The artificial intelligence is improved and ball physics are much more realistic than in the first game, but while FIFA Street 2 makes a good first impression, it gets bogged down by unresponsive player controls and repetitive action.

Straight fights in C&C4 play a lot like a boxing match between two guys with iron jaws and teensy weensy hands. You and your opponent can pound away at each other till you're both spent like an addict's last dollar, but nobody's knocking anybody out.

Unfortunately, the creators of Rise of an Empire have managed to make a Settlers game so narrow in scope and so lacking in player control that it's only slightly more interactive than dropping fish flakes in with the Neon Tetras.

The real downside to this is that you can't fail. You'll always uncover the real criminal, and you never have to worry about contaminating evidence using incorrect procedures.

Graphically, it's the best that NASCAR has ever looked, but once you get past the pretty picture, you're left with a racer with plenty of holes.

Considering how nice the game looks, it's a shame that the flighty control spoils it.

As dense and nihilistic as the source material, but not nearly as thrilling.

A missed opportunity. It's not that it's a terrible game (the graphics are nice, the character designs are sufficiently anime), but after about five hours I realized I'd been bored out of my skull for the last three due to the massive repetition.

The core game is unsatisfying because of the control scheme that seems Hell-bent on ruining your wrists; all that waggling is good for precisely nobody.

In the cold light of day it's simply another FPS that falls halfway between memorable extremes.

If you or a person on your Christmas list would like an adventure game with a good short story and wouldn't mind a few old-school arcade moments, Atlantis Evolution might suffice, but it's far from being a must-play.

It's just that the really sloppy platforming and box-moving, which take up a good chunk of the game, puts a big damper on any joy that we might find in shooting up bandits and cowboys.

Far from a bad game, but it seems content with being merely adequate, and nothing more.

If you're a gambler and need something to wean yourself off of the online poker sites, then you could do far worse than playing with the relatively benign token system at Pogo.com. On the other hand, if you're a gamer looking for a compelling puzzle diversion, then you could do far better.

While it has the series' trademark snappy dialogue, sultry vixens, and more double entendres than a classic Rodney Dangerfield routine, it's missing one thing: the fun. The mini-games dragged after only a few hours, and getting through the game felt like a chore.

Not quite as bad as the movie, but it is most certainly in the same ballpark.

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.

All we get here is more of the potential and less of the execution, when it would be better off the other way around.

As expected, Tony Hawk Ride is an experiment -- an interesting and ambitious experiment, but one that doesn't come together as a fully functional experience.

Unfortunately, while the "big-picture" ideas manage to work, the game ends up being brought down by a number of annoying little details that make individual battles less fun than they might otherwise be.

I found myself eager for Hotline Miami to end before it did (after about eight hours) and had little desire to return to improve my scores.

As much as we enjoyed playing Katana, we really can't recommend it to most gamers. While the Wii Remote sword combat is the best we've seen yet, there are other games on the horizon that will likely do it better ("Dragon Quest: Swords" or "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed" perhaps?).

I can't imagine anyone but diehard fans going to these lengths. Everyone else should stick to Atari's game that's based on Transformers Armada -- it's still the best way to wage a battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons.

There's just not enough new content to justify this expansion.

The level design and longevity just isn't there to make this more than a rental or a bargain-big pick-up -- especially with God of War II's release closing fast. This rider is anything but the leader of the pack.

But New Blood's single-player experience has all of the frustration of the original without the promise of eventual success. It's all stick and no carrot.

Those who have always looked at the Neverwinter Nights series as a glorious toy they can tear apart and reconstruct into their own D&D fantasies are going to be very happy with what comes in this installment. If you've come to uncover the mystery of the "Storm of Zehir," you might want to stay indoors until the shower passes.

Hopefully Bond's next foray into the gaming world will deliver an authentic and compelling Bond experience, not just a decent but too-short shooter with some fancy window dressing.