In comparison to South Park Rally, probably the most recent PC arcade racer, Wacky Racer isn't all that bad, but that's not saying much. Wacky Races could and should have been better on the PC.

More could have been done with this game. A little more creativity, a lot more programming, and I believe they could have had something quite good on their hands.

If you liked the movie, you'll probably like the game, as it's a near-perfect blend of classic gameplay with the production values and design of the film.

Initially fun, but it wears out its welcome pretty quickly.

For fans of the series or for fans of fantasy/adventure games in general, I can recommend this game. If that’s not your cup of tea, however, this is not the game to draw you in, because of the number of issues.

While Level 5 certainly has some must-have games in their dossier, White Knight Chronicles isn’t one of them. Its blend of JRPG and MMORPG mechanics may be innovative, but it isn’t very fun, and its plot isn’t good enough to outweigh the many glaring problems with its gameplay.

As it stands now, Biomutant is a flawed, but super-fun game that is well-worth picking up as long as you come into it with an open-mind and are prepared for an experience that may not top the charts visually, but offers a fun blend of combat that can’t be found anywhere else.

Its gameplay, stripped of challenge or context, is the same kind of switch-flipping, bomb-planting, key-hunting FPS we've been playing for years, with intensity-in-ten-cities combat to conceal the lack of innovation. It's slightly above average, but only slightly, and can be enjoyed on that level.

If Telltale can figure out a way to weave together all of the possible branches in the story to create a second season (and beyond), then that will hopefully make all of the doom and gloom from the first season more worthwhile. But if Telltale has painted themselves into a corner, and this season is it, then I wouldn’t recommend the game at all, unless your idea of fun is getting punched in the face repeatedly.

In a season of really great shooters, Kane & Lynch is pretty much a dud. It’s sort of a style over substance kind of game, except the style isn’t even terribly impressive. The substance, what there is of it, amounts to a fairly so-so action game that’s kind of short.

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.

It's way too easy, its puzzles are so shallow as to be nonexistent (the "hacking" puzzle is almost embarrassing), it's got some pretty serious camera issues that could've been solved by anyone who's ever played a third-person action game before, and its stealth component simply isn't worth bothering with.

The heart of RTS games is all in the maps and how well your enemy plays them.

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.

It's not badly done action. I only wish it was arranged better. Not in need of more explosions, not utterly boring and certainly not bad-looking; it's just, regrettably, dry.

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

And so, obviously, Murder in the Abbey (or just The Abbey, as it is known in Europe) is an adventure game to skip.

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.

Ultimately, when compared to other city-building games, even the decade-old Simcity 4, Maxis set the bar low and failed to clear even that.

While it's good to see Musashi back on the screen again, it's unfortunate that his title is hampered by a short game experience, practically unused skills and technical glitches.

I wasn’t thrilled with Restaurant Empire II, but I didn’t hate it, either. There is a lot of content to the game, with 34 scenarios to play, six types of restaurants to run, and hundreds upon hundreds of recipes to learn, but the game leans more towards quantity than quality, and I prefer the leaning to go the other way.

There are lots of things Starships does poorly, but at least as far as I’m concerned the lack of meaningful tech tree and shallow starship construction really don’t suffice in a game that, after all, has Starships in the title.

A very nice expansion pack. It gives you enough new things to do that even if you played Zoo Tycoon 2 a lot when it came out, you’ll now have an excuse to play it some more.

For me, the controls are the root of the game’s issues in that they’re not ideal for a combat intensive game like Call of Duty. To compensate, the enemy AI is dumbed down. To compensate for that, enemy respawns, sometimes in unlimited numbers, are used. It’s a trickle-down effect and it’s a shame because the presentation is solid and the mission design is excellent.

The core gameplay is fast-paced and it controls like a dream. There isn't a lot to it, but what's here is a blast.

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.

While it’s not a good ending, it is an ending, and given where the series has been headed in the most recent iterations I think we can all be thankful for that.

About the only nice thing I can say about Batman is that it’s short. It only took me about eight hours to complete the game’s five episodes, and I was happy when it was over. So obviously, I don’t recommend this game to anyone for any reason, unless you’re an obstinate fan of the Dark Knight.

Mad Riders has a few faults, but none of them are major. The core racing game is outstanding, and one of the best off-road racers on the market. It's worlds better than the MX vs. ATV games, and about as good as Pure. It's one of the few XBLA releases that is easily worth its full asking price, and is an easy recommendation as long as you liked Pure. If you did, then you'll adore this, if you didn't, then give the trial game a shot and see if it wins you over.

With extremely linear gameplay, a relatively flawed fear mechanic and basic combat system, Batman really isn’t breaking a sweat in this title.

Yakuza has always been known for its high-standards, weird humor and, most of all, insanely fun brawling. All of that is gone here. One could safely say that the zombie outbreak of Dead Souls has decimated Kamurocho of everything that would make anyone want to travel there, both literally and metaphorically. Spare yourself this dreadful misstep and play through Yakuza 4 a second time.

I was pleasantly surprised by what I found here. When it wasn't kicking my head in for little to no reason, Twinsanity's a fun and funny game that's well worth a few hours of your time.

I hope that Midway really delivers a top-shelf game next time around, because their first effort is mediocre.

It's the very definition of a game that is perfect for a rental because it isn't worth buying by anyone because there's only enough content here for anyone to enjoy it for a few days.

The concept and the creatures, not to mention the turn-based gameplay could’ve infused the strategy genre with a shot of adrenaline that it sorely needed.

The pacing of this game feels very natural, the stylish and varied missions are a breath of fresh air, and the graphical presentation makes it seem like you are participating in an impressively detailed animated cartoon.

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.

I'm not a Star Wars fan, but I've had fun with several of the games before. The Force Unleashed II just isn't entertaining, though; as soon as you're able to start having fun with it, it pulls out an obnoxious boss fight or another uninspired level on you. I can't honestly recommend this to anyone but the most obsessive, completist fan of the series, and even he's probably going to have to justify this to his friends.

FIFA Street 3 single player lacks the depth that is needed to have players coming back for more.

Touch ‘n Roll suffers from trying to shoe-horn in features just to make use of them.

The only one of the film's cast members to appear here is Robert Duvall, and every word spoken sounds like he was reading it while doing his taxes. The members of the Godfather cast who appeared in the first game knew when to 'git while the gittin's good' it seems.

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.

FIFA Street 3 single player lacks the depth that is needed to have players coming back for more.

But the puzzles work well enough, and it has just enough going for it to bring back fond memories of LucasArts adventures, and so it’s a reasonable enough purchase, especially at its $20 suggested retail price.

When it works (and when you have friends to play with), the game is a perfectly average hack-and-slash RPG. However, the laundry list of aforementioned issues not only hold the game back, but inhibit it to the point that it's not fun.

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.

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.

Sacred Citadel offers up a lot of fun for beat-em-up fans, with a surprisingly high amount of depth in its gameplay making replaying stages with each character type something you’ll come to enjoy instead of dread like it many other beat-em-ups.

It combines some of the best elements of Metroid and Mega Man and blends them together seamlessly. Other than camera problems and occasionally excessive load times, ReCore is an exciting experience and one of the Xbox One’s best action games.

It plays well, and for a PS2 game it shows a lot of firepower. SCEA is doing something different with the genre, and that is always refreshing. It’s not the best looking or sounding game, but the solid gameplay and entertaining story mode make it worth the time of any fan of the genre.

Conceptually, The Con seems like a strong game that would’ve been a unique twist on the fighting genre. Unfortunately, slow controls, even slower load times and somewhat ineffective features make it a game that just doesn’t work for most gamers.

With Blood Bath and Beyond, Vicious Cycle Software has struck a balance between humor and gameplay that was sorely lacking from Hazard’s previous outing. Sure, the game can be quite frustrating at times (then again, Contra was too) and the co-op support is limited to local play, but if you’re looking for a 2D side-scroller with a sense of humor, look no further than Blood Bath and Beyond on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

It’s a little boring and it’s a little easy and it’s a little basic, but if you’ve never tried the city-building genre before, then you might find it to be of some value. However, if you’re familiar with the genre at all, then you might as well skip Imperium Romanum, because you’ve already played better versions of it.

A good game with some lofty goals. For sheer amount of content it gets gold stars, and ideas like the Digi Grenade, which explodes into a brilliant array of blinding pixels, are admirable ones. Unfortunately, the game also likes to reward shady practices like spawn camping, and the health bar is pretty much useless.

If you’re looking to recapture the fun you had with the previous generation’s titles (which were FAR better), then please keep waiting.

Scrap Metal isn’t a bad game, it’s just a mixed bag representation of a few different genres.

If you’re an Empire Earth addict, The Art of Conquest might be useful just for spicing up multiplayer games.

The other problem with the puzzles is that they’re a little bit dry and distant. I liken Aura to working on a crossword puzzle book. Sure, I enjoy solving a crossword puzzle from time to time, but I don’t find them enthralling or anything, and I wouldn’t spend a day on them. The same is true for Aura.

Although Blazin’ Trails does manage to present an engaging amount of gameplay thanks to the large number of game options, diversionary mini-games and impressive online features, it’s also significantly hampered by a kludgy control system, unforgiving trick system and psychotic AI.

When you cut right down to it, Secret of Mana has one serious issue: it isn’t fun (or as fun as one may remember). Whatever seemed like so much fun back in 1993 now seems like a chore in this version, and Square Enix wasn’t really of a mind to make it any better or, at the very least, prevent it from crashing before release (let’s hope this is patched quickly). What is likely going to happen with this release is that it is going to cause a lot of controversy amongst the fanbase, and the internet flame wars will rage on and on as to whether Square Enix really fouled up this remake or if the original was not as good as we remember it. Whatever camp you find yourself in, you probably already know if this title is worth $30 of your hard earned money, or if you will be perfectly fine leaving this game back in the SNES days where your younger self loved it so much.

The graphic design seems a bit smoother than you might remember it from back in the day, no doubt due to whatever tweaks Konami has done to it for the Xbox 360.

The game looks nice, the story is easy to follow, and most of the puzzles are easy to solve. But for me, the interface sinks whatever potential the game has, and I’d have to think that it would infuriate anyone playing an adventure game for the first time.

Lost World looks incredible, sounds great, and is a must-have for anyone seeking a completely new Sonic experience in 3D with some 2D sprinkled in for good measure.

The game is not without faults – it’s very linear, leans a little too much on quick-time events, and gameplay is merely average – but the experience is elevated by excellent storytelling, compelling characters, stunning graphics and art design, and sublime sound design.

It wasn’t a lot of fun to play, and it didn’t run very well on my computer. All it did was remind me how much fun Stronghold was, and that I should go back and play it sometime.

In the year that it was away, NBA 06 included a new story mode that’s rather engaging, but hampered by the mini-game presentation that advances the plot of the game.

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.

If you're willing to learn its patterns and work to counteract them, it offers a challenge that's quite unlike any other game on the market these days. It's occasionally frustrating, yes, but it is, at least, frustrating in a new way.

A fairly bland platform game that is interspersed with mini-games that manage to turn out even blander.

Overall, Puzzle Agent 2 is something of a mixed bag. If you're a hardcore puzzle solver who misses the complexity of games like The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, then Puzzle Agent 2 might not provide you with anything to get excited about. But if you're a casual gamer looking for something more charming than challenging, then Puzzle Agent 2 might be right up your ally, and well worth its $10 price tag.

Rearmed 2 seemed like a dream game in theory because of how well-crafted Rearmed was, but it doesn't live up to that in execution.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is an interesting beast because it really shouldn't exist. Outside of a unique art style it brings nothing new to the genre and does little to improve over the original game, which I might add, was far from a good game.

An almost success that lacks staying power, worth checking out if you’re big into Koei’s other franchises or at the very least not put off by a lot of repetition.

Gets a greedy thumbs down.

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

So while I had some fun here and there, and while I can see some potential if I squint just right, Empire of Sin is a tough game to recommend. You’re much better off waiting for some patches and DLCs, and certainly for a price drop, before investing any of your time or money in it.

Control issues, load times and graphical hiccups do wind up making this a much better collection of titles for the console than for Sony’s handheld.

If you liked the movie, you'll probably like the game, as it's a near-perfect blend of classic gameplay with the production values and design of the film.

MX vs. ATV Alive is a blast to play. The controls are perfect, the gameplay is engaging thanks to the collision system, and the vehicles, riders, and tracks all look great – not to mention one of the best online racing experiences this year. It's a shame that these elements are packaged into such a bare-bones game. For $40, I can definitely recommend it to fans of the series. In the future, however, here's to hoping that THQ will take these same gameplay mechanics and build around them a full-fledged racing career experience.

Some of the missions are downright easy because enemy gangs will just sit in their territory and wait for you to kill them, and then in other missions the enemies appear to cheat (getting gang members for free, starting with their territory already taken over), and they’re next to impossible.

In light of Rocky for the big three consoles and titles like "Knockout Kings," it's disheartening to see the art of boxing reduced to such a trivial exercise.

Overall, Sebastien Loeb Rally EVO is a disappointing affair. While it delivers a technically-good game, it rarely delivers exciting action.

Right now, there’s way too little here to recommend a full-price purchase to anyone. Die-hards should only buy it when it hits the $20-30 range, and everyone else will likely be satiated by a rental. What’s here is done quite well, but there just isn’t enough of it.

Fracture makes all the mistakes of the generic shooter and hangs onto the hope that its one gimmick is enough to bail it out. It isn’t. In fact, it’s not even close.

The game is hindered by unoriginal and lackluster gameplay mechanics that, while easy to pick up and play, does little to provide an experience that is as good as other music games currently on the market.

If you like your puzzles tough and confusing, then Outcry might be a good choice for you, but otherwise I wouldn’t recommend it.

So on the whole I'm unpleased with Gothic 4. It's a wonderful graphics engine with an adequate combat system hampered by dull quests and a lack of action. More action would have put them into the action RPG realm, which I personally think is somewhat under-populated on the PC platform. Of course, more mainstream RPG fans are going to be turned off by the lack of common RPG elements. You'll likely be better off picking up Dragon Age on the discount rack if you, like me, haven't played it yet.

A title that showed promise, but was hampered from soaring primarily because of its static, somewhat limited combat and graphical issues. This is a pity considering the solid storyline, numerous weapons and multiple endings lend themselves to a large amount of replayability.

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.

Not a great expansion pack – it’s puny, has a thin, meaningless plot, and generally feels like it was thrown together in a great rush.

Never Die Alone needed a lot more playtesting by actual humans before it should've been released. There's a lot here to like, but there's also a lot here that seems like any reasonable person would've said something a lot sooner than this.

Why are the loading times so excruciatingly long?

Right now Sheltered is the most fun when you’re just starting out, and it gets less fun as you go along, but its developers are still working on the game and accepting feedback, so maybe they’ll adjust the difficulty and add some end-game content in their upcoming patches. Regardless, Sheltered is fun enough right now to be worth its budget price.

Like the movie, Wanted: Weapons of Fate is more style than substance. The game is at its best when Wesley is quick chaining cover with his ability to slow down time and curve bullets in the midst of overwhelming odds.

A lack of tactile speed, a complicated upgrade system and a number of useless features makes SRS much more of a rental for hardcore driving fans only than a must have.

The bosses are straight out of a mid-nineties arcade quarter-muncher, with identifiable patterns but, frequently, no real way for a character to safely get in to melee range.

Super Bomberman R finds itself in a bad spot. It’s a fine game in some ways, but is far too lean on content to be worth a full-priced purchase as it stands. The mode selection offline and online is sparse, and the online play is absolutely dreadful. There’s no good reason a game in 2017 should have online play as laggy as this is, and what’s worse is that the 2007 Xbox 360 and PS3 entries wind up eclipsing it in terms of quantity and quality of content. Super Bomberman R is a fine rental for die-hard fans but for newcomers, you’re far better off going with either Bomberman Ultra on the PS3 or Bomberman Live on the 360 – you’ll get far more bang for your buck.

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.