So you've got overly emphasized elements, a hit or miss magic creation system, and some pretty addicting session attacks. How does it all play out in actual gameplay? Kind of blasé and very frustrating to tell you the truth.

If you like the old Bomberman series, and especially if you have friends with GBAs for four-player combat, this will provide you with some small screen enjoyment.

Arguably, there are other classics that should have been included, but it's an excellent sampling and a nice blast from the past if you're interested in walking down memory lane.

The title moves along at a swift 60 fps to make for a very fluid travel experience. The frame rate does come at an expense. To put it bluntly, the characters look like well textured Legos. When the character zooms in for in-game cinemas the characters’ true blocky form is revealed.

The difficulty ramps up perfectly, and the game does not rely on a typical lives/continues system.

It’s not an intense game, but the decent 2D gameplay is as solid as ever.

One of the best off-roading simulation games available on the market today.

The amount of detail that has been shoved onto all of the game's character models is fantastic – some of them it would be hard to differentiate from FMV models.

From the moment you turn the game on you’ll be instantly captivated.

If you enjoy The Simpsons and you enjoy driving like a maniac, you'll enjoy this game, for a while. But the gimmick gets way too old way too fast to be satisfying to even the most rabid fans of the show.

A bland, average racing title. A shame, since there definitely was the potential for so much more.

The lack of a battery backup is irritating beyond belief, but not enough to keep me from recommending Rampage Puzzle Attack. The license is not the reason to play this game folks, but the fun gameplay definitely is.

Absolutely nothing we haven’t seen before.

There are buckets full of stages and a two-player mode to boot. If you've never played a Bust-A-Move game, you'll be drawn in by its simplicity yet you'll hang around just to get better at each stage every time you play it.

Small Brawl could function as a gateway for younger kids interested in the series, but are not quite ready to tackle the difficulty of "Twisted Metal: Black."

Not that Azurik is the most painful experience I’ve encountered, but the game offers nothing new to the genre, and seemingly borrowed everything from elsewhere. The pain is there though, believe me.

What an absolute disaster. These games are classics, and the only folks old enough to remember these will be put off by the sub-standard conversion done here. These games deserver better treatment. It could have been so much better.

Like getting an unexpected gift envelope from a good friend. The single-player campaign? It's the receiving of the surprise itself - short but nice. The multiplayer component, however, is like opening up the envelope and finding a certificate for a year's supply of free lap dances at Scores - it absolutely can't be beat.

In terms of sheer pace, NFL 2k2 and Madden are truly apples and oranges when it comes to game speed. I frankly feel that NFL 2k2 plays too fast.

It makes nice use of various special effects and never slows down, but those with epillepsy problems will probably want to stay away. However, if you're familiar with raves, you'll feel right at home.

Control difficulties with multiple opponents may be too much for some to overlook.

Graphically the game looks fantastic. The game is insanely colorful and the sprites are well animated.

A bigger problem on the visual side is the framerate. A lot of the time the game is running at 60 fps. But depending on the level, there can be considerable slowdown...Other than it being short and containing a few minor problems, it's an excellent launch title that is extremely fun to play.

If you have the PS2 version of the game, it may not be money well spent trying to gain some visual improvements at the cost of some game speed and a more convoluted control scheme.

The steering feel[s] somewhat awkward at first as well as stiff. This to me interrupts the smooth control design of the original game and complicates it for no other reason than to be complicated.

It wasn't the visuals that impressed me the most; it was the design of the audio. On paper, the audio might scare someone away as it only has one basic tune through the entire game. Yet that one tune never becomes tiresome.

It is likely that a few months from now, Super Monkey Ball will be one of the few launch titles that you still will be playing, especially if you have friends to play with.

Although Tarzan looks like a free-roaming 3D platformer in pictures, you actually navigate extremely narrow paths. Sometimes only one exact line will allow you to complete the level.