That simplicity is also its biggest problem--pointing and clicking requires little strategy, so rather than always playing, you'll be watching dudes fight. Yawn. [Dec 2008, p.73]

Marathon is certainly interesting for aspiring game designers and historians who want to observe Bungie's roots. But as a $10 offering in 2007, it just doesn't hold up very well. [Sept 2007, p.74]

Kids or casual players may find some fun here, but serious sharks will seek cleaner waters. [Dec. 2006, p.84]

If you haven't gotten the chance to reach American Idol stardom or to challenge your friends to musical tournaments with the previous installment, Encore is still a decent party game. [Jan 2009, p.75]

The F1 license ultimately adds little value to a style-over-substance kiddie racer where luck often trumps driving skill.

The Path of Go features story-mode matches against shrewd A.I., but it lacks the decency to introduce important strategic basics before mopping the floor with your face. [March 2011, p.81]

If Dr. Seuss made Xbox games, they'd certainly be more creative than this factory-issue snoozer. [Jan 2004, p.73]

An evolution?/ Not with the low-res textures/ From Playstation 2. [Review Haiku - Feb 2002, p.80]

While the game deserves kudos for its trippy and 'toon-y visual style, the hard reality is there's no compelling reason to give up the 800-pound gorilla that is "PGR2" to adapt to Auto Modellista's driftacular controls, especially since the game's Xbox Live implementation is fairly bareboned. Kee-rash.[Apr 2004, p.80]

While the character models may leave something to be desired, the environments in Iron Phoenix impress with detail and variety. [June 2005, p.85]

Lame animation and boring level design. [July 2010, p.81]

Despite having tons of unlockable content, the game will hold little thrills for annyone above age 12, and even kids will finish the thing before the weekend is up. [Aug 2006, p.78]

Yes, people, it finally happened - a phone game's been ported to Xbox Live Arcade! [June 2009, p.79]

Track-building may be entertaining, but overall, JAM's an iffy proposition made worse by its agonizing Arcade mode.

A tiresome, soon-to-be-forgotten exercise in tedium. [Oct 2003, p.84]

Fatal's look hasn't exactly aged well, and SNK has done little to update the graphics. [Dec 2007, p.78]

Your $5 will be better spent elsewhere. [Dec 2009, p.78]

Grueling career mode will make you want to cut off your right hand. [Jan 2006, p.75]

Between lag, lockups, and a general lack of players, Bloody Good Time guarantees that you'll have anything but. [Feb 2011, p.79]

Though the compilation's $30 price is alluring, gamers' found memories would probably serve them just as well. [May 2011, p.79]

Most disappointing is that unlike previous Rabbids games, most of the mini-games just aren't fun without multiple players. And even with them, bland activities aren't always enjoyable. With no basic story to hold everything together, anyone besides Rabbids fans will have no motivation to keep going.

Unless your taste in classics runs on the obscure side (hello, "Super Qix"), Taito Legends might be best left in the vault. [Jan 2006, p.71]

If you crave a Rayman game that mixes a retro vibe with contemporary gameplay and gorgeous graphics, do yourself a favor and opt for last year's stellar Rayman Origins. Rayman 3 HD's dated platformer appeal is a playground strictly for old-school nostalgics seeking a tangible example of how far the genre has evolved.

The tracks are nicely designed as well, but again, the effort seems fairly wasted due to the extremely dated graphics engine. [June 2005, p.86]

As a result, tackling the solo tournaments seems pointless unless you've mastered these rigged shots, and ranked matches often become lopsided contests that favor folks who've memorized the most. [Feb 2011, p.83]

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.

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]

Sonic Adventure may have been a 3D revolution for Sega's storied franchise when it debuted in 1999, but in these HD-ified days, it just feel dated. [Nov 2010, p.69]

SkyHeroes isn't bad, and we aren't getting a new Crimson Skies anytime soon, but don't rush out to buy this kid-skewed substitute. [Nov 2010, p.71]

If more attention was paid to the actual mutant -fueled action, it could have been a heck of a lot of scary fun. Instead, it hardly elicits a goose bump. [June 2005, p.81]

Though the 10-player online matches may sound attractive, they're not worth the hassle of the core gameplay. [Nov 2010, p.73]

After 13 years, Duke Forever is ultimately and thoroughly mediocre, with heavy bouts of boredom and frustration mixed in. And yet, for anyone with an appreciation for videogame history, we absolutely recommend giving it a playthrough.

As an extension of Dead Space 3’s story, it’s ultimately a bit pointless — especially with its cliffhanger ending, which effectively deprives you of the closure the main game (minus its end-credits tease) delivered. Unless you’re a hardcore fan or franchise completist, we’d suggest saving your $10 and replaying Dead Space 3 instead.

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]

These repeated cheap deaths make the sparse checkpoints and the lack of a mid-mission save feature all the more obvious. At least there are no load times between deaths. [Aug 2005, p.85]

Reinventing an old coin-op is fine with us, but unfortunately, this redux fails to meet modern standards. [April 2011, p.79]

So-so gameplay can be confusing. [Sept 2010, p.81]

All you're really left with is accumulating points...but since the game has no multiplayer to spice up that trivial pursuit, why even bother. [Aug 2007, p.81]

Just can't match the splendor and great variety of the real-world games. [Mar 2010, p.81]

Legacy is a bit overpriced for its shallow, brief amount of content, but whether it's worth the money ultimately depends on your interest in the game's expanded universe.

Ultimately, though, it feels like an elaborate gimmick--more a faded star than a true Hollywood legend. [April 2011, p.82]

Worth the $10 for serious word nerds who don't need fancy production values. [Apr 2009, p.79]

Yet, with so many fishing holes to unlock on top of the ability to, yes, race your boat, Trophy Bass salutes those of you who enjoy fishing with way more options than $20 normally delivers. [Feb. 2007, p.80]

Only small tweaks to an increasingly aging formula. [Apr 2010, p.79]

Koei fanatics might be satisfied, but everyone else will be as disappointed as ever. [Nov 2008, p.76]

Unless you're an avid Shinobi fan, let this one pass you by. [Oct 2009, p.77]

Fun? Not for long, and not for the asking price of 10 bucks. [July 2009, p.77]

How cruelly ironic that a game filled with gleaming, glossy surfaces would be in such dire need of polish.

Uninteresting story and visuals. [Dec 2009, p.69]

Crusade sports some solid ideas (a "cursed realm" you can switch to on the fly is a neat concept that doesn't quite work), but sadly, it suffers most from ho-hum pacing and rinse-repeat gameplay.

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]

Way too slow and boring by today's standards. [Aug 2009, p.75]

No amount of staring at Bionicle will allay the feeling that you accidentally booted up a PSOne game. [Jan 2004, p.63]

Unless you're a major mech fiend, you'll lose interest within a few hours. [Dec 2008, p.87]

All in all, Raging Blast 2 aims low and hits the mark for lovers of Goku, Vegeta, and the rest, but those looking for a great fighter won't have their wish granted this time. [Jan 2011, p.73]

Even at $10, we won't be taking another ride with OutRun until Sega serves up some substantial new content. [May 2009, p.80]

Frustrating core gameplay problems overshadow the edgy urban setting. [Jan 2006, p.64]

Mediocre. [Nov 2002, p.125]

Eutechnyx's third kick at the NASCAR can keeps hitting singleplayer and multiplayer speed bumps that diminish the overall racing experience. [June 2014, p.81]

Some folks might've relished lining up creeps for extended combo attacks, if such efforts weren't constantly interrupted because the attack button also retrieves items from the ground. Even at the best of times, nabbing goodies is a poor substitute for engaging action.

Another month, another retro space shooter on Xbox Live. This one, however, isn't as much fun as you remember. [July 2007, p.81]

Only dedicated privateers will make it to the unsatisfying conclusion. [Oct 2010, p.75]

It pains us to have to say that it's just not too fun to play. [Aug 2009, p.75]

But ultimately, there's very little about Mind Over Mutant that makes it worth your $50 or the four hours it takes to complete. [Holiday 2008, p.67]

Those intrigued by 19th-century strife should wait for a price drop: $50 is too much to ask for such a slim package. [Jan 2009, p.75]

In the heat of battle, Need for Speed: The Run generally serves up a solid and speedy arcade racing experience, with expectedly steady controls and physics. But it's consistently undone by painful rewinds and a dull campaign marked by predictable events, not to mention technical issues.

As uninspiring as it is harmless. [Sept 2006, p.79]

So even if The Meltdown doesn't aim high on the innovation scale, it accomplishes just enough, well ebough, for a few hours spent on the couch with tweenie Ice Age fans at the next family gathering. [May 2006, p.74]

Granted, even with a friend in tow, the missions all feel the same--which rings true of DW7 as a whole. [June 2011, p.83]

It was a cute but unimaginative game for pre-teens when it debuted for the original Xbox this summer, and this 360 version of Pixar's animated movie Cars is essentially a high-resolution copycat. [Holiday 2006, p.76]

Maybe little kids would like it. But do kids really want a game where you sneak up on dull robots because you're not allowed to kill anything? [Feb 2004, p.82]

The Tackle Alley mini-game is fun. [Aug 2010, p.77]

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.

Weakened by a bland story, uninspiring graphics, and grating voiceovers. [July 2010, p.84]

The clean, simple interface serves Domino Master well, but complete games (composed of several matches) drag on too long, and the tile-placement guides slice too much of the plotting and planning from the experience. [Dec 2008, p.73]

Feels totally manufactured and formulaic. [Sept 2007, p.76]

The game's impressively creative in parts, but regrettably, the blend of combat and driving never feels very fluid or cohesive.

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.

Powerstar Golf has its enjoyable strokes, whether playing solo, with local buddies, or while challenging an online rival's best score in an asynchronous mode, but truly head-scratching skill and progression choices diminish what's already an uninspiring clone.

The controls are almost always downright woeful - mostly being either way too sensitive or barely responsive at all.

It's a minor relief to compete against slower-moving humans, and the option to play as robots who behave a bit differently injects a smidgen of variety. But even in online games, paltry tactical options and awkward controls makes Planets feel shallow and clumsy. [Nov 2012, p.77]

A madcap, farcical mishmash of both online and offline multiplayer options, along with a fairly weak, platformer-centric single-player Story Mode. [July 2005, p.89]

Two-player co-op is okay, but it's still fans-only for this one. [June 2005, p.88]

Shrek's gameplay is sub-par. [Jan 2002]

Little errors such as collision detection are present, and the bland visual effects result in a game that controls poorly, looks bad, and is generally not much fun at all. [July 2003, p.79]

The gameplay takes its cue mainly from games like "Phantasy Star Online," except simpler, a lot rougher, and yet plenty more convoluted. [Sept 2005, p.80]

Quality standards may have been different a year or two ago, but as a "new release" today, Yager ultimately crashes and burns as a poor "Crimson Skies" imitator. [Nov 2004, p.74]

With better graphics and better (read: more fun) controls, Crash 'n Burn could be a standout racer. [Holiday 2004, p.87]

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]

While the game strives for a balance of realism and playability, the bottom line is, it's not much fun. [Sept 2006, p.79]

By virtue of Season Two's weak core collection of mini-games, Basketball slots in as the second-best sport on-hand (after golf). And this DLC's 10 Basketball-themed Achievements are some of the easiest 250 Gamerscore you'll ever earn.

Both Cave fans and challenge hounds will bask in Nin2-Jump's oft-arduous tests. All others, proceed with caution. [July 2011, p.75]

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]

The Fancy Pants biggest problem, though, is that it's just plain dull. [July 2011, p.77]

It's frustrating, it makes no sense, and it just makes everyone involved want to play something else. [Aug 2011, p.76]

It's not terrible, but not even the ability to make Grylls drink urine or hollow out a camel for shelter are enough to make it compelling. [July 2011, p.77]

While a few arcade ronin might still hold on to the old ways, most will find this Samurai is an obsolete relic. [Feb 2006, p.82]

Sadly, significant omissions derail this misguided offering, making it fairly unfulfilling. [July 2011, p.78]