The way the game taxes your mind isn’t necessarily enjoyable, and many times you’ll find yourself falling back to simple tactics just to survive, instead of creating elaborate, elegant combos.

You can't beat the game's presentation-the glorious visuals, real cast voice-overs, and Howard Shore score are so faithful to the film it's frightening.

The real fun for many IC players will be the Army Editor, which lets you play with combinations of animals and create your own creatures.

There’s just one problem with The Sims Online: It’s almost not a game. The slow-paced activities rely so heavily on social interaction that in some ways it feels like a glorified chat room.

By far, The Sum of All Fears for the GameCube is the most disappointing, if not one of the worst, first-person shooters on any system.

The biggest crime, though, is that there's simply nothing at the core you haven't seen a zillion times before.

The only things holding this game back from true greatness are the jumpy camera and choppy controls.

With more bump mapping and shading combined with beautiful particle and lighting effects, Nightcaster II's visuals are a few steps ahead of the prequel's, but overall the graphics look plain and at times muddy.

If you’re looking to play hockey of the NHL variety, to tackle pro challenges and use real-life strategies, NHL 2K3 will thrill you as much as watching your team heroically survive a five-on-three penalty kill.

Sounds disastrous, right? Well, it mostly is—except for multiplayer, The Clone Wars' only saving grace.

The story is laughably bad, and McKane has to be one of the most unlikable protagonists ever. Even worse, the racing gameplay just isn’t that exciting, largely due to lackluster handling and A.I. competition.

An interesting “abridged retelling” of Lunar: The Silver Star that’s missing a couple of the original’s most charming aspects...but it’s still a darn good RPG.

May be repetitive, overwrought, and fraught with unimaginative puzzles and enemies, but those of you dying for some bloody GameCube fun won't get it much better than this.

The targeting system is well executed, but the camerawork is not. In enclosed areas it can go ballistic, often pointing in a direction that obscures your enemies.

MotoRacer nearly bursts with playability.

Non–Dragon Ball Z fans, however, may have a hard time not only grasping the quirky DBZ story, but also wrapping their fingers around the repetitious controls.

A thoughtful, huge, rewarding classic.

Where the wheat gets separated from the chaff, however, is the A.I.; and Sega’s game is all whole-grain goodness.

The saccharine score is standard Nintendo fare; it will creep into your psyche and have you humming at random intervals throughout the day.

An entry worthy of its big brother, complete with its own set of smooth controls, elaborate play modes, and sharp A.I.

Lengthy and well crafted.

The freshman debut of this series has quickly moved to the head of the class, but it has to share the seat of honor with "March Madness."

Ghost Recon’s visuals took a deadly hit, too. Characters don’t move in a realistic manner and there’s less detail on both the soldiers and the environments.

Wow! Steet Fighter Alpha 3 looks and plays great on the GBA with very few compromises made for the handheld. [Oct 2002, p.76]

Poor A.I., stiff controls, and rough game flow may make you turn back around again.

Compared to D2D, "Thunder's" cars don't handle as smoothly and its Career mode is heavy on complexity and short on fun. [Dec 2002, p.194]

The game’s length, dialogue, and uneven difficulty are this legend’s only blemishes.

Dead-on fun.