Unbalanced AI, poor shooting control, and shoddy design at every level of the experience make this extreme sports title unworthy of your $30.

Just another shallow party game.

If you're a fan of futuristic racers, there's probably nothing in Drome Racers to enjoy that you haven't already seen in a better game.

About the best thing you can say for these games is that you get all three for $20--it's a decent value, but you could be spending your money on better games.

The injection of Pokémon characters and aspects hasn't done anything to improve ChunSoft's oft-copied dungeon hack.

The game attempts to combine zany locales with tried-and-true bowling mechanics, but the game lacks substance and ultimately won't please bowling fans, be they hardcore or casual.

A game that feels half-baked and suffers from terrible pacing.

An unimpressive action platformer with a few of the trappings of the original "Dragon's Lair."

A counterintuitive control scheme, oddly balanced difficulty, obnoxiously repetitive combat, and a nearly useless camera in co-op mode. Eventually such problems become too numerous and too annoying to tolerate, turning what could have been a simple monster-killing romp into a scattered, clumsy mess.

While DCB accurately duplicates the flow and gameplay of the tabletop game, its simplicity will turn off any but the youngest of players.

As a pure, seven-hour-long shooting gallery, Marine Heavy Gunner has its moments. But so do a thousand other games, many of which also sport multiplayer modes--something this game lacks.

The overly simplified gameplay really holds it back, and overall, it's a game that really can't be recommended to anyone, young or old.

There are literally dozens of better third-person-perspective, run-and-gun shooters on the market right now.

As you guide her through one identical-looking corridor after another, shooting one identical-looking robot after another, you'll almost certainly be unimpressed with the repetitive and cumbersome action at the heart of this game.

If it had given you a bit more to do, the game would be a simple and somewhat straightforward adventure game, but as it is, it's simply too short.

Instead of filling Alpha Black Zero with fun and exciting action, Khaeon instead serves up a dimly lit, lackluster game that doesn't know when to stop.

It's unsophisticated controls, stingy list of gameplay modes, and lack of depth are bolstered only slightly by a couple of funny character designs and some decent physics. The result is a game that even diehard bowling nuts should avoid.

Pocketbike Racer is a bad kart-racing game that's often broken.

Not even the allure of shiny robots with guns for arms can liven up this mind-numbingly simplistic and repetitive over-the-shoulder shooter.

CSI has a good premise, good tools, and good scenarios for an adventure game, but the developer clearly tried to make CSI accessible for a wide audience and in the process also removed all challenge from the game.

An amusing, harmless automobile brand inspires an amusing, harmless racing game.

The latest attempt to translate the famous board game gets mired in some dubious design decisions and bad AI.

There's no character progression to speak of, nor is there anything to the combat beyond a festival of irritating button mashing. Toss in the lack of a decent world map, grainy visuals, a lousy use of the 50 Cent and G Unit licenses, and a completely perfunctory multiplayer, and what you've got is a game that, while marginally better than last year's console game, is a brand of unpleasant all its own.

If you want a good rhythm game, look elsewhere. And if you want American Idol, just go watch the show.

The graphics aren't representative of what the PlayStation 2 is capable of, the gameplay is ruined by pathetic goalie AI, and the control options fail to meet minimum requirements.

Whatever minimal amount of sleekness the game has to offer is completely overshadowed by unimpressive graphics and sound, sloppy combat mechanics, and an almost nonstop assailment of long, boring, and mind-numbingly frustrating puzzles.

Seriously stripped down compared with its console cousins, and it doesn't have enough PC-specific features to make up for what boils down to a sparse and unentertaining racing experience.

To put it bluntly, the frustrating controls ruin what would have been a perfectly good fishing game.

A paint-by-numbers adventure game, lifting its premise--and even some of its puzzles--from countless similar games that have preceded it.

Only about five hours long, which is probably for the best, since the storyline is so nonsensical and the action is so repetitive that you'll quickly be begging for the game to end.

A dated game that has remained unchanged in this latest release.

Gungrave definitely looks cool. It's also a textbook case for why great graphics don't do you much good if the underlying game is shallow.

It's filled with lots of arbitrary, convoluted, brutally tough puzzles, though. In fact, you could say this is really a puzzle game masquerading as an adventure game.

Unfortunately, neither experienced gamers nor fans of the film will find much in the game beyond a quick, light diversion.

The conversions are far from arcade quality, but they should reasonably fit the bill for anyone who wants to experience the gist of these two games on the go.

One of those game revivals that bears enough resemblance to its source material to draw up some nostalgia for the original, and yet it also exposes the weaknesses of the original, effectively betraying your nostalgia and retroactively tainting the original game.

Offense has completely consumed the Triple Play Baseball series... Every other aspect of the real sport has also been dumbed down to the point of irrelevance. Pitching, baserunning, fielding, and those all-important managerial moves mean nothing as long as you have good hand-eye coordination. Gameplay has devolved to a simple button-pushing exercise.

Just a so-so fighting game. Even those who watch the series religiously will be hard-pressed to remain interested.

The presentation is terribly stripped-down, and as an odd duck sort of hybrid strategy game, it doesn't offer much accessibility or depth.

It doesn't present an original game design nor is it a particularly compelling experience.

Shoehorning in the most basic of Wii motion-sensing controls isn't enough to make a clunky, repetitive game like Rampage fun--if anything, it just makes it more annoying.

A shoddy port of an otherwise average game.

Extremely dated appearance and poor performance.

Just a straightforward pinball video game with a handful of tables and not much else.

It's not a very deep game; it's kind of ugly, and the story is flat out stupid. But Heatseeker can be fun in small doses--especially if you don't mind taking down wave after wave of enemies, level after level.

Car Tycoon may appear to be a decent ride, but if you're looking for a really excellent management game, you should look elsewhere.

It's like an X-Files primer, filled with cute references to events from the show and following a plot that the devout will be able to predict within the first 15 minutes of the game.

If you're drawn to this title because of the Lego name, just know that there are better futuristic racing experiences to be had.

It may sport a literary pedigree, but 80 Days is little more than a clunky adventure game with a bad sense of humor and lots of bugs.

It doesn't take long to get over the novelty of the included steering wheel, and beyond that this is a very unremarkable racing game that isn't much fun.

This awkwardly designed and rather ugly-looking game can by no means be recommended to everyone, nor is it necessarily suitable for fans of other GBA role-playing games.

It's fast-paced, it's gritty, and it's got style to spare, but El Matador is also one of the most infuriatingly unbalanced shooters in years.

Purge still offers gameplay that is fairly unique. Unfortunately, balance issues, poor level design, and a lack of online players keep it from fully realizing its potential.

A novel idea, but in the end, it doesn't have enough variation to make it worthwhile. This one is only for the hard-core WCW fan.

Those who do not have an interest in the minutiae of the sport of kings will likely find the gameplay to be dry and overly statistics-focused. Still, if you're looking for a change of pace in your racing game, there is certainly nothing else on the market quite like it.

An initially thrilling but ultimately tedious exercise that offers precious few innovations and even fewer reasons to continue playing once you've run through its tracks a first time.

After you play Taz Wanted and struggle with its terrible camera angles and repetitive tasks, you'll probably agree that all the authentic cartoon characters in the world couldn't make this game fun.

Infuriating controls and frustrating platforming sections are among Dawn of Mana's many shortcomings.

The interface and poor control are bigger enemies than the game's Iraqi soldiers ever are, and in the end, this is a game you can surely live without.

It's difficult to care about the story or any of the characters in it when the game doesn't have any voice acting to lend personality to it.

This could be a lovely proof of concept for a bigger game; as it stands, it's hard not to get caught up thinking about all that it could have been.

In some ways Styx feels like a stealth game from an earlier era, but one that's more dated then vintage. It tries to pick up a few tricks from more modern games in the genre, but much of its core wouldn't have been out of place alongside the earlier Tenchu or Metal Gear Solid games.

It's disappointing that Blue Fire is unquestionably fun to move around in but is hampered by design decisions that hold back its free-form platforming. It's difficult to experiment with the reaches of your agility when it's so easy to lose large swathes of progress due to a misstep, a punishment that permeates not only exploration but the otherwise expertly designed platforming side challenges. Its economy relies too heavily on one in-game currency and unnecessarily blocks progression, making it feel like Blue Fire isn't respectful of your time. You'd have to really fall in love with Blue Fire's one well-tuned mechanic to make its entire adventure feel worthwhile.

It's a shame that Anno 2205 takes the game so far into the future and does so little of substance with that premise. Not much has changed from Anno 2070, and what has is almost always worse. Anno 2205 still has a sturdy core of satisfying city planning and construction, but so much has been cut out as to make the game barely worth playing at all.

Unfortunately, the multiplayer is also an unmitigated disaster.

It's disappointing that Blue Fire is unquestionably fun to move around in but is hampered by design decisions that hold back its free-form platforming. It's difficult to experiment with the reaches of your agility when it's so easy to lose large swathes of progress due to a misstep, a punishment that permeates not only exploration but the otherwise expertly designed platforming side challenges. Its economy relies too heavily on one in-game currency and unnecessarily blocks progression, making it feel like Blue Fire isn't respectful of your time. You'd have to really fall in love with Blue Fire's one well-tuned mechanic to make its entire adventure feel worthwhile.

It sports a new title, but Bust-A-Move 3000 is identical to the "Super Bust-A-Move" that was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2000.

This "xtremely" forgettable first-person shooter doesn't excel at anything.

It's gorgeous to look at and fun for a short while, but Akaneiro: Demon Hunters is an unvaried grind that wears out its appeal long before the level cap.

Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 suffers from attempting to cover far too much ground for the core mechanics to handle.

A tiring game. It's taxing without being rewarding, like doing a mile on a stationary bike and discovering that you only burned away calories from one bite of your lunch burrito. The game gets frustrating quickly due to repetitive obstacles and there's not much incentive to dig into a game that won't give you that agency.

Tenchu: Shadow Assassins attempts to sneak in the footsteps of its stealthy predecessors but ends up a stumbling, bungling mess.

An inferior copy of a classic, Swashbucklers isn't worth your time.

This undemanding fighter may be good enough for anime fans, but the game is too simple for fighting fans and too self-referential for anyone else.

My World, My Way needs more than a charming exterior to sweep you off your feet.

Sonic Forces ultimately fails to advance the mechanics of previously successful 3D Sonic games, or present them in their best light. A mediocre platformer at best, Sonic Forces manages to do nothing more than reinforce long held stereotypes against Sega's beloved blue blur.

Sonic Forces ultimately fails to advance the mechanics of previously successful 3D Sonic games, or present them in their best light. A mediocre platformer at best, Sonic Forces manages to do nothing more than reinforce long held stereotypes against Sega's beloved blue blur.

You have to wonder how much time was even spent on prepping this game for release, since 2012 was believed to be the last in the series until a surprise January announcement that the series was back from the dead.

In this 3D Sonic game, developer Sonic Team attempts to iterate upon the formula of games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors, but it falls short due to frustrating design choices and inconsistent level design. Even its most entertaining moments come with caveats.

It's not too much to ask for a game to deliver both fan service and solid gameplay. It's just more than this particular game can manage.

For whatever progress that the series makes in this third installment, it's undone by lackluster gameplay and poor execution.

Luxuria Superbia's unusual premise roused my interest early, but the game's resistance to offering anything new beyond its simple concept hinders it from finding a satisfying rhythm.

There's no finesse here, no style, and all too few moments where it actually resembles the source material it's trying to represent. The sport of lacrosse may be growing in popularity by the year, but it still lacks a proper video game representative.

MLB 2K13 is a complete and utter retread with all the appeal of used chewing gum.

Had the Prototype Biohazard Bundle actually been a full upgrade, it would at least show us how far we’ve come. But given even Prototype 2’s mind-boggling technical limitations, this troubled bundle is more of a reminder that mediocrity is still not obsolete.

In this 3D Sonic game, developer Sonic Team attempts to iterate upon the formula of games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Colors, but it falls short due to frustrating design choices and inconsistent level design. Even its most entertaining moments come with caveats.

Given how well Guts' bloodlust and battle experience are well-suited to the crowd fighting and mass slaughter of Warriors games, it's a disappointing that this tie-in lacks the engagement and nuance of Omega Force's more imaginative efforts with other franchises.

Too much emphasis on battles and too tight a focus on the main story--as interesting as it can be at times, especially if you’re interested in the mythology of Eora--makes the game something of a forced march that removes the wonder of exploring an open world.

Super Monkey Ball 3D's one enjoyable mode can't compensate for the other two stinkers, making this a disappointing showing for the sphere-bound simians.

Windbound has its moments. Much of the time, it was relaxing enough to zone out and search for crafting materials. But the game is built around finding towers, and that process becomes significantly less fun after the first level. There are only so many times you can search for a tower, no matter how winsome the presentation.

This dreary action role-playing game has its worthwhile moments, but they're separated by countless hours of fetch-quest tedium.

An undeveloped plot, derivative gameplay, idiotic enemies, and boring presentation.

Even if you're a Warriors fan who knows not to expect a Dark Souls level of gratifying melee combat, Band of the Hawk still deprives you of the juicy sights and sounds that one associates with Guts' savagery; the splashes of red that result from every kill hardly counts as "gore".

Genki Bowl VII's four quick activities lack the excitement and humor of your earlier adventures in Steelport.

As Telltale's Game of Thrones passes its halfway mark, it takes a bit of a dip, staging a set of scenes that feel less like something you can control and more like something you can only passively watch. There's no real sense of agency in the choices you are offered, other than spinning a conversation in a certain direction before coming full circle to a pre-determined outcome.

Dynasty Warriors: Gundam takes the worst elements of both franchises, and smashes them together into a dismally vapid action game.

The most disappointing part of Dr. Luigi is that it doesn't give the Dr. Mario formula that shot in the arm it needs to feel magical again.

Genki Bowl VII's four quick activities lack the excitement and humor of your earlier adventures in Steelport.