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.

There might not be any innovation here, but there's still some fun to be had. Just don't expect much more than what you're used to getting.

One gets the feeling that the show's creators are trying to wash their hands of Via Domus, awkwardly placed as it is in the series' now-sprawling legendarium. But above and beyond that, fans should approach it as a lark; it's not very accomplished as a game.

This game seems to be yet another victim of "let's concentrate on making the console versions good and just crank out a portable version in order to generate a few extra bucks."

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

While technologically more advanced than its predecessor, Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick proves to be no deeper or innovative than "Hail to the King."

All of this would be excusable if the game's mechanics and level designs were interesting, but they're not -- it's baseline stuff.

While the experience isn't particularly compelling, you can conceivably play Circle of Doom for hundreds and hundreds of hours.

After six nearly identical Mega Man Battle Network games and one followup that was presumed to reboot the series (but didn't, really), is it any surprise that Mega Man Star Force 2 is pretty much the same game that Capcom has been churning out for the past seven years?

It's important to note that there are some very solid fundamental designs at work here, and an entertaining game can be found if you have the patience to stomach the painful technical issues and the small user base that currently plagues Fury. In a best-case scenario, Fury's population would quadruple in the next six months, and with a larger community, some of the player-matching issues would clear up.

All in all, Cold War Conflict doesn't offer much except cut corners and a genuinely frustrating experience.

Overall, it's just a confusing, poorly conceived product that should set off a consumer's "money grab" senses.

This is adventure gaming for lazy gamers who don't mind being led around on a leash.

A sometimes overwhelming game that lacks the simplicity of the genre's most addictive titles.

I occasionally caught glimpses of a competent simulation underneath the bugs, poor instruction, and rage-inducing interface, but not even the best of today's strategy games would be tolerable to play if subject to the malfunctioning saves, crashes, and sloppy presentation of Port Royale 3.

While there's some fun to be had with Mario Party Advance, and quite a few great game-playing aspects, it's a bit tedious and tired when you look at the slew of other excellent multiplayer games have been released for the GBA.

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.

You can randomize population (electoral votes), wealth, issue importance, and demographics, but all this does is divorce Political Machine 2012 from context even more. There are historical and social reasons for red state/blue state divides, reasons that Republicans tend to be more successful in rural, poorer states, reasons that certain issues may be more important to California and New York than they are in Georgia and Tennessee. But Political Machine 2012 is only interested in the game of presidential politics -- and unfortunately, it doesn't even do a good job with that game.

The generic nature of the challenges, graphics and controls forces me to propose that gamers try something else.

A good idea waiting to be fully realized and simply needs more depth to compete with the competition.

A step -- albeit a small one -- in the right direction for the series. The gameplay has been deepened, as has the career mode. Where it still needs work is in the presentation.