With its ill-defined gameplay, sloppy graphical execution and unclear combat mechanics, Unlimited SaGa is proof that even experienced developers can slip every now and then.

It's pretty good as a toolkit, but it's only mediocre for professionally made campaigns.

If you're a diehard Dreamcast fan and your Dreamcast broke and you might think this copy will make up for your missing Ulala, I'd suggest skipping this and going to eBay to get a replacement.

Contains many of the trappings found in bad science-fiction media -- poor dialogue, poorer voice acting, cool-looking firearms, and a story that seems cobbled together simply for an excuse to blow things up and spill some blood.

They simply traded realism for a little wreckless abandon. If that’s music to your ears, we can finish the paperwork in my office. If you’re driving solo though, you might want to lease before you buy.

Not quite Tony Hawk and not quite completely innovative, Wakeboarding Unleashed is an original take on the extreme sports genre that, despite breaking new ground in the field of wakeboarding, manages to get it right the first time.

Not quite Tony Hawk and not quite completely innovative, Wakeboarding Unleashed is an original take on the extreme sports genre that, despite breaking new ground in the field of wakeboarding, manages to get it right the first time.

I wouldn’t recommend Port Royale unless you’re looking for a slow-paced game that challenges your brain more than your reflexes, and unless you’re only planning to play an hour or two each night. If you play any more than that, the game will get too repetitive and too boring too quickly.

Bethesda's latest expansion pack carries the spirit of the first title and in its open-endedness is night and day different from the more scripted, rigid, and story-driven Tribunal expansion.

With a larger career mode featuring more cities and greater tracks, additional gameplay modes and rock solid online play, this is the racer you want to cross the finish line with in your gaming console.

Purists of the comic should take heart, because the infamous sonic clap and ground smashing jump are included, along with a number of other moves that take advantage of his fury. In fact, attacking builds up a rage meter, which allows you to boost your damage or unleash a super-powerful attack towards your enemies.

The Incredible Hulk doesn't draw much from the comic book sources either. Stuck in the void between both, The Incredible Hulk looks less and less incredible.

If Brute Force has one failing in terms of gameplay, it’s repetitive level design. The missions are fairly linear, and your squad is equipped with a radar that always tells you where you need to go.

Purists of the comic should take heart, because the infamous sonic clap and ground smashing jump are included, along with a number of other moves that take advantage of his fury. In fact, attacking builds up a rage meter, which allows you to boost your damage or unleash a super-powerful attack towards your enemies.

Purists of the comic should take heart, because the infamous sonic clap and ground smashing jump are included, along with a number of other moves that take advantage of his fury. In fact, attacking builds up a rage meter, which allows you to boost your damage or unleash a super-powerful attack towards your enemies.

No current strategy title can give you the clash between horseback cavalry and industrial age tanks and howitzers as compelling as what Rise of Nations brings to the table.

My rants aside, PlanetSide offers up a fun, 24/7 battle royal over giant continents with lots of toys that will delight FPS players of all skill levels, and with a free downloadable trial version of the game, you can give it a test drive for yourself.

I liken Inside Pitch 2003 to a prospect whose been rushed to the big leagues. Sure, the potential for a star player is there, but the kid still needs to work on a few fundamentals before he can really make an impact on the rest of the league.

If they hadn’t rushed this game to match the release of the movie, if they had ditched the driving, if they had cleaned up the camera a little, if they had given me the targeting ability of every other first person shooter in existence, and if they had let me play as one or more of the major characters rather than just a couple of second bananas, then they would have really had something.

While the original plot and movie footage are an interesting look into the backstory between The Animatrix, Reloaded and the original film, the lackluster action, replayability and glitches severely hamper this title from truly being great.

While the original plot and movie footage are an interesting look into the backstory between The Animatrix, Reloaded and the original film, the lackluster action, replayability and glitches severely hamper this title from truly being great.

The most hardcore Matrix fan will probably eat this game up, but for action buffs, a rental will probably be the furthest trip down the rabbit hole those gamers will go.

Very near the perfect game. It’s engrossing, has a speedy learning curve, and is packed with action. You can play for just an hour, or be sucked in for hours on end.

The quintessential difference between this title and its competitors ("Earth and Beyond" and "Freelancer" come to mind) is the detail. There is so much detail and so much planned to expand on those details that you could literally be enthused on tangents for months at a time.

From what I've seen so far in Sorrow and its predecessor, this attentive, almost meticulous craftwork put into Castlevania ought to be transferred to a mainstream console or even the PC; my own backhanded compliment to the developers.

A huge leap forward in the evolution of street basketball. It has numerous options, solid control, and engaging gameplay that will appease hardcore fans and casual ballers alike.

A huge leap forward in the evolution of street basketball. It has numerous options, solid control, and engaging gameplay that will appease hardcore fans and casual ballers alike.

A huge leap forward in the evolution of street basketball. It has numerous options, solid control, and engaging gameplay that will appease hardcore fans and casual ballers alike.

The sad fact is if you already played the main story of Splinter Cell, it'll only give you cause to lament on what this game could have been.

A disappointment. Though the gameplay is okay, it's nothing special, and despite the awesome license this game possesses, it’s sure to grate on anyone after a few hours.

A disappointment. Though the gameplay is okay, it's nothing special, and despite the awesome license this game possesses, it’s sure to grate on anyone after a few hours.

A key component of Postal 2 is the ability to have fun with the premise. You can pick up a cat and attach its orifice (I'll let you figure out which one) to the end of your gun as a silencer...

A disappointment. Though the gameplay is okay, it's nothing special, and despite the awesome license this game possesses, it’s sure to grate on anyone after a few hours.

With a larger career mode featuring more cities and greater tracks, additional gameplay modes and rock solid online play, this is the racer you want to cross the finish line with in your gaming console.

It looks good and sounds good and is fun and breezy to play, but it also gets repetitive after several missions, and it doesn’t offer the kind of variety other tycoon games do.

The intriguing aspect of the game kept drawing me back, and there are far worse ways to spend $20.

Final Fantasy and FFII has something that many games nowadays either lack or feature poorly: a well-developed, creative and engaging plot. If you’re into RPG’s in any way, get to the store and get a copy of Final Fantasy Origins. You’ll have over a hundred hours of play in your hands, and you won’t regret a single minute of it.

It’s too short, too flat, and too plain.

There’s a ton of replay value with the numerous game modes, and the computer opponents can always be counted on for a challenge, especially with the expansive number of moves for each fighter.

There’s a ton of replay value with the numerous game modes, and the computer opponents can always be counted on for a challenge, especially with the expansive number of moves for each fighter.

The problem: Samurai Jack moves much too slowly and his vertical leap makes the real life Michael Jordan at age 40 look like Tobey Maguire's computer-enhanced Spider-Man in downtown New York.

Unfortunately, the difficulty never lets up in the thirty-seven levels.

If it could crash less, have its gameplay as polished as its graphics, and a few more smarts included using its premise, it could be on another level altogether. As it stands now, it fails to devastate the competition.

Accessible enough that people who don’t normally play computer games should be able to enjoy it, since it works better as an interactive version of the television show than as an adventure, and veteran gamers might like it as well, since it’s well made and different than other games out there.

It’s completely bland and repetitious.

The game is pretty slow-paced and outside of the few mentioned action sequences, is almost devoid of any visceral attributes that seem so inherent with flesh-eating dinosaurs.

A pretty face may get you in the door, but interactive ignorance will get you thrown out the window.

The number of hidden characters and items, some of which are carried over from previous titles, ensures plenty of replayability for those eager to get their money’s worth out of a game.

The improved multiplayer interface, seamless online integration, improved musical diversity, and tricked out visual presentation outdoes its predecessor in every conceivable way. Rhythm-based perfection, thy name is Amplitude.

Gritty wartime antics, good graphics, atrocious AI targeting all around, pretty involved missions, nice multiplayer action, generally playable, and almost utterly lost in the background haze of the other 50 FPS games that came out in the last year.

The shining star in multiplayer continues to be co-operative play. Raven Shield is able to convey sheer bouts of terror as naturally and easily as before.

The interface isn’t very friendly. That’s something people can work around, but the problem here is that the puzzles are complicated enough on their own.

A stagnant pond full of crap-sucking carp that’ll have you reeling in one piece of garbage after another. The gameplay is excruciatingly unresponsive, the graphics are generic – quite simply, there is no possible excuse to buy this game, even if you consider yourself a Batman fan of the highest degree.

While not substantially different from its predecessors, this third installment adequately sweats the details and dishes up a heaping serving of improvements in the way of four-player multiplayer support, a new Challenge and Legends mode, and 15 new tracks to keep you coming back for more.

With zany characters, extreme action, and a solid baseball background, this is the definite break that casual fans of the sport can totally root for.

With zany characters, extreme action, and a solid baseball background, this is the definite break that casual fans of the sport can totally root for.

Cutscenes are decently animated, and the most impressive feature of the game has to be the environments, such as the dense forest and rippling streams that can be disturbed as columns of soldiers move through it. Even the destruction of these environmental features, such as an archer sending a flaming arrow into a stretch of trees, looks nice.

The lack of sound, suspension of the rules of baseball (and at times, physics in the case of wildly curving balls) and control scheme limit the promise that this game shows.

Beyond the graphics, Enclave isn’t particularly anything special. The plotline is such a shallow hash that you don’t end up feeling anything for the characters, which are unlikely to evoke the sort of empathy (or major motion pictures) of, say, Lara Croft.

The Jurassic Park license alone can only take it so far before it becomes formulaic. Thereafter, the roars become little more than a growl.

It may not take long to beat, but there is a good amount of unlockable missions, time trials, and a fairly entertaining versus mode to be had once you do.

Outside of a minigame or two, it just isn’t fun. The single-player story mode is uninspired and poorly executed, and the online component suffers from a serious lack of competition and more-than-occasional lag.

In Europe, Rayman can almost do no wrong. It is truly a European figurehead. Its style is a testament to that.

Freelancer’s approach and style is one of the best examples, par excellence, of the formula Chris Roberts left behind: flashy visuals, first-rate Hollywood talent fleshing out the story, and a compelling world seemingly created from scratch.

A solid storyline, the inclusion of co-op play and plenty of unlockable items and abilities go a long way in extending the life of this game. However, the contradictory AI and sometimes abysmal camera angles can complicate the gaming experience.

One of the few adventures I’ve played where the story is more interesting than the puzzles. What I just said could be considered a left-handed compliment, since it could simply mean the puzzles are awful, but the puzzles in the game are fine – if not exactly frequent.

Enemies are pretty strong in the game, and so you have to use hit-and-run tactics in almost every fight, and even though there are a couple dozen different enemies, fights go about the same. Shoot a couple times, run away, and then shoot again.

But simply put, the cinemas are so full of incredible edge-of-your-seat excitement and intrigue that it feels like watching a top-quality anime production. And lets be straight here, who doesn’t like cinemas?

The computer AI is just a mess, and for a game that is mostly about interaction with alien races, to have all those races behave like mental patients, isn’t as much fun as it’s cracked up to be.

It would appear the true fans, a small niche of the general gaming population, will truly appreciate it. But when it comes to sheer variety, an easier learning curve and exotic game modes, I’d pop in something else other than Rally 3.

If you’re offended or annoyed by Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting song, stay away. For others with a more open mind, this is worth a look, even if it’s a rental.

If not for the abundant technical glitches, repetitive level design and spotty camera system, recommending The Emperor’s Tomb would have been a no-brainer.

The need to overhear one more conversation, hack into one more computer and pick one more lock is something that'll keep you going into the night, and quite possibly into the early hours of dawn.

An amazing game. I mean, seriously, wow. Expect to invest an absurd amount of time getting to the end of the game.

Despite its blemished presentation and short-lived overall game time, Disaster Report manages to stay entertaining on a by-the-moment tension-inducing level, and without the benefit of gratuitous violence or paranormal gimmicks to boot.

There is some fun to be had totally ravaging towns and cities, and, what the heck, it’s only $20. But if you’re looking for a game that’ll be more than a weekend fling, look elsewhere.

Nothing more than your run-of-the-mill platformer. Though the level design and beautiful visuals are something to admire, the audio, plot and general lack of originality leaves something to be desired.

Nothing more than your run-of-the-mill platformer. Though the level design and beautiful visuals are something to admire, the audio, plot and general lack of originality leaves something to be desired.

A great idea for a game, but it's a broken, uninspired mess. It looks okay, the music's fine, and upon first blush, it plays as well as you'd expect it would. The deeper you get into it, though, the less you'll find to keep you playing.

Nothing more than your run-of-the-mill platformer. Though the level design and beautiful visuals are something to admire, the audio, plot and general lack of originality leaves something to be desired.

Just different enough to separate it from the RTS pack, if only a little. It’s reasonably polished, fun to play, and a solid addition to the C&C dynasty.

It is impressive. Since the five-year hiatus, however, there have been others that were more so than it.

A deep fighting game with loads of strategy involved, tons of game modes and memorable characters, this game showcases two of the fundamental tenets of the genre: addictive, fast-paced action and solid controls.

What is completely unforgivable are the sound bytes from Dante, or should I say lack thereof.

This game isn't about bumping balls, as the title suggests, but rather it's about kicking back and just having fun with little regard to competition or consequence. So from that perspective, DOAX is more like "Animal Crossing" than say Sega's "Beach Spikers."

During that transition from one medium to another, a clunky targeting system, unbelievable AI and pathetic camera were attached to this edgy property, significantly dulling it.

Taking out large defensive structures may be easy, but building them from scratch is a chore, especially since the current interface doesn't promote it.

The sound effects in the game - from brewing up a fresh cup of cappuccino, filling a bathtub with water, or typing away at a computer - sound extremely, extremely convincing.

While it may not have as much as depth as many other action titles, the solid graphics, fun two-player battles and schlocky humor should keep players coming back for more.

A nice looking but repetitive and slightly annoying management game.

The visuals are nice, but the majority of the puzzles are lightweight, and you’ll probably spend more time endlessly searching rooms for inventory objects than you will using your brain.

The innovation gets waylaid by the less than revolutionary components that make up the rest of the title... On the other hand, its less than revolutionary portions are actually very well polished and executed.

A highly satisfying game. Despite being trapped in the same old LucasArts formula, the change of pace fighting in vehicles turns what could have been a ho-hum game into a thrilling homage to the film's end sequence.

Despite the prosaic setup and run of the mill RPG methodology, Lunar makes up for it in charm.

With long draw distances, fierce competition and frenetic speeds, there's really not much more I could ask for from Moto Racer Advance.

A rare piece that finds a balance between making time travel believable and time travel a necessity to the plot. It is intelligent and thought provoking in a way that it doesn't insult the audience's acumen.

Existing Camelot fans and MMORPG players would be smart to take up on Mythic's latest quid pro quo. Time spent versus satisfaction - you're undoubtedly getting the better end of the deal.

Though it may have been a good game for its time (that could be argued too), Evolution Worlds should have been put down along with the Dreamcast.