Nostalgic music and consistent art direction can't save a game from crippled controls, a mulish camera, and painfully tiresome reptition. Dawn of Mana is ultimately remarkable only for being such a bitter disappointment.

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.

While a few of these games may have some value when played with friends, fans of board games may as well stick to actually playing board games.

The visual downgrade from the PSP to DS version make this a better bet on Sony's platform. Still, if you're a DS owner who's already conquered Advance Wars multiple times over, and are tiring of the brimming mini-game and sim line-up, you might appreciate this turn-based tactical title.

But if you've got a stack of rejected astronaut applications, or have been struggling to save up that 20 or so million to hitch a ride up with the Russians, SpaceStationSim could be just what you need.

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.

The action pauses so frequently to remind you how to excute your task that the entire game ends up feeling like one giant training tutorial. It's impossible to get stuck at any point because all of the answers are pretty much handed right to you.

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.

If you want to see an action/RTS hybrid that actually gets the strategy part right, then Guilty Gear 2: Overture will deliver the goods. Unfortunately, even though this one element is great, it’s the only gem that stands in this title.

The fact that Prizfighter doesn't break any new ground is forgivable, but botching the essential issue of hit detection is obviously a huge problem. Pugilistic devotees seeking the next fix will undoubtedly fight through the flaws, but frustration will likely be the knockout punch for the average gamer.

It’s a slick little pick-up-and-play experience, though sadly, it is a short one. The varied Wi-Fi Party mode almost would've made up for NC3's brevity... if it only allowed game sharing.

Things could've improved in the later parts of the remarkably minimal story when you start colonizing islands, but because every nation on the map will swiftly descend on your new outpost, even this is reduced to grinding out enough cash and crew to withstand the assault.

A mediocre experience, even considering the relatively affordable $10 price of admission. It's a novel distraction at best – hardly a sterling example of why Grasshopper has such dedicated fans.

The game sure looks pretty, but hopefully your tastes are refined enough to browse the menu a bit longer.

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.

An ambitious brawler that suffers from something of an identity crisis, Jump Force will nevertheless delight anime fans – especially those of a vintage who knows the more obscure characters included here.

While this could have been an awesome game to geek out on, its numerous technical problems kill the mood pretty quickly.

An unpolished mess with few redeeming qualities other than a nifty premise.

There are even occasional (very minor) glitches that'll have you scratching your batting helmet. But it is good for a laugh if you've got 20 minutes on your hands. If you're a number-crunching statistician, you'll be annoyed by the 27 hits per side, per game.

The biggest let-down? Easily the graphics, which are full of chunky shapes and primitive, basic textures and colors that wouldn’t look out of place on the original PlayStation.

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.

Unfortunately, in a genre where players expect the newest games to completely blow them away (pun intended), Coded Arms: Contagion's run-of-the-mill FPS action just doesn't impress.

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.

There’s a definite emphasis on quantity over quality in Warriors Orochi 2, and not just in the numbers of mindless soldiers you slice through. The amount of content is frankly overwhelming if you’re one of those completist-types, and the drive to level up every character may appeal to those who have a lot of time to kill while traveling.

The biggest problems with Vanguard lie within its controls, graphics and overall length. The Wii remote is inaccurate at hitting the head shots, and at times you’ll think you have Parkinson’s as you watch your steady real hand make the gun's on screen sights twitch and vibrate.

Surf’s Up is a bad Mario Kart clone (replete with cloned weaponry) with a dash of the barest of bones from SSX thrown in. As such, there’s no excuse that it’s made for young kids, because any kid would be way better off just playing Mario Kart DS, which uses almost the exact same basic formula, but offers depth and polish.

The sum of these flaws is a total disconnect between what's occurring on the TV screen and what's occurring on your dance pad.

Gyruss is still a bit of fun to pick up and play once in a while. But only those who have fond memories of the original game – not to mention extreme patience with extreme difficulty – will get any lasting value out of this Live Arcade offering.