An epic clash between the some of manga’s most famous characters shouldn’t be this dull, frankly.

Strip away the framing and this is a throwaway JRPG that never finds its bite.

An uncomfortable blend of vulnerability and brand consumption.

Shelter 3's environment may be pretty, but it's not enough to forgive a game that ultimately feels unfinished.

A straightforward cliché that feels out of place in the new wave of cRPGs.

Still, if EA Sports wants to release yearly updates to its sports games, that's all well and good, but it had better make sure the new versions are worth the "new release" price or more gamers will wise up and just pick up an older model at a fraction of the cost. [Dec. 2006, p.126]

Realms of Ruin is a clumsy RTS that's devoid of Warhammer's characteristic grim darkness.

An impressively huge, occasionally beautiful map doesn’t make up for mediocre driving and a lack of multiplayer options.

Earns faint praise for being the best-looking, best-playing version of the lot. [Holiday 2002, p.114]

Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed is an unsatisfying multiplayer experience that lacks the wry character of the movies it's based on.

Etherium is never aggressively terrible, but there’s nothing to recommend it over other, more interesting RTS games.

Even with the generous free-to-play model factored in, it's hard imagine why anyone would want to deal with the basic combat and utterly forgettable lore of this world. [Aug 2011, p.63]

Also disturbing is how readily the game plays itself, with little to no input necessary from the player. [July 2008, p.64]

A gorgeous game with frustrating combat and glitchy exploration, Trek to Yomi is the definition of style over substance.

I apologize for the inconvenience, sir, but Call of Heroes doesn't come with any multi-player, though it does have 15 single-player levels and a few boss battles added for extra flavor. [Oct 2007, p.70]

Unfortunately, after a two-stage porting job, all that's really left is some third-hand game code that won't even work properly on many current-generation PC setups. [Sept 2002, p.72]

A mildly entertaining but distinctly clumsy attempt at a Formula One game. [Oct 2000, p.127]

Fortnite suffocates what could be an incredible tower defense game beneath the some of the most tangential, egregious, impersonal progression systems we’ve seen.

An imperfect port of an unambitious sequel, TFU2 joins a growing list of Star Wars games that don't live up to their potential. [Jan 2011, p.72]

Take away the Matrix setting, and you're left with an action game that really does nothing new - and looks pretty average doing it. [Aug 2003, p.64]

Despite an impressive variety in art direction and environments, Soul Axiom’s puzzle design is shallow and frustrating.

The Walking Dead gets the zombies and the theme just right, but everything else is a mess.

Perhaps an online community would provide a spark, but as it is, it’s pretty rusty.

Anthem's disjointed story, boring loot, repetitive missions, and shallow endgame are all disappointing. At least it's pretty.

Only for nostalgists and those who love getting lost on spelunking holidays.

Slapstick dismemberment is fun for a while, but Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior has neither the depth nor the polish to stay in the fight for long.

Huge engagements that should run several times as long feel more like football downs, and you can easily swing a half-dozen matches in less time than it takes most NFL teams to inch forward 10 yards. [Mar 2006, p.63]

A potentially solid game design desperately in need of a good patch-up job. TalonSoft, are you listening? [Nov 1999, p.180]

A beautiful universe with a sophisticated interface, but it's essentially a desolate wilderness of constellations, space debris, and guesses. [Sept 2003, p.92]

The Cycle: Frontier is well-polished but undone by tedium and a lack of imagination.

Ultimately, TPM might give you the odd chuckle, but you're not really looking forward to it running for a second term in your office. [Dec 2012, p.67]

I really wanted to like this game, but its repetitiveness and frustration make it an island to skip. [July 2004, p.69]

It's still better than the first episode, but its weaknesses will leave you wishing you could go back in time to stop yourself from playing it--space time continuum be damned. [Sept 2011, p.73]

Although likely to be modded to perfection, SH5's release version is an incomplete, buggy disappointment. [Jun 2010, p.68]

Some glaring shortcomings make even the low price a bit too much. [May 2004, p.65]

If you don't ahve high expectations for a Trek RTS, then you won't be disappointed. [Nov 2000, p.160]

Dead Island 2 is hampered by dull design choices, repetitive combat, and a painfully weak story, with its only saving grace being its great performance on PC.

Primordia starts abruptly and ends just as suddenly, and the good story that we’re teased with doesn’t quite ever get told.

Sure, it has some substance - Omaha and two other poker types supporting the main Texas Hold 'Em - plus multiplay that can be set up over a LAN mixing real and AI players. But its obnoxious personality makes it the fish of the group. [Apr 2005, p.65]

Starships isn’t terrible, but it isn’t the polished product you’d expect from a studio with Firaxis’ history. Comparing it to its full-scale PC competitors, like Endless Space and GalCiv is cruel, as it’s sub-par in every single regard: unbalanced, repetitive, badly explained, rather ugly, with a dreadful mobile phone UI, and buggy as hell. Even judged against Firaxis’ other mobile games, Civ: Rev and Ace Patrol, this is small and crude.

Starts promisingly, but soon slips into a tiresome, repetitive grind, never doing its unique period setting justice.

Its gameplay isn't imaginative or original, but if you're looking for a quick fix of destructiveness, Apocalypse gets the job done. [Oct. 2006, p.108]

Another "GTA" clone bites the dust. [Jan 2005, p.56]

The robots blow up good, otherwise this ho-hum shooter fumbles its few ideas and is a shonky port to boot. [Aug 2012, p.58]

Even with its attractive $20 price, Journey offers more aggravation than enjoyment. [Holiday 2003, p.97b]

A big-time ripoff of other, better roleplaying games. [Apr 2002, p.73]

Tilted Mill has given us more of an ancient relic than anything new and compelling. [Jan. 2007, p.82]

Mighty No. 9’s dash mechanic is a lot of fun, but bad art, imprecise hitboxes, and awful level design make the experience extremely frustrating.

Intriguing puzzles aside, this metroidvania is plagued with systems that seem designed to frustrate.

I had to grit my teeth to put in enough play time for a quality review. [June 2002, p.77]

Headspun is a well-meaning attempt at exploring a fascinating topic. Wandering around certain rooms like the Dream Theater and Memory Bank, you see some some vivid imagery, and are faced with interesting questions about the relationship between memories and identity. But it never delves deeper, restricting you to tedious minigames and superfluous base-building while you wait to see how story pans out. Headspun failed to entrench itself in my memory, and I wouldn't feel differently even if its swarms of bugs were squashed.

This savage brawler has its moments, but swiftly moves from brutal to boring.

These design flaws--along with some pedestrian puzzles and those aforementioned protagonist miscues--ultimately turn Belief & Betrayal into a servicable but largely forgettable European church tour. [Oct 2008, p.70]

JetFighter V may have the looks, but it's just way too air-headed to register as a serious contender in this genre. [Holiday 2003, p.112]

Story aside, this would be one of Destiny 2's more forgettable campaigns. But thanks to its wide-ranging overhauls, it's become memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Hardcore D&D fans looking to fill the gap before the next Black Isle or BioWare release should avoid this one like a high-level beholder. [Apr 2002, p.72]

I'm sure that coaching in the NFL is one of the world's most grueling desk jobs, but the whole idea behind sports management games is to indulge fans after they get home from work, not make them feel like they've swapped one desk for another. [Oct. 2006, p.106]

Undulates between periods of manic maintenance and mundane management, with long stretches of ho-hum in between. [Feb 2005, p.58]

An enticing premise held back by uneven pacing and glaring technical issues.

A mediocre romp through a muddied story, with acceptable breaks for engaging combat. [Nov 2002, p.140]

A frustrating action/strategy hybrid where you miss the action while flailing to control the strategy. [Mar 2004, p.67]

Homely, charmless graphics. [Aug 2006, p.91]

These offshoots are often rushed out in time for the opening of the film, designed to squeeze extra revenue from tired-eyed parents. They're rarely very good, and Arthur and the Invisibles fails to buck that trend. [Apr 2007, p.59]

Normally, I'd never suggest that a classic be tampered with, but in this case, it's a shame that Munch's Oddysee wasn't tweaked. [April 2011, p.73]

Even Abermore's cult of beetle worshippers would draw the line at this many bugs.

Blood Stone's short and uneven mission is no more than the sum of its parts. [Feb 2011, p.75]

Like a movie you'd only watch when your PC's fried and the cable's out, Fantasy Wars may satisfy a turn-based strategy fix when the well runs dry. [Mar 2008, p.78]

The combat is fun in parts and the characters grew on me, but so much more of Bound by Flame is tedious, frustrating, and unpolished.

Positioning yourself for combat is more enjoyable than the actual battles. [July 2005, p.58]

Combine the inability to skip cut scenes with a checkpoint save system, and you have the straw that broke the panda's back. [Oct 2008, p.67]

As a free-to-play game it's reasonably generous. [April 2017, p.91]

The main problem with Diggles is that all this micro-management take a long time to execute. [July 2002, p.73]

Both Holmes and Lupin deserve better than this middling. [Aug 2008, p.71]

This is a game about crashing that feels restrained, almost sterile. [Aug 2017, p.87]

Toss in some dated graphics, a clunky arcade flight component, and some carryover stability issues, and Pacific Storm: Allies just barely keeps itself afloat. [June 2008, p.72]

Floaty combat and repetition mean this cartoon brawler is never more than a pretty face.

Patience pays dividends, but won't cover these clubhouse fees. [Feb 2006, p.49]

Enjoyable arcade handling packaged within a game that gets monotonous long before it rewards your time investment.

And that's about all you get, aside from a few new toys, some forgettable items, and another unnecessary boost to the level cap. [Holiday 2011, p.75]

The shallow management quickly devolves into make-work. Toss in frustrating random hurricanes and fires, and you'll recall why you couldn't wait to graduate. [May 2004, p.73]

Despite an attractive veneer, Planet Alpha offers rote and shallow platforming. Try Playdead’s Inside instead.

At best, Randal's Monday has puzzles that professors at the Institute of Moon Logic would point to and ask "What the hell?" They're nonsensical, poorly explained, reliant on the most painful 'try everything on everything' guesswork, and feel longer than being strapped to a board until Stephen Hawking's voice synthesiser has read out the entire works of Dostoyevsky.

Masochistic stat-chasers will find much to enjoy, but Blackguards’ varied combat is no substitute for a fully-formed RPG.

Its individual parts are pure hit-and-miss, but if you overlook the misses and get on with killing bad guys, you'll have a good time. [July 2003, p.82]

Tiresome racer that only takes two hours to complete, yet somehow feels longer. That's both impressive and depressing.

Two new guns make it a bit too easy to fumigate entire rooms with a few quick blasts, and any hope for an exciting new challenge quickly melts away as I hobble towards the ambiguous, lackluster ending. [April 2011, p.79]

A clever time loop setup devolves into frustrating repetition.

The game starts explicitly telling you the answers to questions mere moments before asking the questions. [Oct 2009, p.79]

At its core, it's a simplistic console game with all the usual trappings - brainless combat, lame puzzles, and shoddy controls. [Oct 2005, p.70]

The videogame equivalent of a bad Vietnam B-movie. [Jan 2005, p.88]

Shabby joystick support also contributes to a number of annoying control issues. [Apr 2002, p.71]

A polished but disappointingly by-the-numbers FMV adventure that won't linger in your mind for long.

Shadow Warrior 3 buries a fun shooter so deep in muck that it’s not worth dirtying your hands.

Ghost in the Sheet is an original, if low-budget take on the mystery/adventure genre, but poor narration and low-quality visuals make it a challenge to finish. [May 2008, p.64]

Better "Half-Life" fixes can be dowloaded for free. [Feb 2001, p.71]

The latest in The Adventure Company's point-and-click offerings, <i>Keepsake</i> is billed as "part mystery, part <i>Harry Potter</i>." In reality, it's part boring and part really boring. [July 2006, p.99]

Still, even with the most charming narrative, the clumsy and ultimately banal action leaves Contrast whistling in the dark. [Feb 2014, p.74]

Colorful characters alone can't wake up this sleepy sailing and farming adventure.