If you were hoping for a Kinect-friendly great snowboarding game, this isn't the one. It controls terribly and is just plain uninteresting. Don't bother unless you're desperate for some XTREEM action. And we mean XTREEM in the worst possible manner.

The novelty of a 13-character cast is a solid hook for Wild Bastards, but a myriad of streamlined and sidelined elements compromise its potential to the point of becoming a trip to outer space that you won't remember for long after hitting credits.

The developers opted instead for run-of-the-mill hack-and-slash game mechanics, and so they turned out a game that incorporates very little of what makes the system so enticing in the first place.

In the end, it’s a cool experiment, but it quickly goes horribly wrong.

The crowning achievement of failure here, however, is the total lack of multiplayer. Skirmish would be nice, but no multiplayer in a DS version of an intrinsically multi-player tabletop game? Unforgivable.

Coming from Don't Nod, it's a shame that both Aphelion's storytelling and climbing mechanics feels so lackluster, with Uncharted-like sci-fi action failing to make much of an impact at all. Some gorgeous alien vistas and a decent premise fail to interest for long when simply controlling characters feels clunky and uninteresting.

The never-ending explosions shake the screen and before long chaos and confusion take over. Battlegrounds is hectic given the small maps and spawning becomes silly as you come back from death straight into another death. It's annoying, yet not as annoying as waiting for an online match to start thanks to a nonexistent community.

While it's amazing that Eidos was able to cram the entire game into the PSP, it simply doesn't excuse the fact that they broke it in the cramming.

The never-ending explosions shake the screen and before long chaos and confusion take over. Battlegrounds is hectic given the small maps and spawning becomes silly as you come back from death straight into another death. It's annoying, yet not as annoying as waiting for an online match to start thanks to a nonexistent community.

Wandering back and forth through the same areas to collect one silly object after another will drive you "This is Sparta" raving mad, especially when you realize that you have to collect every fairy sprite and finish every last side quest just to see how the story ends.

No matter what nominally noticeable technical changes are happening under Madden 24's hood, they don't represent the gargantuan changes needed to bring the NFL series in line with various yearly sports game competition.

Devotees of this universe's mix of fantasy staples and steampunk gadgetry might find themselves unable to resist Mage Knight: Apocalypse's dubious lure, and may even enjoy the game's character-building freedom if an effective patch comes along, but they aren't likely to stay enamored for long when this holiday season's bigger and better RPG offerings finally appear.

The game also suffers from a lack of content.

To its credit, WarPath does contain some of the cheesiest weapon and vehicle names this side of an '80's Dolph Lundgren flick - we're guessing this is the only game where you’ll arm yourself with the Tyrant, Judge, Violator or Wolverine before driving off in your Maverick, Hornet or Razorback.

There are a ton of fine shooters hitting shelves this year that are good enough to go down in history. It would be a shame to waste your money paying full price for this heap, which instead takes history down with it.

To make matters worse, Iron Man 2 can be shockingly ugly at times, especially in the cut-scenes, which spotlight terrible effects, fuzzy and slow-loading textures, and choppy animations.

The game's just not much fun; the controls are sluggish to the point of being broken, the visuals are bland, the 3D is glitchy and seeing blood in the water does little to make the bare-bones gameplay and story interesting.

Tron: Evolution is a mess of poorly implemented ideas and sloppy mechanics boiling down to a game that offers very little even to its most hardcore fans. Its story is barely there, and the exploration of the universe isn't one that is worth traversing the problems that it wallows in.

The leap to new-gen is more of a stumble for WWE, as it drops elements of existing content and recycles a lot more, giving little feeling of quality.

There's also a distinct lack of motion-controlled gimmickry going on; granted, many games just needlessly tack on motion chores, but considering the nature of evidence-gathering, it would have suited this game perfectly.

But, if you're buying this game because you honestly think it's going to make you smarter, it won't. And if you're buying this game because you actually think it's going to be fun, it isn't. That's really the bottom line.

It's almost heartbreaking how much wasted potential there is here, and lonely RPG fans are better off playing Tales of Vesperia co-op until a better competitive option comes around.

Without the AI and stealth problems, it might be a decent, if extremely derivative, shooter. As it is now, you're better off skipping this one.

This game's title is a massive misnomer. You don't "create" anything – you mess around with preset environments and then slap stickers all over it. You want to get the Create experience and save a few bucks? Buy a coloring book.

Zero Gravity sometimes feels like your racing skill doesn’t matter as much as your ability to spot new, cooler ways to get through the tracks; it’s still fun to do, but once you’ve mastered a track there’s little reason to go back to it.

With such a drastic difference in features and entertainment value between Stewie and the rest of his kin, one wonders why he didn't just get his own game. As it stands, you'll have to play through some pretty irritating nonsense just to get to the good stuff, and it's just not worth the effort.

There are a ton of fine shooters hitting shelves this year that are good enough to go down in history. It would be a shame to waste your money paying full price for this heap, which instead takes history down with it.

The Random Encounter is just, well, bad. Seeing our favorite enemies rendered in 16 bits is really just not worth even the very small amount of time or money you'll spend playing this game - particularly when there are other worthwhile demakes or Flash games available for free.

There was limitless potential here, but it's wasted. Transformers: The Game should be a sleek, cutting-edge sports car; instead, it's an old beater whose driver's seat has a spring sticking out in exactly the wrong place.

With the wealth of RPGs, and even great SRPGs, that have arrived on the 3DS in the last several months, it would almost be unconscionable not to recommend one of those games instead of Project X Zone. Fun combat and screaming Tekken characters can only take you so far.

Littered with bugs, excruciating load times, and a severely padded ending, ReCore is a great example of good ideas, flawed execution.

But, if you're buying this game because you honestly think it's going to make you smarter, it won't. And if you're buying this game because you actually think it's going to be fun, it isn't. That's really the bottom line.

There is some fun to be had from time trial, challenges and the tracks that work properly. And with the penalties switched off, it almost passes as some crazy, incident-filled version of F1. But if you're after an authentic racing sim on 3DS, best wait a little longer, cos this most certainly ain't it.

It’s almost heartbreaking how much wasted potential there is here, and lonely RPG fans are better off playing Tales of Vesperia co-op until a better competitive option comes around.

A mish-mash of things, which basically is the result of this game: a big mess. Unless you're all about Fiddy, you shouldn't purchase this game… even for 50 cents.

Turn It Around just mixes too much frustration mixed in with the fun. Screw this. Wheel of Fortune's on.

It's not often that the promotion campaign might be more enjoyable than the final product, but Wanted: Dead may have to grin and bear this ignominy. Despite some effort to subvert genre norms with its characters and amusing mini-games, the core action is bogged down by low production values, imbalance, and repetition. For every moment it hits its stride, there's another where it stubs its toe, and some slick execution animations are as imaginative as it gets.

Destined to line bargain bin bottoms. It has its hacking and slashing moments, but like so many movie-licensed titles, it reeks of a truncated production schedule and a too-heavy reliance on a story intended for another medium.

This game's title is a massive misnomer. You don't "create" anything – you mess around with preset environments and then slap stickers all over it. You want to get the Create experience and save a few bucks? Buy a coloring book.

The weapon variety that defines the series is flaccid at best, the story is forgettable, and the multiplayer isn't even as varied as the last handheld game in the series. It's hard to even recommend this one to gamers who've spent the last six years popping Chimera skulls.

An interesting blast from the past, but much like the visuals of the original film, it really doesn’t hold up over time.

Wandering back and forth through the same areas to collect one silly object after another will drive you "This is Sparta" raving mad, especially when you realize that you have to collect every fairy sprite and finish every last side quest just to see how the story ends.

The lousy last-gen graphics murder what compelling plot there is.

Lastly, and perhaps most tragically, the PlayStation 2 comes with full voiceover work for all the characters. You might think this would be a good thing – but Zak repeats his exclamations over new Cryptids so often, you find yourself wanting to choke him, and some of the subtitles appear as placeholder text. Party foul.

The actors (not from the film cast) sound utterly bored throughout their lengthy speeches; the only thing that trumps the highly questionable French accents is a guy who actually says "woof woof" on behalf of a virtual dog.

Left Behind: Eternal Forces just doesn't play very well. As exciting and even (for at lot of folks, at least) uplifting as some of the content could be, it just doesn't move quickly enough or play smoothly enough to compete with the other, more gameplay focused titles in the admittedly more worldly marketplace.

Ugly, last-gen visuals further dampen the fear factor. Muddy textures and low poly counts cause scenery and monsters to blend together into a murky mess.

A little bit of quality assurance time would have gone a long way in improving Double Dragon, but ultimately, this brawler just isn’t main-event material anymore.

An undiscerning child may have a bit of fun for awhile with Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts, and adults may even find the wacky, borderline creepy premise of the game slightly bemusing. But if you care about children (or your own sanity), you may want to skip this one and just get the DVD instead.

Soulstice does itself no favours by borrowing heavily from Bayonetta, and then falls short of its inspiration in every area. At best this is a functional but uninspired character action game. At worst it's a poor appreciation of the genre's finer points, stacking up systems that detract from the purity of exhilarating combat.

Why buy the new one when the older, better version is still available at a reduced price? We know you have a PS2.

The DS version is by far the worst iteration of the bunch, which is sad considering none of them are that great.

Never Alone is bursting with promise and charm, but is savagely let down by technical flaws and maddening design decisions. Not even the cutest fox in gaming can save it.

Crimson Shroud is clearly Matsuno's labor of love, but it's a shame so many of its features failed in execution and proved more annoying in practice.

Ratatouille offers some multiplayer modes around cooking, but if you’re looking to get dizzy with a friend, we suggest doing something fun, like blowing up balloons. And then you can throw a party...and celebrate not playing Ratatouille on the DS.

Destined to line bargain bin bottoms. It has its hacking and slashing moments, but like so many movie-licensed titles, it reeks of a truncated production schedule and a too-heavy reliance on a story intended for another medium.

From the Abyss isn't a terrible game, but it offends us with its pure mediocrity.

It’s a sound idea that’s torpedoed by poor design and bad play mechanics.

Ugly, last-gen visuals further dampen the fear factor. Muddy textures and low poly counts cause scenery and monsters to blend together into a murky mess.

Some people may find that kind of oppressive difficulty refreshing, but most folks, including the game's intended audience, are apt to find it frustrating.

Trust us. Cheaper, deeper stuff than this can be bought on Xbox Live Arcade. Unless you're truly desperate for an old-school party game experience, or you plan to be so drunk that anything will amuse you, we suggest you save your money for something else.

Daylight is a mess. Its procedurally generated design doesn’t succeed in creating unpredictable scares, and the enemies that populate the spooky locales prove to be more annoying than frightening. The randomized levels offer a slightly different experience if you take a second trip through, but you’ll have seen just about everything Daylight has to offer after only a couple hours of play--which, regrettably, isn't much.

Getting past the faulty controls will get you a decent story, but Iron Man has little to no replay value, no multiplayer, and is just another forgettable game-based-on-the-movie type.

You can disrupt the opponent while they “think” about their shot – it’s a nice touch, but they “think” for several seconds before every shot, dragging the game to a crawl. The character portraits get in the way, and if you turn them off, your power meter goes away too.

Wandering back and forth through the same areas to collect one silly object after another will drive you "This is Sparta" raving mad, especially when you realize that you have to collect every fairy sprite and finish every last side quest just to see how the story ends.

It’s possible a six-year-old could be amused by it, but at E10+, they shouldn’t' be playing it. And anyhow, there are plenty of other kid-friendly games that will challenge their brains and inspire their imaginations. And make them actually laugh.

Destined to line bargain bin bottoms. It has its hacking and slashing moments, but like so many movie-licensed titles, it reeks of a truncated production schedule and a too-heavy reliance on a story intended for another medium.

An unsatisfying mix of shallow strategy and low-energy shooting, Disintegration is hard to recommend to fans of either genre.

The Dynasty Warriors franchise is a beast of inveterate laziness. The gameplay is tired and, while the story and characters could be intriguing, the presentation is too bland and wonky to draw in gamers who are new to the series.

We're not decrying simplicity as a general design element, but too many of the included games feel tossed together, while the few notable ones offer only seconds of unique play.

The art design is solid, though technologically, the graphics don't impress at all. At press-time, the chat is nightmarish, and the user interface a pale shadow of other MMOs' well thought systems.

It may sound odd, but we'd gladly trade HD's so-so graphics and unruly physics for straight ports of Tony's first two PS1 installments.

An aggressively mediocre FPS. Any decent ideas suffer from bad design decisions, and so the shallow multiplayer is a hollow experience that even the most hardcore Frank Castle follower will want to skip.

From a gameplay perspective, Star Trek is hindered by its unpolished character animations, clunky controls, and repetitive hacking minigames. While it can be entertaining to experience the return of the movie's cast to their roles as the beloved Star Trek characters, it's difficult to get past the gameplay's shortcomings.

It’s almost heartbreaking how much wasted potential there is here.

Remove the generic Matrix-inspired graphics and story, and it's online Bomberman with a new camera angle and less depth. We'd rather play ports of the original on TI-89 calculators.

At 30 bucks Winter Sports isn’t remotely worth the money. You could get a decent rental out of it - get some friends together, laugh at each other while doing the crap events once each, then play the skiing parts until Lost is on.

With the failure of its flagship story mode, Super Monkey Ball Adventure becomes a rather dull product that has little reason to exist.

At the end of the day, even if there is the chance you might manage to eke out some meager enjoyment from collecting coins, whipping Rita's bungee cord and Roddy's rolling attacks, it's impossible to justify paying anything near full price for this game.

Today, with so many able competitors on the market, we just can't recommend sparse, shallow collections with slow load times and GBA-level visuals. Whether you're looking to train your brain or just play some minigames, there are simply better options out there than Brain Assist.

Alien Spidy's environmental aesthetic, cute characters, and charming music are alluring, but beneath those features is an unbalanced platforming adventure that can drive you mad. The controls are unreliable, and the difficulty spikes are incredibly harsh--especially when mixed the the game's environments, which can often become muddled as you try to discern interactive object with pretty set piece.

Like an early card match at a pay-per-view event, WWE 2K Battlegrounds is meant to keep the crowd entertained before the main event re-enters the arena, but it's rarely as flashy or fun as its concept implies.

I Am Bread’s amusing premise quickly shows signs of mold. Early giggles hide a frustrating game with control issues, wonky physics, and a lack of meaningful content. It’s simply not fun to play.

The multiplayer needs more than one-on-one deathmatches.

As it stands, it's for series aficionados only, which judging from the multiplayer boards would be all ten of you.

Why didn't they just reprogram the classics to fit the DS properly? Because that would have required effort. This is not about innovation; this is about porting code that's lying around and reselling it for the zillionth time.

The game’s characters look like poorly-drawn imitations of the classic cartoons, feeling like cheap flash games than any sort of licensed imagery.

Despite the appearance of finesse, it’s surprising how quickly everything devolves into frantic button mashing and rote flailing.

Granted, Ultimate Band is cheaper than competing music games like Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour, and that would normally be a big plus. But when one considers just how much more game you get with those titles, how much longer they’ll last you, the savings isn’t really worth it.

As distressing as it might be to spend $20 on two whole hours of gameplay, this utterly bland warfare still grows old well before the limp finale. Time Ace might not be broken or particularly painful, but it certainly isn't time well spent.

Compared to Imageepoch's decent track record of niche RPGs, Time and Eternity is a resounding disappointment. And that's compounded by the game’s promising 2D visual concept falling short. As there is nothing especially remarkable with the game's world exploration, battles, or anything else for that matter, the only audience that would appreciate Time and Eternity is the one that buys anything publisher NIS America releases. Even then, this one's a hard sale.

Atelier Iris 3's gameplay systems will tickle RPGers' OCD mental G-spot for a bit, but not often or long enough to put up with the game's lack of any other redeeming values.

I need to emphasize that my problem isn't that Comic Jumper is difficult – I love difficult scrolling shooters – my problem is that Comic Jumper is difficult for all the wrong reasons - and to top it off, the game constantly insults your incompetence with grating voice work.

Despite springing from minds that are obviously clued in to horror, Hotel Barcelona never manages to escape genre cliches and become its own beast, resulting in an experience that vanishes from your mind as soon as you close it. Leaden combat and poor dialogue put the final nail in this game's coffin.

A broken core of a game.

Fans of the series might find it entertaining to rescue kidnapped kids while battling the Seven Demon Kings, but most people will find precious little to enjoy.

If you love the idea of playing an interactive commercial for Ford Motors and own both an Xbox and a PS2, then go with the PS2 version. The graphics are about the same and the slightly longer load time on the PS2 will give you a much needed break from this monotonous racer.

A game you'll mostly just play online (if you can find anyone) or with up to four players locally (since only one copy of the UMD is required). That's nice, but if everyone's in the same room already, why wouldn't you play the board game instead?