You get the sense when playing King of Fighters: Maximum Impact - Maniax that you're not really supposed to explore that third dimension, since the first two dimensions are what SNK know intimately; not an uncommon thing to happen to a company heading out into uncharted waters, but a tough feeling to swallow nonetheless.

There’s an abundance of things to see and do, and some great moments are present; however, they’re too few and the sense of missed opportunity too strong to make a convincing recommendation.

A minor upgrade from "ASB2003."

You won’t find too many brawny offensive weapons that would be sure to set off numerous alarms and draw way too much attention to your presence. Instead you’ll count on your wit and problem solving abilities to achieve mission goals.

With very few good puzzle games to be found on the Xbox, Ultra Bust-A-Move climbs to the top in a hurry. It has everything that fans of the genre look for: addictive gameplay, easy controls, and decent visuals.

Accept that Legendary won’t wow you with the gameplay polish of a budget-busting title, and you’ll likely have a good time fighting to shut Pandora’s precious package.

The overall look of the movie was transferred over well, but the wacky controls and the repetitive gameplay hold this title back.

The course design is the real highlight within 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures, with gameplay that will frustrate until you figure out every detail of each hole, something that will take longer than most would care to spend with a XBLA game.

Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires benefits from the next generation hardware, but not as much as I had hoped. Yes, this is the best DW game to date, but it doesn’t really push any boundaries in the action/strategy market.

Bloodrayne: Betrayal is not without its moments, and at times can be exhilarating to play, but you will struggle with some of the decisions WayForward made with how Rayne controls, and if this is your first foray into 2D gaming, it's unlikely you'll even finish Rayne's adventure.

Feels as though it could have come straight from the scenes of a '80s B-movie horror flick, with dry characters and gameplay that repeats itself to no end.

A good example of how to properly bring a cartoon that has violence as its main focus to a console; keep it simple, keep it fast paced, keep it for the kids and the kids-at-heart.

The Survival and Puzzle modes are plenty of fun and provide two very different experiences. Offering your mind and reflexes equal workouts, these two options save Polar Panic from being an entirely flawed experience, and one that should give fans of the genre at least a weekend’s worth of fun for 800 Microsoft Points (or about $10).

With limited memory capacity and graphical power, Intellivision games left quite a bit to the player’s imagination, and this may turn off some gamers. However, it’s interesting to see the surprising amount of depth and gameplay found in these early titles.

X-Men Arcade doesn't innovate on its original design very much. While Konami could have just given us just the North American release they did instead included the Japanese version for hard core players or those looking to change things around.

The hack and slash excellence of Dead Rising 2 returns with the added flavor of photography. It is a win/win situation.

This game has all the right pieces to be one of the top tier games on XBLA, but an incredibly frustrating control scheme holds it back.

For now, we’ll live with the great graphics, the moderate entertainment value and the few decent changes over last year, but the hope was that WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 would be the “Wrestlemania” of WWE games.

Both the environments and characters move fast, but while this is flashy and fun at first, it doesn't show the greatest legs for a long shelf life.

Things like the Zamboni Races are fun, but it’d be better for 2K to concentrate on its core components before spending its resources on fringe offerings.

The return of the online scoreboard is nice, but additional online features could have really helped push Deer Hunt 2005 Season into the next level of console hunting.

A somewhat dated gameplay engine shows its age on the 360 hardware...Better looking than the regular Xbox version, but not by leaps and bounds.

So, if you’ve worn out a few dance pads in your day, you’ll probably want to skip this trip to the digital disco. However, if you’re brand spankin’ new to the DDR universe, you won’t find a better place to start your rump-shakin’ career.

The game may have quite a steep learning curve to overcome, which may turn away a handful of potential fans, but those that are able to work beyond the game's initial challenges may find themselves quickly hooked on a style of gameplay that stimulates the mind rather than the senses.

The single player missions aren't nearly as engrossing as the original story, but the map editor and Xbox Live playability make up for this nicely.

The game doesn’t offer up a lot of variety in terms of it’s challenges, but its simplicity is also part of its appeal.

The game should be fun for wrestling aficionados, but non-wrestling fans and gamers looking for current superstars won't have much interest in this title.

This is definitely the Pac-Man we've all come to know and love, from the very first fruit to the attacking ghosts, but control issues take away from the overall "fun factor" as needless deaths occur far too often.

What Dead Man’s Hand lacks are the basics which are integral to stellar game. Things such as a steady framerate, next-gen level graphics, and semi-intelligent enemy AI are items which must be present for a game to even have a chance at being anything but mediocre.

The concept is there in spades; it’s the execution that doesn’t go the distance.

NARC, while flawed in many areas, still finds a way to provide some good quality fun for a budget title. The amount of humorous moments that are provided by the sheer volume of consumable drugs is great to see, and busting bad guys even has its moments.

Hardcore fans of the Dreamcast release of Headhunter will probably enjoy Redemption since it is a continuation of the same formula, but be prepared to struggle through some gameplay problems that keep it from tipping the needle above that mainstream level on the radar.

For fans of Tiger-style golf, you’ll probably be tied between which versions of the game to play; the Xbox version is more feature-rich, but the 360 version looks worlds better.

The "advanced warfighter" concept is a good one, but it is one that is truly fit for the next generation of consoles. Shanghai went fairly sim with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter on the Xbox, and it doesn't appear that the hardware wanted to comply in a way that makes this one a "must have".

Other than the split-screen camera, there are no aspects of Alias that haven’t been done before and better. The simple combat system can turn out some pretty cool fights, but there is no flow to the game with the constant interruptions from HQ and the multitude of save points.

The lack of online support, weak multiplayer options, horrendous teammate A.I., and some buggy gameplay mechanics keep this title at strictly an above average level.

While Batman Begins tries to introduce the concept of fear into the stealth/action genre, it needs a bit more fleshing out. The linearity of the gameplay prevents you from creating your own "fear events" and keeps things limited to scripted cinematic events.

A very straightforward version of the titles we hold dear in the watercraft racing genre, with Xbox Live giving it a little kick in the ass.

Lack of polish makes Cars a bit crude, but not to the point where it's unplayable. The handling is spot-on – the MX Unleashed guys know their physics.

The online options are a worthy addition, but the game's sound and graphical abilities are severely lacking even if some of the presentation is borrowed from the television series.

Simply an above average space shooter. The sketchy mission objectives and the difficulty level will certainly turn off everyone but true diehard Battlestar Galactica fans.

This game without the Godfather license could have been great, and they wouldn’t have had to have changed too much either to the core gameplay. But with the awkward-fitting pelt of Coppola’s murdered masterpiece on its shoulders, it will be hard for people to discover the really well-designed hybrid-type game underneath.

I found it to be a great-looking game that has some fun challenges—but more often than not ended up being unbalanced and frustrating.

In some ways it plays worse than existing stealth/action games, especially when it comes to interacting with objects. The combat mode raises the gameplay level, but not enough to truly satisfy people that are familiar with other stealth titles.

The sole purpose of a coin-op ROM is to steal quarters away from the user. With that said, some of Tron’s achievements can be very difficult since such goals were originally designed as quarter munchers.

It’s got a solid storyline and plenty of racy language (although not quite on the level of “Deadwood”), and while the action isn’t groundbreaking, it’s enjoyable. That said, there are a number of places where the game just doesn’t deliver the goods, and we can’t help feeling like this could have just as easily been a last-gen title.

As a multiplayer game, Wrath Unleashed proves to be a solid title, but as a single-player experience it proves to be entirely too short. If you are looking for a mix of the strategy and fighting genres, then give Wrath Unleashed at least a rental.

Massive, multi-party battles don’t deliver the strategic pop that hardcore RPG fans are looking for.

It’s almost a shame to see such a unique graphics engine go into a game with such a generic feel.

The various gameplay elements are hit or miss, but at least it seems to be more hit than miss, despite some glaring flaws.

For players with Xbox Live, the game has even more depth to offer. However, the incredibly tough controls as well as the unforgiving gameplay are sure to drive away many players.

The die-hard Tolkien will get a kick out of slugging and spell-casting their way through the first book of the Rings trilogy, but the casual gamer will only be disappointed by an otherwise generic action / adventure title.

The real question is; how much longer will this formula last before dramatic innovations will be required to keep up with today's rapidly changing gaming world?

Shooting a fly with a BB gun might be easier than hitting A.I. opponents in Splat Renegade Paintball.

It's got a lot going for it in the graphical and sound department, and while the gameplay suffers initially from an unfair difficulty spike, if the player can tough it out and stick with it long enough to get some upgrades he or she will be smiling for the rest of the journey.

Although Golden Axe: Beast Rider honors its roots and does a nice job of storytelling, it fails to deliver on the all-important technical side of things.

Sadly it falls into the realm of being one of those games that presents nothing new to the adventure genre and instead relies on the usual puzzle solving and mildly entertaining exploration mechanics of past titles.

Like previous efforts, WrestleMania 21 has some nice eye candy in the ways of character modeling and mo-capped animations, but it ultimately fails where it counts the most...in gameplay.

To tell you the truth, I actually had a lot of fun playing through the game in its entirety. Once I got over the camera issue and a few minor audio problems I became engrossed in the Dino Crisis 3 world.

I appreciate the attempt at drawing non-hunting fans to the game with modes like the Action Zone and being hunted by animals in general, but the end result doesn’t seem as much fun and can be downright frustrating at times.

Snowblind has pulled off a fairly successful translation of the comic books that we know and love, but the action gets stale pretty quickly.

For those who found themselves addicted to the PC Flash game, Bejeweled 2 might be worth the full download for hours of gem matching fun, but for others the free PC download may still give players their fix when necessary.

Add in gameplay that revolves too much on slow moving creatures and fetching, and you have yourself a game that is frustrating some of the time and boring when it's not frustrating.

No interaction with the environments, lackluster enemy AI, and somewhat boring gameplay, results in a short and awkward title. The game felt like it had some potential, but there were too many areas that needed work. Multiplayer is solid however.

The game provides a stiff challenge throughout, which may turn off some youngsters that are initially attracted to its cutesy style.

This past year Microsoft put a large amount of time and effort into the creation of XSN, so let’s hope this means they’ll have that extra time to beef up the gameplay and depth of the sports titles themselves for the 2005 season.

The world of video games seems to have moved beyond games like this a while ago, making this futuristic shooter seem somehow unforgivably antique.

As much as I like being beaten unmercifully by a duck in a fedora, it can become frustrating and a bit repetitive after a few rounds.

Awkward controls and unbalanced AI aside, this is still a Worms title at heart, so fans are sure to enjoy. One or two coats of polish are needed on the overall production, but there is plenty of fun to be had.

The core gameplay isn't balanced or rewarding enough to warrant a purchase, but it will more than suffice for a weekend of mindless action.

For twenty bucks, it's hard to really slam MLB SlugFest 2006 for essentially being the same game as "Loaded." Removing the online play may irk some, but the Create a Player is an overall better feature in the long run.

Combat is a bit chunky and seems to be a crap shoot most of the time. RTS elements are strong and keep interest levels high. Enemy A.I. is suspect.

The magical spells don't feel as deep and compelling as portrayed in the books/films, and the overall game experience becomes stale and repeated by the end. Stand out moments from the story are included, so fans will have a hoot picking those events out.

It was a tough game when it came out for the Genesis, and that hasn’t changed now. The 400 Microsoft Points (about $5) is a small price to pay for the title; the bigger cost is in the time, effort and patience you’ll need to devote to this one in order to wring every drop out of it.

The controls are responsive, but the A.I. needs a serious overhaul.

Being a modern military aircraft lover, I can easily look over the sketchy graphics, the odd interfaces, and the brief missions and just enjoy the impressive lineup of birds. While it’s still hard to justify paying sixty bucks to fly a MiG, Eagle, or Raptor, this is as close as most of us will get to the real deals.

There are some undeniably cool settings and promising combat mechanics, but the experience doesn't have the depth to draw players through to the end of the campaign.

Not a bad game... It just doesn't last long.

What's important in the first wrestling game of a series is solid gameplay, graphics, and presentation, and Raw excels in all of those areas...Raw doesn't do much, but what it does, it does very well.

Shows promise, but it’s unlikely to be heralded as "next gen" by soccer aficionados.

Suffers from a bit of schizophrenia, half the time it's trying to be "The Sims" with its purchasing of items/furniture which affect characters' moods and can help your chances of succeeding with your business. The other half of the time is spent taking pictures of half naked women and dry humping the hell out of some seriously monotonous character models.

While surely not for everyone from just the title and subject matter alone, Cabela’s African Safari does serve up some decent gaming for a cheapy title focused on shooting something other than a human.

The puzzles aren't overly challenging, the enemies don't pose much of a fight, and the overall experience is lacking some much needed "punch". Not the worst movie to game translation, just uninspired and clearly looking for a payday.

Surprisingly, Tenchu Z comes off “chunky” in general; the antithesis of what a ninja game should feel like- sleek and efficient.

There's plenty for diehard fans of The Da Vinci Code to enjoy within the game, then again, there's a ton of stuff that will have the common gamer bored to tears.

A nice game to look at in areas, but not overly fun to play. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is worth a rent to see what Team Ninja can do in the high-def age, but I won't be adding this one to my collection.

The arcade racing physics and handling engine by Rat Bag is about as sweet as the Lee's insignia orange paint.

I left the battle bloody from the knuckles to the fingertips and didn’t really feel that satisfied. Was something lost in translation? Could be. But I’m convinced that the button mashing genre needs to grow up a bit before invading the Xbox 360 again.

The game does have issues, such as poor collision detection and very clunky controls. Add that to the relatively easy gameplay, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has some problems.

Ultimately, it’s Worms’ lack of features that is its downfall. There’s a semblance of a map editor, but there’s no real user control. Why can’t I place my own objects or shape my own terrain? Why do I have to let the computer do it? And why don’t I have access to weapons that past Worms installments have had?

I can put aside the historical inaccuracies, the tie-fighter-style flight modeling and all the other things that make Heroes Over Europe inferior. And maybe if I hadn’t just played and greatly enjoyed IL-2 Sturmovik, I might be feeling a bit more generous. But unfortunately Heroes Over Europe comes across as not much more than a budget title.

Fans of LotR or team-oriented multiplayer masters should pick this one up—sooner than later if possible. But for those thinking that The Lord of the Rings: Conquest’s core gameplay is like Ninja Gaiden with chain mail…this ain’t your “precious.”

It locks you into a gameplay hell of sorts, giving you a devil of a time just to try and survive, though rarely making you feel like the reward is worth the incredible effort. Instead of bringing the poem to life, the gamemakers slammed the book on your fingers.

In terms of actual gameplay features, the sprawling city is amazing, but there’s little else to rave about here.

Whatever small fun that can be gleaned from Red Alert 3 is not worth the hideously poor attempts at humor and bargain basement production values that envelop the final product like a shroud.

Wanted is an unfortunate disappointment to me, but not as much for its gameplay design, which is where a lot of games lose points. It has a nice control scheme, it has some grin-inducing comedic dialogue and more. The key argument against it is that there’s simply not enough of it—and that ends up drawing a big thumbs down from me.

There’s a lot of familiar gameplay concepts—but there are some prominent flaws that lessens your enjoyment.

Next to Hawk, it's the best extreme sports title on the Xbox.