This is another sad case of a cash-in title that will only appeal to absolute die-hard fans of the Transformers series and in particular the new film.

For ancient king and Elvish lord, Guardians of Middle-earth is stuck in the Mystical Bog of Latency Irritation. Its system's solidly built and there's the appearance of depth crying to be uncovered. However, those cries aren't being heard. This isn't the first time a multiplayer-only XBLA title has effectively been broken online. It deserved a better fate than this.

By trying to match up to juggernauts such Gears of War and Halo, Fracture ultimately becomes a prisoner shackled by predictability and poor design.

It's not a bad game, it's just one of the most tediously easy, generic and downright bland games of the year.

All in all, The Undergarden is definitely a game that is to be avoided by puzzle enthusiasts, ultra violent droogies, or people who like to be given a clear purpose before giving anything their attention.

It's far too long and tedious, allowing us to save along the way, when its old school appeal would have been better served by fewer levels, no saves and less repetition.

Despite its intriguing but flawed multiplayer suite, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is one of the most underwhelming shooters of recent memory.

In a year beholden to console gaming's finest offerings, this is impossible to recommend.

It’s good value for money to those who are interested (It lasts about 8 hours and contains the biggest selection of unlockable concept art and character costumes I’ve ever seen), but even if it’s not as bad as you’d expect, it’s still pretty bad on the larger scale of platformers.

The story is interesting, but many of the scenes seem forced. Controlling the different characters could have been cool, but their movesets are pathetically underdeveloped.

From its stripping down of the series’ most successful gameplay elements to its obviously desperate addition of weapons and ‘street’ cool this is still a product of a development studio with a good imagination. But also, it seems, a lazy one only too happy to jump on the same GTA bandwagon that’s currently carrying way too many developers.

The silly parts in Stolen make up most of the game. There are some truly neat stealth bits but my feeling is that they were sloppily inserted into an adventure fraught with ridiculous AI hi-jinx and an unbelievable and really, negligible storyline.

There's no attempt here to take a risk and try something new, which may have turned the whole series around...If they couldn't be bothered to make the effort and create a decent game from the plastic soldier concept, why should we be bothered to play it?

Grasshopper has made one of their more mechanically satisfying titles, but to enjoy it you have to put up with all of the other muck. You’ll have to choose whether Killer is Dead is the loveless romance for you.

Generally, Rango is a much more disappointing game than it is actually bad. It's perfectly functional, and maybe even rarely enjoyable, but it fails to truly capitalize on the license and does little to differentiate itself from pretty much any other 3D platformer that's come before it.

Scarygirl is riddled with countless inherent flaws that make the game, in no simpler terms, bad.

Clearly a lot of love and effort has gone into making this game and both Endeavor Bros. and Monkube should be applauded for creating one of the best-looking and most endearing games on the casual market, but the fundamental gameplay issues cannot be ignored.

Whether you're fighting Gustav Graves, Blofeld, Oddjob or Sanchez, it's all done via these poorly disguised Quick Time Events. Every time a boss would step forward and assume the position, I cringed.

The game’s combat system needs an overhaul, the levels lack inspiration, and the presentation will make your eyes water. When compared with its contemporaries, this game lacks the shine and polish that gamers are expecting when they try out their DS for the first time. This is shameful way to start the new batch of DS games.

While its myriad of technical issues are certainly detrimental to anyone’s enjoyment, it’s the lack of ambition in reinventing its aging mechanics and tired mission design that leave Unity treading water.

Using the wind and terrain to your advantage, firing the cannons at the perfect time to launch the perfect assault; it could have been amazing. Disappointingly, with poor A.I, little replay value and poor use of the systems trademark features it’s turns out to be as entertaining as scurvy.

If you’re determined to see the purchase of the Voralberg toy factory finalized, you’d be better off accompanying Kate Walker on the unabridged PC version.

An unfortunate conclusion to a once promising trilogy.

Shamefully, Fists of Plastic won’t have you reliving your childhood memories for long, as the tiresome challenges and lack of online execution will have you beating yourself up quicker than you can fling your joypad across the room with dragon-punch shaped irritation.

It's a pity that a video game which attempts to revel in back to basics no nonsense escapism - through a hail of bullets and bodies - somehow ends up being more forgettable than the Black Ops campaign. And that's saying something.

This reckless, half-cocked release is not just insulting to the thousands of gamers who’ll pay full price to receive an inferior product that others will buy cut-price a few months down the line when it’s finally been chopped and changed into a playable state, but detrimental and damaging to a team of developers who clearly have a real passion and love for the games they create.

The character models in the cutscenes look embarrassingly poor, with Mary Jane not even looking like Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire looking fat.

The story is a compelling piece that will drag most bookworms through the many gameplay obstacles, if only to find out what happens at the end, and truth be told it really is worth the wait. Problem is, you could just go and buy the novel and save having the experience marred by a disappointing effort of a game.

When you first take a gander at Daxter, you see a beautifully recreated Jak & Daxter game on the portable Playstation. Some thousand bug squishings later, you’ll realise that looks can be extremely deceiving.

As an ARPG it’s average at best, but its MMO trappings only compound the frustration.

With better pacing and a lot more balancing, Mars: War Logs could have been a fresh, satisfying take on BioWare’s proven formula. Its intriguing premise and characters eventually succumb to its broken systems, creating a fiction you’ll hope sooner to finish than completely understand.

There are a couple of decent ideas here, but the game as a whole needs some serious refinement in just about every way to have any hope of standing out in what is a fairly crowded genre.

A bitter disappointment. It's a soulless, miserable outing that manages to make zooming around on crotch-rockets dull and frustrating.

Overall the game is a big disappointment - often frustrating, dated and has little in the way of reward or replay value.

To top it off, an experienced player can get through the game in five hours, and there isn't much in terms of replay value. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is a poorly executed, thoughtless game that is best to be avoided.

The art, the audio, the level design, it’s all just sorta “there”, and feels creatively bankrupt.

Despite the flaws in the execution, it's more Choplifter. And for a select few, that still means something.

The straightforward progression is perfectly suited for a diet RPG, but the underdeveloped systems and mindless combat bring the breakneck pacing to an exasperating crawl.

Infinite Undiscovery is never particularly awful or broken. The music is excellent, and overall the presentation is pretty solid. It’s just that this is one of those games that seem to drag on even though it’s a relatively short game.

Aside from the campaign mode, there is a lackluster sandbox involving the building of a criminal empire without objectives or opposition. Go online and you can take the terrible combat system and enjoy it with friends, or against them, if you wish. But you won’t feel like a gangster, but rather an accountant with a penchant for real estate.

The “multiplayer only” tag is sure to put many off from considering the purchase at the current time.

Even if the game were technically sound, Puzzle Quest 2 has since been released, so going with the lesser option of Puzzle Chronicles would be a poor investment on just about every level.

But once you’ve stripped away the enticing pictures, unquestionable innuendo and blatant sexual undertones, you’ve got a wrestling game that is mediocre at best. The story and characters are laughable, gameplay is dull and sluggish, the presentation is a mixed bag, and the incentive to actually complete this game is practically nil.

A poor game shrouded in an illusion of mediocrity.

It shouldn't be a gamble for online multiplayer to work though. In the end, Quake Arena Arcade rings its own death knell and doesn't give Quake III Arena the justice it deserves.

Its incredibly short stature makes ZOE an almost pointless re-release, and the de-evolved frame rate handling of 2nd Runner isn't much to pine for unless your PS2 copy was lost, stolen, or destroyed. If this is an effort to get people amped and ready for the recently announced Zone of the Enders 3, fans certainly deserve better than this.

F1 Race Stars provides small doses of enjoyment alongside larger doses of frustration and injustice, thanks to its stubborn insistence of remaining both an F1 and karting game.

Another disappointing effort.

The gameplay can be addicting, but similar to its overly violent theme, it's a gimmick that washes quicker than blood.

It’s a shame that the concept was implemented so poorly, an example of sacrificing quality for mindless movie-licensed mush. With the absolute lack of difficulty and simplistic design, it’s a real wonder as to what Activision was expecting when they unleashed this game upon the masses of unsuspecting gamers.

So if you really want to support Code Lyoko, go buy some of the DVDs or watch a marathon. Regardless of what you choose, it’ll be time better spent than with this game.

This lack of polish could be forgiven in a game with tight gameplay, but that’s not Battlecry. Your Veritech feels wimpy and clunky in every mode.

A disappointing outing from Mr Esc and his associates, as we’ll be expecting something very different for the next installment.

But in all honesty, this is a game I'd be embarrassed to own, and I own "WCW Nitro."

Though the collection features a few gems like Billiards and Laser Hockey, much of the lineup is composed of half-assed mini-games with little to no depth whatsoever.

Unbound Saga is a beautiful, poorly executed snoozer that can't hold the player's attention for too long.

I struggle to find an appropriate audience for the game because I can't imagine anyone loving it.

I like my FPS shooters to deliver a single-player experience too, and Painkiller: Hell Wars flatly fails in that regard. If you're looking for online deathmatch, Painkiller: Hell Wars is a reasonable purchase, but don't expect anything from the single-player experience, particularly, enjoyment.

Warpspeed is more of a technical demo than a final product, further proven by the repeated soundtrack that is akin to an old game engine trailer. The design is there, but now it needs to become something more to develop itself as a video game, and not just an idea.

If the end of the world is anything like that depicted by Stormrise, we can expect our siblings to lose their sense of direction and choose extraordinarily complex systems to order themselves around with. Lord have mercy on our souls.

From its stripping down of the series' most successful gameplay elements to its obviously desperate addition of weapons and 'street' cool this is still a product of a development studio with a good imagination. But also, it seems, a lazy one only too happy to jump on the same GTA bandwagon that's currently carrying way too many developers.

The combat can be fun, but ultimately it’s rather boring and uninspired, the beasts are sluggish and unresponsive, and the defence is just plain annoying.

The whole notion of a scored review seems a little arbitrary in the face of the niche and dedicated fanbase this game will attract, and its attempts at populist window-dressing are virtually pointless because for the rest of us, the whole entity is at its most lenient completely mystifying, and at its most uncompromising utterly impenetrable.

In its present state though, I cannot recommend Lord of the Rings: War in the North. If patching is successful, I can only recommend this to starved genre fans, but don't expect much.

As far as driving games go, this is a must-skip.

From Software’s goals with Ninja Blade appear to have been slim to negligible, and with a considerable portion of fans of the infinitely preferable Ninja Gaiden ready to buy up anything with a similar remit, they’re unlikely to be nearly as disappointed as I am.

Digested in short bursts there is some stupid amusement to be gleaned, but with the myriad of shortcomings found in the title there are certainly much better ways to get your senseless violence on.

So what did it need besides a miracle? Depth. Lots of depth.

It's highly energetic in attitude and then does all it can to hamper and slow the player's progress and enjoyment. All filler, no killer.

Lost Planet 2 may satisfy fans of shooters and Japanese arcade games looking for a hybrid - at its best, it's a mix of Gears of War and pattern-based action games - but it will probably frustrate them, and it will definitely offend everyone else.

The new story is generic, the exploration hampered by unnecessary backtracking and the dreaded locked door puzzles.

At least know this: I didn't enjoy my crime spree nearly as much as I should have.

Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder is hardly the worst game ever, but it isn't likely to keep your attention for very long.

The graphics and sound might be a great leap forward, but the rest of the game fails to meet any of the current criteria for a good first-person shooter.

We could have literally had Tom and Jerry, Aardman style. Instead we have rather un-imaginative game whose novelty runs off the older you are, and that's disappointing.

If this was the final project of a programming student who waited to the last minute to complete, then we can at least chalk up all the errors and poorly written storyline as factors needing improvement. Sadly this is not the case.

The saddest part about Breed is not that it’s a horrible game; it’s that deep inside there’s a good game. All of the ideas were right, but the execution failed on nearly all aspects.

In a way, the game does live up to the hype: they wanted to ban it for its gratuitous violence and I can see why. Funny how they didn't just get out and say that the game isn't worthy to be played; that would've made things much easier.

The difficulty level is almost non-existent, AI is laughable, and there’s little creativity involved with the development of Layle’s powers or the places he explores. Not to mention the headache-inducing backtracking you’ll have to endure. It’s sad, considering how gorgeous some of parts of this game are.

I had pretty high hopes for the title, and ultimately, I was let down more than a kid who got socks and underwear for Christmas. If you're in the market for an FPS game, go pick up "Painkiller." Same type of gameplay, much less headaches. [June 2004]

All in all, Entwined is a flawed game with some good ideas, but none of them coalesce in a cohesive, interesting way.

The imprecision of The Fancy Pants Adventure's platforming segments leave a lingering feeling that it's still trying to appeal to an audience that's OK with a quirky-yet-limited platforming game.

For a game where the sole mechanic is to draw lines, it’s ironic that not long after starting, you’ll feel like the ink is already starting to run dry.

As it stands, the “athletes” in Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball look like people lost in a vast sea.

Honestly, Last Remnant is just another JRPG with a fresh coat of paint and a few unfinished ideas.

Even Shikigami fans in particular will be displeased, because MLB2 isn't the flawless port that it easily could have been, featuring horrible dubs: Like school in summertime – no class (An enemy really pulls that unfunny Fat Albert insult out of his ass, I kid you not.)

The levels are gruesomely themed, but their simplicity, brevity, and linearity are disappointing. The sheer amount of glitches, questionable controls, laughable AI, and easy stealth mechanics make the game seem like a poor rendition of "Splinter Cell."

Suspending your disbelief in a theatre is one thing, but engaging in a socially inept character’s seemingly redundant flights of fancy via overtly over-exaggerated mini games is all kinds of messy.

Unless DynamoKid has some drastic updates down the line, there isn't any compelling reason to download it.

Too Human had a lot to live up to after 10 years of imaginings and re-imaginings, and it's sad that a game which was slated for greatness fell so far from it.

The only thing Death By Cube has to offer that its competition doesn't is an excessive level of blood (or red robot oil), but that alone doesn't warrant a purchase.

Alice: Madness Return has a terrific visual style and intriguing ideas, which is why it's so frustrating to see what could've been a clever game turn into such a tedious, drawn-out mess.

Something like Fist of the North Star deserved something better than just a blatant copy/paste job. Ultimately, all the buckets of blood in the world fail to hide this is the same thing players have grown disenchanted with a generation ago.

From its stripping down of the series' most successful gameplay elements to its obviously desperate addition of weapons and 'street' cool this is still a product of a development studio with a good imagination. But also, it seems, a lazy one only too happy to jump on the same GTA bandwagon that's currently carrying way too many developers.

With poor combat and clumsy controls, repetitive gameplay, and many frustrating design issues, Hyrophobia is not the wet dream we all wanted, just a conceptual one.

The GBA can't make a game that looks anything like the sensational film, and clearly using a Double Dragon engine from the 8-bit era, and giving us lots and lots of uninspired action against swarms of clones in recycled backgrounds isn't the solution to the hardware's glass ceiling. This effort isn't worthy of the license.

It brings more than its fair share of content to the table but fails to ever truly distinguish itself as more than an average mini golf title.

If you’ve already completed the main game then Ultor Exposed is nothing more than a diversion, and a relatively expensive one at that.