Not only is this game a veritable orgy of enjoyment, it also manages to look and feel just as appealing.

Pirates is an excellent game in one regard; it allows you a great deal of freedom to explore and to complete the game at your own pace.

AoW2 has the “just one more turn” quality common to many great turn-based games like "Civilization" and "Master of Orion."

If you don’t mind unique ideas and simple game play, then you can’t go wrong with Super Monkey Ball.

If you're looking for a no-frills, number-crunching, "old school" 4X strategy game, pull up a chair and relax. You're gonna be here for a while.

Very enjoyable but short on depth.

The most stunning aspect of the game, though, is the graphics and, especially, the animation. Everything is in meticulous 3D, from the map screen to the battles. In battles, though, is where the animation really shines.

The sense of speed and immersion is compelling, squealing around tight corners is a joy due to perfect control and the races themselves will keep players' knuckles white as they try to evade every day traffic while still outracing the cops and smashing their components into buildings.

Even though the game isn’t much of a challenge for me, I still find it incredibly addictive and fun.

Even with the XBOX being the most powerful console, frame rate problems still plague the game...Still fun to play even with the AI problems and control scheme on the XBOX.

The expansion really adds nothing more to the game's mechanics, which isn't a bad thing. It's sole purpose is to conclude the series.

An arcade racer with tight controls and graphics, plays great and a blast to watch.

The single player campaign alone makes it worth buying, and the powerful fanbase that already existed before the game was even released is a definite plus.

A great shooter, the best that has come my way in over a year.

Stupid, brainless fun for the frag-inclined masses, but--no--it's not "Halo Live."

In terms of how it compares to other music games I play, Frequency is a nice little title that some people will find quite addicting. Like most music games, though, gameplay can be quite tedious.

A fun game that has no serious flaws except for horrendously long loading times.

The largest problem with this game seems to be the difficulty. The end-game bosses are seriously some of the hardest I’ve ever seen in a fighting game.

An enjoyable game, to be sure, but it could have been so much more.

Graphically it is almost impossible to notice any difference between the PC and the XBox version. While the PC can obviously run at higher (and prettier) resolutions, the XBox version seems to move along at a much more constant frame-rate and with a lot less stuttering.

Even in split screen with 4 players, the graphics and frame-rate are top notch and don’t seem to suffer with all the added chaos.

The Diablo games don't have the weird imbalances and ambiguities Dungeon Siege does, where you're stuck trying to figure out if you want to keep an item or not. In Diablo, it was always easy to tell which items were the best and its class system, if more restrictive, is also more focused.

As fun as the game is, it is devilishly hard.

Excellent level and mission variety leads to an experience that ranks among the best seen this year.

This is one game where it would be absolutely cool to have a co-op mode where you and a buddy – even just one other buddy – could join forces to blast monsters. Considering the difficulty of the game, it’s almost a missing necessary feature.

Solving the challenges was rewarding enough, but the steps one needs to take to achieve these goals become far too tedious.

The frustrating part is it’s out and out lack of a configurable control set up, a feature that would have been so easy to implement, and would have improved this game ten fold.

A good game, if a little behind the technology curve, but who cares. The story is entertaining, the gameplay solid, and the voices funny.

Although it features perhaps the most impressive visuals to appear in a baseball game to date, there are too many flaws in the infrastructure that prevent it from reaching the upper echelons of baseball gaming.

If I could give a guilty pleasure award, I’d definitely place Blitz as one of the frontrunners.

It all works pretty well, but there are a few hitches here and there that prevent it from being truly great.

It’s a simple game, with simple controls that give a simple pleasure.

The game excels as an extremely addictive arcade racing game filled with variety, but light on the depth and originality … or in other words, a guilty pleasure.

If you’ve played "Metropolis Street Racer" or "Project Gotham Racing," or even "Grand Theft Auto 3," you still haven’t seen anything yet with the detail of Wreckless.

While hardly earthshattering, it does give a "fuller" feel to the game board.

A fun game that’s worth getting for the kids in the house. I would’ve liked to see some multiplayer options thrown in.

It's those two Saturn World Series Baseball games that All–Star Baseball 2002 is most like. However, it too is missing that special ingredient, and falls on its face more than it succeeds.

The shortcomings in getting the player involved in the league mode are easily offset by the driving itself, which is strangely addicting even though it can be difficult and repetitive at times.

Music is a mixed bag, ranging from tolerable to downright painful. Music should enhance the mood set by the game, or, at worst, should fade into the background.

If you’re a gamer looking for some simple, fast-paced auto action then look no further because it just doesn’t get any faster—or simpler—than this.

It's difficult to remember which tricks you’ve performed in a race, and which ones have yet to be done... It would have been nice to have stunts “reset” after a while.

With a combination of good characters, good graphics, good sound and good levels I think it’s safe to say that this is a good game.

The whole ‘look’ of the game is superb, from the metal clanking of the menus to the fireworks and confetti that erupt when you score, everything is crisp and vibrant.

Unfortunately, there is one area in Arcanum that truly fails to hold up with the rest of the game—the combat engine. Combat is overly simplified and feels a lot like it was added on as an afterthought.

The campaigns, especially the economic one, can be insanely difficult. Much of it begins to resemble a puzzle to be solved than a castle to be built.

I really don’t think I’ve been this disappointed with a game since the day I first laid eyes on "Black and White." I’ve been looking forward to this one for a very long time and I feel it in my heart that it should have been so much more.

Something that really bothered me was the fact that the player’s field of view is limited to about 150 degrees throughout the duration of the levels while the boss battles were in 360 degrees. That means that not only could you not move, you aren’t able to look behind you and shoot objects that have happened to pass by you.

Feels stale in this day and age. It does have a different feel, and holds up compared to a few of the platformers I’ve seen on the system, so I do recommend it.

It pains me to give Jedi Knight II such a low rating but I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored with a game in my entire life.

An incredibly linear story, limited save points, and slightly behind-the-curve graphics move Grandia 2 as a PC RPG to the category of merely "pretty good."

It is unfortunately short.

If you want beautifully rendered mountains and an awesome soundtrack, get Amped; if you want to actually have fun, get "SSX Tricky."

No matter how you stack it, Kinetica plays like "F-Zero" and "SSX"’s evil offspring. Taking the best of both games, Sony has made a great genre slightly better.

If you’re looking for an adventure game with familiar characters, some pretty funny jokes, and a laugh track, well, there’s just no where else to turn.

Where the Clone Campaigns really excels is in multiplayer mode.

While it's probably true that 99% of PS2 owners have never played "Tennis 2K2" for the Dreamcast, Sega should still have given them something more than an almost direct port.

The gameplay is strong, and entertaining.

Though the game is still technically and visually sound, the control is just so horrid that it’ll make you wonder why this project was even green-lighted. [Import]

Maybe it’s because I’m such a big fan of the series but I absolutely love this game.

While there are plenty of game modes, the brain dead AI and the lack of an auto save, especially in King of The Ring, really bring this game down.

Think of The Sum of All Fears as the horribly ill-conceived marriage of "Rainbow Six" and your basic arcade first person shooter.

The epitomy of a game whose long development period has caused it to be already dated on release. It's at once very new <I>and</I> very old.

Grating commentary by announcers Michael Cole and Tazz will have you scouring to find the mute button on your remote.

The way NBA Live uses the controller is as maddening as watching Derrick Coleman squander enough gifts for two hall of famers.

The gameplay, however &#150; solve logic puzzles and shoot/swing/stomp away, is pretty average.

It's more a rehash of "Fighting Force 2" than anything else, only with a half-cyborg chick at the helm instead of the typical Rambo/Duke Nukem character.

A good looking Western that has half a brain, takes most of your brains to figure out, and makes you want to scream, "Give me a real Western! Give me a damn Western RPG, for the Duke&#146;s sake!"

No worse than the original, in some ways it&#146;s even better than. But where "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3" or "Metal Gear Solid 2" improved the engine, graphics, feel, and design, Sony seems content in only making PaRappa 2 look better.

Given that you can walk on walls, swing rapidly in different directions, and crawl through tight spaces, programming a good camera system can be quite difficult. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work well indoors.

The gameplay bugs are so bad at times it almost makes up for all the great things about the game.

Crappy character interaction, bland level design and sour eye candy clashes hard with an elegant combat system.

Improves on the original. Unfortunately, that means the game is now merely a competent production, as opposed to anything really attention getting.

The computer AI is the game's weakest point. Although the offensive play calling is pretty good and kept me on my toes defensively, the AI seems to have a tough time on the defensive side of the ball.

Spiderman is meant to be a console game. It works on the PC, but would just feel better on a console system. I also encountered a few bugs and an occasional crash on the PC.

Playing this game really reminds me of what it feels like to be on the Autobahn. You&#146;re cruising along at a comfy 120mph, everything is going great and you&#146;re taking in sun and then all of a sudden, some a-hole cuts you off and you crash head on into a brick wall...the gameplay is just absolutely horrendous.

The graphics and sound are incredible, and it's obvious that this game has a lot of potential, if only the developers would utilize that potential.

The problem with the game, aside from the derivative gameplay, is that the computer is way too competent, and can build faster.

I have yet to understand what the big deal about delivering packages is.

This is one of those games that perhaps should have stayed on the Dreamcast. The main problem is that the game wasn&#146;t all that fun to begin with.

Perhaps due to its arcade roots, Crazy Taxi has always had a general lack of depth. It&#146;s no different here on the GameCube.

It really does not matter what difficult level you are playing on, because regardless you will find that you throw far too many interceptions and intercept too many yourself. I played several games where the total number of interceptions in the game was 10!

Slowdowns and lack of a franchise mode really makes this a try before you buy game even for hockey fans.

Sound fun? It had the potential, but difficult controls and lack of stunning graphics will leave most people wondering why this wasn&#146;t released on the PSOne.

Consider this version a mildly tweaked Crazy Taxi with a new city.

The most baffling part of the game's design [is] the horribly inept control scheme. Instead of fully taking advantage of the Xbox controller's functions, everything is crammed and clumped together.

It was worth every penny I paid for it, though it took me a while to realize how good the game really was.

I give mad props to the guys at EA Sports for creating a game that so accurately captures the atmosphere of the World Cup, the only problem is, that&#146;s all they&#146;ve done.

While many of the same elements that made "Counter-Strike" successful are duplicated, it&#146;s the ones that deviate from the norm that really hurt this package.

It is the inability of a game of this type to compete with its spiritual predecessors that leaves us wanting for more.

Instead of a gourmet dinner, we get something heated up out of a can; it&#146;s filling, it doesn&#146;t actually taste bad, be we never get that feeling of satisfaction that comes from eating a truly great meal.

It should have stuck to its roots a bit more.

Here&#146;s the kiss of death for a racing game... I didn&#146;t find myself liking one car more than another...All of the SSC machines feel like a variation of a bumper car.

If we could look past the sub par visuals and lengthy load times, I guess this could be a decent game. But if we could do that, then why did we buy a PS2 in the first place?

It seems as if the story actually is more important than the game.

One big issue I have with the game is that when I&#146;m on defense on any level, ball carriers seem to be Teflon gods that have an amazing ability to repel 2 defenders gang tackling them.

Perhaps the only redeeming quality of the game is the always entertaining Die Hard movie license, other than that you have a run of the mill shooter.

The only real goal in the game is to unlock multimedia extras. Very little Britney! I want to play with Britney more!

One of those games which can drive a gamer nuts. It tantalizes with a couple of neat ideas, but botches every else so completely it makes the player say, "Arrrrgh."