The depth to which NFL Head Coach goes to simulate its world is impressive. Pigskin fanatics will love it, but if I want stress and boredom, I think I'll stick with my day job. [Aug 2006, p.79]

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]

Though Clock Tower 3 includes a little more action than the previous games, and remains a decent core adventure game as other horror titles, it fails where it really counts: the scare factor. [May 2003, p.90]

Inconsistent voice acting and poor plot development. [Dec 2001, p.168]

The missions themselves are plenty fun, but they're nothing that "Ace Combat" hasn't done better and more often. It's a similar story for the reasonably tight controls and physics: good, but nothing exceptional. [Mar 2004, p.98]

This game comes so close to reaching great new heights. Too bad it falls so flat due to a swarm of technical woes and design flaws. [May 2002, p.101]

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

All the fundamentals of the PS2 version and, well, not a whole lot more. [Dec 2005, p.138]

It doesn't help that you seem to be shooting the same handful of monsters no matter where you are—or that the vast majority of these look like offspring of Soul Calibur's Voldo. The shoddy framerate, slippery controls, and blocky character models provide an even more low-rent feel.

For a kids' game, Tak is well above average - but that's not saying much. [Jan 2006, p.100]

While pretty seriously flawed and diverse almost to a fault, Pursuit Force is solidly entertaining at its core. [Apr 2006, p.89]

A whole can of polish should have been slapped on to make this one really shine. [Jan 2006, p.91]

The controls in the street slalom are so shoddy that it's more annoying than entertaining. [June 2005, p.99]

The package's presentation is incredibly minimal as well, with the games dropped into the most generic of interfaces. [Mar 2006, p.94]

I imagine myself back in the cafeteria, all the geeks, myself included, huddled around the folding banquet tables, oblivious to appearances, just having fun. [Feb 2005, p.87]

You can only truck for so long before things start to get stale. [Aug 2003, p.97]

The game just lacks the depth to keep hardcore fighting-game fans interested. [Nov 2001, p.167]

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

Pac-Man World 3 shows up to class every day but settles for straight C's. It will mostly appeal to youngsters, and I'm sure that kids will find something in it. But the folks who grew up with Pac-Man won't find much to love in this lazy cash in.

It's the closest thing to an honest-to-God flight sim a PlayStation has seen. [Nov 2001, p.160]

Despite Musashi's quirky look and interesting mechanics, the elementary mistakes made with the camera and the poor pacing ultimately make the game feel more like its 1998 predecessor than a modern sequel.

True, there is a sense of colossal achievement that results from completing a shoot...but I really don't think it should be such a painful experience to get there. [August 2002, p.106]

Lobotomized teammates, restrictive environments, and enemies with X-ray vision make it necessary to memorize entire levels. [Feb 2005, p.90]

Something that's just too slow. Ultimately, in this sport, slow equals desperately boring. [Jan 2003, p.128]

The tension isn't there when it comes to working on race tactics. [Aug 2003, p.99]

You know the drill with anime games: They're typically a bit half-assed, and with Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam too much effort was spent on fanboy frills and not enough was spent under the hood. It's a fun ride, but this series is showing its age.

The fools who don't live and die for horse racing (we'll call them funambulists) will find this game generally confusing, and will probably never figure out the diluted betting system. [June 2003, p.105]

Challenges are all over the place, randomly ranging from boringly easy to annoying difficult. [Apr 2003, p.90]

But at full price, there's just not enough variety here to justify the purchase for most people.

Solid, yet unspectacular. [Apr 2006, p.78]

Makes an obvious effort to up the realism a bit - and the results, while not disastrous, are certainly underwhelming. [Nov 2002, p.190]

Simply superior than that previous effort in just about every way imaginable. [Mar 2002, p.108]

An adequate, sometimes engaging adventure that just has too many annoying little wrinkles that were never ironed out. [Jan 2006, p.96]

That's the story of Urban Chaos--it's an above-average shooter that hits a plateau early and stays there. [July 2006, p.76]

If you can get over the learning curve for the controls, you'll have fun brining it to the streets. [July 2005, p.79]

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]

But Ape Escape 3's presentation is what really hurts the whole package. The graphics are mediocre, especially for a first-party game late in the PS2's life cycle. The voice acting is painfully stilted. And the translation is woeful.

I just wish it had that pick-up-and-go, addictive quality of its predecessors. [May 2005, p.104]

As with early "FIFAs", I couldn't help feeling that my players were doing a hell of a lot better when I didn't get in the way by, y'know, pressing any buttons or anything. [Oct 2003, p.126]

It's nice to see EA's NHL franchise starting to turn a corner, but it still has a ways to go before besting 2K Sports' stellar efforts. [Sept 2005, p.90]

Is this what real snowboarding is like? Because if it is, I don't want any part of it. [Feb 2002, p.106]

After a few songs, keeping tempo and varying the strength with which you hit a single button gets pretty old. [May 2002, p.101]

It's surprising how much better Invasion is when you're playing against opponents with brains or doing battle in environments where the motorcycle proves userful for something beyond runnning for your life. [Nov 2004, p.132]

The hardcore arcade-style gameplay may be a huge turn-off for some, but if you've always like the Outrun games--even back in the day--then, surely, you won't be disappointed with the face-lift. [Jun 2006, p.103]

It's amusing for a few hours, but it won't ever burrow deep into your psyche like the best puzzlers do. [Jan 2002, p.146]

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

Worse yet, it's even simpler than "Suikoden II", which is a PS1 game that came out in 1998. [Feb 2005, p.80]

Gameplay works when it's not broken, but awful story scenes and graphics make for boring stretches. [Dec 2005, p.118]

If you have "FIFA" don't bother. [Oct 2002, p.150]

Too slow and clunky, and the load times will put some softcore gamers to sleep. [Feb 2003, p.104]

Suffers a bit in comparison to other recent releases in the genre, but is redeemed to a large extent by its excellent control and playability. [Oct 1998]

It's really hard to complete a pass now - I actually found myself achieving more solid success with the running game. That's not supposed to happen in Blitz! [Nov 2003, p.138]

Quotation forthcoming. [Jan 2006]

A decent way for kids to kill some time, though be warned that they may be asking you for help. [Jan 2006, p.101]

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]

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]

Another thing that really sets this game apart is its rather obscene reliance on gore. [Jan 2002, p.136]

A competent shooter for gamers not quite ready for "Rainbow Six" - despite the questionable feature of essentially letting you command your team to do everything required, which almost means you're having the A.I. finish the game for you. [Nov 2003, p.142]

What the game lacks in production values, it makes up for with pure action gameplay. [Sept 2002, p.113]

Protection missions, like escort missions, are the bane of space-sim players, and BSG has quite a few of them. [Jan 2004, p.112]

The basic gameplay and multiplayer are exactly the same as they were before. [Dec. 2006, p.136]

While details like the appearance of the movie's actors in their same roles (the tutorial is standard fare, except it happens to be delivered by Liam Neeson, of all people!), the Burnout 3-inspired Batmobile sequences, the quirky minigames, and the moments of sneaking and combat make the game fun to play, its linearity keeps it grounded to the "average licensed property" area.

The average player will become bored with it. [Jan 2002, p.125]

Narrow, winding roads take TXR's already bad handling and make it feel that much worse. [Apr 2006, p.80]

Night does such a fine job of capturing the essence of Scooby that any die-hard fan would do well to check it out. [July 2002, p.101]

WTS has its shortcomings, but in the long run it ends up trumping its big PS2 brother. [June 2005, p.98]

Actually worse than its recent predecessors. [Feb 2002, p.116]

The problem is that there just isn't much gameplay there. [Jan 2002, p.138]

If you liked the first Way of the Samurai, then this provides more of the same type of play. But don't expect anything new or exciting. [July 2004, p.88]

It does little to update the series' aging formula, but Suikoden V is still an enjoyable experience with a compelling story. [May 2006, p.81]

The main problem is that there's just no sense of speed. You can be going Mach 1.2 and it feels like you're driving a charter bus. Uphill. Against the wind. In a foot of snow. Towing another charter bus. [Apr 2003, p.84]

I didnit dig the hassle of switching from ID scope to ideal weapon when six angry Gran would suddenly start shooting my way. [Jan 2003, p.122]

You can scalp baddies, but there is no in-game benefit or reward for doing so. [Jan 2006, p.94]

A by-the-book tactical RPG that takes no chances, but can be engaging. It's also short (campaigns under 15 hours) and whoever heard of a short RPG?

What's basically an upgraded "Rivals" doesn't stand up to recent racers like "Burnout Legends." [Jan 2006, p.105]

The only real downside is that the upgrade system is worthless. [Apr 2006, p.82]

I have to wonder how well a child could handle the somewhat complex controls. [Mar 2002, p.110]

This collection almost perfectly illustrates why Sonic achieved what he did. [Jan 2005, p.98]

MS Saga succeeds in creating one of the first truly accessible Gundam experiences while still giving the hardcore fans a reason to play. [Mar 2006, p.87]

I realized five or six hours into it that I was really hooked...There are plenty of hours of gameplay to be had. [May 2002, p.102]

A perfectly fun, surreal distraction - but only when playing with live frolfers. If you go at it alone, even the Frolf Referee's entertaining mannerisms won't make up for the frustration caused by the cheating A.I. [July 2004, p.96]

It's merely competent in my humble opinion. [June 2003, p.104]

It's pretty shocking to see how well Finding Nemo's story and settings translate into a game. [Aug 2003, p.99]

The reason this process is so gut-wrenchingly irritating is that the controls for My Street, quite frankly, suck. [Apr 2003, p.90]

If you're a hardcore Star Wars fan – and only if you're a hardcore Star Wars fan – the story should interest you. But, like the six-to-eight-hour game itself, it's just too short. [Feb 2003, p.102]

It's considerably less tedious than you might expect from a game like this - it's just not quite a classic. [Aug 2003, p.101]

The actual platforming is fairly blase. It's a solid-enough game with neat invention-based hooks, but that's about it. [Jan 2005, p.107]

Comes agonizingly close to being exceptional but falls too short in too many areas to be more than average. [Dec 2005, p.121]

The story is so fragmented, the missions so pointless, and the action so sparse that there's no drive to progress. [June 2004, p.90]

Fortunately, the 1-on-1 fighting sequences are there to save it, but it would've been great if there were more of them and less of a focus on the average action sequences. If anything, it would've made the game last longer than the five hours it takes to beat it.

Plenty playable, even for more experienced gamers. [Feb 2002, p.118]

Non-fans just won't have much reason to play. [Jan 2002, p.134]

Insipid tasks aside, Uzumaki Chronicles' biggest failing is that it's just not very fair. Success depends largely on earning power-ups from missions, but you only get one shot at passing. [Jann. 2007, p.84]

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]

Profoundly mediocre, the kind of game that only hardcore Digi-fans will like. [June 2002, p.102]

Ultimately, though, even "five Pipo monkeys in different colored pants!" aren't enough to make the same repeated games and gadgets interesting—unless you're a 7-year-old or a stoner.

Uninspired art and level design. [June 2005, p.95]

Maybe the most irritating thing is that, for all its complexity, Bombastic isn't the slightest bit difficult. [Sept 2003, p.93]