A by-the-numbers movie-licensed game that makes pretty good use of its source material without really doing anything too surprising. It's perfect for kids.

An interesting take on a classic concept, but as with many reinterpretations of canonical standards, it isn't better than its source material.

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.

It's not the most visually astounding game, but it finds middle ground between being a rigid sim and a strap-in-and-stomp-it arcade racer.

A worthy enough "sequel" to the original and can deliver an adequate number of thrills, though nothing unique or surprising.

This budget-priced bonus pack features several additions to the original game, but it also exists as a playable, stand-alone product--albeit one that isn't as interesting on its own as it is when combined with the original.

Despite being a rough composite of a half dozen other first-person shooters without much personality of its own, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter is still pretty good.

Fans of last year's game won't find much more than a roster update and a few minor gameplay tweaks in NFL Fever 2003, while new players will find in it a fairly entertaining, though unrealistic, game of football.

It certainly looks great, and it can be fun.

Top Spin 2 offers an authentic and deep portrayal of tennis, along with a decent selection of player modes and real-life players.

But the game design doesn't take full advantage of the huge city, so instead you'll usually end up repeating the same half-dozen or so tasks over and over again, with some unique challenges thankfully sprinkled in to keep things moving.

It's a short and generally simple game with only a few difficult sections, but it emulates the show's style of criminal investigation almost perfectly, and you can't really ask for much more than that from a game called Law & Order.

It certainly is a good arcade-style driving game, but it's nowhere near as fun as the PlayStation 2 version.

Though Xyanide plays similarly to various classic arcade shoot-'em-ups, it's got its own strange twists and style that are worth experiencing by fans of similar games.

A good third-person action game that's pretty straightforward but has a few nice twists.

With its simple, turn-based battles, storybook universe, and saccharine characters, Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana feels like a throwback to the glory days of the SNES role-playing games--which is the best thing that can be said for a game like this.

This basic game receives some nice updates in its "refuelled" mode, but it's still best suited for those who hold some shred of nostalgia for the original game.

There are a number of things that EA Sports could have improved upon from the previous game, but this series is still far and away the best for anyone looking for a traditional football game on Nintendo's popular handheld.

If you're frustrated by simulations, ESPN MLS GameNight is the game for you.

If you do have a Transfer Pak, want to get more out of Gold or Silver, and enjoy a lot of battling, then Stadium 2 is a complete package and is definitely worth picking up.

Apex's drab driving and painfully dim AI drivers drag down an otherwise interesting idea.

It's a bare-bones product that's a missed opportunity, offering no compelling reasons to make it recommendable over the PC version, except to someone with an Xbox Live account and a completely outdated PC.

Once again, the Empires expansion of Koei's long-running hack-and-slash action series turns out to be the bright spot amid the doldrums of endless button-mashing, thanks to some legitimately interesting strategy.

Although the game is so fundamentally similar to "Patrician II" that those who own the previous game have little reason to pick it up at full-price, the feature additions refine the open-ended gameplay by removing some of the micromanagement and by providing more significant milestones to achieve later in the game.

It's that multiplayer competitive spark of screaming at and/or cheering for your friends that injects life into these often-simple little games, and without it, they're just simple little games. The less-social gamer might want to rent.

The classic gameplay remains largely the same, and although certain elements haven't weathered the years all that well, fans of the series and dedicated RPG junkies will get good mileage out of this one.

The transition to the more measured pace of a turn-based battle system is handled surprisingly well, and while the game is too short and too simplistic, there's still a good time to be had here for Mega Man X fans.

If you're willing to forgive its brain-dead gameplay and occasionally frustrating design, Magna Cum Laude is a hysterically entertaining romp through the world of wacky sexual hijinks.