Crucially, the difficulty has been adjusted: whereas GHIII wanted you to bleed, GHA simply expects that you come ready to rock.

After several stages, it becomes painfully repetitive. [Oct 2008, p.85]

This three-player scrolling shooter has that old-school, spray-and-slay mojo that your inner rageaholic craves. [July 2008, p.62]

It's nice to feel engrossed by a board game again. [July 2008, p.66]

Diehard fans might forgive, but everyone else should just forget. [Aug 2008, p.75]

No quantity of vamires, werewolves, and undead zombies can salvage its dreadfully tedious gameplay. [July 2008, p.70]

Rent instead or save your cash for the DVD. [Sept 2008, p.79]

There’s so much lovely intelligence lurking under Alone in the Dark’s hamstrung, occasionally glitchy surface (unforgivably, we found a few crash bugs in even the retail version!) that it’s hard to let this one go quietly into the night.

It’s the perfect military shooter for Halo and Unreal Tournament players who find the Clancy titles too real to be fun.

All of this boils down to gameplay that is slower-paced, more realistic, and lightyears more satisfying than "Top Spin 2's" or anything with "Virtua" in its name. [June 2008, p.74]

The game's force variations and library of over 50 maps make it a solid online contender, assuming you can forgive the fact that major battles still reduce an otherwise attractive presentation to a slow and unresponsive slideshow.

Ignoring the PC-to-console porting issues, RTS games simply don’t get any bigger, deeper, or more voluminous than this. So if you missed out on the Windows chapter, the Xbox 360 edition of Supreme Commander will keep you maneuvering, battling, and strategizing for weeks.

My 4-year-old said the worst part of the game was "having to turn it off," which probably tells you all you need to know! [July 2008, p.64]

Obliterating futuristic forces and corporate landmarks with upgradable lightning, earthquake, and tornado attacks could've made for some stunning natural fury. But you'd never know it from Elements' main campaign, which spans 90 tepid minutes.

We say, stick to the show. [Sept 2008, p.79]

A formidable--and utterly indefensible--$10. Why, Konami!?! [Sept 2008, p.79]

Prizefighter is definitely a contender in the guilty-pleasure category: its story mode trumps the competition’s, and though its fighting mechanics won’t dethrone the current champ, they still pack a simple, straightforward wallop.

Even if you’ve never owned a Budweiser jacket, NASCAR 09’s slick physics and engaging new racing options - including some addictive Sprint mini-challenges and absolutely seamless 14-player action on Live - will have you burning donuts in Victory Lane in record time.

Twenty-plus playable characters (including fisticuff faves Krillin, Goku, and Piccolo), ground-based and sky-bound battles, a brimming list of offline challenges, and an addictive around-the-globe online Versus mode (complete with leaderboard tracking) fill out this beefy package.

Demolishing a city may make for a fun weekend rental, but not quite an incredible one.

So mindlessly enjoyable that you'll soar right past those flaws. [May 2008, p.73]

Roogoo is a treat for anyone with a penchant for puzzlers. And be sure to try the Party Play mode with three pals - it’s a competitive/cooperative hybrid that’ll have you blaming each other for your failures while laughing the whole time.

Bourne Conspiracy screams weekend rental. It isn’t a one-trick pony, but it has three or four moves at best - enough to truly impress you for a while, but not enough to compel most of you to punch, kick, and shoot all the way to the end of the game.

It’s definitely a “more of the same” type of sequel and it has a few rough edges the original didn’t, but Ninja Gaiden II is still one of the best, most exhilarating action experiences on Xbox 360.

This game isn't about simulating racing; it's about creating fun out of it. And it succeeds beautifully, one thrilling white knuckle at a time.

While the character selection leaves a lot to be desired, the brilliant mix of versus battles, mini-games, and co-op challenges will keep you entertained for hours. [Sept 2008, p.77]

There’s still a lot of entertainment value here: the cutscenes, the puzzles, the whip, the unlockable areas, the light-hearted humor. But, moreso than with Lego Star Wars, you don’t need a microscope to see the flaws in this shiny new jewel.

It shines as a fun but pricey distraction. [May 2008, p.76]

But unless you have fond memories of Warlords' primitive arcade past, its gameplay is just too simplistic to offer more than a weak dose of transient wistfulness. [Sept 2008, p.77]

Whether its quirks annoy you more than its strengths entertain you, though, all boils down to how much of a Quake fan you are.

Colonies ups the frigid fun and arachnid ass-kicking while lowering the price: thirty bones buys the original's content plus tons of new multi- and single-player offerings. [June 2008, p.77]

Twenty bucks is a perfectly reasonable sum when you consider how many retail Xbox 360 games offer the same quantity of content…and we'll bet you didn’t laugh half as much playing any of those as you will playing this.

UEFA Euro 2008 narrows the FIFA ranks to just 52 teams in competition for the confederation's crown, but it still delivers realistic control, convincing independent ball physics, and smooth online play-making. [June 2008, p.81]

Prince Caspian's contrived charms don't run especially deep, but they present just enough middling excitement to make it worth playing for younger teenaged fans of the film. [Aug 2008, p.75]

Despite the high overall level of polish, Assault Heroes 2 feels like an overlong expansion pack - and at $10, it's one that costs twice the price of the original. Good game? Yes, but a tough sell.

A genius quiz-show game that ranks right up there with classics like "You Don't Know Jack." [Apr 2008, p.68]

As the game reaches its midpoint, repetitive missions and aggravating boss encounters begin to sap the seat-of-your-pants fun.

If it were up to us, we'd have included a few better missions, weapons, and cars earlier in the game - if only for a temporary taste. That would definitely improve the pacing (while leaving plenty of surprises for later), and it'd have ensured that ADD players don't stop early without seeing the brilliant content that's down the road. [June 2008, p.40]

The game is one long rush that comes from plotting against a worthy adversary. Lost Cities absolutely nails the right combo of gambling and card-counting skill and counts as Live Arcade’s latest gem.

So yeah, Chosen One has its woes, but gameplay is what’s always made this series fun. If you’ve got some tolerance and some RTFM time, Chosen One will deliver.

Keying on the show's rudimentary (and universally derided) animation instead of its wonderful writing and goofy humor demonstrates an atrocious error in judgment. [May 2008, p.76]

Unless your nostalgia borders on masochism, let this pointless war rage without you.

The fact that it's a mere five levels long and can be frustratingly difficult might limit the game's appeal, but it's hard not to appreciate Ikaruga's meticulously crafted brilliance. [May 2008, p.75]

Even with the Quest Mode’s extra goals, the game felt too simple for its own good. Extra value should’ve come from the online modes, but horrific lag rendered them unplayable, and there’s no offline multiplayer.

At the beginning of the tediously unchanging Adventure Mode (the only mode in the game), you have nearly unlimited time when choosing where to drop a block. That removes any sense of urgency…and you really don’t need to employ any strategy to succeed anyway.

Dark Sector assumes you’ve played a metric ton of games. And even if you have, you’re still likely to get confused and frustrated. Some kind of hint when you’re clearly not grasping it would’ve gone a long way toward easing the pain.

If Petroglyph can fix the single-player AI, smooth out some of the game’s graphics slowdowns, and provide a camera that zooms back more than a few inches, chapter two of Universe at War could well challenge Battle for Middle-earth II for overall Xbox 360 RTS honors.

But the real stars of the show are the battle sequences in which you lead an army of literally hundreds of NPCs into full-on raging wars. It’s just a shame that there’s so much filler between the fights.

The action is incredibly easy. We rarely had trouble with events, particularly the formal tennis matches.

The best way to describe Vegas 2 is that it’s not really a full sequel — it’s just the rest of the first game.

You could pursue worse habits than giving your noodle a mild workout, but Brain Challenge provides little incentive to keep the appointment. [May 2008, p.76]

As a free Flash game, Bliss Island would be mildly entertaining, but in light of Live Arcade's more engaging offerings, it just doesn't cut it here. [June 2008, p.81]

Condemned 2 was designed to mess with your head, and boy, does it succeed. We’re glad we got the chance to return to Metro City, but the old town has changed — in some ways for the better, but a little for the worse.

This year's PES is a step backward, and letting players fake injury to draw fouls is the least of the offenses. [June 2008, p.81]

The game was expressly designed for co-op play, but that makes the enemy A.I., poor vehicle mechanics, and the inability to save on command hard to accept, considering it costs you and a friend a combined $120 to play the game “as intended” over Xbox Live.

Four-player online co-op also takes the sting out of the dumb A.I., and it showcases how this $10 game should be played. [Holiday 2007, p.70]

This game isn’t one you stick with for its story. A bully’s quest to end bullying among cliques by relentlessly bullying everyone does not make a good yarn. But it does make an impressively wide-open world full of tons of gameplay types and nuggets of surprise. Your inner game explorer won’t be able to resist.

The entire experience, however, is tarnished by a framerate that bogs down any time a ball is put in play. A simple 5-3 putout turns into a noticeable slideshow as the camera pans across the diamond — which is a shame, as fielders sport some great animations this year.

Triggerheart Exelica is the kind of brutally difficult bullet orgy that shooter otaku love. [May 2008, p.76]

But ultimately, the choppy multiplayer options and ultra-disbelief-suspending campaign deliver an uneven "What If" history lesson. [Apr 2008, p.74]

But it’s not the mythology that brings Via Domus down — it’s the boring and uninspired gameplay, which consists of a bevy of puzzles using fuse panels, a few rudimentary action sequences, and some weak games of hide-and-seek.

The tasks themselves are familiar — secure blueprints and ammo dumps, defend towns from takeover, detonate collateral — but your freedom of movement creates an exciting illusion of tactical authority, even if you can’t order around your disposable steroid-brigade buddies.

What makes N+ really new and fresh though is its customizability. [Jan 2008, p.66]

If you can overlook the lack of any narrative cohesion, The Club looks great, controls well, and offers you tons of options for giving your trigger finger a good workout. [Mar 2008, p.90]

Its predictable, "Save As from the last version" gameplay left us sad and disappointed. [Mar 2008, p.93]

The FIFA Street series has enough interesting ideas to sustain a fully realized, sports remix, but after three lackluster entries, it desperately needs to work on its finishing technique. [Mar 2008, p.92]

Old arcade pros will miss the coin-op's grippy spinner knob, but the right analog stick approximates it well; finesse players can still win games with superior targeting skill. [July 2007, p.79]

Flag-wavers for hexagonal turn-based strategy games, take note: Commanders' less flexible squares won't offer up the daunting depth of a full-priced title. [Apr 2008, p.76]

But still, the unexceptional, shooter-by-numbers gameplay isn't compelling enough to demand your attention--either solo or in tandem. [Apr 2008, p.76]

This mediocre trudge is definitely one you'll regret. [Apr 2008, p.79]

It's painfully repetitive, and though you play as anti-hero Griffin, the added backstory just isn't that interesting. [May 2008, p.72]

But though the grandiose soundtrack may fool you at first into mistaking this for an epic Square-esque RPG, it’s not. It’s slightly smaller-scale, and the somewhat odd (and kinda bland) character designs never really reach the iconic eye-candy levels of more accomplished J-RPGs like Final Fantasy.

Unless you absolutely loathe poker or puzzlers, buy this game. [Feb 2008, p.75]

A hardcore, old-school shooter. In many ways, it feels like the "Ninja Gaiden" of shooters, so if that sounds appealing to you, you'll probably love it more than we did. But if you're looking for a more modern experience, something from the current crop of shooter stars like "BioShock" and "Call of Duty 4," the frustrating bosses and save system will seem positively prehistoric. [Feb 2008, p.46]

If you love surprises yielded by the collision of inventive card abilities, you'll get a respectable kick from Culdcept Saga. [Feb 2008, p.78]

There's a tragic amount of recycling here. You spend too much time in levels with not much to do; too much time slicing thorugh obvious padding to teach a climax that we can promise won't satisfy you. [Mar 2008, p.86]

If its presentation wasn't so poor(wooden voiceovers, bland graphics, annoying music), it's be a much better game, but at least it nudges the genre in the right direction. [May 2008, p.72]

Encore is a decent party game but it sure lacks the depth and gotta-play-it power of "Rock Band". [May 2008, p.72]

Rez HD hits a rhythm that feels absolutely right for those willing to try something perpetually new, no matter what year it actually debuted. [Feb 2008, p.74]

The beating heart of chess is laid bare with such care that aspiring Kasparovs might yet be lured from the PC dungeon.

As long as you're willing to explore the city's nooks and crannies, drive offensively, and take a hell of a lot of risks, you'll find it supremely rewarding. [Feb 2008, p.70]

The two-player co-op game makes for mild (offline) fun, but the too-short music loops will drive you crazy and your teeth will hurt from the sugar content. The game’s biggest sin? These Bunnies are boring.

While you'll miss the novelty of a glowing blue joystick and an analog spinner, setting the controls to "Absolute Aim" (preset C or D) gives you enough precision to do battle on the Game Grid. [July 2007, p.79]

Playing with a buddy in same-screen co-op is your best bet to enjoyably sate your shooter lust. [Holiday 2007, p.70]

Though the combat grows repetitive, the game manages to look lovely while you slap around your foes. If you’re a fan of large-scale battle games à la Dynasty Warriors but prefer to play solely as one character, Circle of Doom makes for a great after-holiday snack.

NFL Tour doesn’t go to cartoonish extremes, and its self-imposed limitations send some long-term potential off the field on a stretcher, but the smooth play and slick presentation keep it a worthwhile sport.

Jump on Live for a two-player co-op romp and let the old-school arcade love flow freely like so many unspent quarters. [Mar 2008, p.91]

While both adults and children might enjoy the silliness, the simple hop-and-bop mechanics grow old immediately, and the camera's a mess. [Mar 2008, p.92]

The fast pace, aged artifacts, and new online multiplayer functionality might make Sensible worth a peek for the curious, but only the truly devoted will even consider purchasing it. [Feb 2008, p.80]

Only hardcore retro addicts should drop the five bucks. [Nov 2007, p.94]

Our advice: just save your money and pop in your old copy of "Unleashed". [Jan 2008, p.64]

The frenzied pace makes for a pleasant enough co-op diversion, but it's also one that's devoid of meaning or longevity. [Feb 2008, p.79]

GripShift includes a ton of new tracks and a brand-new deathmatch mode--which lets you face off against your pals on Xbox Live--but this game isn't worth the points. [Jan 2008, p.65]

The online quickplay is pretty slick and there's even(gulp)online leagues, which will give this baller more legs than the normal yearly update that NCAA hoops games often are. [Jan 2008, p.67]

There's no reason to play The Golden Compass unless the movie or book absolutely monopolizes your imagination. [Jan 2008, p.62]

When a game's only achievement is that it's a better World War II shooter than "Hour of Victory"--and just barely--it's time to pack it up and just go home. [Feb 2008, p.79]

For DDR newcomers, then, Universe 2 is the complete and definitive package. Longtime fans, on the other hand, will be left wondering how so little extra content can justify so full a price tag.

You can also play with the old graphics and relive that '80s charm. [Oct 2007, p.74]