As good funny and entertaining as Whiplash is off the bat, I don’t feel I grew as a result of having played it, and might have even shrunk a little four hours in.

What we’re left with is a good stab at innovation marred by hopelessly dated level design and short (you can beat it in 10 hours), repetitive gameplay. You get the feeling that Alter Echo could have been much more.

Order of the Pheonix is all about homework and chores, and feels harder to take in than a whole book - those are poor marks for a video game.

I admire the daring look and crazy design of Flipnic, but the sparse tables and occasionally frustrating missions dull its polish.

Dark Void may be the most aptly named game to ever be released - with a half-dozen good concepts sucked in, alas, never to be seen again. It ranks even lower than last year's Bionic Commando in Capcom's list of franchises that had promise but turned out to be no fun to play. A little more fluidity, polish and thought would have made a big difference for this game, as it stands though, Dark aVoid this one.

A bland, thankless and unconvincing entry in the annals of WWII games.

This game features bland, unmemorable beats and lyrics. You don't get anything close to the kick ass reggae dub of the flea market scene in the original or Chop Chop Master Onion's awesome intro.

Its sardonic take on typical conventions is thwarted by its own weak design, and its tongue-in-cheek humor fails more often than it succeeds. Laughter might well be the best medicine, but a bad joke is the worst ailment.

The A.I. consists of walking-towards-you-to-hit-you and occasionally walking-away-from-you-because-they-are-hurt. Your character seems to be the only one in the game to have studied the ancient art of running.

A ho-hum game with some annoying AI and marginal presentation. Despite its plethora of modes, it's simply not very fun.

As a movie port using the oldest recipe in the book, Constantine is about as average a game as you can get, which is actually better than most licensed translations. Neither Heaven nor Hell, Constantine is merely a short stay in Purgatory.

NBA Ballers: Phenom might mark a change from its predecessor with a new story mode and faux third-person exploration, but it ultimately tries too much and does too little. Compared to EA’s more complex series, this is one street baller you’ll want to leave on the curb.

It’s sad to think that with all its high-tech fanciness of the new console generation, TMNT can’t even muster up the personality and gameplay of the old arcade games.

Even though kicking enemy butt can be satisfying and there are a lot of big, menacing monsters to face, Fantastic Four is merchandising at its finest, a hollow game that's beatable in eight hours and isn't replayable at all. We don’t expect you to enjoy it.

For those of us wanting to relive the Goldeneye 007 experience, Quantum of Solace provides some brief, cheap thrills. Yes, Treyarch does manage to resuscitate the old Nintendo 64 Bond title, but this release proves that sometimes it’s best just to let the dead rest in peace.

The overall package isn't too little, it's just way too late. The same kind of online content is free in other, better games, so the ten dollar fee is out of the question.

D&D Tactics flings lines of text at you, and none of it is well written. There's no effort made to provide well-developed characterization, yet there's a lot of time wasted on excess words. Worse, the default speed passes them by so quickly that I was usually three or four words from the end of a line when it faded.

I was surprised at how simple and fun the fairy collection was, but the combat mechanics are a dull affair. Traipsing around in the walls isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and the game’s reliance on the field guide is a lazy design trick.

Unfortunately, the gameplay breaks down fairly often, with enemies acting like idiots, getting stuck on objects, or becoming bulletproof from particular angles.

Isn't so much terrible as it is pointless. The success of a stealth-based game relies very heavily on complex AI and interesting moves. Sadly, IGI 2 fails on these fronts.

Get in your car, drive to a hockey game, support your local team, and go pay $20 for a deep-fried stadium lunch. Because whatever you do, don’t spend any time on this flabby substitute.

While not necessarily straying from the formula that made its predecessors great, this one seems unmotivated and underachieving, like something a dungeon master with a hangover might scrabble together to pay the overdue rent.

I don’t think this was the developers’ intention, but Death Junior and the Science Fair of Doom turns out to be a good approximation of the Middle School experience: you’re frustrated, you’re bored, and you’re not really in control of your own body. And while both have some great moments, in the end I’m happy to graduate and move on.

A game's strength is not found in its replays nor its deck editing. It's found in its gameplay, which is precisely where Evolution Skateboarding falters.

A cool game hiding underneath scads of bugs, control problems and weak swordfighting, leading to not a cool game whatsoever. If you're dying to be a pirate, dig up one of the Monkey Islands.

For a while, it is rather enjoyable to cruise by and experience the closest thing you’ll ever have to being anything like Hef, but you'll quickly long for deeper gameplay or a more real sense of progression. Use that $50 on 3 years’ worth of Playboy subscriptions instead.

Without all of the environmental additions, Sega Rally Revo is an average racer at best.

Clearly the weakest baseball offering of the year. However, it's the only one that's online, and playing online can be fun.