One of the better billiards outings released for consoles in quite a long time.

It's a refreshingly focused online role-playing experience, and is an entertaining, polished game that, unlike so many others, manages to deliver on the underlying promise of an excellent concept.

The new nations offer up interesting variety and gameplay styles, while the new campaigns introduce the narrative drive and focus that the original campaign lacked. Thrones and Patriots is a highly enjoyable experience and an excellent expansion to an already outstanding game.

Depending on how you look at it, Lineage II offers either a repetitive grind or a stiff challenge. In any case, the game isn't suited for more casual players who may only have time to play for 30 minutes to an hour.

Onimusha 3 maintains the series' very high standards for production quality, and it features vastly improved controls, an entertaining premise, and Jean Reno, who's good in pretty much everything, including this game.

Unless you want to spend $20 to be bored to tears, you should stay away from Street Jam Basketball.

If you can forgive the game's dated-looking graphics, its rather basic gameplay model, and its comparative level of ease--which is, admittedly, a lot to forgive--you can have a good time with Serious Sam: Next Encounter.

Just another languid translation of the exact same game you've been playing since the days of the Dreamcast. Sudden Impact is pretty much on autopilot in every aspect of its execution, presenting just the bare minimum to make a playable UFC game.

Siren's dreamy, unsettling experience is ultimately marred by tedious trial-and-error-based design that makes it best suited to survival horror fans with a good store of patience.

Given that "Hitman 2" was such a huge improvement on the original, it's inherently somewhat disappointing that the new Hitman: Contracts is really just a rehash. It's more of the same, replete with everything that was good and everything that wasn't so good about the 2002 game.

Given that "Hitman 2" was such a huge improvement on the original, it's inherently somewhat disappointing that the new Hitman: Contracts is really just a rehash. It's more of the same, replete with everything that was good and everything that wasn't so good about the 2002 game.

Tightens the focus of the gameplay, delivering a rhythm action experience that's entertaining, if a little familiar.

Manhunt is seriously intense, and anyone with a stomach for the game's concept ought to find it fiendishly entertaining...An audacious game that backs up its extremely violent subject matter with solid stealth action gameplay.

Variety and customization are what people enjoy about the dungeon crawler genre, and Shining Soul II offers both in abundance.

Given that "Hitman 2" was such a huge improvement on the original, it's inherently somewhat disappointing that the new Hitman: Contracts is really just a rehash. It's more of the same, replete with everything that was good and everything that wasn't so good about the 2002 game.

Manhunt is seriously intense, and anyone with a stomach for the game's concept ought to find it fiendishly entertaining...An audacious game that backs up its extremely violent subject matter with solid stealth action gameplay.

Fans of modern shooters will have no use for this trite, monotonous junk, and fans of the original Space Invaders will simply be appalled at how Taito has butchered its classic gameplay into this one-dimensional mess.

It may look a lot like its predecessors, but all of these new features give the game an unmatched feeling of authenticity.

It's a pity, then, that World Tour Soccer 2005 plays such an ugly version of the beautiful game that it's unlikely you'll play it for long enough to see even half of what it offers.

A deep and enjoyable racing title with more racing variety than you're likely to find anywhere else on the market today--and at a meager price tag to boot.

With these changes, Massive Assault Network isn't so much a step forward as it is a step sideways--or even backward.

It offers up lots of spectacularly visceral, bloody, in-your-face action through its numerous, action-packed single-player levels. And it looks beautiful, it sounds great, and it's got a pretty good old-school multiplayer deathmatch mode, for good measure.

Ultimately, though, Serious Sam Advance comes up short because there just aren't enough levels to play.

If you can forgive the game's dated-looking graphics, its rather basic gameplay model, and its comparative level of ease--which is, admittedly, a lot to forgive--you can have a good time with Serious Sam: Next Encounter.

Terrible from top to bottom, suffering from bland, derivative gameplay, simplistic level design, brain-dead AI, and a buggy graphics engine that chugs even at low resolution.

A superb game that sounds great, looks impressive, and gets the most important element--playability--just right. No true PC soccer fan should buy into the EA FIFA machine this year without first investigating Konami's superb alternative.

The core mechanics are solid, and the addition of true online play is a compelling selling point.

There are still too many unpolished areas and simply not enough challenge to make the game appealing to anyone outside of the most devout Alias audience.