Sword of the Stars II is a hot mess, beleaguered by crash bugs, freezes, a poor user interface, and limited tutorials.

Zoo Tycoon DS captures the basic idea of what a Zoo Tycoon game is all about, but in the end it feels more like a cheaply made imitation than an engaging strategy game.

For the first time since the infamous dam level in the original NES Turtles game, God, it sucks being a turtle.

Team Factor's dated graphics, sparse sound, and lack of interesting play modes keep it from measuring up to action-game heavyweights like "Counter-Strike," "Battlefield 1942," and "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault," and even to budget-priced shooters like "Serious Sam."

National Hockey Night's graphics are solid, but its no-frills gameplay modes and abysmal control leech the fun from the game, leaving a superficial shell behind.

Steel isn't a game for everyone, and the repetitive mission structure will more than likely deter all but the Superman faithful.

Tries very hard to capture the atmosphere and style of the Dinotopia books, but for the most part, it just isn't a lot of fun to play.

Niki is undeniably a ball, but this platformer does not rock.

The racing is boring and way too easy, the physics are bouncy and unrealistic, the rubber-band artificial intelligence is ridiculous, and you can easily beat every race in the game in a couple hours.

This is an incredibly slapdash and barren game that has absolutely nothing to offer you beyond monotonous, almost-broken fighting mechanics, tiny environments, and a bunch of lame unlockables.

This role-playing game's forgettable story and frustrating combat make it a real disappointment.

While it looks and sounds good and is a solid-playing game, it is not without a few annoying quirks that pop up at moments when you least need or want them. The addition of being able to play as a villain is a welcome change.

State of Emergency 2 replaces the first game's ultraviolent and fancy-free nature with a cavalcade of lame trial-and-error-based missions, a lousy plotline, and dated technology.

This halfhearted revival attempt leaves Golden Axe lifeless and dull.

Simulation racing fans beware; this racer will test your patience more than your riding skills.

The Harry Potter film tie-ins end on a low note with this short, tedious, and conceptually vapid cover shooter.

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

Discs of Tron is a prettied-up port of an '80s arcade game that's barely even recommendable to die-hard Tron fans.

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

Warriors Orochi 2 elevates hack-and-slash action to amazing levels of repetitive boredom.

Extremely difficult puzzles and a vague plot sink this ambitious Myst clone.

The production values and overall presentation certainly fit this cut-rate title, and you'll soon get bored if you're playing alone.

We were able to tear through the game's 15 levels of difficulty without breaking a sweat, thanks to this infinite spinning feature.

Only die-hard fans of Acclaim's long-running series should bother with this title.

Lacking both the volatile charm and the compelling technical details of the series, it's little more than a halfhearted racing game with some guest appearances by characters and locations you've seen on TV.

Even if the game featured stable controls, the overall package is still mediocre at best. But with the bad controls, compounded by lackadaisical graphics and boring gameplay, Q*bert: Rebooted never had the potential to shine anyway. Q*bert, old friend, you deserve better.

Considering that there are literally dozens of better third-person-perspective, run-and-gun shooters on the market right now, it makes it pretty tough to recommend Sarge's War.

Real Pool 2 may offer pretty graphics and tolerable ball action, but it comes up short in so many other areas that it cannot be heartily recommended to enthusiasts of either the real-life or virtual pastime.

A complete mess. Virtually every technical and stylistic aspect of the game is either shoddily handled or feels somehow incomplete.

Unless you're looking for some laughs or a trip down memory lane, stay far, far away from this one.

Unleashed is the worst thing to happen to Godzilla since getting killed by Mothra's babies.

While the console versions were merely mediocre, the PSP version of Beowulf is as aggressively wretched as Grendel itself.

Even a merry band of adventurous thanes can't save this quest from ruin.

Ironically, while this penguin-themed puzzle game seems geared toward younger players, it may be too challenging for the average kid.

Options for poker games on the Cube are scant at best, but even so, the merely competent opponent AI and middling career mode aren't enough to make this version worth your while.

Street Trace: NYC provides a few moments of multiplayer amusement, but it doesn't have enough going for it to be compelling for long.

This version of the game takes what should have been a wide-open, tactical experience in a massive metropolis and turns it into just another run-and-gun shooter that ramrods you through narrow corridors.

This is one of the worst turn-based tactical games in quite a while, thanks to bad gameplay, horrendous storytelling, lackluster graphics, and more.

This archaic first-person shooter is lousy to its core.

Not a good game. It takes the primary elements of the Pern novels and uses them to fashion a run-of-the-mill adventure game that offers very little actual adventure and too many frustrating mechanical issues.

Regardless of the poor graphics and problematic controls, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee for the Game Boy Advance could have been a great game for fans of the series if it had anywhere near the same amount of charm or cleverness as the console Oddworld games.

The empty and amateurish Post Apocalyptic Mayhem belongs in the junkyard, not on your PC.

Enough effort was put into the gameplay and graphical design to keep it from crashing and burning, but not enough to inject it with any sort of life or appeal.

Colorful graphics can't make up for this game's shocking brevity.

The game's poor presentation gives you a hint of the game's nature right away, which is confirmed hours later once you've mastered the game's repetitive gameplay mechanics.

It requires you to work too much to accomplish the objectives, and for too little reward.

A boring, repetitive exercise in countering your opponent.

Anyone who doesn't already have an affinity for Yugi, Kaiba, and the rest of the gang will likely be unable to tolerate the game's shoddy graphics and its dull, shallow gameplay.

If you already have the camera, you might as well download TotemBall. But don't expect to get much enjoyment out of it.

The combat in Hellboy gets repetitive before the first level ends and never presents a challenge. This is a boring, bland game.

Mamodo Fury packs a number of gameplay modes and plenty of familiar characters, but it all feels wasted on this shallow and frustrating fighting game.

Enough effort was put into the gameplay and graphical design to keep it from crashing and burning, but not enough to inject it with any sort of life or appeal.

Like a botched cloning experiment from a B movie, with developer Xpec Entertainment playing the mad scientist's role and Gauntlet playing the test subject. The beast that's emerged from the cloning chamber is just what you'd expect: a shambling, ugly, and dumb version of the source material.

Ridge Racer offers incredibly poor value, with a lack of compelling content to back up its competent arcade racing credentials.

Incredibly buggy, packed with design flaws, seemingly a decade old... SunAge is a real-time strategy disaster.

Mindjack's chilling vision of the future is smothered by awkward controls and poor storytelling.

Busted controls and stripped-down gameplay make Tony Hawk Ride an overpriced fiasco.

Despite a slick presentation and several clearly enjoyable moments, Salt Lake fails to capture the magnitude of this periodic winter spectacle and is in reality an entertaining yet brief whirl through just a fraction of the events you might expect.

Awful gameplay.

A turn-based role-playing game with a strange combat system, and at times it plays more like a poorly designed board game, where the rules don't make much sense but instead exist only to make you carefully scrutinize your every move.

The game is too short, the combat is way too repetitive, and the graphics and audio are years behind the curve.

While the online play is merely average at best, its single-player play, as well as its overall production values, present themselves as seriously subpar.

Though Tornado's core gameplay is based on a solid foundation, its few major drawbacks are too severe to ignore.

Pirates and ninjas clash with other fantasy archetypes in dodgeball matches handicapped by a legion of drawbacks.

A smidgen of intellect surrounded by garbage does not make for a good game.

A generic and frustrating side scroller that could have been much better had it spent a few more weeks in development. Likewise, more work should have gone into tying the game into the television show.

Overall, it's an experience that redefines the word "bland."

I don’t like being disrespected -- and I doubt you do, either. And yet it’s reasonable to feel that way when playing a buggy, bland game with some of the worst writing you’re likely to hear in some time.

Enemy Front lands in that unfortunate middle area where its faults aren't bad enough to leave a painfully lasting negative impression, but its key moments are too generic to be memorable.

This bare-bones movie tie-in is like a machine with synthetic rubber skin: it's not fooling anyone and you should stay away from it.

The main asset to the license -- a degree of smart sexiness akin to old '70s James Bond movie posters -- has become crass and obvious in its translation to 3D.

Its numerous bugs and linear missions make it frustrating to play, and the story never grabs you like a good sci-fi adventure should. Even the most devoted of Star Trek fans will be hard pressed to find something to like in Star Trek The Video Game: there are simply too many glaring problems.

Despite the descriptive accuracy of its title, Word Puzzle is too shallow to satisfy fans of word puzzles.

Despite the occasional laughs and wonderfully weird multiplayer modes, Devil's Third is near-impossible to recommend. The numerous issues with the controls as well as crucial elements of the game's combat systems soon mount up to provide an experience that frustrates far more often than it entertains, resulting in a missed opportunity for what could've been a cult hit.

Digimon World: Data Squad is a crushingly repetitive and generally joyless role-playing game.

Recycled environments, mediocre gameplay and the absence of online play cripple this disappointing top-down adventure.

New Rally-X wasn't a terribly exciting game when it was released in 1981, so it's tough to get worked up about an arcade-perfect version of it 25 years later.

The Harry Potter film tie-ins end on a low note with this short, tedious, and conceptually vapid cover shooter.

Soldner does feature some neat innovations...Unfortunately, though, these original elements can't compensate for Soldner's fundamental stability, control, and gameplay problems.

Hatred is too repetitive to be exciting, too dumb to be frightening, too basic for you to feel accomplished at its end, too dour to be violently cathartic, too self-serious to engender ironic amusement, and yet still too childish to matter...essentially, it's a nothing of a game.

Only slightly less painful than getting your brain removed through your nose.

Move Ape Escape keeps the charm but loses the fun from its goofy predecessors.

Final Fight: Streetwise doesn't look good, doesn't play well, and it can't even get its unlockable bonus--the original arcade game--right.

A brief and generic action game that does nothing to distinguish itself from the glut of similar--and cheaper--games on the market.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is full of things that make you go "hmm." Why do midlevel checkpoints update your score but not save your game, forcing you to restart from the beginning if both characters die? If you're going to steal from Gears of War, why steal the slow-walking, earpiece-cradling mission updates?

Sonic the Hedgehog may share its name with the Genesis original, but this game is even more broken than most of the other recent Sonic games have been.

The gameplay takes you back in time to the days when RTS programmers had yet to figure out such intricacies as pathfinding, level design, and visual presentation.

Things just don't feel quite right, and, even if you like the controls, the AI still cheats too much, the same boring combinations still lead to wins, and crowd involvement still takes precedence over inherent skill.

A major disappointment. It lacks the unpredictability and mayhem of the console versions, as well as most of the features that you'd expect to find in a traditional baseball game.

This platformer based on the Star Wars cartoon TV series tries to copy the Lego game formula but gets just about everything wrong.

Every so often, 8-year-old me--the part of me that thinks that asking everyone what word starts with "f" and ends in "u-c-k" is funny--got a kick out of Yaiba's exploits. Most of the time, however, I could only wish that Ninja Gaiden Z's striking art style had been applied to a better canvas.

The game that began as a free PC download has made its way to retail shelves with this Xbox 360 iteration, but it looks as if most of the fun was lost in transit.

The Harry Potter film tie-ins end on a low note with this short, tedious, and conceptually vapid cover shooter.

Whatever merit Myst had left has been blown away by a sloppy touch interface, poorly implemented new features, and overly compressed visuals.

Playing Exotica requires very little skill or finesse, but for the casual gamer who doesn't want to commit lots of time to racing a track, that's not really a bad thing.

This game is just flat-out bad in most every way you can think of, and for a franchise with such promise and potential, that's a truly disheartening thing.

There are so many problems with Will of Steel that it's hard to know where to begin in terms of describing them, but trust us when we say to spare yourself the frustration and avoid this decidedly lackluster game.

Dragons and Titans is a mere shadow of other, richer MOBAs, and while its significantly shorter average game time may give it some initial appeal, that appeal comes at the cost of almost any enjoyment of the time invested.