Bladestorm is a fun medieval experience, and veterans of the tactical action games will enjoy, though it may be a good jumping-on point for those new to the genre.

The graphics aren’t much different from those in FIFA with players still having that stiff, android feel.

Daunting price point aside, Rocket Knight is a fun, albeit short, adventure with a variety of gameplay that doesn't reinvent what was great about the 16-bit era, but instead serves to remind us how much fun it was.

Deep statistics are offset by a clunky interface. A deep career mode is offset by annoying seasonal goals. Hi-res graphics are offset by frame rate issues. Great musics and stadium songs are offset by flimsy on-field sound effects.

Blitz is no work of art. It's quirky, bizarro entertainment that grabs you like a swift kick to the testosterone sack and is best played live with guys in an M-rated atmosphere.

The open-ended levels seen in the original Tenchu are replaced with mostly linear levels that have artificial bottlenecks, forcing the player to follow specific paths.

This game makes me a little sad, because it's a fun action-RPG with a lot of potential that just feels a little bit undercooked.

The missions are unimaginative (even compared to the original), navigation issues prevent you from ever attaining a movement rhythm, and the various narratives are a mess. But worse still, the combat isn't as tight as it could be and the world itself just seems less polished than its predecessor. Yet, for those moments when the game shines, it shines brightly.

The glitches and sense of sterility make everything feel just a little out of alignment, but Totaled!'s arcade-sy core and multiplayer mode still make it fun. [August 2002, p.82]

But even though it offers some worthwhile moments, it unfortunately squanders most of its vast potential on a heavily scripted experience that doesn't take full advantage of the compelling world around it.

Does a fair job of showing off the PSP's technical prowess. As a fairly straightforward hack-and-slash RPG, Untold Legends fits the bill. Just don't expect it to match the bliss that is "Diablo II."

The between-level load times are also slow, but the greatest concern is the unhelpful and idiotic friendly A.I. that leaves you alone, fending off hordes of attacking wolves while your siblings stand stupidly by.

Tiger for the Wii is a lot like the real sport of golf: wonderfully fun and tremendously frustrating. But unlike the real deal, it just isn't always worth the aggravation.

Make no mistake: you can have a lot of fun with The Force Unleashed. [Oct 2008, p.88]

The game’s endless top-down horde-shooting and limb-hacking is an absolute blast with four people (the five characters complement each other well), but the friendless may find Hunting and Reckoning to be a lonely, repetitious profession.

If you played Shiren, however, you may find Pokemon to be too forgiving for your dungeon-hacking skills.

Explosively paced and tougher than Chuck Bronson, the game is also a suffocatingly linear one whose difficulty hinges upon repetitious trial and error, requiring you to play through levels repeatedly to memorize layouts and enemy patterns.

So while Spyborgs' target audience might leave a few scratching their heads, it really shouldn't deter those who remember and enjoyed repeatedly beating up various things through the use of combos and co-op teamwork. Because ultimately, this rare Wii game has a lot more going for it than its questionable target demographic.

There isn't much originality in the tower defense genre, but browser-port GemCraft adds RPG elements and additional modes that help separate it from the masses.

Wii Music is probably Nintendo's most well-meaning game ever.

The Live series makes a strong come back this year with NBA LIVE 10, so what if it took a decade on the pine watching 2K take home all the hardware? There's no shame in being the Sixth Man so long as you keep improving to a full fledged starter. With that said, I don't remember the last time I saw somebody go out and buy an Aaron McKie jersey.

Tropico 3 had a very clear progression of campaign missions, and while Tropico 4 does have a campaign, it seems more focused on intra-mission tasks rather than overall goals.

It's hard to find fault with the concept behind Third Age; from a marketing perspective, Final Fantasy and LOTR probably seemed like a perfect match. But you can't crudely shoehorn two disconnected franchises together without bringing something unique and worthwhile to the table.

Imperium Romanum has some significant problems - it's a buggy mess, has horrible combat mechanics, and doesn't really get across what the problems with your city is - but in spite of these problems there is still a good amount of fun to be had.

It's twisted fun for a while, but then it starts to get old.

It's repetitive and (to be honest) gets dull after a while, but the sheer scope of Xtreme Legends keeps it engaging for a reasonably long time.

The people who will enjoy Frogger the most are the die-hard fans of the series looking to celebrate its 30th anniversary alongside Konami, and anyone with a 3DS looking for a worthwhile challenge.

A game that looks and sounds great, but sometimes feels more like work than play.