It's bogged down by unnecessary quick-time events and annoying mob chases, a halfhearted attempt to tell a story, and frustrating interruptions to your racing. In spite of these burdens, the game frequently makes you feel like you're tearing across the varied terrain of this vast and majestic country.

There are some decent ideas in Street Racing Syndicate, but the fairly uninspired interpretation of racing in the game makes it pretty boring overall.

There's a cool time-bending story to this adventure, but the simplistic gameplay saps much of the fun.

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

Gale of Darkness retains the basic monster-battling formula as its predecessor, but with a longer single-player game and a few minor gameplay tweaks to address some common complaints about the previous game. As a result, the only people who will really appreciate this game are those who are already familiar with the series.

From side quests to sound design, Silent Hill: Downpour isn't afraid of change. The restult is a captivating game more expansive than the series has ever seen.

WWE 2K18's in-ring combat is fundamentally flawed, and will be as divisive as it often is. Yet there's no denying the inherent joy derived from performing your favorite Superstar's signature moves.

Secret Ponchos is well worth falling for, if only because playing as The Killer and using cover for a speedy reload is the closest a game has ever come to depicting the first Metal Gear Solid boss fight from Revolver Ocelot's perspective.

The core ideas are full of promise, but there's no follow-through. What ought to be a cheeky, charming celebration of a delightfully furry woodland creature is instead too rote, too dry, a neat idea undone by a lack of imagination. The only thing left to say is, well… nuts to that.

Technical achievements set Tekken 3D Prime apart from other 3DS games in the genre. Visuals aside, it fails to meet expectations.

While it captures the grand feel of the Games, London 2012's dull campaign stops it from taking home the gold.

The gameplay in Conquest of the Underworld is very formulaic, despite the generally high quality of the map designs.

A solid and enjoyable snowboarding game that successfully brings Tony Hawk to the mountain.

Linear, repetitive, tedious.

The Silver Case's unusual take on human conversations, its indecision about whether it wants to be just a visual novel or an adventure game where the player is a full participant, and its lack of focus in tying up any sort of cohesive plot, all add up to a mess of a game.

As a game, it's nothing special--just a mediocre platformer stuffed with all of the usual platforming elements. In terms of storytelling and presentation, however, Unmasked grabs the imagination and delights the senses easily as much as a feature-length version of the cartoon show would.

In the end, Rise & Fall attempts a few innovative things with the real-time strategy genre, though it's hurt by the fact that it wants to be both a hardcore real-time strategy game and a fast-paced action game. Unfortunately, it's hard to have it both ways in this genre, as the action mode is bound to frustrate and disappoint strategy fans.

Sk8land looks slick and controls like a Tony Hawk game should, but its skate park designs are weak and its story mode missions lack creativity.

Inconsistent presentation and licensing issues trip up Wallabies Rugby Challenge's run for the try line, but enjoyable gameplay and a wealth of modes give it a decent chance at life beyond the World Cup.

NFL Head Coach 09 delivers a deep and immersive coaching experience, provided you can overlook the outdated gameplay engine and lackluster presentation.

The Xbox Live Arcade version of Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, then, does a solid job of re-creating 1991's game, but falls short almost every time it attempts to improve upon or enhance it.

There's compelling dungeon-crawling action to be found here, hiding amid tedious puzzles and an awkward transfer from the DS.

The game doesn't buck the trend of mediocrity, offering a fairly unremarkable experience that puts you through the motions of the film's plot without capturing any of its essence.

Unless you're a devout Sonic fan, you probably haven't heard of most of the games included here--and, with a few exceptions, most of these games aren't really worth hearing about.

Audio and video in Borderlands 2 seem to push the limits of what the Vita can handle, but the system merely strains and does not break (though the game did crash once or twice in my dozen or so hours with it).

There are things to like and even possibly love about God of War: Sons of Sparta. The combat system is smart and layered, the visual style is often beautiful, and the story eventually becomes surprisingly rich. But it's difficult to recommend, because so much of the metroidvania design--the core of the genre that Kratos has found himself in--is like that frozen wasteland: slowly plodding through, just trying to reach the next warm spot where it's fun again.

It's unlikely that anyone other than King of Fighters fans will find much interest in Maximum Impact, but even they will be disappointed by certain key aspects of the game.

Lackluster gameplay makes this a disappointing conclusion to the Legend of Spyro series.

Almost a straight port of the original 2001 PC game, complete with a now-ugly graphics engine and sound effects that are completely primitive by today's standards. The game simply hasn't held up over time.

This PSP port of Ys: The Ark of Napishtim keeps pace with the hack-and-slash action, but long loading times and other issues mar the overall package.

Puzzle Kingdoms is a worthy addition to the growing list of puzzle/role-playing hybrid games.

The monsters may look interesting, but slaying beasts is way too easy in this forgettable role-playing game.

Shining Force Exa is fun for the first few hours, but it quickly wears out its welcome with dull combat and a frame rate that struggles to keep up with the action.

Once you see past the charming bobble-headed drivers and nods to F1, there's little here to hold your attention for long.

Intense in spots, Fire Warrior carries little of the punch found in the tabletop game due to a positively antediluvian shoot-'em-up design and lots of key hunts.

As a horror-tinged slaughterfest that vomits blood and bile on the face of modern first-person shooter convention, Hell & Damnation distills the essence of the Painkiller series into a tight, finely honed package.

Though Pop can be fun in short bursts, it isn't worth 700 Wii points ($7).

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.

Rayman Raving Rabbids is a fairly simple collection of minigames that manages to win you over largely on the merit of its personality.

Little Town Hero finds some success in avoiding some of the complex systems and tedious menus that can bog down other card games and RPGs, but it ends up suffering for it. Keeping your card options limited allows you to approach encounters with clever instead of relying on luck of the draw, but the deck size is too limited to break the mounting doldrum of subsequent fights. And while I did get to know this town pretty well, that's because of how small and suffocating it feels as it refuses to push outside its own boundaries.

Enchanted Arms is a capable and often enjoyable role-playing game, but it's also one that you'll likely forget as soon as you finish it.

While games like "Red Faction" offer a more polished and engaging experience, Fur Fighters holds its own with a quirky, refreshing style.

Fails to measure up, primarily because of maddening technical issues that impair user control.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has a lot of promise, but nothing in this game works out nearly as well as you'd hope.

Forget about flight-sim physics and just enjoy this dumbed-down take on air combat over the Pacific in World War II.

A fun game that will undoubtedly impress those who've never played the original.

Yonder is beautiful and relaxing, but only up to a certain point. It's great for the first few hours, wandering around and discovering new sights, but the world ultimately leaves you wanting more depth and personality to explore.

Commando: Steel Disaster takes its inspiration from some great side-scrolling action games, but it's too maddeningly difficult to be one itself.

Project Sylpheed is a short and needlessly complicated space shooter that gets by on its cutscenes more than its gameplay.

Hanging 10 in this movie-licensed surfing game has its moments--just don't expect to enjoy it for very long.

Touch-screen controls prove to be a double-edged sword in this alternately compelling and frustrating side-scrolling adventure.

NBA Live 07 is yet another case of a developer trying to shoehorn a console game onto a handheld with mixed results.

Akiba's Trip has a bizarre concept that might turn a few heads, but once you strip away the promiscuity, there's little left to keep your attention.

Nexuiz is a smart, speedy shooter for a great price.

Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is fun and varied, but suffers from some minor setbacks on the Vita.

As much as I appreciated the shift away from the crime investigation premise of Assassin's Creed Unity, sending Arno on a mere fetch quest turns Dead Kings into the blandest kind of open-world adventure, in which a man who used to be a hero is reduced to a mere errand boy.

A good brawler at its core, but the PC version is seriously lacking in comparison to its console counterparts.

Flaws like poorly blended animations, an erratic frame rate, a horribly flawed free-throw-shooting mechanic, and the lack of a franchise mode combine to keep NBA Live 06 from being the great basketball game it could have been.

It fails miserably at providing any sort of interesting story or characters that you care about. The levels are huge, but they're often bland or repetitive, and the game is riddled with design problems and bugs.

Unfortunately, the game suffers from imprecise controls, a lackluster presentation, a few bugs, and other issues that make it difficult to recommend.

Ratatouille for the DS serves up a lively mix of 3D levels and touch-screen cooking tasks, but it's over too soon.

While visually and aurally sound, and at times impressive, Harry Potter's GBA debut is neither innovative nor particularly compelling from a gameplay perspective.

The game does have its moments, but the racing simply isn't very exciting.

The core concepts found within the game are of a proven ilk, but the devil's in the details, as they say, and the sloppy execution of said concepts can't keep the game enjoyable for very long.

Despite its impressive graphics and excellent voice acting, the simplistic and monotonous nature of Stupid Invaders' gameplay manages to drag down an otherwise entertaining experience.

An interesting, stylish take on pinball wizardry that's just fine, considering its budget price. However, the designs of the different stages are a little lacking.

Still, while Head Coach is ultimately an imperfect football-management simulation, it is also, almost in spite of itself, a frequently fun one. Those with a penchant for serious football management are most certainly going to find things to like about it.

Star Trek Legacy for the Xbox 360 captures the grandeur and feel of the epic starship battles in the famous television series.

Tiny Brains might look adorable, but its short length and lack of imaginative puzzles will turn your wide grin into a questioning smirk.

Cool power-ups and a lot of charm make TNT Racers a bunch of shallow fun.

Gotham Knights acts as more of a cautionary tale than the logical next step for this storied universe. For a long time no one knew how to make a compelling Batman game, and then we got four of them in seven years. Taking what worked before while seeking to evolve it is admirable, but the obsession over loot is ill-conceived, cynical, and tasteless. It feels as though volume of content is given precedence over meaningful content, and for those that might enjoy the grind, the endgame's absence will be noticeable.

The Simpsons Game is exceptionally funny, but the hobbled Wii control scheme sucks out what little fun there was to be had with the gameplay.

Pollen’s visual design is beautiful and the atmosphere it creates is strong, but the game falls short when the narrative and storytelling method fail to give it substance.

This misguided expansion pack does the unthinkable: It makes Red Alert 3 boring.

Mario's latest athletic endeavor lacks the sort of skillful competition that could have made for a compelling challenge.

Zany flair puts a bit of wind in its sails, but One Piece: Pirate Warriors is still a shallow, tedious game.

Has some decidedly interesting qualities, and even though it's a relatively short game, it's still worth a look.

The game's use of first-person shooting sequences and other unusual gameplay elements, such as the helicopter's cloaking device, makes Fire Blade an interesting and involving game to play.

Offers a refreshing and entertaining experience that successfully evokes a sense of what it might have been like to live a life of danger and adventure on the high seas.

Road Rage suffers from a number of problems, not the least of which is bad collision detection. You'll often find yourself clipping a corner of a building or slamming into another car even though you have room to spare.

A competitive puzzle-strategy game that answers the question, "What if Tetris were a battlefield?"

A great-looking game, though the gameplay can start to wear thin pretty quickly.

Some disappointing graphics and unconvincing artificial intelligence for your German captors, as well as the game's brevity, make Prisoner of War more intriguing than wholeheartedly recommendable.

Xbox owners will be underwhelmed with this version of Unreal II because it plays and feels like a watered-down port.

Like Arbaaz himself, these great moments have a bad habit of vanishing into thin air when you least want them to, bit there is still a lot of fun to be had in this Indian adventure.

As it stands, investing in Ancestors' journey demands too much effort for too little reward.

Hot Brain's minigames are pretty good, but because there aren't very many of them, you might not get a lot of replay value.

The Phantom Fortress is full of lame minigames, occasional fights, and tons of repetition. Enter at your own risk.

A pretty good shooter overall, offering up a short but sweet single-player campaign and a decent botmatch mode for a little extra lasting value.

Mulaka is a simple game at heart with a lot of familiar traits. The open, low-poly landscapes and characters are reminiscent of Journey. The combat and puzzle elements are similar to Breath of the Wild and Okami. But thanks to the specific Tarahumara setting and characters, Mulaka still manages to have a personality and feel all its own.

Wild ARMs XF features some ambitious design elements that fail to disguise its dull storyline, tedious gameplay, and draconian rules.

Murder in the Abbey may not be entirely original, but it's an adventure with a lot of personality.

Pinball Hall of Fame looks good, controls well, and should be a no-brainer as an addition to your library if you're a fan of simulated pinball.

The time and care it put into those cinematics is obvious, so it's disappointing that the gameplay and its bugs--issues that existed in the Vita version--didn't receive the same level of attention.

It's hard to resent a game as unapologetically dweeby as The Sinking City. It's an old-fashioned, bookish mystery rooted in the mythology and mysteries of a pulpy, cult-favorite mid-century American novelist--an effort not without charm, to be sure. But no matter how fond your affection for H.P. Lovecraft and the idea of a wide-eyed, slow-burn literary adventure, the poor design, cliched writing, and lumbering pace make this far more tedious than delightful, let alone unsettling or terrifying.

Corruption 2029 is a strange, underwhelming followup.

The shrugworthy Legacy add-on extends Dragon Age II but doesn't improve upon it.

The graphics are sharp, the physics are accurate, and the amount of customization available is impressive. But the frustrating gameplay, relatively slow pacing, and anemic multiplayer mode make it hard to pick up and immediately enjoy.