I'm not your financial advisor, and I don't care how you spend your money. As one human being to another, I feel a responsibility to advise you not to bother with this boring mess. There are way better bad games out there to play, and even more good ones that are worth your time.

The general structure is annoying, but it's really the obtuse design that ensures that every second you play Valhalla Knights is irritating. [Mar 2007, p.107]

Even if I never played "NBA 2K1" or "NBA Live," I'd still know this game sucks. [Nov 2001, p.122]

The biggest problem is that Dawn of Destiny restricts your freedom like a galactic despot. [June 2004, p.132]

An exciting, wild ride of explosions, falling buildings, and cars tumbling end-over-end through the air. But, behind all the noise and confusion, it’s a shallow, short, and simplistic game.

Even as a brief five-hour adventure, Oure is thoroughly unpleasant. Even if the control scheme was better and everything was more polished, nothing beyond its distinct visuals makes Oure stand out or provide consistent entertainment. The concept of saving the world as a dragon taking on monsters in the skies is exciting, but the final experience falls far short of that vision.

A nice little blue light special for racing fans. [Mar 2003, p.83]

It's a lot of fun, and definitely not the run-of-the-mill GBA license cash-in. [Dec 2002, p.152]

Living up to a legend is practically impossible, but instead of providing an entertaining experience on its own terms, SolSeraph adheres to an ancient blueprint. It seems content to imitate rather than innovate, but its tedious gameplay can’t even accomplish that. I love ActRaiser, and I can’t blame SolSeraph for failing to recapture the magic of a 16-bit classic. At the same time, SolSeraph doesn’t have much value apart from how it reminds you of a better game you may have played about 30 years ago.

Looking very similar, both of these versions certainly don't pack the graphical punch as the next-gen versions, and the sense of speed and some of the racing thrills suffer because of it. [Jan 2008, p.89]

Without a workable control scheme (standard analog movement is not an option), I fear most people will find themselves flustered beyond belief with the game like I was.

Single-player is utterly forgettable, but the online play is much smoother and more solid than what most of us have come to expect out of a $30 under-the-radar release. [May 2006, p.98]

The game, however, is a complete disaster, and is just barely playable. The content is definitely worth seeing, but you'll have to trudge through gaming hell to see it.

My arms are sore from web swinging, I have a headache from fighting monotonous rounds of thugs, and I’m frustrated that in an “open world” I don’t have more control over my destiny. I guess it’s not as fun to be a superhero as I’ve always thought.

A sub-par fighting game whose action plods along with the raging speed of an awards show. [May 2003, p.94]

While it is alarming how well her music translates to MIDI, the GBA handles her classics with amazing grace. [July 2002, p.93]

Targeting has also been automated, a change that I think is actually a good thing for the game. Unfortunately, the physics and control of the cars is pretty terrible, and it really hurts my opinion of the game as a whole.

If you are more concerned about recreating the spectacle of Dragon Ball Z than playing a refined game, you will have a good time here. Battle of Z values style over substance, but for an anime about super humans fighting super aliens while flying through the air, maybe it is the appropriate direction.

The entire package, whether it's boring fetch missions or jokes that fall flat, feels uninspired and rushed. [May 2008, p.95]

It doesn't excel at anything. [Aug 2003, p.99]

The characters – despite the level of depth that there is in the subtleties of gift giving and partnering up – aren’t really women at all. Aside from the obvious problems with presenting such unrealistic body images, there’s something disappointing about the way these hypersexualized characters are portrayed as childish, vacant, silly, and vain.

So maybe the battle system and AI still suck, and the graphics look like an original Xbox game. Is that really a big deal? Building up an army and conquering a nation is still fun. Who cares if hundreds of other games do it better?

Looking at the world of Redfall, I become sad by its wasted potential. For every great location, there are a handful of forgettable ones. The result is an empty-feeling game with several puzzling problems, like a lack of proper stealth takedowns, a tedious quest and waypoint system, and the inability to pause gameplay in single-player mode. Rampant technical issues hinder brighter moments, including frequent server crashes during multiplayer, inputs failing to work, broken animations, and numerous other bugs that make playing Redfall a frustrating experience. For a game about fighting the undead, Redfall feels soulless in all the wrong ways.

Beating the entire game takes less than two hours, but it still somehow manages to drag. You can return to the game’s six stages to try and get higher scores, but I had zero interest in doing so. The arcade games of yesteryear sometimes lacked depth, but they at least had a hook that stuck with you and kept you itching to return to pump more quarters into the cabinet. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants strives for the greatness of the influential arcade hits of the past but falls well short. Thanks to uninteresting and annoying gameplay, repetitive enemy and boss encounters, and grating audio design, Wrath of the Mutants is little more than a shell of the series’ glory years.

It's a completely mediocre shooter that's actually weighed down by its distinguishing gimmick.

Heroes is better than the typical Move cash-in, and every now and then the action is reminiscent of what makes these three franchises popular. However, with more characters than gameplay events, and no interaction between the protagonists outside of a few cutscenes, it's hard to imagine a fan that wouldn't feel disappointed by this (non)mash-up.

This title's adherence to both the substance and sytle of the show are what kept me playing it - and I'm not even a fan. [May 2002, p.88]

Great graphics, good music, a somewhat amusing plot, and a humorous "hiding" mechanic are all wasted for the want of something to do besides search for keys and clues while performing some lightweight platforming. [Jan 2004, p.160]