Subpar gameplay, graphics and presentation.

There's just not enough skill, diversity, or excitement involved in Savage Skies, and certainly not enough incentive to keep slogging through the repetitive missions.

MLB Slugfest 2006 isn't going to revolutionize baseball games, but even at less than half the price of the competition, it still can't be recommended.

A mediocre effort, falling short of the mark set by "Twisted Metal" and its heartier clones.

The problem with 08 is that it's not all that different from 07. Other than the chance to jump behind the wheel of the Car of Tomorrow or the ability to save races at any point -- which is cool -- there's not a whole lot that's shiny and new about it.

As excellent as the Square-sponsored source material is, the game is about as generic and bland as you can get.

If you have the means, then for goodness sake, stick with the Wii version of Raving Rabbids. It's a far more enjoyable (and prettier) experience.

As nightmares go, this one ranks right up there with the one about entering the schoolyard pantsless, and perhaps even on fire. The turtles deserve better, and its unfortunate this game extends their bad luck streak.

Coded Arms: Contagion might stave off boredom for a while with its relatively attractive engine, recycled hacking mechanics and obsessive upgrading, but its virtually pointless encounters and drab, forgettable air conspire to make it little more than fodder for buyer's remorse.

It seems a shame that Volume Two ends before it really begins. The potential for a fantastically unnerving gaming experience is cut way too short.

Sometimes a budget title is just a budget title, and in this case you really do get what you pay for.

It has a simplistic hand-to-hand fighting system, a jerky, broken camera, crappy, jarring level designs, and horrifically frustrating platforming elements. It pretty much just fails at emulating the combat-heavy action games that have inspired it, and you'll constantly remind yourself of this as you play.

The ease of defense and careful consideration that must be paid to offense is refreshing. However, there are a host of issues, the pathfinding in particular, that turn what should be an entertaining game into a title best left on the shelf.

Between the simple card system, the short length, and the anime look, Fighter's Battle feels like a game that was meant to get younger players interested in the Dynasty Warriors series. Longtime fans may be irked by these changes and the lack of a story, but it's still a DW game at heart.

Not as mediocre as "Red Steel," but it doesn't seem like it's significantly better than what the distinctly average "Call of Duty 3."

All In seems like Crave's attempt to bet the farm on nothing more than a high card. The few improvements the game makes over last year's entry pale in comparison to its shortcomings.

Too linear to be challenging for expert gamers, and with a learning curve that dips into boredom exponentially the longer you play it, this is a perfect rental for your ADD-riddled nephew -- and him only.

Like "Solomon's Key" for the NES, with the frustration level turned up by ten degrees. If you can get by the gameplay limits put in place by the developers, then you might enjoy this title. I could not.

If you're a Disney fan, you'll be disappointed by the lack of any real Disney-ness to the game. Other than the grainy images of Mickey and crew, you get no sense of the characters' personalities, voices, or quirks. If you're a racing fan, the game's dreadful camera takes away any potential for high-speed fun and action.

Suffers almost out of the gate by a lack of game modes and the ridiculously tough AI.

Every facet of the core gameplay is plain, making Barnyard for the GBA the most forgettable kind of throwaway entertainment. It's too bad, because it had the potential to be more than the usual mediocre film tie-in.

Something that only a true fan could appreciate. If this isn't an indicator to KOEI to let this series move on to greener pastures, I don't know what is.

The game is short -- way too short. A halfway decent player is going to spend more time watching the movie than playing through the story mode.

Lightsaber Duels may not be exactly what fans were clamoring for when Nintendo unveiled the Wii's lightsaber-esque controllers, but it's still quite enjoyable. The single-player experience won't last you long, though, so you might not want to invest in the game unless you plan on playing with a buddy.

There are fleeting moments of fun in Reign of Fire, but they're quickly smothered beneath lame level design, wretched controls, and a surprising lack of intensity, considering all the dragons and missiles and fire and whatnot.

Addictive fun in solo mode and true social comedy with a few people in the room. Spend the forty bones and enjoy.

The third-person perspective is a bust, and the gameplay is often too linear and tedious. On the bright side, fans of police procedurals and Law & Order in particular should find the cases interesting to unravel.

If you or a kid you know loves Sonic, this game will suit your purposes just fine. If you don't love Sonic, but love any racing title you can get, then check it out. If you don't fall into either of those categories, then we're sure you're probably not even reading this review.

If a sequel comes along with a greater variety of mini-games, more playable characters, and plenty of new dialogue (the two hosts' back-and-forth conversations get old quick), we'll be happy to play it. With this one, however, you might want to wait for a price drop before joining this party.

We can't forget the single-player game that's over in less than three hours once you've learned the routes of each mission, a series of me-too mini-games that offer no reason to play them, and an offensively small number of rewards. That's the DRIV3R package; all flash and no substance. [*Reminder: GameSpy equates 2 stars with 60/100.]

This game could have been the be all and end all for Trek fans and action gamers alike instead of the sad capstone to a long history of crappy licensed video games.

It's still not nearly enough to save what is a fundamentally bad shooter. The smartest thing GamersFirst did was make APB: Reloaded free-to-play, allowing players to find out for themselves without the upfront cost.

I like the RPG elements and the ways Koei gets the most out of an interesting-but-modest engine.

A mediocre FPS that fails to make good use of the Serious Engine.

An entirely average platform romp skewed for a dumbed-down audience that doesn't live up to expectations.

If I didn't know any better I would say the developer purposely sabotaged this one in order to make the Xbox look bad.

Everything on offer is either not worth checking out or is better experienced in its original form. As a result, EA Replay fails to justify its existence, much less its $20 price tag.

The whole thing is very goofy, funny, weird, and cute... If you're looking for a fast-paced, simple fighter with appealing graphics and an unusual sense of humor, Zatch Bell! is definitely worth your time.

A half-hearted attempt to make the game even more ubiquitous than it already is. Very little effort was put into making it a compelling experience in its own right, and thus, you have very little incentive to experience it.

When compared to "Sim Golf," this game isn't as refined, isn't as addictive, and simply isn't as much fun.

Basically, it's for the young-ins that aren't tall enough to peer at the DDR monitor: a harmless sort of Dance Dance Junior, and not much more.

NOLF fans will likely find it lacking most of the series' charm, and as an action title, it feels strangely unpolished, falling victim to any number of basic problems.

When you're not being underwhelmed by Sorcerer's Stone, you'll be infuriated by it.

SMBA's biggest flaw is that it expanded the scope of the series' traditional gameplay without retaining its laser-like focus on solid game design.

If you go into Touch the Dead with low expectations, they'll probably be met. If you're expecting something on the level of Resident Evil: Deadly Silence or the House of the Dead franchise, prepare for disappointment, because this is one zombie game that will make you want to eat your own brain.

Cut out about 50% of the units, make the maps smaller and tighten up the bleeding edges to make a new strategic model and we might really have something. The pacing's right, the idea's right, but stuffing the entire PC version of Supreme Commander onto the 360 is just more than the poor machine can handle.

Yet another superhero game for the junk pile, ripe with so many run-of-the-mill bullet-points that even diehard fans will be turned off.

Alexander isn't a matter of taste; it's a matter of functional incapacity. If you're looking to get your fix in this historical period, there are plenty better and recent arrivals.

Don't get us wrong, we understand that Tenchu sucks, but some of us happen to like it regardless of its faults and it is those die-hard fans that will find Tenchu Z to be the most rewarding of the entire series.

I don't know whether Studio Gigante isn't capable of developing a good wrestling game, or if the new engine is flawed. Whatever the reason, this game is Grade A, 100% jabroni.

It's challenging, the graphics are beautiful, and the gameplay is easy and accessible.

In part, Skin wants to be a party game, but the multiplayer modes do very little to expand on the solo game. You'll find run-of-the-mill split-screen competitive modes and the occasional variation on tag, but the underlying mechanics are all identical to what's in the solo missions.

Monster Bomber's gameplay is too picky and arbitrary-feeling to really develop a flow, and it ends up feeling like a once-simple concept has gotten stretched to the point of distracting complication.

Make no mistake about it: It truly feels as though the camera in this game hates you and wants you to die. Enemies attack from off-camera. Players can't see what's around the corner. And God forbid there's an important jump that needs to be made.

This game is good for a quick robot violence fix or if you happen to be a huge Gundam fan, but that's about it.

The use of dragons as player-characters offers a unique perspective to the action-RPG genre, and it's stable and attractive. Even in a weak year for single-player RPGs, however, it's not enough; it simply doesn't offer enough gameplay elements to make it worth a purchase.

This expansion seems to ignore most of what was good in the original and instead concentrate on fast-paced, frustrating, and nearly mindless action.

If you're dying to play a business sim in which customers regularly toss their cookies, you'll have more fun with the "Rollercoaster Tycoon" series than this mess of a game.

Unfortunately, there isn't much to this game's rendition of New York that hasn't been done better in other games.

If you judge TMNT on its own merits as a platform-hopper with a dash of semi-imaginative combat thrown in, then it's a fine game.

It's clear from the bare-bones multiplayer, glitchy graphics and incredibly short storyline that Haze is a game interrupted.

If you or a kid you know loves Sonic, this game will suit your purposes just fine. If you don't love Sonic, but love any racing title you can get, then check it out. If you don't fall into either of those categories, then we're sure you're probably not even reading this review.

Unfortunately, for my rapidly dwindling sanity, the PC version not only retains the basic gameplay, erratic camera, and simplistic level design of the original, it tops off that witch's brew of gaming mediocrity with a whole passel of problems unique to the PC version.

This isn't really a fun toy, either, but more like one of those Fisher-Price "busy boxes" for young kids: Hit a button and it makes a noise; turn this knob and listen to the Pikachu say its name, etc.

A derivative, repetitive and shallow tie-in that fails to capture the dynamic energy of the comic or the film.

The decision to reinvent it as an urban street racer wasn't a smart one. The gangsta-ization of things ends up giving PSP owners a forgettable gaming concept and gameplay that's only memorable for its rough spots.

Despite a few nice features and a cool graphical style (pixel art is pretty awesome), the lame microgames outweigh the good ones by a hefty margin.

Naruto: Ninja Council 2 isn't an awful game, but it doesn't do anything particularly well, either. It's strictly for the most die-hard fans of the show, and even they may find themselves growing bored with the game after a while.

The problem with the single-player experience is that the AI is horrible in two major ways.

While it's acceptable as a diversion, the action and atmospheric elements are too much at odds with one another.

One thing I will say is that Acclaim has the beginnings of a game engine and gameplay model that could really kick some serious butt if they just take the time to implement more modes and tweak what's already there.

There's a fair amount to like about SCT3, but its greatest weakness is that there are two other games out there that stack up extremely well against it.

Bullet Witch just doesn't have the legs to last more than a few days. That's a dreadful pity too, because with a little more attention to detail and some good old-fashioned craftsmanship, it might have been a winner.

Crawling across the forest floor to tag a one-shot kill on a guard whose head was barely visible in a tower at 186 meters is a thrill unlike any other.

There are far too many gameplay, graphics, and presentation problems. I would say that the game is minor league, but that would be an insult to the guys in the AHL.

If you are a diehard horror fan, you can probably live with the shortcomings.

Seems to have fallen victim to the gaming equivalent of Darwinism. By not evolving with the changing times, the GunGriffon franchise looks like it may have finally gone the way of the dodo.

Even though the difficulty ramps up dramatically halfway through Career mode, dedicated gamers will be able to complete the whole thing in a day, if they don't get tired of fighting the poorly designed controls before then.

Warfighter was clearly rushed out the door to get the jump on Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and suffers for it.

It's a predictable, run-of-the-mill RPG with a plain vanilla story. The new graphics engine does, however, add some flair to the game's legacy.

It isn't "Counter-Strike," but it is a good way to waste an evening or two.

A barely playable disappointment that'll spend less time in the hands of gamers than it will in the hands of the lawyers representing Lady Miss Kier.

Super Bubble Pop isn't super, but its soundtrack is.

I honestly don't remember playing a wrestling game with an engine this bad in years, and I've played quite literally every wrestling game out there.

While Ballers hits from long-range with pretty graphics and plenty of Cribz-esque intros and unique elements, it clangs off the rim a bit with its Chosen One storyline execution.

Picky gamers will surely turn their backs, but Cake Mania is not designed for them: in the hands of a casual audience it can be enjoyed little by little, maybe going back to that particularly hard level after a few months or so, just to give it another try.

The developers manage to hit a few high notes in their debut title but overall, Fighting Legends Online falls flat.

When a game plays this poorly, authenticity doesn't save it. Rugby 2004 stinks of repackaged horror from the dawn of 3D gaming.

A tragically missed opportunity.

Having unlocked doors relock themselves if you move too far off-screen is kind of lame, and having a platoon of laser-firing stormtroopers materialize out of thin air around your character is really lame.

A mediocre average effort, falling short of the mark set by Twisted Metal and its heartier clones.

It would be nice to see Capcom do something a little more radical with this series, but we've probably got another three or four indistinguishable sequels to get through before there's even a chance of that happening. It's still a fine enough game, but the played-out presentation and quest full of repetitive backtracking and fetch quests fail to excite.

We were hoping for more from The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and we're disappointed that the game didn't do more with such a powerful license. Star Wars: Battlefront hasn't aged very well, and to get essentially the same game with a different theme left us wanting more.

I had a good time playing it for the first hour or so. But after that, the lack of originality and the repetition of the game really started to wear on me.

That dark, propulsive song is a great mood-setter, but some memorable ambience can't fully make up for frustrating and uninspired missions, clunky combat, a horrible save system, and other flaws.

Little more than a generic game with little to no flavor of its own. Unless you're a diehard Warhammer fan, Battle for Atluma doesn't have much to offer.

The game is short -- way too short. A halfway decent player is going to spend more time watching the movie than playing through the story mode.

Almost fun enough, but overall too shallow to be worth a solid purchase to anyone.