The audio effects are disappointing but everything else is up to par. Unfortunately, it fails to become really meaningful and memorable, thus making it a good space action title but not one that will be talked about years later.

A good shooter, perched on the boundary between realistic and cinematic. It's got a great story, too.

If you’re looking for a game with a ton of depth, replayability and a solid storyline, look no further. Gladius is stockpiled with a ton of features that will appease everyone from the beginning adventurer to the hardcore strategist.

With an enormous amount of customizable options, absorbing story mode and large mod community, T.H.U.G. provides just about anything a gamer could want in a skateboarding title without grabbing a board and hitting the streets. Combine that with the ability to "place" yourself into the game with the face mapping feature, and you have a product that could easily be considered one of the best games of the year.

Its ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ approach will most likely alienate its primary audience, the non-hardcore gaming audience, rather than help them get on board.

With an enormous amount of customizable options, absorbing story mode and large mod community, T.H.U.G. provides just about anything a gamer could want in a skateboarding title without grabbing a board and hitting the streets. Combine that with the ability to "place" yourself into the game with the face mapping feature, and you have a product that could easily be considered one of the best games of the year.

With an enormous amount of customizable options, absorbing story mode and large mod community, T.H.U.G. provides just about anything a gamer could want in a skateboarding title without grabbing a board and hitting the streets. Combine that with the ability to "place" yourself into the game with the face mapping feature, and you have a product that could easily be considered one of the best games of the year.

Players that can't carry a tune or adapt to the in-game renditions will be hampered, and the novelty can quickly grow stale after a few hours. If you like singing, you'll definitely want this game.

Maybe if PopTop could put "Railroad Tycoon 2’s" economic model into Railroad Tycoon 3’s engine, something great would emerge, but as it is now Railroad Tycoon 3 isn’t a game I’d recommend.

I found the experience more entertaining than frustrating, and, with a price of about $25, the game is fun enough for those who have twitchy trigger fingers.

The game suffers from many faults that turn what could have been an excellent game of stealth into a game that is sometimes very frustrating to play.

While the gameplay is incredibly engaging and the 3D environments are amazing to behold, Lament of Innocence does bare the curse of being incredibly short.

The three storylines, united by the common theme of treachery, are wonderfully scripted, making Empires a vast improvement over its predecessor.

In North America, where big bangs, high production values and cinematic 'rail shooters' reign supreme, the hint of frustration and subtle depth that Hidden and Dangerous 2 offers might not be so alluring, but for fans of the original, you owe it to yourself to try it out, even if you can no longer play the campaigns through with your friends.

Just as fun at home as it is in the arcades. The "arcade experience" has been faithfully recreated, with every polygon in place and the challenge level intact, and the diehard shooters have already bought a copy.

Aside from the well-crafted plot, the intense action and the awesome atmospheric graphics and sound, Crimson Skies also features an incredible multiplayer experience.

The game has a great look and feel to it, but the gameplay, while fast-paced, borders on being shallow.

It’s just the details of the game I didn’t get along with, all the unnecessary walking back and forth, and the general simplicity of the puzzles. So The Black Mirror earns a borderline recommendation from me.

Something went terribly, horribly wrong here. UFO: Aftermath isn’t a good tactical strategy game, and it’s not even a good action game by mistake. It’s a game you should avoid, even if you liked the X-COM series.

A lot of fun. Even with all the types of games it squeezes into one box, it's still relatively intuitive and simple to play...So if you’re looking for an entertaining management / combat game, Space Colony is hard to beat.

Could it possibly be more impressive than Commandos 2? The answer is no, and I don’t think developer Pyro Studios even really tried.

Its charms, however, such as they are, are mostly lost on me.

Produces a great, no, an outstanding single player experience, but I have trouble recommending a game with so little game for like $40.

It's imaginative, it controls well, and the puzzles are solid and challenging without being repetitive. It's simply that a basic weakness in the engine makes The Haunted Mansion a far more frustrating experience than it really needs to be.

It's imaginative, it controls well, and the puzzles are solid and challenging without being repetitive. It's simply that a basic weakness in the engine makes The Haunted Mansion a far more frustrating experience than it really needs to be.

It's imaginative, it controls well, and the puzzles are solid and challenging without being repetitive. It's simply that a basic weakness in the engine makes The Haunted Mansion a far more frustrating experience than it really needs to be.

The overly simplistic gameplay, re-hashed visuals, unbalanced level design, and generic storyline all factor in to make this hybrid of yesteryears best selling, finest games, a low rent middle class knock off. Nevertheless, the sheer visceral excitement of blowing stuff up and witnessing ultra-violent, unapologetically brutal cut-scenes and road rage is hard to deny.

The overly simplistic gameplay, re-hashed visuals, unbalanced level design, and generic storyline all factor in to make this hybrid of yesteryears best selling, finest games, a low rent middle class knock off. Nevertheless, the sheer visceral excitement of blowing stuff up and witnessing ultra-violent, unapologetically brutal cut-scenes and road rage is hard to deny.

This title would have been better if the design was more polished and the controls were more sophisticated.

This title would have been better if the design was more polished and the controls were more sophisticated.

Halo is the first game I can ever recall wishing was shorter than it was. The final level is one of the great nail-biters in FPS-dom, but you’ve got to slog through some levels that are nothing short of unbelievable in their repetition to get to it.

While the length of the single player could’ve been extended, the addition of the titans as a "doomsday" weapon and the elder gods provides a creative extension to the original title.

Even though I enjoyed the case more in Double or Nothing, I didn’t enjoy playing the game as much because I felt like I had done it all before.

If Capcom's aim was to create a simple turn-based strategy title in the vein of the original Defender of the Crown, it succeeded. There's no doubt about that.

If you played American Conquest then you've already (essentially) played Fight Back, and if you haven’t played American Conquest yet, I’d recommend you play that game instead.

Provides an enjoyable hockey experience that’s easy to pick up and play, graphically sound and aurally interesting just like before. However, this experiment with more realism injected into the series lacks a certain amount of zip that diehard fans have come to know and love.

There are better games in both the RPG and RTS genres.

Provides an enjoyable hockey experience that’s easy to pick up and play, graphically sound and aurally interesting just like before. However, this experiment with more realism injected into the series lacks a certain amount of zip that diehard fans have come to know and love.

Provides an enjoyable hockey experience that’s easy to pick up and play, graphically sound and aurally interesting just like before. However, this experiment with more realism injected into the series lacks a certain amount of zip that diehard fans have come to know and love.

This edition is uninspired, taking all the good parts of Munch's Oddysee away and leaving the rest of the package to fend for itself.

Despite its shortcomings (with the emphasis on short), Voodoo Vince is an imaginative and fun platform game, full of wit and charm.

Given the little over a week that it took me to run through it all, I feel that this expansion pack is about average. It contains a few little tweaks that improve the game mechanics noticeably, though some of the more basic problems with C&C:G continue to shine through.

The largest improvement in the game, the one that I’m sure without even checking that all the forums are buzzing about, is that halfway or so through the game you get to customize your light saber.

Ultimately, there is about a day's worth of gameplay in Blackthorne, and even on a Sunday, a good player could finish and still probably fit in church, lunch, dinner and maybe even football.

A little boring. There are only two towns and two dungeons in the game, there is absolutely no story to drive things along (when I got to the end boss, I didn’t even realize who it was), and the quests are a joke.

A solid script, good gameplay and a huge dose of humor makes this game stand out as a nice platformer. Unfortunately, technical issues prevent this game from truly standing out as exceptional.

My pick for most original GBA game of 2003. The built-in light sensor coupled with a world full of dynamic environments that actually change depending on the amount of sunlight the game pak detects ensures that the game's most interesting bullet-point feature is more than just a gimmick.

A solid script, good gameplay and a huge dose of humor makes this game stand out as a nice platformer. Unfortunately, technical issues prevent this game from truly standing out as exceptional.

A solid script, good gameplay and a huge dose of humor makes this game stand out as a nice platformer. Unfortunately, technical issues prevent this game from truly standing out as exceptional.

It isn't an outright revolutionary game but it has a lot of charm. The vibrant graphics and animations really spruced up the presentation of the title. Younger players will find the quaint story attractive.

A much deeper, more involving story, packed with lots of secrets and more combat, Wayward is a sequel than many games should look up to as the right way to follow up a successful title.

The control scheme goes a long way in marring what would’ve been a great game for fans of flight sims or novices looking to get into the genre.

The expansion's adventures are fun, the settings are interesting to explore and the new monsters are enjoyable to fight. Any serious EverQuest player absolutely must look into the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion. The hours of dungeon crawling are worth the price of admission.

No doubt, everything works in Ninja Storm. I just find it too limited with only two buttons for attack, one for blocking and one for jumping. There aren't any significant combos to learn in the game.

What this all boils down to is a solid and intuitively controlled skating game that is optimized for younger players but also quite fun for fans of the Tony Hawk series.

What this all boils down to is a solid and intuitively controlled skating game that is optimized for younger players but also quite fun for fans of the Tony Hawk series.

What this all boils down to is a solid and intuitively controlled skating game that is optimized for younger players but also quite fun for fans of the Tony Hawk series.

The score reflects more the quality of the engine rather than the gameplay, but I liked the game well enough, and there is such a dearth of other adventures out there, that it’s a game worth owning if you enjoy the genre.

The near limitless play potential makes this game a godsend for obsessive, compulsive fans of this style of play, and the ocean deep gameplay ensures that there is always something new to do.

You'll never get to the point where you'll be able to unleash unfettered urban chaos. Combined with a steep learning curve and a quirky interface, the combination alone will drive many away, but Republic has some good fundamentals and an intriguing concept. Definitely a diamond in the rough.

Definitely not as "out of this world" as SC1 was... But the gripes aside, I love this game. That's one (fault? feature?) of my reviews: the more I like the game, the more faults I try to find with it. [Japanese Import]

An incredibly satisfying brawler, with levels you can clear in a few minutes each. It's got a few drawbacks, and it's by no means easy, but it's an extraordinary game from a developer that I'd written off as mediocre.

Online play is taken to the next level in NFL Fever 2004, in what is easily its strongest feature.

The low price point and solid gameplay are fine excuses to pick this game up, but compared to other AAA Xbox games, Night of 100 Frights blends inconspicuously into the crowd.

With the variety of ghosts and ghostly powers, there are many ways to complete missions, and so even though you could probably finish the campaign in well under 10 hours, there’s lots of room for re-playability, and you might find Ghost Master haunting your hard drive for weeks to come.

While the A.I. could’ve been stronger and there could’ve been more with the playable characters, Chaos Bleeds does a great job of appealing to fans and newcomers to the show alike. Adventure fans should look at sinking their teeth into this game.

It just shows a great deal of polish, few if any bugs, and a general level of completeness that it seems so few games present these days, exuding none of that get-it-out-the-door churning of so many game productions. I’m going to call it the best FPS I’ve played this year, though with "Half-Life 2" still on deck, that title might not stand for long.

While the A.I. could’ve been stronger and there could’ve been more with the playable characters, Chaos Bleeds does a great job of appealing to fans and newcomers to the show alike. Adventure fans should look at sinking their teeth into this game.

While the A.I. could’ve been stronger and there could’ve been more with the playable characters, Chaos Bleeds does a great job of appealing to fans and newcomers to the show alike. Adventure fans should look at sinking their teeth into this game.

Imagine playing "Commandos" and having to fight the interface as much as the bad guys. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun -- and in fact it sounds like it might be too frustrating to waste time with -- but I sort of liked Cold Zero anyway.

Worth checking out, if only as a rental, just to bust a gut over the hilarious cut-scenes. Fans of the show will find a lot to like here but those looking for something fun to play will want to look elsewhere.

Worth checking out, if only as a rental, just to bust a gut over the hilarious cut-scenes. Fans of the show will find a lot to like here but those looking for something fun to play will want to look elsewhere.

An excellent game for about 20 hours, with open-ended gameplay, a good balance between combat and quests, and an opportunity for real role-playing. But then the next 20 hours feature a long linear march of boring, repetitive and slow combat, culminating in one of the worst endings I've ever seen.

Visuals are definitely the strength of the game. Controls and audio would fight for second place. Variety, unfortunately, is last.

A fun game, but fans of this type of game might be best to either break out their dusty Super NESes or N64s and play one of the Mario Kart titles ... or wait until Mario Kart: Double Dash!! comes out for GameCube.

if you’re looking to take your tactical skills online, Island Thunder breathes new life into the multiplayer experience, and the promise of additional missions in the coming months via Xbox Live is icing on the cake.

If you're looking for a genuinely unsettling and terrifying survival horror experience on your PS2, than look no further, this is it.

A marked improvement over the original game in nearly every way. Except for the revamped trick system, which isn’t nearly as entertaining, deep, or satisfying as we had initially hoped it would be.

A fun game, but fans of this type of game might be best to either break out their dusty Super NESes or N64s and play one of the Mario Kart titles ... or wait until "Mario Kart: Double Dash!" comes out for GameCube.

Speaking of the missions, they’re both well designed and interesting.

If you have any interest in flight simulation, Flight Simulator 2004 is the de facto product out there. If you're learning how to fly or you'd just like to virtually learn a bit about flight, there's no better place to start than here.

But don't be fooled. The new content isn't overwhelming, and Shadow Magic plays almost identically to "Age of Wonders II."

It has lots of style and substance.

An unbelievably fast-paced, fun, and multi-player friendly mountain biking simulation that won't soon be usurped in the extreme sports genre.

If you're willing to forgive a game some flaws in exchange for a memorable plotline and interesting characters, Syberia has those in spades.

Suffers from many faults that turn what could have been an excellent game of stealth into a game that is sometimes very frustrating to play.

If you're still in the market for an immersive, versatile RPG set in the Star Wars universe, then Knights of the Old Republic is the game you've been waiting for. Just be sure to save frequently, and keep multiple saves, in case the glitches strike.

Controls aside, however, Outlaw Volleyball is a worthy improvement to the Outlaw series, and does an admirable job of presenting the sport of Volleyball in a light, adult-focused way.

The standard that expansion packs for RTS titles will be judged by. Not only did it advance and improve the story of Warcraft, but it also introduced an innovative campaign for one of gaming’s most respected factions. What’s more, the sheer number of enhancements makes each mission enjoyable to play from the first building placed to the last enemy destroyed.

And then there are all the crash bugs, and the easily broken quests, and Pirates of the Caribbean just isn’t a lot of fun to play.

The Simpsons can only get this game's engine started. To get it moving along, it'll need something else that just can't be found in the Game Boy Advance version.

The game didn’t capture my imagination or my attention, I didn’t play it for more than a few hours, and I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it.

With an addictive soundtrack and a near verbatim translation of the story and gameplay, you'll find that all the praise Jet Grind Radio got for the Dreamcast is well deserved.

A pure, simple and satisfying role-playing game that is easy to pick up, easy on the eyes and downright absorbing, eventually. Great game, great game.

Elite Force ranked solidly OK as far as I was concerned, and, with very few changes to it, Elite Force 2 is OK as well. I would have liked to see some improvements for a game that was this close to something special.

Without the hair, this would be no more than a mediocre platform game.

This title is all about gameplay, which is magnificently presented on the Game Boy Advance. Above all, its raison d'etre is about fun and it succeeds admirably in delivering it.

Forgive me if my assessment of the game doesn’t jive with popular opinion, I actually kind of enjoyed the game.