Armikrog’s memory puzzles and tenuous humour are a low point in the adventure game renaissance.

This franchise is as stale as a holiday fruitcake. The new engine is needed NOW. [Mar 2001, p.86]

Fun but forgettable. [Sept 2011, p.68]

For a title like Legend, it's a first class ticket to the recycle bin. [Nov 2008, p.68]

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]

This entry, however, is hardly legendary. [Jan. 2007, p.76]

For $19.99, Warpath is a good deal--in quantity, if not quality. [Jun 2006, p.50]

Be prepared to watch hours of repetitive combat animation. [Holiday 2001, p.92]

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

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

Unspectacular graphics only serve to accentuate the game’s myriad physical and visual shortcomings.

Moscow to Berlin doesn't bring much to the RTS table, but war gamers familiar with "Desert Rats" will enjoy the new missions for the budget price of 30 bucks. [Sep 2006, p.60]

Paradise conjures the same kind of enchanting story, satisfying puzzles, magical machinery, and exotic fauna that "Syberia" did, and signs off with and ending that lingers in your mind long after the credits roll. [Aug 2006, p.84]

Essentially a B-movie game. Worth buying if you're hard up for an adventure game. [May 2001, p.65]

The strategy in Supremacy has all the depth of a wading pool. [June 2005, p.65]

I wouldn't strongly recommend this game to vets, but I might give a half-hearted recommendation to first-timers. [Nov 2003, p.132]

This game should tickle the hell out of most "Diablo" fans. [May 2003, p.78]

Not necessarily a bad superhero game, just one we’ve seen countless times before. The web-swinging, goon-bashing, crime-fighting fundamentals simply aren't fun.

This is a very generic, very buggy shooter. One other plus: translations and voice acting so bad, they're often entertaining. [July 2006, p.55]

But unless you prefer games that you watch and don't play, there's simply no reason for either history or strategy buffs to waste the coin. [May 2004, p.75]

Leave rocket building to the rocket scientists. [Apr 2006, p.100]

Toren is a good story that suffers in the telling, with simplistic platforming that's hampered by a sloppy camera and controls.

A flimsy remake of a flawed 16-bit favourite that exacerbates all the original’s problems while failing to recapture its strengths.

I'm still so amazed over Mortyr II's playability that I'm not thinking straight. [June 2005, p.72]

If converted to a turn-based game, many of D-Day's concepts, graphics, and missions would work well. In their current form, however, they don't. [Apr 2005, p.73]

But in spite of its repetitive gameplay, Age of Pirates offers Akella's most polished pirating excursion yet, and its introduction of a multiplayer mode, which allows you and up to 15 of your mateys to duke it out on the high seas, adds even more value to a solid sandbox game. [Dec. 2006, p.98]

Starsky isn't the grooviest racer around, but the cars handle well and the graphics ain't shabby. [Apr 2004, p.68]

If you like "military authenticity" but prefer button-mashing to tactical squad work, CDS is for you. [Jan 2003, p.110]

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]

If Fort Solis really was a Netflix series, it wouldn’t get a second season.

Disciples III has a strong heritage, but wears out its welcome with too much repetition, stunted difficulty and weird pacing. [Oct 2010, p.78]

Too sloppy to be fun. [Sept 2002, p.81]

If you've just taken a course on Greek history, you might appreciate the setting, but for both strategy and visuals, Spartan is very...well, spartan. [Dec 2004, p.106]

The setting is great, but weak combat and limited choices stop this RPG from going anywhere fun.

A joyful mix of stealth and action, the fun doesn't snag on the rough edges.

Only diehard "Blair Witch" fans are going to want this one, and then only because it's cheap. [Feb 2001, p.88]

Someone, please think of the children and put an end to this crap. [Mar 2002, p.72]

The bastard twins of sucky AI and sucky pathfinding are both present and accounted for. [Sept 2004, p.66]

The scripted predictability of the missions and the relative sameness of each helicopter's flight characteristics significantly reduce the overall replayability. [May 2004, p.71]

Despite some cool heroes and a neat twist on battle royale, Amazon’s long-awaited hero shooter wasn’t worth the wait.

Here's an oddity: there's no auto-save after each level, or even manual saves. With 30 single-player levels, including bosses, it sure would've been nice to load any level you'd completed. [Mar 2002, p.64]

Less unpleasant than having an alien probe stuck up your butt - but not by much. [Sept 1998, p.129a]

It's still a fine adaptation, offering a surprising amount of gumshoe depth. [Mar 2006, p.102]

Perception offers a decent set of horror stories, but exploring this house gets dull pretty quickly.

Regrettably, BOS is an FPS that's a POS. You can definitely do better. [Holiday 2005, p.68]

In short, <i>RF Online</i> fails as a PvE game, and its PvP gameplay isn't engaging enough to make up for that fatal flaw. [July 2006, p.78]

I had high hopes that Legacy would be the game that rejuvenates the dormant Star Trek franchise, but it's just another addition to my pile of disappointing Trek games. [Mar 2007, p.58]

Reloaded has recreated APB, but reined in its ambition. Most of the same problems are here, but for a better price. [Mar 2012, p.70]

A Festival of Crap. [July 2002, p.63]

Suffers from a case of getsboringquick-itis. [July 2002, p.74]

Fun, but too short and shallow to be a full-priced expansion pack. [Jan 2004, p.104]

Sonic Forces is not, like several entries in the series, offensively bad. There are some stages where you can’t help but be swept up by its breakneck pace, pounding soundtrack, and chaotic pinball table levels. It’s just unfortunate that it was released so soon after Mania, which took the best of old Sonic and made it sparklingly relevant again. Forces, however, is plagued by inconsistent level design, floaty controls, and a risible Saturday morning cartoon storyline that only kids and rabid Sonic fans will find entertaining.

Your current life is too short to waste on this next one. [Mar 2008, p.77]

A reasonably effective balance between traditional RTS action in the "Warcraft" mold and the large-scale tactics of the "Total War" series. [Feb 2005, p.62]

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.

I just sat there and gambled until I finally felt so angry with the game that I wanted to stab my screen. [Nov 2013, p.78]

Being forced to tap the left/right keys to navigate every corner makes for some decidedly non-fun gaming. [Holiday 2003, p.113]

Mass murder by dragonbreath has never been so monotonous. [Feb 2005, p.71]

The story's perplexing, the AI is unimaginative, and the Predator and Predalien missions just aren't that interesting. [Nov 2002, p.146]

Ugly and simplistic, but surprisingly likeable. [June 2007, p.89]

Its control niggles make it more suitable for console platforms, and it's nowhere near as enjoyable as last year's "Spider-Man" movie game. [July 2003, p.90]

It feels like a four-hour tutorial to a game that might have used its mechanics better, never trusting its players enough to present them with a thoughtful challenge. [Oct 2011, p.77]

Despite some memorable imagery, Monochroma plays like a budget-price Limbo. [Sept. 2014, p.69]

Definitely a kids' arcade game with the extreme simplicity of a console title, Shrek 2 offers enough comic mischief to make children love the big green guy all over again. [July 2004, p.58]

I'm enjoying Battlefield 1. It's not a huge departure for the series, despite the period, but it is meaningfully distinct from Battlefield 4. That may disappoint those who simply want progression that mirrors the jump from Battlefield 3 to 4 – more guns, more features and new maps.

Ultimately, like so many franchise tie-ins, it's just criminally mediocre. [Feb 2005, p.68]

Since it liberally cribs from better games that are now selling for $20 or less themselves, you'd be a fool not to check them out first. [Mar 2002, p.63]

In short, Blitzkrieg II just doesn't cut the mustard. [May 2007, p.66]

Agonizingly mediocre - and proof that the Blair Witch has had her day in the moonlight. [Apr 2001, p.90]

Simple, explosion-packed action is what SS:BR looks like, and that's exactly what it'll deliver. Nothing more, nothing less. [Oct 2011, p.78]

A gritty Eastern Front soldier sim rushed to the front far too soon. Wait for patches if you're squeamish.

Think about it: the developer built in a level skip. I recommend a cheaper alternative: the game skip. [Oct 2008, p.66]

A boring, unoriginal, morally bankrupt, ethically dubious glorification of war, that's not worth your time or money.

The 3D graphics all look positively amateurish. [July 2002, p.62]

The lack of any real challenge makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hard to recommend for all but the very young set. [Mar 2004, p.75]

Unlike other MMORPG's with admittedly better graphics, Endless Ages throws so much variety into the overall experience that there's rarely a dull moment. [Aug 2003, p.69]

With no online community, no single-player gameplay and no replayability, Crasher has already crashed. [June 2011, p.74]

Hektor's level design mind games are cool, but its 90 minutes of jump scares would be better spent on so many other horror games.

Jigsaw's game are meant to be cruel, barbaric, horrific and pedantic, but this game is just plain tedious. [Jan 2010, p.79]

Good ideas all, but the execution is a muddled mess. [Feb 2002, p.71]

A dreadful-looking but surprisingly playable simulation of a truly complex game. [Feb 2004, p.84]

SP2: Faith in Destiny is a mess. [Oct 2012, p.69]

To be brutally honest, you are as imaginative as dry, unbuttered toast. [July 2004, p.65]

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

Shoddy enemy A.I. Sometimes you can be standing 20 feet in front of a guard in a well-lit room and remain invisible to him, while other times you may be detected from 50 feet or more while crouching in a dark corner. [Sept 2004, p.60]

Sane people. however--folks who don't take their new Leader Class Optimus Prime to bed with them--should probably play something else. [Oct 2007, p.72]

Defenders of Time multiplayer mode is conceptually interesting, but ultimately not worth trying because of many technical issues and poorly-executed fundamentals.

For the price, though, it's bloody fun. [Feb. 2007, p.72]

When you realize, after a while, that all there is to Fury is to either fight or not fight, you may just decide to take your ball and go home. [Jan 2008, p.90]

Homefront: The Revolution feels slapdash, and after the initial fun of learning its systems, drab repetition reveals obvious exploits.

Ubisoft's true crime is in trotting out lame production values... again, for the third time. [March 2005, p.74]

The ride is quite fleeting, however, and most experienced PC prop-jocks will whip through Battle of Europe in a single afternoon. [Aug 2006, p.90]

The contrived plot gets spiced up with convincing voice acting and smooth cinematic animations, but slick style doesn't hold up against bland levels and repetitive missions, making this just another GTA clone, but with even more f-bombs and bloodshed. [July 2006, p.55]

Unintuitive, uninvolving and overpriced. Not even its satisfying trading system can put the wind in Port Royale 3's sails. [Sept 2012, p.66]

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]

A significant upgrade, supported by a clever eye for tactical diversity. An eye that is sadly poked by uneven execution. [Oct 2013, p.74]

There always came a rather abrupt moment when city management turned from a challenge into a chore, and the sameness of the battles made it hard to sustain the illusion of waging a genuine "campaign." [Oct 2003, p.106]

With improved AI, reworked story and dialogue, and less restrictive level design, this game could've been stellar. [Jan. 2007, p.71]