If, somehow, you're able to get past the pervasive and ceaseless problems with the camera, underneath it is a halfway decent action game that suffers from repetitive gameplay, ceaseless backtracking of the "find the blue key and then run halfway across the map to use it" sort, and an utterly inane story.

Unfortunately even at 40 bucks, the price is about 30 too much and the game can’t be relied upon to provide anything other than brief moments of cool sandwiched between hours and hours of frustrating mediocrity. Dragon Blade isn’t budget—it’s low rent.

Rush'N Attack: Ex-Patriot feels very much like a game that was pulled out of the 'canceled projects pile' of 1997 and touched up with a few layers of Bondo. It's outdated, with features from other games haphazardly bolted on, and other concepts that simply don't work. There are a handful of exciting battles and set, but a few thrilling minutes can't make up for four hours of boredom.

Beatdown is a solid fighting themed action role-playing game brought down a notch by too much area transition loading and some limited promised features (like the ability to interrogate every character in the game).

There simply aren’t any redeeming aspects to Breed, and perhaps it’s best just to leave it at that.

A surprisingly simple game lies beneath these convulted rules and great graphics, which is a shame because this is the first Digimon game to do justice to the cartoon.

The gameplay isn't necessarily flashy but it can be a lot of fun if you are attracted to mindless and seemingly endless combat.

This game should be enjoyable for the whole family and a parent may need to be present in order to explain everything to a child. For a movie tie-in game for the younger crowd, it's not bad.

Conflict: Denied Ops offers many of the best features that you’ll find in today’s first person shooters, and combines it with an excellent co-op mode and a nice variety of online game modes.

Absolutely, positively not worth $40 or even a rental for that matter.

As a hack-and-slash platformer, Fairytale Fights could have been a success. On top of a consistent and admittedly appealing theme, it has all the right ingredients to fit the genre: countless weapons, challenging levels and 4-player co-op. But with repetitive gameplay and unrewarding challenges, this title falls very, very short of becoming the next Castle Crashers.

As a game that's now a franchise, I cannot understand why this game was made and after playing it, I'm even more underwhelmed.

Racquet Sports takes one slice of a quintessential game for Wii-owners, Wii Sports, and does absolutely nothing to improve on it, leaving players behind with one sport type, terrible A.I., lazy movement translation and superfluous accessories.

When the players walk back to the huddle in between plays they walk like robots or like they forgot to go to the bathroom before they went out on the field.

Add some quite wonky camera controls, only slightly above-average graphics, voice acting that is little better than House of the Dead’s, and load times that are so slow and frequent that they would test the patience of the Dali Llama himself, and what you have is a game that is a chore to play.

However, the fact remains that for those who have completed Saints Row 2, there's not a lot of bang for your buck here.

As a public service, let me just state that I while I did have some fun playing Restricted Area, it is really not worth spending decent money on. For the same price you could get Painkiller Black, Doom 3, Bard’s Tale or Brother’s in Arms.

With better pacing, some deeper activities to partake in and a more finely tuned interaction system Brooktown High could have been a lot of fun.

For the most part, Knights Contract is a monumental disappointment mainly because there are occasional glimpses at the fact that it could have been so much better. The frustrating combat, dull graphics, uneven acting, and insipid A.I. make it ultimately impossible to recommend even as a rental.

Just barely an average game for the GBA. If you liked the movie and really want a game based on the characters and events in the flick, this is definitely the lesser of the evils represented by the versions available for consoles and the GBA.

While Spirits and Spells has a great visual style and an appropriate, if repetitive, soundtrack, it is definitely a flawed game.

A disappointment. It is quite simply more of the same. If you liked the original PS2 game, there's nothing really new here that requires a purchase.

Even though A Witch's Tale isn't quite as easy as NIS might have expected (and grows a bit thin after the first few areas), it's still a game with an unmatched aesthetic.

Tao proves to be a role-playing game that is average, at times frustrating due to the controls, and paced so slowly that it isn't very much fun.

Add in gameplay flaws and a shallow experience, and this game is sure to turn off even some of the biggest Empire Earth fans.

Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None is a smart adventure game with solid puzzles and a top-notch mystery, but its dated visuals and slow pace will have limited appeal for players who are used to more modern fare.

It was apparently made on a low-end budget and pushed out long before it was ready.

Adventure games are about three things: exploration, dialog and puzzle-solving. The Hidden Theft only manages to successfully hit one of these points, and doesn't even soften the blow by giving us pretty things to look at.

In a world where The Beatles Rock Band exists, the paltry effort put into Guitar Hero: Van Halen is, quite simply, deplorable. If you‘re going to devote the time, money, and effort to developing a band-themed game in this franchise—then do it right. Don’t embarrass yourselves by passing something like this off as a legitimate, full-featured game.

Maybe with better tech this one could become a box office smash, but for right now, you should leave it on the cutting room floor.

On an exclusively conceptual level it is possible Dead Block could have worked. However a thorough misunderstanding of what makes the zombie genre enjoyable leaves this feeling far more like work than it should. Tower defense fans are better off sticking to their tower defense games, and zombie killing fans are better off sticking to games that emphasize killing zombies.

It fails in my eyes as an innovative title that people will find themselves wanting to pick up in the face of "Doom 3" and the impending "Half-Life 2."

A hackneyed premise that flirts with the same issues of terrorism examined in scores of other shooters hardly makes an impact here.

Outside of the updated graphics and the introduction of the new playable character, Kurtis, I really didn't see anything new brought to the game which is a major disappointment.

For the most part, Knights Contract is a monumental disappointment mainly because there are occasional glimpses at the fact that it could have been so much better. The frustrating combat, dull graphics, uneven acting, and insipid A.I. make it ultimately impossible to recommend even as a rental.

I'm all for developers extending the life of their games by offering post-release content, however in this case, the Genkibowl had the exact opposite effect. Once I finished it, I didn't want to play more Saints Row 3, much less buy more content for it.

It’s a one-trick pony for the most part, but worth a rental at least for arcade racing fans.

Fans of Lucha Libre might enjoy seeing their favorite fighters in action, but even the most dedicated aficionado will find the turgid gameplay disappointing.

Despite the decent options, the game is just an average racer with nothing to pull it out of the crowd of already ho-hum PS2 titles.

It's disappointing that Battlegrounds has more in common with a 30-year old Atari 2600 title in a number of ways than it does with the generally likable Red Faction franchise. Really, it doesn't have anything to do with it other than as a source for the vehicles and a couple of logos.

If you and your friends are fans of the series, as popular as it is, Pirates Carnival would be a great way to kick back and have a friendly competition with each other. Those who are not familiar with the series or are a little older may not find the premise or even the gameplay itself all that interesting and not quite the party they were expecting.

As is the case with every title in the franchise, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 doesn't re-invent the wheel. A few minor changes here and there, more than double the playable characters, and a half-hearted attempt at bringing large scale boss fights to the series are the only real changes over the last version.

Rather than a careful exposition of Persian themes and stories we get a shambling mess of a game that fails to deliver on any front. What's most disappointing is that rather than making the classic text accessible, Garshasp's narrative just mires too deep in forgotten lore to be interesting to anyone who doesn't already know what it's about. This is definitely a game about Persians and by Persians but it lacks the fundamentals to be enjoyed by anyone, including Persians.

The problem here is that the levels are either two small, or laid out in ways that are counter-intuitive. There's also the problem of challenge.

The night of fun has long passed for this underwhelming game and the morning heralds a test that it doesn't have the chops to really pass with flying colors.

NFL Tour isn’t just bad. It’s other-worldy bad...It was my hope that in this case less would be more, but unfortunately less is less. We are left with a completely boring and terrible game that I think could be justification for the NFL to revoke the license.

As gamers, we are well accustomed to the fate of movie-related games, which is why Salvation is such a disappointment. It has some solid combat, perhaps the best cover-system to date, and the foundation for a captivating plot, but the game lacks any sort of scope.

At the end of the day Fusion Frenzy 2 is a fun game for the whole family, but the bland character design, non-existent plot and the overall obnoxious voice-overs really hurt this title more than they should.

I appreciate that it made the effort to include full voice-acting throughout and… that’s about all. The premise of telekinetic gloves is solid, but without the physics and level-design to support it, Twin Sector is a b-game Portal knockoff.

I could go on at length about the bad level design, the repeated attempts at humor, the shockingly poor and limited multiplayer and more examples of the "nothing new here" gameplay but it is best just to forget about Duke Nukem Forever. Forget about it entirely, because you're missing nothing.

The game claims to score brain development, but there is no baseline testing, so getting a high score at the start seems to invalidate the whole process. What are you being compared to when receiving a 100% score? In the end, this game lacks punch.

It's short and uninteresting with any slight joy of a playing a good mini-game far outweighed by the frustration of playing the bad ones. Send this one to the bottom of the dunk tank.

It's not exactly hard though, and within minutes the fighting action matches the story pace: boring.

As gamers, we are well accustomed to the fate of movie-related games, which is why Salvation is such a disappointment. It has some solid combat, perhaps the best cover-system to date, and the foundation for a captivating plot, but the game lacks any sort of scope.

No Doubt is MIA, the art is occasionally freakish and definitely not up to Xbox standards, and while "fun" is always a subjective call, the gameplay offers nothing new and contains a ton of repetition. Malice ends up being a small package that just doesn't offer enough.

Coming from the folks who developed the "Armored Core" series, I expected a lot more. The gameplay was not to my expectations, and the graphics do not take full advantage of the Xbox console.

Sherlock Holmes and the Mystery of Osbourne House is neither pretty good nor as good as any of the games in the Professor Layton series that it's trying to emulate. Why you'd play this game, when you could play any of the games it draws inspiration from is the real mystery.

Gamers should do their best not to contract this syndrome.

The story is unoriginal and uninspired, the characters are dull and lifeless, and while some of the puzzles are genuinely fun, any entertainment derived from them is more than cancelled out by the aggravation of actually getting to them.

There's almost nothing to like about Sonic Adventure. It's clunky and awkward at best, painfully buggy and broken at worst. Its most unforgivable sin, though, is that it's just not fun.

As it stands, if you want to get a swimming workout, take my advice and go sign up at a local YMCA instead.

Beatdown is a solid fighting themed action role-playing game brought down a notch by too much area transition loading and some limited promised features (like the ability to interrogate every character in the game).

On just about every level it could, Call of Juarez: The Cartel fails to be anything other than a frustrating experience you can't wait to end. Usually a game like this can be redeemed by providing a co-op experience that pulls players together, but the game intentionally tries to drive them apart and does so without making a point of it.

Despite the chaos you can create, everything happens at the same time for the same reasons. There will always be a cop car with its lights on at this corner; that boat will always be there at this time, etc.

Spark has made a better game this time around than its previous attempt but it still isn’t on par with the elite of the genre. In the end, Legendary is a cool idea wrapped inside an average shooter.

Perhaps the biggest design gaffe in the entire game is that you cannot quickly skip races to get to a race that contains one of your horses. There are weeks when you may not even have a horse running, but you still have to go to the track and manually "skip" each race.

Baseball text simmers have dreamed for a game like this for years, but if you want to be taken seriously by the sim crowd you need to do a better job of simulating the sport – otherwise it’s simply not worth the time and money.

Tony Hawk: Ride is a failed experiment that likely sounded great in a staff meeting. The idea isn’t a bad one. It’s the game that’s the problem.

The length is quite satisfactory, the inclusion of co-op play is a very good bonus, and I just found this to be a really fun RPG romp all around – which, ultimately, is the most important thing.

The motion-controls certainly deserve praise, but its assorted shortcomings stifle the game’s good qualities. Lackluster, repetitive missions and a horrid ranking system prevent Wing Island from being more than a short-lived diversion for your kids.

In closing, Death Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom is a game that had a lot of good ideas, most of which ended up being abysmal when actually implemented.

If you and your friends are fans of the series, as popular as it is, Pirates Carnival would be a great way to kick back and have a friendly competition with each other. Those who are not familiar with the series or are a little older may not find the premise or even the gameplay itself all that interesting and not quite the party they were expecting.

During this Christmas season, please don't take the chance and inflict Sonic Free Riders upon unsuspecting players as gifts. Christmas morning should be about joy, not pain and tears.

A game only for the most hardcore RPG gamer with an endless supply of patience. The gameplay itself is pretty solid and the game's unique elements make for a lot of fun, but this technical issue can prove to be a deal breaker for many players.

ATV Quad Kings doesn't do anything to innovate the genre but for twenty bucks there are plenty of tracks to race and vehicles to buy to justify the price tag and give the mobile ATV racing fan a way to get some mud on their visor during the morning commute.

X-Men: Destiny fails as a game and as an X-Men property and there isn't an X-Gene in the world that can fix it.

Control isn’t that tight – in fact it seems very loose. Collision detection isn’t perfect as it seems that if you just breathe near a mountain you’ll crash into it.

I am a huge fan of co-op games, and believe very strongly in the notion that a poor game can be made better by having someone else to play it with, but Daggerdale isn't just a poor game, it's a frustrating, shoddy, broken mess of a game that never should have been released in its current state, made even more upsetting by the fact that you have no recourse to get your money back. Do not buy this game.

Starship Troopers just doesn't have any soul. It's a generic first-person shooter, with gameplay that isn't very much fun and doesn't do justice with the license its based on.

Fun can be had with many of the games in Summer Sports Paradise Island, especially when playing head-to-head, but the control issues will keep you from that “just one more game” feeling present in titles like Wii Sports.

Tony Hawk: Ride is a failed experiment that likely sounded great in a staff meeting. The idea isn’t a bad one. It’s the game that’s the problem.

Ah yes, the joy of a horribly translated yet strangely satisfying gun came finds itself unexpectedly on American shores.

Playing Operation Darkness is like being in love with a deadbeat. You can see the silver lining and you want to make it work, but it’s a downward spiral of concessions and empty promises and the next thing you know you’re living in a trailer and he’s hocking your jewelry for strippers.

Ubisoft has had a great year with gems like Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, R.U.S.E., No More Heroes 2, and Red Steel 2 to name a few – but the sooner this truly awful game is buried and forgotten the better.

The bottom line is that it’s impossible to recommend this title to anyone who isn’t a fairly hardcore adventure buff.

If you have the patience to deal with the game's problems and don't mind a patch or two then you might want to pick up this game, otherwise wait for Gothic 3 or some other action RPG to waste your time on.

This game would be the same if you were racing on a snowboard, a sled, or a greased up fat guy. Okay the greased up fat guy would probably raise the fun factor, but you get the idea.

There's a lot of game to be had if you can get past the game's quirks.

Most of the time it's just a frustrating mess that you wish you weren't experiencing.

The bargain price may tempt you to give the game a try but trust me, it's no different than the shuckster me-too fighting games of 15 years ago only this time you'll be losing a lot more than just a quarter.

In fact, the aesthetic and fun weapon building elements save this title from utter mediocrity.

NFL Tour isn’t just bad. It’s other-worldy bad...It was my hope that in this case less would be more, but unfortunately less is less. We are left with a completely boring and terrible game that I think could be justification for the NFL to revoke the license.

If you’re looking for a deep text-based football simulation – get "Front Office Football 2007." Mogul just has too many holes right now.

Sadly the result is a forgettable game that might be worth a weekend rental, but nothing more.

It's a fun loving mellow game that everyone can get hooked on, and I can honestly say that it is one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a while.

Hyperdimension spends too much time engaging in fan service and in objectifying women and not enough time on making the core gameplay compelling enough.

Even offset by the low price and the arcade-style context, Battlestar Galactica just doesn’t have the punch to stand out in today’s market. Even the graphics engine is marred by low-resolution textures, small engagement zones, and dated special effects, and what bothers me about this game is how it could easily be a lot better were it simply blessed with more expanded gameplay.

Holding Legends of Troy in comparison to other brawlers on the market, the game feels paltry, cheap, and empty. Koei games are often criticized for their repetition and wafer-thin gameplay, and this game absolutely represents the worst traits of its modus operandi.