Earns points for originality, but with better pacing and a heftier casting budget, it could have been a much better zombie game contender. [Nov 2011, p.79]

History Buffs may consider this "Age of Empires" clone if it's cheap, but all else leave it be. [Apr 2001, p.84]

Art of Murder gets most of the fundamentals right, but after spending an hour or so with its grating characters, banal dialogue, and inept plot, you probably won't care. [Oct 2008, p.63]

You can barely tolerate the insane irrelevance of the details asked - they really are that dry. [Sept 2002, p.76]

A turd of a third-person shooter that so revels in senseless violence and horrible design, I needed a shower every time I stopped playing. [Holiday 2004, p.100]

Sadly, developer Volatile misses the mark. [Jan. 2007, p.63]

A shallow, slow, grind-heavy MMO crippled by a horrible interface and nonsensical player limitations.

Infuriating, buggy, and ultimately boring. [Oct 2003, p.96]

As soon as the novelty of elemental attacks wears off so does EoW's appeal. [Sept 2011, p.75]

Slow, clunky, and prone to glitchiness, playing Daggerdale feels like a sentence to an actual dungeon.

After a promising start, Light's simplistic take on stealth quickly plateaus and then abruptly stops, falling well short of its potential.

Garshasp falls short of genre standards in nearly every way, and its shortcomings are too numerous to compensate for. [Sept 2011, p.75]

LOJS is such an unapologetic console port that the enclosed instructions on keyboard commands elicit more of a sense of amusement--how sweet of them to pretend this is useful!--than education. [Nov. 2006, p.116]

After Theatre of War 3: Korea crashed for the last time, I realized it'd only succeeded in whetting my appetite for a good Korean War real-time strategy game. [July 2011, p.69]

Gangs of Sherwood shows initial promise with its creative setting and colourful combat but runs out of steam well before the end of its already brief running time.

The only feeling of authenticity you'll get from Platoon is the same sort of futilitiy that pervaded the actual Vietnamese conflict. [Feb 2003, p.68]

With a title like Wacky Worlds, I expected this first add-on for "RollerCoaster Tycoon 2" to be a little, well, wackier. [Aug 2003, p.67]

Ace of Spades contains some good ideas and tries hard to ape its influences, but it lacks their charm and stability.

Resist, chopper fans. You'll thank us later. [Aug 2007, p.63]

It's just that not enough of the missions stand out, and the majority feel like sleepwalks through pirate lore that would bore a pre-teen. [June 2007, p.60]

Hell, it's so bad, it makes David Lynch's ultra-tedious 1984 movie adaptation seem positively refreshing. [Apr 2002, p.76]

Nothing's particularly well done. [Dec 2005, p.96]

If 20 bucks is burning a hole in your pocket, spend it on "Need For Speed: Most Wanted" instead. You'll thank me later. [Dec. 2006, p.122]

Finding good matches is not easy in APOX's sluggish community, however, and I cannot fathom why anyone should play this instead of the exponentially better games that it tries to emulate. [June 2011, p.77]

Now this part’s whack. Carson isn’t even in the game! Ohmigod, they so totally got this other MTV himbo, Brian McFayden, to do the talking. And you don’t even see him. What is up with that, y’all?

Ditch this loser and go play one of the three far-superior Splinter Cell games. [Oct 2005, p.68]

A Weskered development gives us the Wong game. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City is evil in the wrong sense. [Sept 2012, p.70]

A decent adventure game may be lurking beneath The Secrets of Atlantis' tiresome pixel-hunting, nonsensical puzzles, and substandard imagery, but you'll have to work to find it [Sept 2007, p.58]

Just another tiresome and unimaginative RTS. It’s a real shame. [Holiday 2001, p.72]

It has more questions than "Millionaire," a faster pace, and an entertaining blend of team sentiment and selfish strategy. [Holiday 2001, p. 68]

The simple gameplay will amuse rugrats enamored with the animated flick, but the game's bully-ish StarForce protection and constant sound hiccups mire the experience. [Nov. 2006, p.120]

Repetitive gameplay and an inability to communicate with your co-op teammates will keep Guns of Icarus grounded. [Sept 2010, p.82]

Dear Philos: I know we want "hard," but I don't think we asked for "cheap." I guess we're just old-fashioned that way. [Dec 2003, p.97]

Tedium, interrupted by frustration. [Holiday 2006, p.86]

For less than a buck per level, Fire Warrior is a bargain. [May 2004, p.74]

The Cartel's finest feature is a mess. Everything else is merely bland, repetitive, and dull. [Holiday 2011, p.80]

For the 10 or so hours spent skulking behind bars, Prison Break fans will adore the atmosphere and ridiculously outlandish plot elements. [Sept 2010, p.79]

A wearisome crime-solving adventure game with poor graphics, boring stories and buggy cases. [Feb 2011, p.76]

Awful enough. [Jan 2010, p.80]

The transition from celluloid to digital bytes is a mess of missed opportunities. [Feb 2006, p.37]

A bug-ridden quagmire that rivals the 'Nam itself. [Aug 2005, p.57]

Rome seems rushed and poorly realized. [Apr 2008, p.70]

You get what you pay for, though, and for a $20 title, WWII TC delivers a modicum of modest, albeit fleeting, big-gun thrills. [May 2006, p.54]

Pretty darned awful...With barely five hours of gameplay, no voiceovers, non-existent AI, and amateruish chapter-ending cartoons, Hero X can't even rightly be called a decent bargain-bin pick. [Oct 2002, p.102]

A horror game with few scares, Inmates is imprisoned by its lack of ambition.

This little number's a shiny new lemon. [May 2002, p.69]

There's little redeeming value to this poor knock-off. Maximus is spinning in his grave. [Jan 2003, p.106]

An overpriced game with a solid combat system that's buried under a mountain of banality and monetisation.

Only for hardcore fans of Halle Berry or aficionados of softcore porn. [Nov 2004, p.96]

So much squandered potential, it's mind-boggling. Needs serious patching. [Aug 2005, p.66]

This point-and-click adventure should have stayed in Italy. [July 2006, p.99]

A muddled collection of good ideas, Impire has charm enough but its flaws are likely to frustrate most players.

Cringeworthy voice acting. [July 2008, p.60]

Deus Ex: The Fall belongs on your phone, not on your monitor. This is a woeful port with few redeeming features.

LA Cops has some cool ideas, but the frustratingly shoddy execution works completely at odds with the experience the game is trying to create.

Payback is a disservice to the Soldier of Fortune franchise, and in no way captures the exciting action of its pedigree. [Feb 2008, p.86]

The main problem I have with this sports sim is the wild inaccuracies I found in its generated stats. [Apr 2007, p.49]

Even the combat is boring, since it's entirely automated and gives you no control whatsoever over your troops. [Dec 2003, p.132]

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

Despite its token connection to the recent CGI-enhanced MGM movie, Flyboys isn't a standalone aerial shooter so much as a repackaging of iENT's subscription-based Warbirds/Dawn of Aces online combat-flight-sim service. [Apr 2007, p.52]

A mediocre XCOM-like in the form of a deeply worrying depiction of militarised police.

Just a kiddie console racer in PC clothing. [Mar 2002, p.74]

Deeply underwhelming. Neither staged carefully enough to be scary nor dynamic enough to be exciting, it succeeds only where other players are capable of breathing life into it. There are better linear shooters, better asymmetrical multiplayer games, and better Aliens sequels, and your love of the motion tracker and pulse rifle would need to be profound to surmount those obstacles.

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]

The problem with Apocalypse Weekend is that it lacks the cleverness and thoughtful execution that made the original worth laughs. [Oct 2005, p.72]

A beautiful but baffling space strategy game. Bugs and bewildering menus make for a frustrating and very missable experience.

Factor in BMT 2's dated graphics, clumsy truck physics, and lack of multiplay, and even liquored-up yokels will have a tough time finding any play value with this tiresome retread. [Jan 2005, p.110]

The real puzzle is why anyone would consider this entertainment. [June 2007, p.71]

No-frills tedium. [Holiday 2006, p.88]

Instead of spending $50 on Beowulf the game, read the poem instead; this game isn't epic, it's just epically tedious. [Feb 2008, p.74]

In the future, everyone holds their pistols sideways "gangsta-style," which I find hilarious. [May 2005, p.69]

A tiny bit of truly awful combat has been thrown in when it should have been thrown out, and this may be the last third-person game in existence that doesn’t support the mouse in any way.

This short ride's definitely a lemon. [June 2011, p.72]

Occasionally entertaining, but plagued by AI bugs and hamstrung by a clunky user interface. Less than the sum of its parts.

After just a half-hour, SLC 2002 will be straight in the trash. It's a mathematical certainty. [May 2002, p.77]

The game wields enough classic strategy and roleplaying elements to make up for its lack of visual flair. [July 2003, p.86]

An ARPG with weak combat and too many bugs, Bombshell isn’t worth your click-click-clicks.

Sanctum of Slime could've been partially redeemed with co-op, but since it's ridiculously limited to local-only(no online or even LAN), few will ever bother to play it on PC. [Aug 2011, p.76]

A few good ideas, but Prospekt is hurt by uninspired design and infuriating combat encounters.

All the gameplay ingredients are here, but a complete lack of seasoning makes this one dish that should be tossed down the disposal. [Oct 2004, p.98]

For those hoping for a game in which killing innocent people provides you with some sort of entertainment—be it humor, revulsion, guilt, a vicarious and morbid thrill—you can find it done better, in one way or another, in every other game I've mentioned in this review.

As much as I love impaling skeleton warriors with the Stake Gun, if I'm paying for this experience I want something new. [June 2011, p.72]

It's a pity this game wasn't given more time to come together. [May 2005, p.60]

MOBA genre conventions are much better executed by Dota 2 and League of Legends. Dragons and Titans just isn’t a worthwhile alternative.

A must-have for hardcore fans of the show (both of them). But for anyone else, it'll just be a very boring extra-long episode. [Nov 2002, p.122]

Now that it's saddled with a price tag, a bare minimum of polish, and one new course, I'm not even sure just telling you to avoid it is enough. [Holiday 2011, p.81]

If desiging and producing games was really as boring as <i>Game Tycoon</i> makes it, we'd all be playing <i>Zork</i>. [July 2006, p.99]

Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse hates you. It's poorly made, nasty, expensive and exploitative. I hate it right back.

Unbearable drek like Jazz and Faust is the reason some people keep saying that the adventure genre is dead and buried. [Oct 2002, p.102]

Doesn't offer anything worth even a cursory glance. Even squad-based strategy-game fantatics should take a pass on this lousy $20 beer coaster. [July 2004, p.55]

You're better off buying DVD's of History Channel shows. [May 2008, p.59]

The PC version is nothing more than formulaic action/adventure that's been dumbed down for kids. It's a waste of everyone's time...A colossal disappointment. [Oct 2004, p.92]

Considering that combat is as dull as the ship graphics, and that you can't even share the experience due to lack of multiplayer, Shattered Suns' $40 asking price is seriously overambitious. [Dec 2008, p.57]

Making matters far, far worse is the game's tendency to randomly crash to the desktop when you enter new areas. If you must play this game (and I emphasize the word "if"), remember to save often. [Apr 2005, p.73]

It&#146;s exactly the kind of cookie-cutter movie spin-off we could easily survive without. [Holiday 2001, p.88]

A promising concept but dismal execution on just about every level.

If you can read this review, you're too old to play Robot Arena. [July 2001, p.72]

As a $20 retail product, it's a slap in the face. Games like this one make a mockery of Darwin's theories. [May 2004, p.69]