One of the two original ideas - betting on the outcome of the race - effectively nullifies any challenge, small as it were. Contrary to its overly hard predecessor, Juiced 2 allows the player to instantly bounce back from defeat using this easy money. The other somewhat original idea, the DNA that is supposed to store information about drivers' traits and skills, is a complete fiasco. Raising the stats of your driver has virtually no influence on the handling of the car and who gives a hoot about the skills of all those losers who are seen mostly in the rear mirror? Other than that, it's a lackluster Need for Speed clone. [March 2008]

Game mechanisms similar to the LEGO series don't help - the game is repetitive and boring. While the exclusive footage might appeal to fans, others will point out general blandness and lack of luster. [Aug 2008]

Built of ready blocks and with graphics stuck somewhere between realism and cel-shading, it looks like a homage to the old 2D platformers, but it’s a game for children who, alas, never played them…Spidey cocoons the enemies, shoots the web, topples the bigger baddies to save the day and this game. What a pity that the opponents pose absolutely no challenge, no matter their size. [Dec 2007]

It's a shooter utilizing the CryEngine 2 and featuring one hard-as-nails mega-macho-man with a huge gun for a hand. If this description made you smile, you'll cringe anyway when you see how many bugs can be squeezed into every single map and how thinly can a texture be drawn. [May 2009]

It's a disgrace that this crude port which wouldn't look out of place on PlayStation 2 is pushed on helpless hockey fans worldwide. [Feb 2009]

A role playing game that poses as a strategy by using just the numbers. This means that your adventuring party can have as many as twenty or thirty members, and you have to take care of every soldier's needs and wants, from armor to magic crystals to retirement plans. The game's ugly looks combined with the unintelligible interface and bad AI make the whole thing marginally playable in the best moments and huge pain in the posterior in the worst. [Apr 2008]

The Soviet spy uses Hitman techniques and changes as often as him, but his moves aren’t half as cool. Sneaking past legions of suspicious Gestapo thugs soon becomes tedious and boring, and while the armory is full of things that go boom, using them is pure suicide precisely because said boom brings the whole damned Wehrmacht on your head. [Dec 2007]

The only bright (white) spot in the general mediocrity is the polar bear Iorek who fights like a professional wrestler. All the rest of the action consists of jumping and minigames repeated without much diversity. That is, if we don't count the occasional changes of the point of view that cause no end of frustration - it's easy to fall to your death from a shelf or plank when suddenly forward becomes right. Combined with very sparse save points, it seems like an attempt to punish the player for even trying. [March 2008]

It's been a long time since I had to play something as bland and useless. Everything in this game is as ancient as its heroes. This kind of action wasn't much fun when it first appeared on PlayStation 2 in Dynasty Warriors or Samurai Warriors. On PC and in 2008 it is genuinely annoying. [June 2008]

Brave construction worker breaks necks, perforates SS uniforms and fights for freedom while I sink slowly in my chair, disbelieving. It's been a long time since I've seen in a game such angular objects, bleary textures and enemies who ignore a 9 mm burst through the chest. A total waste of Unreal 3 engine. [May 2008]

Interesting story and good looks won't get you anywhere if you have just the ancient keyboard and mouse to control your character fighting several enemies at the time. And there is no other way but forward, from one quest to another, so when you are blocked by a vicious bug or when a vanquished foe who clearly was swinging a sword drops a cabbage again, you can but sit and weep. [Apr 2008]

On consoles it’s quite playable, but the PC version is a sad joke. It looks like nobody bothered with betatesting it - how you can publish a sports game with broken controls?! [Sept 2008]

He can fly! And that'd be about it - Iron Man can't jump, climb the ladder or pick any Goddamned thing. When the novelty of flying wears off, all that remains is a very disappointing shooter lacking any challenge. Oh, and I saw much prettier games on PlayStation 2. [July 2008]

Forsaken gods? Rather forsaken legacy and a blatant ripoff. After two years of development we receive a game with a plethora of bugs, jerky graphics and frequent crashes to the desktop, a game that strips this franchise of the pitiful remains of its former glory. [Jan 2009]

Budget titles have some rules too. Unfortunately the makers of Conspiracy Island know all the bad ones - clichéd plot and characters, wooden animation, prefabricated levels - and just one good: lots of action! [Oct 2008]

It's huge. It's green. It's bad. And it's lame. The comic and the movie rock, but on a PC Hulk receives a thrashing from any budget arcade game. [Aug 2008]