It's a shame that given such a potentially provocative issue as the premise of the game, Whiplash chooses to take it nowhere and instead falls back on ineffectual humor, cartoonish violence, and an unimaginative interface.

The game's aesthetic design choices are great, for the most part, but they can't entirely overcome the clunky control system and overly simplistic A.I.

Anyone going into it expecting the bells and whistles of a "Half-Life 2" is going to be sorely disappointed. Anyone going into it expecting it to play anything like the table-top strategy game will be even more letdown.

It's aesthetically fresh, filled with original creations, and presents a wholly unique mix of gameplay styles.

I hate Monster Rancher. No other series turns me into such a complete vegetable, helpless to do anything but sit in front of my PlayStation 2 devoting hours upon hours the way this one does.

This is simply a faster, tenser, more action-oriented Rainbow Six. In other words, it's better. It has none of the tedium of the PC games and more suspense and drama to keep players on the edge of their seats.

Far and away, Legacy of Kain: Defiance's most heinous offense is the way it shamelessly doles out its own sloppy seconds, thirds, and fourths in place of actually creating tasks and challenges that would be interesting or engaging.

It's the perfect example of the sort of game that seems to poised to make its mark on the world and then inexplicably proceeds to hang out at the local mall for its entire adult life.

One of those really rare sequels - one that actually lives up to the spirit of the original while improving on it in subtle ways.

I may be a novice when it comes to playing this type of game, but even I know there's more to a good RTS than this.

The graphics are abhorrent. The models are ugly, simplistic, and repetitive.

Not a bad game by any means-it's simply one that tries to be many things to many different people and it doesn't quite succeed at any of them.

I have no hesitation in stating that this is without a doubt the best control system of its kind ever created. With impossible grace pulling off complex and fantastic maneuvers and never sacrificing the precision so crucial for true ease of play, this is how it should be done.

Average doesn't have to equate with mediocre or bad, though. Sphinx may not bring anything new to the table or anything gamers hadn't already seen in the Zelda series, but it is a fun game.

There's no denying the game creates one of the most intense and interesting war game experiences out there on a console. I'm personally more a "run and gun" guy than a "sneak around in the shadows" player, and I still found SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs to be an engaging and engrossing gaming experience that immersed me in a world I'd not experience otherwise.

EyeToy feeds the average person's vanity by projecting themselves onto the television. As just about every reality show on the air proves, being on television remains an important status symbol in our culture.

What starts out as an interesting idea for a strategy role-playing game (RPG) soon crumbles under the weight of poor design decisions, unintuitive gameplay, and an aesthetic presentation that would have been more at home on the Nintendo Entertainment System than the powerful GameCube.

It's a tossed salad of good ideas and cliché concepts that veers wildly between extremely polished and inexcusably sloppy.

Those looking for existential ponderings, heavy characterization, or even minimal variety in gameplay should leave it alone, but people who want lighter fare might appreciate kill.switch as a small, zesty snack. After all, we all need a bit of comfort food once in a while.

A fine 2D platformer, but a rather undistinguished and disposable specimen.

An ambitious game that attempts to breathe new life into the genre. It's not entirely successful, but it is the best gladiator game I've played.

Truly a superlative game, offering unparalleled control, fine presentation and plenty of play modes to toy around with.

Since innovations in this series seem to come in microscopic increments, it's safe to assume each subsequent game will not only feature the elements that made the main game fun, but also the flaws that marred the experience as well.

Rejects spectacle in favour of the sort of satisfaction that results from a slow culmination of small triumphs—a video unlocked here, a trickbook completed there. In the end, though, it's because of this very process that Amped 2 fails to evoke the butterflies-in-the-stomach level of excitement that I get from playing the very best video games.

It represents somewhat of a mixed bag, a mass of good and bad ideas that vie for dominance as the experience alternates between genuine fun and genuine tedium.

Crimson Skies does so much to propel itself above mediocrity that it seems strange that, though it succeeds, it doesn't capture the robust energy of its larger-than-life story in its gameplay.

It can be oddly frustrating at times, yet it has enough merit to make it one of my favorite games this year. It doesn't necessarily refresh the nostalgia I had when it was SSX two releases ago, but it definitely re-introduces the fun lacking in the gaming slump I've experienced lately.

By the end of the first level, the player will have encountered every type of objective that the game has to offer, aside from the afore-mentioned "guard the thing" scenario. This depressing formula repeats itself throughout the game, with the "levels" distinguishing themselves solely through window-dressing and increasingly difficult enemies.

Unfortunately the game has poor layouts for the levels that even adults will have trouble navigating. The game certainly had a strong sense of personality and a well realized world. It's unfortunate that all players can do is run circles in such a nice environment.

Lacks the cohesion, pacing, and spirit the others possess. All else being equal, those missing qualities put Jak II squarely at the rear of the pack.

I enjoyed the game far more than I thought I would; enjoyed it far more than I probably should have.

It's an amalgamation of one-trick ponies (cel-shading, time bending, old school nostalgia tickling) to make a fulfilling, satisfying and jaw-dropping experience. Meet the new action game, better than the old action game.

Commanding soldiers works exceptionally well, the environments look fabulous, and the entire project is built on a concept I can appreciate, but because the game runs out of ways to use your squad so early in the adventure, it feels all dressed up with no place to go.

Its unique theme and dark humor make it well-suited to gamers (such as yours truly) who enjoy the mechanics of the genre but are aching for a more refreshing and mature thematic backdrop.

Developers looking to break into the platform genre these days have to go above and beyond the standard requirements while completely nailing the technical side at the same time, which is no easy feat. Billy Hatcher is a perfect example of a title that fails on both counts.

May get flack from the hardcore D&D crowd for simply being a "Diablo" clone set in the D&D universe, but it's still hard to deny the simple joy in teaming up with three friends to kick the crap out a Beholder.

Perhaps all of the limp comedy wouldn't be so offensive if the game did anything new in the gameplay department.

It exposes what a chronically under-explored medium portable gaming really is, and demonstrates the potential that exists when a creator is given some space to indulge his vision. Sure, it's unbalanced and at times inconvenient, but I'll take Boktai and games like it over Super Nintendo Entertainment System ports any day.

It's hard not to cringe when a game takes such liberties with its license. The introduction of a currency system and randomly placed "stores" to buy items from seems more than a little forced in the Tolkien universe.

Generally a good game by Advance standards, but practically all of the series' charm and sophistication is lost without complete use of the third dimension.

While I certainly find myself wishing the developers would fix the problems with the game and incorporate more of the pen-and-paper game's RPG elements, it's still a game that I look back on with more fond memories than bad ones.

Dull, mediocre games… well these games are like a painter's palette filled with nine shades of gray. There isn't much to work with, so the end result is as lifeless and flat as a Midwest landscape study in wintertime.

While the game suffers from minor technical flaws and repetitive gameplay, it does something legitimately new with its TV show concept.

I miss my sprite-based 16-bit hockey games, deficient opponent AI and all. Somehow I recall enjoying those more than I did ESPN NHL Hockey, even despite all that it brings to the genre: nuanced controls, deep physics and mechanics, a licensed presentation and polished visuals.

The worst offender by far, though, is the menu system. For a game with such a simple storyline (which would seem to be designed to appeal to kids), the interface is completely out of whack.

Creeps into your life under the simple guise of a game and soon dominates your every waking (and occasionally sleeping) moment. It's like being possessed in The Exorcist or like a pod person in Invasion of the Body Snatchers—you still look like you, but you're sort of a shell of your former self because all of your faculties are focused on the game.

Digging deep into these levels proves to be a pretty profound experience. Each level is adorned with washed out colors and textures, as lush and lively as the cherry blossom trees the game so prominently displays.

If someone were looking for a platforming action game, there are better ones out there. If someone were looking for a Scooby-Doo game, there aren't.

There's a certain point in gaming where you just stop thinking about semantics of criticism and let a moment take you. It's probably after Nightmare scrapes his hulking sword across a castle wall with sparks nipping at Talim's feet as she runs up the wall ready to slice back at her aggressor. No two-digit number can validate the pure exhilaration of that moment.

A textbook example of a game that wasn't ready to be pushed out of the nest. What could have been an exceptional game founders in mediocrity because of an artificial timeline.

What should have been a fast, flashy, light-hearted affair is somehow grim and joyless. There's wonderful content here, but unfortunately most gamers won't ever see most of it because it's locked away behind a series of near-impossible challenges.

A light and breezy Sci-Fi romp, it has enough juice to occupy anyone in need of a good weekend diversion. It won't start trends (and I doubt it will set sales records) but there's something to be said for a project that's as solid and sincere as this one.

A player shouldn't have to slog through command list after command list before fighting a particularly challenging AI or human opponent. Patience may be a virtue, but it can also mean really stubborn.

Stark mastery of skills has its place, but it's a true shame that the developers couldn't shape Chaos Legion into a more compelling experience.

Right from the beginning, Silent Hill 3 tells its story with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The all-important sense of pacing that the first two games had is completely lost.

Both the humor and the flight mechanics are poorly implemented, and that provides too much of an obstacle to the success of the game.

It's a bad game that needs to be reviewed so other gamers out there can avoid being sucked into the whirlpool of uninspired gameplay, bland graphics, and generalized mediocrity that colors the entirety of the title.

The crucial fear-factor is missing, the sense of fight, flee or die that makes survival horror so effective.

I was disappointed that The Great Escape opted for a more conventional action-game route rather than challenging the player through a sim-like game of socially-based puzzle solving. But it's still a game that is varied and sophisticated enough to be fleetingly fun and worthwhile for any fan of the film.

The game's difficulty curve is totally thrown off balance. I can only assume the intent was to provide a greater challenge than player-friendly Armored Core 3, and not outright sadism.

Several unfortunate technical issues hold[] it back. The item inventory screen is pure hell to navigate.

A horrible game manufactured with the creaky spare parts of a rusty genre along with fallen gears from the movie hype machine. This is the kind of game that's given away when you order a large pizza and get the second one for half price.

Seen through a kid’s eye this game is very cool with its full compliment of squishing sounds and gun blasts. For adults, I suggest you look elsewhere for your entertainment.

The game's real mistakes were made at the design level, and that's a pity, because it contained the potential to be a much better experience than it ended up being.

I swear, I felt my IQ drop as I was playing the game, the sounds of brain cells popping melding nicely with the oh-so-bland cock-rock soundtrack that seems to be a requisite feature of sophomoric extreme sports tie-ins.

Its incredibly addictive drawing and animation succeed by providing a unique opportunity for your imagination to run wild, yet I can't help but be disappointed that the rest of the game doesn't meet the same impressive standard.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is just how easy the game is - winning battles doesn't take much strategy, at least not until the final boss.

I'm giving Advance Wars 2 an 8.5 because of the game's lack of any significant innovation (the missile silos and volcanos are nice, but one new tank doesn't cut it for me). The developers decided not to take any risks, which I can't really fault them for, since the first game was so damn close to perfection to begin with.

Instead of being a series savior, Dead Aim is more like Pete Rose finally admitting he bet on baseball. Too little. Too late.

Maybe this DX is redefining film grammar for videogames. Because in this case, director's cut means the same damn thing, complete with glitches and issues of the first game.

Graphics aside, battling with the Unlimited Saga system is clunky and completely unintuitive. The battle engine features an insane potluck of disparate elements, almost as if Square-Enix took all of the purged leftovers from ten or fifteen other games and smashed the scraps together to create the unholy videogame sausage that it is.

I think most disappointing for me was how Transmission lost a great opportunity to expand on the concepts "Battle Network" was built on.

Very polished and thoroughly enjoyable. But for a game that was subject to so many delays and such high expectations, it's disappointingly limited in scope and is sorely lacking innovation or refinement of any kind.

The combination of a unique concept and a refreshing original and light-hearted setting make WarioWare one of the pleasant surprises in terms of engaging original software on the GBA.

A glimmer of the first game's superb design and balance remains underneath these missteps, but the bottom line is that instead of building upon the solid foundation from the first game, they undermined it.

It's more fun than "State Of Emergency" (but then, what isn't?) and more interesting than "Hunter: The Reckoning" (if only because Ash is a more identifiable character than anyone featured in that game), but most gamers will have to ask themselves if that actually means anything since neither of those games were classics to begin with.

As average a game can get, with plenty of things going wrong for it, as enjoyable as it might be at times.

Very plain and ordinary, and without the Nemo license there wouldn't be much reason to actually own it.

Since Aria Of Sorrow is the third Castlevania in as many years, I'm also concerned that Konami is growing increasingly content to simply rest on their laurels.

There's nothing revolutionary to be found here—no innovative play mechanics, no stunning graphics. This is a rock-solid Nazi-blasting FPS, and nothing more.

No review will ever accurately convey the tension in navigating through a sea of multiple colored bullets that fill every inch of the screen or the joy in finally nailing a 100+ chain combo because Ikaruga, like all good shmups, is visceral.

Beating The Lost Age is going to require at least 30 hours (and more if the player wants to do all of the side-quests and find all of the hidden goodies) and maybe more if gamers aren't good at puzzles. There's nothing inherently wrong with a game lasting this amount of time (although it does seem long for a handheld RPG) as long as the gameplay warrants it. Too bad for The Lost Age that it shows all of its tricks in the first 12 hours or so...

InuYasha may not be able to compete with the big boys of the fighting genre, but fans of quirky anime games or those looking for a budget fighter won't be disappointed.

One of the most enjoyable, and addictive, games I've played in years. Never have I expected so little from a game and gotten so much. I truly relished every (split) second of it, not only as a great racing game but as a great videogame that happens to be about racing.

Just a decent sci-fi story mixed with some rather unambitious gameplay. Nothing is done gratingly poorly, but neither is anything done with any sense of innovation or panache.

Pleasant graphically, but disturbing as a more complete experience.

Don't get me wrong, I do like the game. It's just that perhaps I'll wait until a version with playable God Cards is released before I buy another Yu-Gi-Oh! game.

It's sad. It boggles the mind to think that this much time was spent on presentation and backstory when none of it resonates in the slightest.

The way that Amplitude is structured lends itself more to good reflexes, the memorization of patterns, and concentration rather than simply a good ear for music.

Because of the game's subtle tributes to the deeper complexities in life, the game is no less compelling than if I were playing it as a child. The difference is that as an adult, I can herald it as a true work of beauty.

It's an intriguing and ultimately fatally flawed entry in an already clogged genre, and a warning to other companies who would use games as a commercial vehicle: please be sure you can make a decent game, or it's worse than no advertising at all.

Resonates much stronger than Sony's otherwise noble hand at tactical combat. Not only is the game not held back because of certain console-based restrictions (controllers, options available, graphics, etc.), but the game seems to be less about nationalism and more about the dedication and strife anti-terrorist groups must experience.

While the game starts off on the right foot with a dark tale of schoolgirls, slaughter, and restless spirits, it immediately trips over the other foot with a range of directorial issues an overall lack of focus.

The fights are long and challenging, and the gameplay has an appeal all its own. With plenty of features, great graphics and sound and a surprisingly well-developed backdrop, Tao Feng's unique gameplay is a welcome step in the right direction.

It creates an experience that truly comes the closest to actual soccer as any other videogame to date.

As an historical RTS, Praetorians does an admirable job of integrating its subject matter with solid gameplay, as opposed to simply using the historical period as a backdrop for a slew of war scenarios.

Everything the first game was not, and far more. Not only did the developers correct, expand and improve upon every aspect, they have authored one of the most utterly perfect synergies of gameplay, direction and storytelling that I've ever witnessed.

Sonic is fast alright. Yet here's a game that openly discourages Sonic and his friends from fully embracing the thing that made the Sega's mascot so popular in the first place: raw, uncontrolled speed.