We’ve seen some competent shooters on the DS in the past, but C.O.R.E. barely fits the “competent” category. It works (more or less), and some will enjoy it, but its flaws are just too frustrating. With several other, better FPSes already on the DS, there just isn't much reason to go for C.O.R.E.

Eagle Eye Golf would be a decent game for 20 bucks. But at 30, when Hot Shots 3 and FORE! can be had at this moment for eight and 15 bucks respectively on EB.com, it's a tougher recommend.

Ultimately, the repetitive gameplay and limited scope show this old mech could use a tad more oil.

Clunky and unimaginative.

But if you’re not a huge fan of the existing franchise, there’s not much here to make it worth your while.

Is it fun to play for a few hours? Sure, but the novelty is bound to wear off due to all the repetition. As fun as it is to abandon the role of observer and actually jump into controlling your favorite character, not much here feels all that exhilarating.

Ninja Gaiden: Razor's Edge still remains the weakest title in the Ninja Gaiden trilogy, but additions like the Ayane missions and balancing tweaks make the game a decent, gloriously gory action title...The weak story, repeat enemies, and frame-rate issues still hold the bloody title back from the greatness of its prestigious pedigree.

Swings in multiple different directions without ever making a convincing impact. While Mario Golf: Super Rush isn't too rough in most places, it's just not on par compared to other recent golf games.

The newest Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games are perfect for players that adore Pokemon, love the grinding gameplay of dungeon crawling games, but would prefer a watered down version.

This sort of inoffensive and undeniably unique bite-sized offering should play well with families, and for the rest of us, we can only hope it's but a stepping stone on the path to richer and equally affordable Kinect experiences on the horizon.

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness wants to be a grand sci-fi JRPG, but its mediocre production values undercut it at almost every opportunity.

Out of the Shadows, sadly, only flirts with these past triumphs. Heavy flirting, maybe, but it’s too badly built of a game to live up to its strong potential.

At best, Civil War is a weekend rental for shooter fans, history buffs, or Achievement miners who aren't knee deep in this fall's blockbuster military games. Be prepared to learn a little and reload a lot - while the buckshot flies all around you.

Both shallow and a waste of a good property.

If you’re interested in Republique purely as a tech demo, its smooth animations, realistic models, and excellent touch-controls would have you raving. Unfortunately, the story is so shallow and the central character is so bland that, despite a top-notch supporting cast, Republique’s narrative simply can’t carry the weight of the game.

Even with the aid of the magnifying glass, the pacing of Tunguska's plot still crawls at a snail's pace.

Handheld Madden shines brightly this season, just not on the DS. If you're ready for some portable football, the PSP version is by far the best choice.

But with its new fangled attempt at first-person shootage - accompanied with awful zooming, crouching and strafing - makes TC4 a technical failure in addition to being exquisitely ugly.

But if you’re not a huge fan of the existing franchise, there’s not much here to make it worth your while.

If this truly is the end for our old friend, it ain't the way we'd want to see anyone go out. We all deserve better.

Even as a diversion for the younger set, this game just doesn't have any staying power.

It’s absolutely functional and undeniably one of a kind, the product of a truly creative mind - but it’s so atypical and requires so much effort to appreciate that very few will find it truly worthwhile.

Even casual gamers will breeze through this game in about five hours. You can replay levels to find all the hidden dragon eggs, but with unlockables consisting of mini-documentaries on the making of the game, replay value is very low for this title.

The good part of all this is, the game is very rarely boring. What’s happening onscreen is always dumb, sometimes infuriating and often crap, but there’s always something happening.

The battle system, however complicated, works - but it's just not that fun, and the sense of savage satisfaction that comes from finally winning a battle after numerous failures isn't enough to make up for the frustration.

Everything surrounding the long-range shooting makes this far from a satisfying experience. The muddy visuals, cheesy dialogue, predictable level design, and lacking multiplayer leaves plenty to be desired.

This concept is undeniably evocative and cool; unfortunately, the game isn't especially fun to play.

The combat is challenging - you'll need to upgrade each fighter, purchase combos and experiment on enemies to find what moves they're weak against. The special powers, on the other hand, are kind of a bore with onscreen icons showing where they can be used to achieve obvious results.

It’s sad to watch a once-proud franchise struggle...It is, literally, the same exact game as MLB 2K12 with updated rosters, schedules, and uniforms.

Tales of Xillia 2 is a frustrating brew of boring JRPG tropes and needlessly repetitive busywork. Don’t let this be the first Tales game you start with.

The game is about trying to get through the simple fights just a bit faster than the other guy. We like that the other guy is a warlord with an infinite supply of loyal soldiers willing to die for him, but repetitive gameplay is a bit too much for us to bear.

A complex story attempts to give meaning to each quest, but even the most hardcore 4Xers will feel betrayed by Elemental. There's very little to love here, and it's so unbalanced and frustratingly crippled no magic will fix it.

Another thing keeping this from being the snowmobile sim the masses have been clamoring for is the floaty nature of your vehicle. Constantly jostled by every little thing on the track, it feels more like a 10 pound hovercraft than an impressive feat of alpine ingenuity overflowing with horsepower.

The game will keep you charmed for awhile, and fans of the movie could appreciate the atmosphere enough to make the game worth picking up.

Possessor(s) takes a good story idea and builds its world well, then stretches it far too thinly over a mundane, buggy, and depressing Metroidvania template that just isn't fun for far too many hours. The story's decent, but so many similar games are demonstrably better.

This is a true classic - it just isn't a lot of fun to play.

Starts out strong, but falters. You’ll soon grow so bored with the repetitive boss fights and brain-numbing exploration that only the reveal of the next sex object will pique your interest.

Atomic Heart has a lot of big ideas, but it doesn't do a good enough job with the basics. With an incomprehensible storyline, weightless combat, and frustrating first-person platforming, Atomic Heart is left to stand in the shadow of the video games that so clearly inspired it.

The beautiful landscapes of India and a promising sense of movement aren't enough to save Chronicles India from hamstrung combat and tedious stealth. Close, but missed the ledge.

It’s actually a pretty fair price for what you get. But it’s hard to justify even that price when there’s surely something a bit more substantial coming to the service in the near future.

An action game with such gratingly imperfect action doesn't add up to much. BattleZone has its moments; we'd be lying if we said we didn't experience some fantastic moments during four-player games, but too often someone was complaining that he couldn't see anything just before he died, while someone else was noting how the tanks move slower than bicycles.

Unfortunately, the entire look of the game is marred by choppy graphics.

Marvel Rivals wants to reinvent the hero shooter genre with its complex characters and special synergies, but it's so preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths. Its oversized roster also needs more balancing – and more differentiation from Blizzard's stable of heroes.

Teen Titans is a short and unspectacular diversion for an audience that might be too young for more mature fare, and the price is certainly right, but those more discerning with their beat 'em-up dollars should hunt super-villains elsewhere.

As a whole, Minis on the Move feels like a bit like a bait and switch, ensnaring gamers familiar with the franchise's established gameplay, only to deliver something unexpected and not entirely satisfying.

Fallout 76 has glimmers of the trademark series’ sci-fi splendour, but they’re few and far between.

Another ludicrous spectacle, but Volition’s patchy action/comedy sandbox doesn’t prove to be a gangster’s paradise.

If you were asked to imagine a truly average open-world action-adventure in 2023, you'd likely come up with something like Atlas Fallen. If very little here is actually dreadful, not much more is original, or imaginative, or genuinely entertaining either, nor is it even especially polished. You've likely seen it all before, in other words. And if you haven't, there are better places to start.

As for the 3D, it's completely unnecessary and we turned it off quickly. Bust-A-Move is a 2D game through and through, and not only does 3D not add anything to the experience whatsoever, but it didn't look that great either.

Forspoken shines brightest when its protagonist is dipping, ducking, and diving along the generally striking world of Athia while casting a variety of spells, but the standard fish-out-of-water fantasy story of Frey only subtracts from the experience.

Knack doesn't really do anything exceptionally well, and squanders your willingness to like it by constantly working against you.

There's a fun game lurking underneath the surface here, but lazy voiceover decisions, overly-dry, didactic lectures between missions, and wall-punchingly frustrating ally AI keep the bright qualities of the game from shining through.

Spider-Man 3 is so by the numbers, so average that we just can't muster much enthusiasm. Comic fans'll hate the inconsistent power levels while hardcore gamers will balk at how unfinished it feels.

Everything about Madden 3DS is curious, from its timing (released well after the end of the NFL season) to its design (no multiplayer, no franchise) to its price ($40 when it should be half that). Our cynical side thinks it's an attempt to cash in on the excitement of a new handheld device, while our naïve side prefers to think of it as an honest attempt at meeting a deadline and having to prioritize.

You could probably leech out a weekend's worth of so-so gaming, and at 30 bucks, you'll still have plenty of cash to check out the upcoming film. It's bound to be more exciting than this.

Zombi is hardly a deluxe version of ZombiU, with numerous bugs and few graphical improvements. It's still a good survival game, but feels outdated and misses the Wii U Game Pad.

Team Sonic Racing, despite carrying a tidbit of fun, doesn't stand up to other kart racers today.

If you can play this on a computer, do so. If you already own The Sims 2 for PS2 and are considering paying full price again to get the Pets feature, don't.

The Elder Scrolls: Castles promises to put you in charge of your own castle and dynasty, and it certainly does, but managing your subjects, making rulings, crafting gear, and venturing outside to fight only to do all of the above again and again and again makes the new Elder Scrolls title lose its sheen sooner rather than later.

Even though most gameplay and options tend to be predictably consistent, The Art of Learning is a great tool for skill building and is put together in a simple easy to use package with something to offer everyone.

The Cartel has some interesting ideas behind it. However, too many of them are dependent on co-op, and even with them, long stretches of the game feel like boring, soulless slogs. More damagingly, the charm and sense of fun from the earlier games is largely gone, replaced with what appears to be a desire to ape the low-fi look and grittiness of Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric is too slow-paced, too easy, and too childish for teen or adult Sonic fans, and its control and design issues make it difficult to recommend even for its target audience.

For those who are truly desperate to gain any advantage they can in their vision - all the moneyed falconers and old men crossing the street out there - well, play it for a few weeks, but don’t be surprised if you spot an unwanted space in your wallet where twenty bucks used to be.

Drag x Drive makes a solid case for the Nintendo Switch 2's mouse control scheme, but it fails to make one for these wheelchair basketball matches themselves. Elegant steering doesn't mesh well with comparatively imprecise and messy tackling and shooting systems that range from too tricky to far too simple.

The best thing going for this hyper-violent pavement-pound is the epically bold badness of the unecessary storyline, concerning revolutionaries participating in Velocity Death Battles (VDBs, biatch!) to confuse a weather predicting machine hell-bent on controlling the human race. It makes the "Twisted Metal" canon look like Shakespeare.

Screamride has a pretty impressive roller coaster building suite and some satisfying destructible environments, but everything else - from the other gameplay modes to its presentation - is a total snore.

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a brilliant tech demo for an RPG system that has the potential to revolutionize the way we progress our characters in games, I just wish it there had been a little less proof of concept and a little more fun.

Brooktown has obvious charm and we do hope for a sequel, but it's going to need to hit the books hard before we'll give it a passing grade.

But even as a flawed game, Murder on the Orient Express still manages to draw you in with lush environments, a stellar score and top-notch voice acting (which manage to make most of the protracted conversations at least marginally interesting).

If you're determined to enjoy Two Worlds II you'll need superhuman pain tolerance and more free time than recess at Immortal Elementary.

A bland and occasionally baffling return for the Vampire: The Masquerade series.

There are moments of fun to be had with the game, particularly when the narrative hits its stride, but with little variety in the quests you’ll be taking on, and no real depth to the combat, the experience grows old very quickly, making it a difficult recommendation.

In terms of low-budget games, you could do way worse than MCD. If you're one of the sad few who has missed out on the Modern Warfare craze due to financial issues or you simply want another game that's Move compatible, then MCD should fit well within your budget. The game isn't spectacular, but it has enough bells and whistles to keep you occupied.

Sure there is some gem of PvP in there somewhere, but you have to work far too hard to get there.

One Piece: Unlimited Adventure takes the scavenger hunt approach too far. You spend way more time chopping up shrubs in search of raw materials than you ever do fighting soldiers or following the story.

Although a great initial distraction for Potterheads, the novelty of Harry Potter Quidditch Champions fades to reveal a competent yet insubstantial grind-a-thon. With questionable voice acting, childish animation, and a flimsy campaign to blitz through in three hours flat, even the biggest Wizarding World fans will struggle to stay engaged – unless staring down the barrel of another battle pass appeals to you.

There's a half-decent time to be had bashing your way around Stranger of Paradise's dungeons, but routine level design, rough edges and messy narrative delivery stop the experience evolving into a compelling adventure. Despite its efforts to create ordered systems, chaos has the final word.

Visions of Mana would be forgettable if it weren't janky in ways few modern AAA games are, making for an action RPG with little desire to be unique. But its series of bewildering design choices and faulty execution does technically make it stand out.

If you can get past the poor physics – or at least accept them – and you plan to play almost exclusively multiplayer, it’s decent. Otherwise, it’s not really worth your 10 bucks.

Though occasionally likable and basically inoffensive, Mario Strikers: Battle League struggles to build on its ideas and ends up feeling pretty undercooked as an experience.

Both shallow and a waste of a good property.

An otherwise serviceable boxing game on the Wii that doesn't work with the motion controls, which is the whole appeal of playing a boxing game on the Wii.

It's dull, with rare moments of huge reward, and the only game it's competing with in the graphics department came out about 10 years ago, but it is not poorly designed.

There are better satires of gaming in other forms, and they likely won't leave you feeling kind of dirty afterwards.

You know, there's a little thing called the multitap that allows four people to play the same PS2 game. For whatever reason, you PS2 owners only get to hook up with one other gamer, as two-player split-screen is the option you're given. You may not be fighting over who gets to play anyway, but the feature would have been nice.

It's dull, with rare moments of huge reward, and the only game it's competing with in the graphics department came out about 10 years ago, but it is not poorly designed.

Ragnarok Odyssey Ace learned its tricks in the school of MMO fundamentals, and though character customizations are initially fun, the shine quickly wears off in the face of levels and battles as repetitive as they are unrewarding.

Jaws: Ultimate Predator isn't a good game by any stretch (although it's still more interesting than the bloodier 3DS version). It's ugly, clumsy and buggy, and will hugely disappoint anyone who's just looking to play as a giant shark that messily eats people. For all its faults, however, it's still surprisingly competent.

There's a few notable characters and story beats in Murdered: Soul Suspect, but they're completely overshadowed by unremarkable gameplay and shoddy production values.

This is a racing game that's not fun. It's basic, tasteless, and doesn't use any creativity with its cool cars it's focusing on in the game.

The very definition of mediocre. The storyline isn't integral enough to the gameplay experience to really snag fans, and the gameplay won't do much for anyone else.

If you’re interested in Republique purely as a tech demo, its smooth animations, realistic models, and excellent touch-controls would have you raving. Unfortunately, the story is so shallow and the central character is so bland that, despite a top-notch supporting cast, Republique’s narrative simply can’t carry the weight of the game.

A bit of stylus-powered frog-in-a-ball rolling occasionally interrupts the bounding, but even this is clumsily controlled, with mad stroking more likely to erode your DS screen than get the spherical spawn of the devil to respond.

Neither great nor terrible, Crisol: Theater of Idols lands with a wet, inoffensive plop precisely between the two. It largely fails as a horror and struggles as a shooter, but stands solidly as a curiosity that follows its own rules.

It’s really too bad that Afro Samurai is bogged down by nagging annoyances, because the core game is actually decent, if not spectacular. If it had a healthy dose of polish it would be a solid rental (but not full-price purchase).

Despite a decent story, a great combat system, and a large, non-linear world to explore, Lightning Returns' tedious structure makes seeing this journey through to its end a laborious grind.

If you absolutely must get your hands on a next-generation RPG now, give it a shot, but don't be surprised if these Arms feel weak.

Serial Cleaners' main problem is that it's kind of a wasted opportunity. There's room for a game like this on the market, and it's stylishly presented enough that it could easily garner an audience of obsessive stealth-loving cleaners. It just doesn't achieve the necessary tension to make it a compelling stealth game and its mechanics are too open to abuse to reward careful play and smart decisions. As a result, the potential thrill that it could have been is lost.