Luckily, the shooting wins out over the moralizing and helps make Men of Valor one of the few games to successfully tackle the Vietnam War.

Plays just as well as its console cousin, with the additional advantage of some gorgeous graphics.

Difficult to recommend even to fans of the team, because, unlike Alex Ferguson's world-class squad, the game doesn't play an attractive, realistic, or even challenging game of soccer.

A decent dungeon crawler that invests some energy into lampooning RPGs and high fantasy in general, but like a stand-up act about airline food or the line at the post office, its perspective isn't very interesting, and it lacks any real follow-through.

With its strong story, well-written dialogue, terrific voice cast, impressive graphics, great in-game sound, and extremely entertaining and varied gameplay, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a stupendous thrill ride that shouldn't be missed.

If not for some of the glaring bugs, Frontier would have delivered a truly excellent sequel to a beloved franchise.

Pacific Fighters uses the acclaimed IL-2 Sturmovik engine to simulate this epic conflict, but unfortunately it turns out to be the biggest letdown of the series.

Although it offers newcomers two brand-new species to play as, Jump to Lightspeed (like so much of the content added to the game in recent updates) has been designed to reward dedicated, hardcore players rather than appeal to new ones, and that's exactly what it does.

A game that you can't help but have fun with, but which might be best rented for parties and suchlike given its bundled-with-a-peripheral price tag and somewhat limited single-player appeal.

Plays a solid game of basketball, but even the flashy new features can't hide the fact that it isn't a huge step up from last year's edition.

A dungeon hack of the most boring kind. You'll have the most fun farming for items, but that is predicated on an enjoyment of the simplistic, dull combat, the constant repetition of dungeons, and overall tedium.

There's some nostalgic gameplay here, but by and large GTA Advance just isn't much fun.

Between getting the fundamentals right and offering up a boatload of extra features, this literally is the only chess video game you'll ever need to buy for the forseeable future.

It sports the most fully featured online multiplayer mode of any fighting game yet, which is a huge accomplishment.

A decent dungeon crawler that invests some energy into lampooning RPGs and high fantasy in general, but like a stand-up act about airline food or the line at the post office, its perspective isn't very interesting, and it lacks any real follow-through.

Ace Combat 5 isn't the huge step for the series that "Ace Combat 04" was, but it's still a great flight combat game, featuring grueling arcade-style action and plenty of surprises both in its mission design and its story.

And like any good puzzle game, Dr. Mario's addictive style of gameplay has stood the test of time; the inclusion of wireless networking capability adds even more value.

This is a well-produced port of an excellent game, and even though it probably would have been better served as part of a collection than as a stand-alone product, you could certainly find a number of worse ways to spend $20 for your GBA.

It's easy to see how certain aspects of Metroid's design made it a classic, but 18 years later, the overall package just doesn't measure up to today's action adventure standards.

While it may not offer the sophistication of other racing games on the market, OutRun2 has an old-school sensibility that makes it both appealing and addictive. A wealth of content and an online mode add to the game's great value as well.

A good expansion to the original game. It's true that the new missions feel like ones you've already played before, and it's also true that major micromanagement and AI problems--again--rear their ugly heads.

This just isn't an especially engaging game, so it's unlikely that anyone past the youngest of audiences will get too much fun from it.

So even if bawdy caricatures of rednecks and dominatrices don't sound immediately appealing to you, Outlaw Golf 2 offers a tight, challenging game of golf with some unique gameplay ideas, and it comes at a price that makes it a terrific value.

Retains much of its predecessor's unique and awe-inspiring style, thanks to a great new cast of characters, some completely new types of challenges, and a presentation that's second to none.

Pumped & Primed's minigames are all quite simplistic, and the single-player portion of the game can be completed in five or six hours. However, with a multitap and the right group of friends, there's no reason you shouldn't have some fun with it.

It's rare that a game's bonus features are more compelling than its main play mode, but that's definitely the case with the GBA version of Tron 2.0: Killer App.

This just isn't an especially engaging game, so it's unlikely that anyone past the youngest of audiences will get too much fun from it.

The stages themselves are filled with over-the-top shooting action and twitch gameplay, so they're good for some kicks, even if Neo Contra ultimately doesn't provide much depth or challenge.