If you can, I recommend actually skipping past this game and trying instead to find a copy of "Red Faction 2." It’s really a much more refined game and there’s really no connection between the two games at all so you won’t miss a thing. [Sept 2005]

Literally, there are well over 200 hours of gameplay in the Simulation Mode, even for a skilled player just to beat the game.

It’s sad to watch as the Bloody Roar series goes to hell. It has a decent gimmick to make it stand out among other fighters. If only the minds behind this game actually sat down and figured out how to implement the gimmick properly, it could have the makings of something great.

Castlevania means well, providing marvellous visuals and setting a superb atmosphere. But it suffers from hideous amounts of revisiting.

It lacks just about everything that a quality game needs in this day and age. While the absence of a story may not impact your experience, the shoddy controls and bland attack system will leave you craving for something more.

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]

Even after a few years, Onimusha: Warlords is a decent game with some truly impressive qualities. Sadly, it’s also impressive how short this game manages to be.

I can’t name another game in this genre that attempts to inject this much humor into the gameplay that never falls flat.

Stands proudly as a solid game for enthusiasts and casual players alike. It has a fair amount of kooky characters, wonderfully fast-paced gameplay, a fair amount of extras, and great presentation to round it all out.

While Tekken Tag Tournament is one of the oldest fighters on the PS2, few of the later fighting games have come close to matching its quality.

Simply put, the creepy atmosphere is incredible. Forget those survival horror games full of cheap scares and dark alleys. System Shock 2 manages to frighten without succumbing to horror contrivances. Considering this game is six years old, it truly is an achievement. [Aug 2005]

It's also arguable that by emphasizing the ladies love pillows to the extent they have in this and the two sequels they have undermined their claim that the Dead or Alive series can offer a rewarding fighting experience and not just plenty of virtual bosoms to ogle.

Without a doubt, FF7 is one of the top Final Fantasy games out there. It is also one of the best RPG adventures of all time.

What annoys me most about Gorky Zero is that although it's crap, it's not amusingly so. Some games are so dire that you find yourself laughing before you shred their shiny disks, but this is so generic and uninspiring that it's frustrating.

Perhaps my favourite part of Football Manager 2006 is the adaptation of the match engine into today’s defence-minded tactics. Teams are now more likely to play 4-5-1 and will often change tactics throughout the game, keeping you on your toes. It’s amazing once again at how you can swing a game with some simple changes, like setting a forward to run on the ball more in an attempt to coax a defender on a booking to challenge him and get sent off.

It’s horribly unexciting thanks to a total lack of speed and absolutely no challenge from your computer controlled “opponents.”

They’ve taken what’s essentially a big database and made it come alive in ways you’d never imagine, and you’ve got to give them credit for that.

If you can cope with laggy, wooden movement, touch-detection that goes from iffy during navigation to horrible in the minigames, a story which doesn’t (even try to) make much sense, minimal music, and conversations bordering on wall-talk, you might find some comfort in this old-school adventure game that sticks to its prehistoric roots. Otherwise, this isn’t worth the time – even though it is a pretty damn short ride.

While it presents a few neat ideas, Paint By DS is disappointing on nearly every level. It's dull, boring, and what's more, absolutely heartless.

With an unnecessarily simplistic control system, terrible commentary and a lifeless customisation system, the only slight nugget of entertainment can be found in the licensed career mode.

The game controls quite sluggishly. It often seems that there is a delay between what you are pressing on the controller and what is occurring on-screen. I was a relative novice to 3D fighting games back in those days, but now I know that such poor responsiveness can kill a fighting game.