The game is a gorgeous and perfectly balanced game where no fighter is better than another is. Kumite mode helps define this game as purely skill-driven, but its simplistic controls make it accessible to anybody.

While the game lacks the intense action of today’s adrenaline-driven games, it makes up for it by offering an engrossing story that’s sure to suck in anyone with enough patience to put up with the title’s languid pace.

The lack of ability to control the pitch in the air is incredibly frustrating.

Puyo Pop achieves what a good puzzle game asks for, simple execution yet addictive and deep fun, adding a distinctly weird Japanese flavor to a premise that originated in Russia.

This game managed to do something its 3-D counterparts never could: catch my interest and hold on to it. I spent a lot of time simply looking around each level, experimenting with each character and attempting to find the various chao emeralds.

Seems like a battle system without a role-playing game. There is little variety or depth to the combat, and even in the presence of assorted power-ups it becomes painfully repetitive after only a short while.

It never builds on the gameplay or aesthetic qualities of Doom in any meaningful way—it’s merely content to cover the same old ground and hope no one notices.

I was once again left disappointed, unfulfilled, and betrayed.

The research was obviously done for FFX, as religious references from around the world can be found throughout the adventure, whether it be the Crusades from Medieval times or the Church’s determination to have Galileo refute his radically new scientific theories to name a few.

It is Daxter who gives the game its flavor—more so than the relatively anonymous Jak. This flavor is ultimately what sets Jak And Daxter apart from a lot of the other platform games out there.

Those already converted to the unique sport of monster breeding will find Monster Rancher Advance to be a fine continuation of the PlayStation series that translates very well to the Game Boy Advance.

Unlike so many games today on the market, Ecks Versus Sever has the crucial gameplay part down, but drops the ball on the extra amenities and comes off like caviar on the inside, but Fillet-O-Fish on the outside.

I enjoyed the violence in Dynasty Warriors 3. However dignified the game’s treatment of its subject may be, I was neither appalled nor enlightened by the violence. I was thrilled by it.

Halo does suffer from repetitive gameplay, a lack of full exploitation of the ideas and gameplay introduced at the beginning of the game and a disappointing multiplayer mode. But all in all, it is a worthy release for gamer's willing to bet on Microsoft next-generation console.

In a very Hitchcockian gesture Kojima structures the entire game around a plot twist no one will see coming and many might not even like. This kind of audience-foiling gutsiness is always a delight in my book.

Proves that old-school gameplay isn’t dead and may still be able to teach a trick or two to the next generation.

Works because of the little things-a fact that makes it a refreshing gaming experience in this day and age where everyone seems bent on completely overhauling the basic tenets of what makes a good game.

While the gameplay of Mega Man Battle Network is excellent, what fascinated me most was the world in which the game took place.

If anything, Revival did more to ruin my memories of the old Street Fighter games, because I don't ever remember playing a Street Fighter title with controls as poor as this one.

The game has an undeniably amazing world to take part in, and I never once stopped marveling at it from start to finish.

The greatest part of GTA3's open-ended nature is the choice to conduct your character as you want. Feeling good? It's possible to complete the game without harming one innocent person. Feeling bad? Hell, my game's body count statistic just passed one thousand.

A wonderfully immersive adventure, radiating both the creativity and technical expertise of its experienced designers.

The changes Kinetica introduces into the formula are so miniscule, for the most part, that only a true connoisseur would notice or care.

If "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" is the American sitcom of skateboarding games, with predictable pacing and familiar set pieces, than Yanya is the genre's ridiculous Japanese anime, always ready to mess with your expectations of what the genre should be.

Their gameplay was unlike any that came before, and it followed a comfortable rhythm. Okage: Shadow King has its charm. But it is, ironically, too off-kilter for me to consider it a cult classic.

The game is accessible enough that I had a chance to defeat a master that I rarely come close to beating on other games.

It may not be flashy, the gameplay might be incredibly unsophisticated and repetitive, and the whole game is certainly showing its age-but it's still fun.

The pacing can be a little languid at times, and the combat and movement controls could use some tweaking. Also, this game feels a little linear and lacking in extras when compared to the original.