I also ran into a series of technical problems, including crashes, falling through the ground, and audio glitches. These technical missteps are distracting, but they aren’t the most serious problem. Daylight’s inability to terrify you and present a world you want to explore is its ultimate undoing.

This game screams mediocre from start to finish. [June 2003, p.113]

Awful controls and braindead combat. [Sept 2005, p.102]

I suspect the developers might have been better off contstructing this as a pure racing title (as it does do the basics of racing well) and avoiding the shooting action altogether. [Aug 2004, p.94]

For a game with the word "evolution" in its name, it's interesting that this title is so lackluster that it pushes the boundaries of ironic humor. [Dec 2004, p.175]

About halfway through my playing time with this game, I thought about gnawing off both my hands so I could flee from othe repetitious and shallow gameplay trap that I had stumbled into. [Aug 2005, p.100]

After four successful episodes, Nest of Vipers is a borderline disaster. It feels rushed and sloppy compared to the ebb and flow of the previous episodes.

Solid physics, colorful graphics, and bearable sound do make this a decent pinball title. [July 2003, p.122]

Despite having many issues with Shenmue III, I’m glad I returned to this world. It scratched an itch I didn’t know I had, and periodically showed me why it was an important game back in the day. But it mostly reminded me of why a third entry didn’t release for almost two decades.

Fantasy Life starts off enjoyable, but it nosedives quickly, leaving you with an experience disconnected from the potential of the world and its inhabitants.

Pretty lame in almost every way, shape, and form. [Jan 2003, p.100]

Layers of Fear 2 shares its predecessor’s narrative shortcomings; it drops multiple clues that hint at a unifying story, but the bungled delivery and atmosphere prevented me from connecting to anything beyond the surface scares.

The racing is slow as molasses, the weapon selection is pathetic, and it only supports two-player split-screen. [Aug 2003, p.91]

This final moment with Breakpoint sums up the game perfectly. There was a sense of victory, and then it all fell apart and became a maddening mess. I had some fun playing with friends, but constantly found myself wondering how this follow-up could go so wrong.

It's a nice homage to wrestling's past, but just can't compete with the wrestling games of the present. [Aug 2004, p.96]

A dull, occasionally frustrating experience with a lot of cute nods to the series for hardcore fans. That’s as good as it gets. From the puzzles to the combat to the exploration, everything feels less ambitious and entertaining than other recent Lego titles. The basic mechanics still work, but the gameplay feels like a leap back in time.

Wii Party U is meant to be played in a group of four, if only to have more people to talk to while you grind through an hour-plus board game session. Still, that means you need two Wii remotes in addition to the one in the box and your GamePad - another $60 to $80 dollars down the drain if you don't already have them.

While Industria’s atmosphere certainly nailed what it was going for, the monotonous gameplay and rushed story left me dissatisfied. Still, I loved the ambiance and backdrop, and I wouldn’t mind if Bleakmill took another crack at it – the rest of this world just needs a few more cogs added to its machine.

The sliding backgrounds and other elements are initially clever, but they ultimately don’t gel or grow in any interesting ways. You only have a handful of different backgrounds to choose from at any given time, so finding a way past the next obstacle is only a matter of trial and error – if the obviousness of a solution doesn’t hit you immediately. Finding that balance is tricky, and Murasaki Baby’s superficiality is further dragged down by the annoying controls.

I'd stay away from it unless the very idea of an isometric hack n' slash in space seems too good to be true. [Oct 2008, p.111]

Bombing runs can be fun, but navigating slow ships with even slower ammo reloads and babysitting units doesn’t add up to a riveting experience. Count this bored midshipman out.

Sure, it has super moves and unlockables that older games didn't, but those extras don't change the fact that the core gameplay is as familiar as the Game Boy itself. [Dec 2003, p.186]

This content neither plays to Steep's existing strengths nor gives gamers looking for Olympic competition anything satisfying.

Though the campaign is long, you could pack all of the action into a container half of the size of the "Max Payne 2" quest. [Jan 2004, p.156]

As much as I disliked lumbering through levels as Sonic’s hulky Werehog, I disliked hunting through the hub worlds looking for coins even more. Sega, if you really want to fix Sonic, the first thing you should do is stop trying to fix him. [Jan 2009, p.67]

Suicide Squad is technically sound, and the action can be fast, frantic, and occasionally fun. The game could be considered a deconstruction and satirizing of the superhero concept. But for me, the whole thing feels mean-spirited, pessimistic, and glib. In other media, I’ve generally liked the irreverence of the Suicide Squad tales, but everything in this game feels less about laughs and more just joyless. I suppose it can be fun to piss all over any sense of genuine heroism in a comic book-inspired tale, but it can’t come as a great shock when some fans like myself just aren’t interested in the bloody and smug results.

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.

Simply lacks refinement in a number of areas, with the level desing being the foremost culprit. [Nov 2002, p.141]