the next level would be the last. I never really felt like I was in control at any point during the game. The summer movie games usually bring misery, but I never expected them to bring this much pain.

An uninspired nightmare that tarnishes the Star Wars name. [Dec 2001, p.115]

Hello Neighbor is unpolished to the point that it feels unfinished. The overpowered enemy A.I. makes the gameplay miserable; models and animations are stiff, and physics critical to completing puzzles are so woefully uncalibrated that much of the game feels like you’re stacking boxes and hoping for the best. The game falls so short of its genre companions that it’s hard to recommend it to anyone, in spite of its beautiful aesthetic. Hello Neighbor simply isn’t fun or compelling even when it’s working.

I have nothing positive to say about this game. I even hate the menu screen. Perhaps the best thing I can come up with is that this miserable piece of trash is so awful that it’s destined to be the worst-selling game of the PS3 launch.

Needless to say, I played this entire game tense, angry, and praying that the next level would be the last. I never really felt like I was in control at any point during the game. The summer movie games usually bring misery, but I never expected them to bring this much pain.

A miserable piece of digital vomit. [Apr 2005, p.120]

There are online and offline multiplayer options, but extra players really only add an additional voice to help point out flaws and frustrations. It also gets incredibly chaotic. Suddenly half the bullets on screen belong to a cooperative partner and it becomes difficult to distinguish properly between enemy and friendly fire.

There is little in the way of discernable strategy or skill, the controls are never explained, and they’re unresponsive once you do figure them out. If this game had a head, it should hang it in shame for claiming to be part of the 360 library.

A miserable piece of digital vomit. [Apr 2005, p.120]

It's so stiff and sluggish that you'll often find yourself wondering if the buttons on your PSP are shorting out. [Nov 2005, p.180]

Where the game falls depressingly short is in Level-5 ignoring the many valid criticisms of the first game and churning out a cookie-cutter sequel that is even more of a rehash than the average yearly sports title or shooter franchise.

Those patient enough to suffer through the initial gameplay inadequacies are rewarded with horrible, low-quality cutscenes, a “special” Accelerator Suit ability that often drains during said cutscenes, unreachable power-ups that hover just out of grasp, the worst vehicle controls I’ve used in years, and voice overacting that makes the guy who says “killing spree” in Unreal Tournament sound understated.

Punishing players and withholding any reward adds replay, right? At first I thought this game was a joke, but I was wrong. It’s a joke and total garbage.

Everything in this title borders on barely functional, from the blurry graphics (no, that isn't Vaseline on your TV screen) to the imprecise targeting. [Aug 2004, p.96]

Everything in this title borders on barely functional, from the blurry graphics (no, that isn't Vaseline on your TV screen) to the imprecise targeting. [Aug 2004, p.96]

It pretty much fails on every conceivable front and can't hold a candle to 99 percent of the games currently in the Xbox library. To serve, protect, but more realistically, to suck. [May 2003, p.91]

I constantly struggled against the controls, camera, and objectives as they were presented. And nothing about the story or characters of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum offers reason to push past the frustration. As a longtime fan of Tolkien’s fiction, it’s possible that I liked the game even less for the way it seemed to misuse the source material. It’s hard to have a more damning indictment than to say that this Gollum game isn’t for fans of The Lord of the Rings, but here we are.

The environments are bland, the characters have no dialogue, and the puzzles are illogical. [Dec 2003, p.159]

How Sony thinks Kung Fu Rider justifies being a full retail release (even with the reduced $40 price tag) is beyond me.

This weird ass-end swing out makes circuit racing all but impossible until you re-learn the concepts of physics, weight distribution, and even gravity. [Feb 2005, p.125]