Controls that fluctuate between touchy and unresponsive, a short list of gameplay modes, and a poorly realized multiplayer all conspire to bring down the already well-tread puzzle action in Bust-A-Move Bash!.

Imprecise controls and repetitive gameplay hampers this downloadable cooperative adventure.

A disappointingly bare-bones remake of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

Speedball teaches you how to play and sets you loose, but leaves you with only a handful of avenues to explore the possibilities.

Unfortunately, most of Natural Doctrine's greatest challenges to your patience don't arise from a fair and balanced battle system, but from the game's failure to adhere to comprehensible logic.

Save for meager communications with villagers and a lackluster end-game sequence, Dark Angel has nothing in the way of instruction, plot, or character development.

It disregards almost everything about Vikings that make them interesting. Its graphics are some of the worst on the PS2, the gameplay is dull and repetitive, and its uninspired multiplayer mode adds little value.

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.

Don't go into The Secret of the Stolen Drums thinking you're going to get an educational game or an enjoyable platformer, as you'll find neither here.

But it's a classic <I>arcade</I> game, not a classic NES game. So this release does a decent job of duplicating the NES version of Pac-Man...but Pac-Man isn't famous for being an NES game, and this port of the arcade classic isn't terribly accurate or compelling.

Poor AI, dull design, and lackluster presentation all add up to make Blade II a game that you should definitely skip.

FaceBreaker's impressive boxer-customization options are overshadowed by terrible gameplay.

There's no way to break the curse on this staggeringly bad action game.

This survival horror sequel is clumsy and frustrating and not suspenseful in the least.

Traveller's Tales has perverted Sega's previously charming action puzzle series into a clumsy, frustrating action adventure game.

It's not that it's entirely broken, mind you, but X-Men's missions are entirely generic and devoid of captivating content, and there are enough annoying little glitches and other obnoxious things prevalent throughout to give the game that thrown-together feel.

Has-Been Heroes is, at least, a great fit for the Switch. It’s the sort of game you can play while half-watching a sitcom in the background, rather than one to which you’ll want to give your full attention. By the same token, playing the game with intense focus starts to feel like a waste of time after the first few hours. It’s a demanding game that gives very little back for the time and effort it eats up. The game’s name does not lie--it’s best to let these has-beens be.

To its credit, Mutant Nightmare is a touch better than the last game, "Battle Nexus," in that it doesn't force-feed you a gaggle of terribly clunky platforming sequences to try to keep things interesting. But beyond that meager distinction, this still isn't a very enjoyable game.

A poor translation, very repetitive gameplay, and a lack of any multiplayer features mar what otherwise could have been an excellent take on this type of game.

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.

There's nothing actually revolutionary going on in Harvester, but it's a creepy game featuring tried-and-true adventure mechanics with entertaining twists and some truly disturbing full-motion video segments that will follow you to bed and snuggle up nice and cozy in your dreams.

A mediocre action game with a terrific license.

Uneven presentation and its incongruence with the spirit of the movie make it just another bad licensed-property video game.

Too many design issues leave this physics-based puzzler grounded.

At launch, Fallout 76 is a poor experience. There are echoes of the series' admirable qualities, but look past that facade, past the cute Vault Boy animations, past the familiar radio tracks, and you'll find no heart--just an inconsequential wasteland doomed to be nuked over and over again.

The respectable combat system isn't enough to gloss over hideous bugs, a dull plot, and rotten controls.

Koei's Sengoku-era-inspired Samurai Warriors franchise hits a new low with this on-rails first-person action game.

EyeToy: Operation Spy has got some really cool features, but not enough of them to form a truly substantial game.

Confined exploration and entertaining bouts of shallow combat are adequate enough, but are hardly a draw on their own. Thankfully, Game of Thrones pushes its story to the forefront, creating a flawed though memorable addition to the Song of Ice and Fire universe.

Could be entertaining as a novelty for short while, but stops short of becoming a game worth playing for any length of time.

A horrible train wreck of problems ranging from poor rebounding and passing to inconsistent shooting percentages and a worthless post-up game.

Your enjoyment of Portal Runner depends wholly on your tolerance for both straight-up, albeit slightly watered-down, 3D platform-adventure gameplay and 3DO's distinct brand of abstract patriotism.

The game is just far too buggy, easy, and uninspiring to hold your attention for more than a few hours, let alone a standard rental period.

Glitches, stereotypical characters, and dull combat betray any chance of Deadfall Adventures providing any real incentive for your troubles. Digging into this game yields not a rough-cut gem, but rather a lump of coal that should have stayed buried.

Tedious quests and dull, infuriating combat make this one fantasy adventure whose monsters you won't want to hunt.

Offers a challenging and varied gameplay experience that will satisfy the amateur cryptographer in everyone. However, the game is brought down by supbar production values and a dialogue-heavy story that has a tendency to drag at times.

Marvel Nemesis has been engineered in such a way that you must slog through the game's weakest parts to gain access to its best features--and you'll have to wrestle with some serious balance and gameplay issues along the way.

A decent strategic foundation is rendered all but meaningless by horrific bugs, missing features, a poor interface, and plenty of other defects.

Explosive action and incentivized gunplay fail to heat up in Bodycount, a tepid and short-lived shooter.

The limitation on cooperative play is the game's biggest disappointment, so here's hoping that Microsoft Studios has more multiplayer levels in mind for possible downloadable content.

Koei's apologists will find Warriors Orochi to be an affable bit of fan service, but everyone else should just stay far away.

You have to give B-Boy credit for taking a novel approach to a relatively untapped subject. But then you have to take all that credit away for the fact that it has no story, a Byzantine move system, and repetitive gameplay. In the end, B-Boy is difficult to pick up, easy to master, and impossible to recommend.

This RTS has great historical flavor and scope, though the documentation and overall playability leave something to be desired.

Effective offense is a struggle to achieve, and defense is far too automated to keep you interested. Even with individual players looking better up close, NBA Live 15 fails to present an attractive package when all ten bodies are running plays on the court.

The action is plagued by loose controls and a bad camera, your scores of brain-dead opponents never put up enough of a fight to make things satisfying, and it's all set in a blandly designed world.

Unfortunately, like the cars that shuttle people around the island, this game is on rigid tracks and offers you no control over where it goes or how it gets there. You're just along for the ride.

Eat Lead's humor carries its lackluster gameplay for only so long.

If you've discovered a fishing game that you enjoy, then there's really no reason to try this one, since you'll have undoubtedly seen it all before, and seen it done better elsewhere.

This bland, uninspired adventure will probably make your wrist hurt. Fortunately, it's over quickly.

While EA has done an OK job of turning quidditch into a video game, the sport itself doesn't have enough depth to it to headline a stand-alone product.

Falls flat in just about every way a Corvette or racing fan enthusiast could hope it would succeed...it's difficult to recommend it to even the most devout Corvette enthusiasts.

Fans of the original Spy vs. Spy games won't find anything worth playing in this Xbox update. But even if you don't know what the series is about, you aren't really missing anything.

A mediocre game across the board, offering nothing new or even remotely entertaining and instead putting you through the paces of Generic Platformer 101.

Offers several solid interpretations of the classic Russian mindbender, though there's little here that hasn't been seen before.

Like just about every other sequel in Koei's Warriors franchises, Samurai Warriors 2 offers an overly familiar and ultimately mundane hack-and-slash experience.

It's not as fun fun as the real thing, but you can still have a good time with this minigolf game.

Expect more yawns than shrieks in this overly fussy Lovecraft-inspired horror adventure.

The KGB wasn't as hard on political dissidents as Hammer & Sickle is on those who play it.

An awful frame rate and lackluster visuals make this version of Puzzle Adventure one to avoid.

All the wonder of the Bionicle universe has been bled dry by a vapid design, an atrocious camera system, and one noteworthy bug.

Realms of Ancient War delivers the basics of action RPGs without any noteworthy hook to make things interesting.

A big, loud, shallow action game that severely lacks in content.

Krater makes a fresh first impression, but beneath the surface, you find generic combat and frustrating design elements.

It's all funny and little fun in this politics-themed party game.

Dull platforming and button-mashing action make Blade Kitten a disappointing first game for its cute-as-a-cat heroine.

This motion-controlled racer is fun, but it'd undoubtedly be better if you could play it with a regular controller.

First-person shooter Xotic sure lives up to its name with surreal, fast-flowing gameplay.

The pity is that you get the feeling the game would be a lot more effective if the main character had a drier, more morbid sense of humor. As it is, the attempts to crack weird jokes takes away from the otherwise eerie atmosphere of the game.

Now, a game that was less than impressive on the Dreamcast is even less so when presented on the technically superior GameCube.

The video game version of Order of the Phoenix captures none of the magic of the Harry Potter books or films.

A fairly standard car combat game with extremely repetitive gameplay and a hip-hop theme that feels about as fake and forced as possible.

It's a short, simplistic shooter that's not worth even its budget price.

Satisfying stealth and shooting make Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 a notable improvement over its predecessor.

The Short Message is desperate to be understood and devoid of novelty, leaving no room for interpretation, no sense of lingering mystery, and no strong impression for anyone who may be playing a Silent Hill game for the first time. Its unintended short message ends up feeling unfortunately obvious: Do not download.

This short adventure game nails the feel of both the show and the island on which it's set, but struggles with some of the characters.

Beijing 2008 proves beyond a doubt that rapidly pushing buttons is not fun.

The world ends with a whimper in this shallow puzzle game.

A bevy of problems ensures that South Park: Tenorman's Revenge is a tedious ordeal even for those who love the television show.

The only connections this boring real-time strategy game has with "Star Trek" are the logo on the box, the names of the races, and the types of weapons that your units use.

There isn't much reason to continue playing once you've finished the second, kind-of-good mission. And honestly, there isn't much reason to even do that. Still, there's a germ of a good idea here.

It may have 16 solid arcade hits, but if you care at all about visual accuracy in your arcade compilations, this package most definitely isn't for you.

Not entirely unlike Nintendo's Super Mario World, except that it's significantly more dull and frustrating.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2's story and stealth make for a satisfying and entertaining single-player campaign. The frustratingly few-and-far-between checkpoints and MIA multiplayer are disappointments, but this is a worthy sniping experience, especially given the game's budget price.

Despite my profound apathy regarding making sense of Cliff's hallucinations and dreams, there was at least some satisfaction in silently assassinating the undead.

Rygar feels every bit as old as you'd expect from a six-year-old game, but it still has some really fun moments.

As is typical of movie tie-ins, it's a by-the-book side-scroller with all of the requisite combat and exploration that you'd expect from that sort of thing.

Its fantasy world is undercut by bland artistic direction and a lack of conviction.

Playing Appaloosa's ultraviolent and ultrastupid take on the titular killer shark is about as much fun as having your legs chewed off.

A frighteningly flawed action-heavy spin-off that withers in the shadow of its superior alternatives.

Meant to be dark and atmospheric. It's set in a strange amusement park. And when it makes sense, it can be fairly creepy. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense very often.

There's little reward for all the indirect management you have to deal with, and the terrible interface sabotages the whole affair.

There's no shortage of things to do in Gangs of London--the trouble is that none of it is much fun.

An uninspired dungeon-crawler mired by boring, repetitive gameplay, and more design flaws than you can shake a gladius at.

Blades of Time overcomes hurdles obstacles of its own creation with the strength of its novel time-twisting abilities.

This Final Fantasy-themed tower defense game is bland and uninspired.

From its bland, generic premise to its one-note gameplay, WinBack 2 does nothing that another third-person shooter hasn't already done better.

Imprecise controls and repetitive gameplay hampers this downloadable cooperative adventure.

A revered series takes a nosedive in this embarrassing, tedious excuse for an action game.