As a PS2 game, Days of the Blade might have been good. But this is next-gen country, where the expectations are high. [Jan. 2007, p.74]

You never really feel like you're controlling the racers, but rather just making suggestions that they follow or ignore at their leisure. [Apr 2006, p.80]

The game is very mechanical…and it’s so…painfully…slow. [Feb 2002, p.108]

Stay far away from this rink rat. [Jan 2003, p.134]

While IGPX isn't quite as shallow as previous anime offerings from Namco Bandai, only hardcore fans of the series will find themselves playing much past a few hours. [Oct. 2006, p.83]

The problem is, right out of the gate, the career mode makes things way more boring than it needs to be. [March 2005, p.95]

It's not worth a second look by any but the most battle-hungry war fan. [Dec 2002, p.158]

Up to this point I've been recommending "Stacked" for the advanced poker player, and "World Poker Tour" for newbies. I don't see any reason to change that recommendation. [Nov. 2006, p.112]

Showdown is just as bad as its two predecessors in almost every way. [Aug 2004, p.93]

A fun, well-executed game for kids and fans of the series. I just won't blow anyone away. [June 2004, p.88]

It's like a feeble attempt at a mission-based driving game (think "Midnight Club" or "Driver" or something, I guess - it's hard to tell since it's hard to tell since it's so half-hearted) with Mini Coopers thrown in for really obvious movie "flava." [Sept 2003, p.97]

If only it weren't so friggin' hard. [Jan 2002, p.144]

There's definitely 20 bucks worth of gameplay here. Just don't expect a masterpiece. [July 2003, p.95]

This is a great game for kids or people who are chronically bad at racers, and it's not actually offensive to Pac-Man fans. [Sept 2006, p.79]

Ultra-simple, dash-and-bash gameplay. [Jan 2003, p.128]

There's a respectable fighting engine at the game's core, but nothing was done to really make it worth your while. [July 2004, p.96]

It doesn't offer anything new to the genre, it's not cheap enough to be considered a bargain-basement alternative to anything, and it has about as much personality as cabbage. [Sept 2004, p.92]

I still don't know why I have to press L and R to rotate a frog. Is he robotic or what? [Jan 2006, p.100]

I'm talking about throw-your-damn-controller-clean-through-a-slab-of-drywall frustrating. [June 2001, p.97]

It's f'ing hard! Really hard!... No one who's new to BMX games is going to be able to stomach the camera, the difficulty, and the level design for more than 25 minutes before realizing that surfing the Net for strippers is going to be a lot easier. [Feb 2003, p.101]

Fanboys will love being Astro so much that the negatives won't be enough to deliver them; anyone else should prepare for a slow-paced, meandering ride. [Oct 2004, p.96]

Make no mistake, it’s heads and shoulders above 989 Sports’ college hoops game, but that’s like saying a hamburger is more edible than rancid, worm-covered meat. [Feb 2002, p.110]

It's not an awful game, just shallow and aimless. [Feb 2005, p.83]

It has the most idiotic aiming scheme in any WWII game.

The stealth is way too easy, and the exploration is too open-ended. [Aug 2006, p.76]

The pace has been slowed to attract a broader audience, but the end result is combat that's sluggish and boring. Even the quickest and most agile virtuaroid drags its feed in comparison to its arcade counterparts. [Jan 2004, p.130]

Sadly, great robots aren't enough to salvage this game. [Oct. 2006, p.83]

While multiplayer is a nice feature, its novelty wears thin quickly since part of the fun is being in a hectic firefight with several enemies and not just a couple of people.

It's a great-looking, fun game that only really suffers in its lack of innovation. [August 2002, p.111]

A shot in the arm that makes me enthusiastic about a PS2 ShootOut prospect. [Nov 2001, p.166]

If you think toying around with the track editor sounds like $10 worth of fun, check this out. If not, don't bother. [Apr 2003, p.87]

Just pick up "NCAA 2003" and forget this one even exists. [Oct 2002, p.149]

It's a simple game--so simple that it's really not good for anyone over the age of 9 or 10--but it's not bad, and the way it's structured makes it perfect for parents to jump in and out to help when kids get stuck.

Easily the worst modern game of its genre. [Oct 2001, p.134]

It's sad to see an old franchise become something so generic. [Feb 2004, p.102]

Unfortunately, you have to keep playing through the adventure portion of the game, and it really isn't all that worth it unless you're the most ardent fan of monkeys inside balls. [Oct. 2006, p.87]

Mutant Nightmare has improvements over its predecessors here and there, like a better camera and nice graphics, but when the basic game is this boring, that's about as useful as replacing the air freshener in a house build in the sewers. [Dec 2005, p.123]

The puzzle aspects of Cy Girls is about as fun as watching the cheese-creation process. [Apr 2004, p.99]

Definitely reinforces the "toy" part of Eyetoy. [Jan 2006, p.90]

The monotony of item collecting will turn anyone off long before frustration over poor control sets in. [May 2005, p.96]

Passing is this game's big problem... Otherwise, the flaw that perturbs me most is the lack of special moves. [Dec 2002, p.171]

It's clunky and frustrating due to its awful controls. [Nov 2001, p.160]

Even worse, it doesn't do the stuff you've seen before with much panache. It's not comic - it's tragic. [Nov 2005, p.90]

Ultimately, what Virtua Quest proves is that putting great characters into a lousy game doesn't make the game any less lousy. It just robs those characters of their dignity. [Feb 2005, p.87]

This is the best of its genre. [June 2002, p.100]

Generic racing game wrapped inside a cheesy candy shell. With guns. [Nov 2005, p.118]

It's mercifully short but painfully boring. [May 2004, p.97]

Defending myself from a shark attack would be more entertaining. [Aug 2006, p.77]

Apart from the cheese factor, Gangs simply fails at the basics. [Nov. 2006, p.120]

The entire package seems like it could have used a little more polish, too. [Apr 2002, p.104]

A great game for the over-30 crowd, though, which is something we don't get to say often. [Dec 2004, p.108]

There's something fundamentally wrong with a game that lets you finish a few stages without even looking at the screen. [May 2004, p.101]

Ultimately, it's a good, pirate-heavy distraction but, thanks to the game's repetitiveness, it won't do much to keep your attention past the first few levels. [Oct. 2006, p.91]

This game stinks. [Jan 2002, p.132]

Is it really that smurfin' hard to smurf up someone who at least sounds like the original voice actors? [June 2001, p.103]

Nice touches like graphics and gameplay elements ultimately don't disguise this fighter's lack of depth. [Oct 2005, p.107]

With the exception of a few factual glitches (it's Shadowcat that can walk through walls, not Nightcrawler), the game's pretty solid and fun overall. [July 2006, p.76]

Underneath the offensive layer of crap that coats every facet of this version is a more than adequate game desperately trying to get out. [Feb 2002, p.113]

Given the heritage, and the burden it carries as a flag-bearer for videogaming, it's appalling... The biggest issue I have with it is that the controls are atrocious. [Sept 2003, p.90]

Still, even at a budget price, it's hard to recommend this game to anyone but the most hardcore of Rampage fans...if they even exist. [July 2006, p.78]

Appropriately enough, InuYasha plays like self-insert fan fiction: It's just as trite and doubly as embarrassing. [Feb 2005, p.85]

I'd rather play the Java-based pool game on Yahoo. [Feb 2006, p.84]

It's a very rudimentary action game with some fairly sloppy gameplay mechanics and AI that's so bad it might as well have been programmed by some sort of weasel-like creature. [Sept 2006, p.81]

A mediocre game, not a bad one. However, when you consider how far short it fell of its original promise, it comes across as less than average. [Sept 2004, p.97]

Almost nothing about this game has any redeeming value. The levels are dull and repetitive. The control is whack. The gameplay is busted. It's boring. It's dopey. [Jan 2004, p.123]

Load times between rounds are slow, and the wireless play is ad hoc only, so it's hard to imagine the adult who would prefer this to the PSP's other(great)racers. [Nov. 2006, p.124]

It's not "Splinter Cell," but it's similar enough to be familiar and different enough to be reasonably fresh. [July 2005, p.77]

Trouble is, the designers seem to be unaware of the fact that occasionally the player may die and be forced to restart an area...and listen to the same, unskippable, longwinded intro each time. [Jan. 2007, p.86]

A nice break from a day spent watching wood-chopping sports on ESPN 2. [Nov 2005, p.118]

If you strip away the seedy premise, the game shows promise of being a knockoff of Capcom's "Power Stone," yet it ultimately falls short of replicating the fun and intensity of the Dreamcast classic. [Dec 2003, p.168]

Just average b-ball...Average b-ball means it's not good streetball. [Aug 2006, p.78]

Isn't a bad game by any means, but it feels like a definite step in the wrong direction. [Jan 2002, p.147]

So this makes it officcial: The Rengoku series is stillborn. [Oct. 2006, p.92]

Missions bounce from being overly long and difficult to short and simple with no apparent logic. [August 2002, p.109]

A functional but boring game that attempts to cash in on the violent-game buzz. [July 2005, p.76]

Surprisingly playable. [Jan 2004, p.118]

Perhaps the biggest problem with Ape Escape Academy is the fact that you literally spend more time waiting than you do playing.

Unhinged's ultimate downfall, however, is that there is no digital opponent when you play alone - apparently, it was decided that offering online play was enough. Since half the fun of games like these is actually beating someone, the lack of A.I. is disappointing. [June 2004, p.88]

The difficulty alone is what takes this game a solid five hours to beat. Even hardcore fans are only looking at a rental for this one. [Dec 2003, p.152]

Oh, GameDay, you’re the worst game the PS2 has to offer. [Feb 2002, p.112]

Note to the videogame industry: Mapping attacks to the right analog stick isn't a good idea. Put all the crossover dribbles and jukes you want on the analog stick, but for brawling games like Death by Degrees, this method of control simply doesn't work.

Even though I'd rather play the actual board game, I can't deny the advantages of a videogame version. [Feb 2003, p.108]

There isn't enough blood in the universe to distract you from how utterly boring this game is. [March 2005, p.100]

Frustrating....It's not just that the level is tough, it's that the entire thing is filled with situations designed to prolong the game's length. [Sept 2002, p.114]

Not nearly the sum of the parts it mimics, Reservoir Dogs answers some questions for fans of the film, but it just isn't worth the time. [Jan. 2007, p.86]

Decent is about the most I can say for it... Frustrating, checkpoint-free stages only furthered my desire to quit playing. [Feb 2003, p.108]

The most innovative light gun game in years - for better and for worse. [Oct 2002, p.140]

I can't remember the last time I experienced this LITTLE fun playing a videogame. Bad pacing and poor level design have a lot to do with this. [Mar 2003, p.103]

If you're a Ford nut, you've got a nice little virtual showroom here, with a competent racing game to boot. [July 2005, p.76]

Crap aiming and a crap camera combine with boring, nonsensical missions to translate into horrid gameplay for the main story.

Utterly unremarkable in every way possible. [Mar 2002, p.105]

It still appears that no one actually plays these games before they're released. [June 2001, p.100]

It’s dreadfully ugly and unredeemingly unfun. [Mar 2002, p.110]

Trouble is, the designers seem to be unaware of the fact that occasionally the player may die and be forced to restart an area...and listen to the same, unskippable, longwinded intro each time. [Jan. 2007, p.86]

Painfully amateur and slow. [June 2002, p.101]

If you like Whiteout... try Liquid Paper... perhaps on your eyeballs, to block out this eyesore of a game. [Feb 2003, p.109]

The Snowboard Slalom is a framerate abomination and, regardless of your adjustments, it controls like you're half-drunk. [Apr 2002, p.105]

Most of you should be able to plow through PK's handful of levels in a mere few hours. [Dec 2002, p.158]