An even larger frustration, though, is everyone's inability to recover lobs. In most tennis games, if you hustle you can often find some way to smack the ball back over the net, even if it's behind you. Here your characters just give up even if you are clearly within a reasonable rescue range.

Controls aside, the gameplay itself is nothing to be excited about. The courses are clumsily designed, the races are repetitive, and the characters are unmemorable. In short, Barrel Blast is offensive to all the senses. It feels wrong, looks awful, and it isn't a treat for the ears, either.

Thanks to some horribly generic gameplay and uninspired combat, it ends up continuing the disappointing trend of movie license video games.

Hopefully someone will take the concepts that Conflict gets right and crafts a better game around them. [May 2008, p.81]

Unfortunately, Gas Powered Games forget all the elements that make the games in this genre so damn fun and addictive. It's really a shame because had they done it right, it would have made the wait for Diablo III that much more bearable. But as it stands, this is without a doubt the worst addition to the Siege series yet.

Thanks to some horribly generic gameplay and uninspired combat, it ends up continuing the disappointing trend of movie license video games.

Boogie Bunnies isn't so much bad as it is unimaginative, derivative, and just plain boring.

What's most disappointing, however, is how pitifully the game's "attitude" falls on its face. Every last unfunny quip issued by the traffic chopper, every painful Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, every ham-fisted racial stereotype is so poor that you can't help but wonder "what were they thinking?"

If you took a "Dynasty Warriors" game and stripped away every redeeming quality, you would more or less end up with March to Glory.

Coupled with the terrible combat, the game is only 2 hours long.

The kiddie treatment here is both disturbing and annoying, and the games themselves aren’t all that fun.

Despite some impressive world-map graphics and extremely catchy anime-style music, Digimon World 3 disappoints in countless ways.

It's not that the idea of pushing Ghost Recon into on-rails territory to make good use of the Wii's control setup is without merit -- other franchises have gone a similar route with great success. The problem is that it's executed so poorly that it feels like a cheap cash-in on the Ghost Recon name rather than an innovative twist that brings something new and exciting to the series.

Could have been a bit better, had the control been tighter and the tracks more interesting, but as it is, you're better off playing any of the myriad mascot kart-racers out there.

Catwoman commits every action-adventure platform-jumper crime imaginable: lousy camera angles, incomprehensible level designs, and a lame combat engine.

Mind-numbingly simplistic. [Oct 2004, p.92]

The most prominent problem Spider-Man 2 suffers from is its convoluted indoor levels. Oftentimes, you need to search areas for a set number of criminals to bop or hostages to free. But without a map to consult, too much time is spent frustratingly backtracking and combing through every nook and cranny you've already visited.

Airblade’s story-based gameplay, however, vacillates between too simple and ridiculously hard—some levels you’ll breeze through, while others you’ll have to repeatedly restart because of stupid mistakes.

Stronghold might have been great once, but that castle has long since crumbled. Spend your ducats elsewhere.

That's pretty much Breach's biggest issue: Even if it's a cheaper XBLA alternative, everything it does has been done better elsewhere. If it had contributed something new to the FPS landscape, I'd forgive its attempt at imitation, but most folks interested in it already have immediate access to great games such as Halo, Black Ops and Battlefield.

With rough textures and flat prerendered backgrounds, Portal Runner looks like a late-generation PlayStation title rather than a second-generation PS2 effort. It plays even worse.

It's almost not Sonic's fault -- 3D games just don't age well -- but this lazy port makes the Blue Blur look slower than ever.

For all the consternation about a gun-toting enigma invading a kid-friendly video-game series, the only thing to fear in Sega's Shadow the Hedgehog is the game's slap-dash excution. [Mar 2006, p.80]

If the game had been as unique as the controls, and it didn't just try to directly map first-person action gameplay onto a less responsive format, Rise of Nightmares could have been something pretty special. This game may not be that great, but it shows that the Kinect itself has potential.

If you're hardcore about your angling, Sega Bass Fishing may whet your appetite, but for everyone else, turn your motorboat around and avoid this game.

The action-heavy gameplay just gets hammered by illogically executed camerawork.

Malice has lost much of its gee-whiz sparkle. Now it’s an intentionally weird, unintentionally uninteresting platform adventure that might have been cool were it a launch title and the bar were still low. In 2004, it looks and feels more like a skippable relic.

Alpha Polaris may drive you mad, but not for the right reasons.