Traxxpad fails no matter what way you look at it. If it's meant to be a game, something for casual players to noodle with to make some loops and show off, then it bombs because it's absurdly difficult to figure out for no good reason. I haven't encountered sound gear this hard to figure out or use since the Roland W-30. If this is meant for professionals, then why a platform with little access to new sounds or updates, and why no MIDI?

A wonderful idea bogged down by lousy execution.

A simple cash cow. Cheap concept, cheap marketing, cheap licensing, cheap development costs. Only a few unsuspecting souls need to waste their hard-earned dollars on this trash in order for Atari to turn a profit. And they probably will.

Lacking in everything that makes a game enjoyable, this one should have spent more time on the drawing board before hitting the shelves.

First, as a gamer, I give this game an abysmal 1 out of 10. It is dull, uninspired, graphically inferior, sound deserted, and ultimately, unsatisfying. However, if this is marketed as educational software, specifically at the Middle- and High-School level, and not targeted at the gaming community, this could be an exceptional introduction to the world of National Politics, indeed. [As educational software - score = 70]

Combat is overly long and easy, and once you get the correct IPDs, the only reason you'll take damage is because of the annoying lag. The plotline is fairly boring and predictable, and most of the characters are humdrum clichés or have no personalities at all.

Chicken Little reached for the sky and instead got an acorn thrown at its head. Pass this one up, folks, and maybe consider the console renditions of the license.

If the network code worked, Guardians of Middle-earth would have come highly recommended, but an online game that delivers a poor online experience simply isn't worth your money.

R3KX, with its lack of real challenge, story, or presentation values, is just not in any way a memorable game. Koei is capable of much better, as "Dynasty Warriors" and their upcoming PC title "Uncharted Waters" attests to.

The controls are just too shoddy, the graphics and sound don't make up for it, and the basic concept has been explored all too many times as it is shown here, with no real evolution presented.

Alas, it fails at everything it sets out to do, and it can't even manage to adequately imitate genre progenitors from nearly a decade before it, let alone do anything to surpass them.

If you have a child who's a fan of horses, I don't think that Horse Life will really satiate any curiosity for them, so I'd suggest avoiding this one.

With the difficult camera angles, blurry death sequences, bugs and glitches, playing Manhunt 2 really was like doing to the doctor — it'll hurt like hell, but something tells you that you have to do it. I shouldn't think of a game like that.

To sum up things, I didn't care for Mahjong Cub3D. I'm all for interesting ways to play established games, and while the developers were clearly trying to change up the formula, I don't feel like it worked.

There is essentially nothing about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that is any fun at all. I know this sounds harsh, but in my professional opinion, there is no excuse for a company like EA to have done such an uninspired and lackluster job with this franchise title.

I found Medieval Conquest completely unplayable, a confusing mess of a game that beat my sensibilities as a gamer to a pulp. It's entirely possible that someone else more in tune with the wavelength of this title will have a ball with it.

Simply fails to deliver what the player has paid for, which is as unforgivable as giving up a goal with ten seconds left in the period.

Holding back choices from the player does nothing but destroy a game's accessibility, and this is a token case. In the end, what we have with Yars' Revenge is a game with a genuinely novel and interesting aesthetic, but the lack of control concessions makes it something that's not worth picking up - that is, without trying the demo and making sure they're absolutely comfortable with how the game controls. Odds are that they won't be.

Like all roads to hell, ReCore is paved with good intentions. Sadly, a cool concept, intriguing story and lovable, endearing characters aren't enough to stop this game from being one of the more annoying and frustrating game-playing experiences you will find in 2016, if not in the past few years.

If the developers give us some heavy handed code-bandages, I predict that one day this will be at the very least an enjoyable RPG, if not the epic and sprawling adventure it was supposed to be.

The graphics are blocky and unclear, the storyline is weak, and the combat is uninteresting and repetitive.

The gameplay is disappointing, though, and isn't even much fun in a mindless, repetitive sort-of way. The level design drags the whole event down even more, and the lack of a real save system makes playing the game that much more frustrating.

The entire Wits & Wagers experience tries too hard and fails at nearly every turn.

There is a good game somewhere under all of this, but it is buried under the weight of every part of Dakar Desert Rally being unlikable for some reason or another. There are the briefest moments where it shines through, the sun is hitting you just right, and you're blasting through the stage skillfully at top speed. The problem is it's at that moment that you round the bend and slam into a random truck or the game hitches and you suddenly understeer into a rock wall. Substantial patching would do this game wonders, but as it stands, it's a joyless mess that delivers frustrations at a far greater rate than podiums.

A Marathon title on XBLA could have been a fantastic way for Halo fans to see their favorite developer's roots, but thanks to bad controls and an illness-inducing interface, the game struggles to even serve as a window into the past.

For now, I'd pass on NASCAR 2011: The Game. The multiplayer is completely busted, and I'm a big fan of voting with your dollar. If you're a NASCAR fan, maybe you should let your vote be heard by not picking up this mess. For those of you who did, I really I hope that the patch delivers on the promised fixes because I'd be greatly upset if I had spent $60 on this.

For now, I'd pass on NASCAR 2011: The Game. The multiplayer is completely busted, and I'm a big fan of voting with your dollar. If you're a NASCAR fan, maybe you should let your vote be heard by not picking up this mess. For those of you who did, I really I hope that the patch delivers on the promised fixes because I'd be greatly upset if I had spent $60 on this.

If not for the impressive sound and the sheer intensity of fighting a seemingly endless supply of terrorists, this game would have no redeeming qualities.

While the actual game is surprisingly fun, it is also poorly designed and horribly balanced, trying so hard to maintain the series' belief that "Alchemists are better than everyone else" that no thought was given to gameplay balance.

No Mans Sky would've made an excellent tech demo of something greater yet to come, or as a $20 independent game from a studio trying to find its footing. It certainly doesn't live up to what was once a marquee title during one of Sony's E3 press conferences, and it doesn't come close to justifying its $60 asking price. No Man's Sky had so much potential in delivering a game that compelled and rewarded unbridled exploration. That it fails to do so only makes its shortcomings more striking, and it's disappointing when compared to how the game was described leading up to its release.

It would have been perfectly fine as a web game played with a mouse on some online game portal, but as a $30 portable game played on a system with no shortage of top-quality puzzle games, Honeycomb Beat isn't a contender.

To be blunt, Atlantis Quest is just too hard, and after a few levels, the entertainment gives way to frustration.

In short, if you have a hankering to play the Golden Axe games, take a pass on this collection and spend $20 on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. It'll cost you an additional ten dollars, but you'll end up with a total of 49 games instead of just three.

This is a train wreck of a production, a demonstration of how not to handle a license, and a good example to developers on how not to rip off your own most popular works with any kind of success. I can't recommend this to anyone, at any price.

For a game apparently seeking a younger audience, it can be far too difficult at times, and most children will probably even realize just how shallow the game's single-player experience is after 30 minutes.

An absolute sham of a game, full of broken mechanics and proof that when you carry a gimmick too far, you end up with something that no one wants to play.

With controls that don't work, incomprehensible RPG-styled gameplay between matches, and limited character creation utilities, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 for the NDS has come from its "has potential" status from last year all the way down to "scrap it."

When all is said and done, it is difficult to recommend TRON: Evolution as a game. Though it expands on some of the background leading up to the new film and gives us a bit more insight into Quorra's character, suffering through the tedious gameplay segments just isn't worth it, even for a hardcore fan.

These levels weren't meant to be played from a fixed perspective, and the addition of several brutal bugs makes for a painful portable experience.

When all is said and done, it is difficult to recommend TRON: Evolution as a game. Though it expands on some of the background leading up to the new film and gives us a bit more insight into Quorra's character, suffering through the tedious gameplay segments just isn't worth it, even for a hardcore fan.

In the end, only certain elements of Defenders of Ardania work well.

Discounting versions that were developed for dedicated handheld systems, the 2023 version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III represents the series at a low. The campaign is painfully short, and while the open combat missions are a neat idea, they needed more time to feel substantial. Zombies are still fun enough, and the same can be said for multiplayer, but the absence of new maps feels wrong for a brand-new game. If the original plan to make this a DLC package were still in play and the price were reasonable, then one could see it being a recommendation for dedicated series fans. As a $70 full price game, however, what's available is pitiful to the point that gamers should stay away from this title and stick with the older stuff instead.

The touch-screen and scrolling controls are sloppy, the sound is almost nonexistent, and the graphics are decent but boring.

If you want to play The Sims on the road, get the spin-off "The Urbz," which does absolutely everything The Sims 2 does, only better.

Arto isn't ready yet. There's a good premise, the mechanics play out well enough, and the hook of painting the environment with different art styles is certainly appealing. However, there are simply too many issues in every category that cannot be ignored no matter how hard you try. Should this extensive list get fixed, players will encounter a decent game that we could recommend checking out if you're curious. As it stands now, you should avoid Arto.

It's difficult to muster up any excitement for Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs. The formula is decent, but the lackadaisical AI doesn't encourage you to play with the parts of the game that make it distinct. The lack of other modes makes this package feel expensive, while the lack of any human players this early on robs the game of any reason to keep playing. It's a dead game that makes you wish that Bandai Namco would resurrect Pac-Man 99 instead.

This game should have been as good and as much of a departure as the upcoming Splinter Cell is; instead, its gameplay piddles around with everything the series has already established.

With bothersome controls and repetitive characters, Dragon Ball Z: Raging Blast 2 falls short at a time when the franchise should be at a high point. The series needs some fundamental reworking if it's going to stand up as well as some of its predecessors, and fans, whether they got into the series during the original run or "Dragon Ball Z Kai," certainly deserve better.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, could justify purchasing this game unless you have an extremely powerful need to wade through an assault of boring training missions so you can take down your friend in system-link.

It’s infected with ‘consolitis’, it carries the malignancy that is the Starforce copy-restriction system, the code is unstable and slaps Windows with an illegal operation every time you exit the program, and has even gone so far as to render my system incapable of a standard shut down/restart.

Perhaps the best way to describe Puzzle Chronicles is that it feels like an effort out of Infinite's "B" team. We know the company can do so much better, yet Puzzle Chronicles looks and feels more like a college project rather than a AAA XBLA title.

Despite the unique look and direction this takes on the RTS genre, the feeling of "I've been here before, done this before, and seen this before" pervades the entire experience.

There's really no reason to buy this game, especially if you're expecting anything resembling a return to Stronghold's roots of castle-building sim.

It's such a gnarled mass of poor pacing, non-intuitive interface hassles, and second-rate graphics that it really has no hope of being anything more than a bargain-bin purchase.

Nothing in the game works right, the physics are embarrassing, the gameplay is repetitive and boring, and the only bright spot is the cut scenes, which are simply nice window dressing for a shockingly boring plot.

I would like to think that I'm a patient person, Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command pushes the limits of doing nothing without any gameplay.

Although the game in concept is not itself rotten to the core, unless Blacksite: Area 51's developer can repair the technical disaster that is the PS3 version — I suspect this would require a substantial, cost-prohibitive reworking of the core software — I cannot under any circumstances recommend this title.

With sub-working core gameplay, Diabolical Pitch ultimately becomes little more than an exceptionally creative example of the limitations of Kinect. On a more effective control medium, it could have been a beautiful, if small, take on Suda51's every gaming hallmark. Instead, it is an elegant symbol of the Kinect's weaknesses. Even big fans of Grasshopper Manufacture should wait until they've played the demo multiple times before buying, even at 800 Microsoft points ($10). In as many words, this was a swing and a miss.

The concept behind Open Country is solid enough. A more relaxed hunting and survival simulator in a traditional game structure has an audience: those who feel that hunting games are too vague for newcomers. While some of the quirky bits can be forgiven, the busted hunting mechanics and the dated presentation bring everything crashing down. Unless you're the very forgiving and patient type, pass on this title.

In short, LOL is not worth it. The complete lack of single-player gameplay in any form, of enough actual gameplay to make a full game out of it, or, well, anything of interest that you cannot do with Pictochat makes its premise essentially useless to pretty much all players.

Neptunia Virtual Stars is a tough game to recommend even for the fans. The regular cast of characters remains as engaging as ever, while the newcomers fit in quite nicely. The story is a nice take on parodying the current state of the internet using the unique viewpoint that the series has carved for itself. Beyond the overly long cut scenes, the gameplay is dull despite the variety that the title and minigames try to provide. While this game won't attract any newcomers, hardcore fans might want to dabble with this after a very deep discount.

A potentially great game released in what looks, sounds, and plays like the game never left beta stages.

Unless you are a die-hard who simply doesn't care about fun and all you want to do is make sure your Star Trek collection is complete, then I recommend that you avoid this disastrous mistreatment of the house that Roddenberry built.

Altogether, Deal or No Deal is a pretty poor adaptation of the TV show, but that's partially because you can't really do much with a show that's mostly about talking it out.

Azur Lane: Crosswave is essentially a visual novel with some brief moments of action. Everything works as intended, and there's no need for a combat strategy, but the equipment and upgrades systems are cryptic. The visuals look good, and the chibi characters are adorable. The game can be a decent way to pass a weekend. However, Crosswave and all games under the Azur Lane banner espouse views on females — especially young girls — that I cannot look past, and it's troubling to me that this title is deemed appropriate for teenagers.

One of the most poorly executed wrestling games in recent memory.

The only thing Super Monkey Ball 3D manages to offer is a functional control scheme that shows off the 3DS' gyroscopic capabilities - provided you don't care to play in actual 3-D. Everything else about the game, from its short and unchallenging missions to its worthless extra play modes, is not worth your time. It might be best if Sega lets these monkeys hop into their balls and roll off into the sunset; their time has clearly passed.

Conveniently for consumers, Cartoon Network Racing nicely fulfills its stereotype as a licensed kart racing clone: an unsurprising mediocre mirroring of one of gaming's most popular casual racers.

It's a title for Naruto fans, but in all respects, it's a sub-par action/platformer; It's short, it isn't very fun, and it is deeply unsatisfying.

Frankly, developers of this type perform a gross disservice to other practitioners of the medium, and THQ should have never let this one out the door, no matter how much revenue they'll earn in licensed sales.

Criminal Girls: Invitation Only is a title with a very, very, very specific audience. RPG fans will find the combat tedious and the plot generic, and those looking for a dose of scantily clad anime girls will probably be turned off by the whipping and electrocution.

Holding back choices from the player does nothing but destroy a game's accessibility, and this is a token case. In the end, what we have with Yars' Revenge is a game with a genuinely novel and interesting aesthetic, but the lack of control concessions makes it something that's not worth picking up - that is, without trying the demo and making sure they're absolutely comfortable with how the game controls. Odds are that they won't be.

I didn't necessarily expect it to make me a better poker player, but I did at least expect it not make the experience of playing actually more tedious, uninspiring, and unattractive.

All told, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe is an abomination, an abysmal excuse for a game. Virtually every aspect of this blatant grab for cash is flawed in some significant way, and the makers of this game clearly churned out a severely sub-par product in an attempt to milk the franchise name in the most reprehensible of ways.

Frustrating in many respects, not the least of which is that if you cut through the clutter, you can see that the core is there for an enjoyable game.

Sudden Impact is just a slightly damaged version of the game we’ve been playing since the waning days of Sega’s Dreamcast.

Your time and money is better spent tracking down "Nochnoi Dozor" on DVD and enjoying it passively because, as an attempt at an interactive experience, Night Watch fails utterly.

Itadaki Smash isn't exactly the worst beat-'em-up on the Switch, but it gets close. The graphics are drab, with some bad-looking character models and mediocre animations. The humor is tiresome, and the lack of moves reveals the game's shallowness. The game is short, but the cumbersome saving combined with the overall instability makes it difficult to like. The Switch has a plethora of very good beat-'em-ups, both old and new, so there's no need to check out this offering.

In spite of the awful gameplay, the instant-death mazes, the inventory items that are nearly invisible, and the useless filler of arcade "puzzles", I kept playing because I wanted to see how this game was going to fail at being dramatic this time.

The inconsistent AI vacillates between being way too easy to soundly beating me — sometimes while playing the same board game!

All in all, Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament is a pretty bland and boring offering from Irem on the PSP, and it's the first big miss I've played from the company in quite a while. Even if you're a fan of the original PS2 title, you're not missing anything by skipping this one.

Sadly, even hardcore Ghost Rider fans will be immensely disappointed because after about a half hour of gameplay, you've experienced all there is to the game.

The box may say this is "the biggest combat simulator of all time," but for me it was the biggest frustration simulator of all time.

In the end, Trials of the Blood Dragon is a mess. The platforming is barely passable, and several mechanics feel terrible to use.

If this port/ remastering/ remake/whateveryou'dcallthis of Rainbow Islands Revolution was created with so little effort, I wouldn't recommend anybody make the effort to pull the box off a shelf and trade currency for it.

I did have some nuggets of fun with Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood, but there's too much I can't ignore to recommend it to anyone, especially with the dawn of next-gen systems and titles that execute their concepts much better and simply look like what current games should be.

The clever audio commentary and the decent character creator are the only positive things about a game that tries way too hard to be hip, edgy and cool — but just ends up disgracing boxing games, fighting games, and EA Sports in general.

Valhalla Knights fails in most significant areas, except for looking pretty and actually being well-coded.

In Nightmare is an experience that will leave players more frustrated than frightened. The story is decent enough, if predictable, but it quickly loses steam since you can guess what'll happen and the pantomimed scenes are too vague. The gameplay teeters between fine to unplayable due to technical issues and an overall design that favors trial and error and memorization versus crafting a more dynamic challenge. All of those things rob the game of a scare factor; there's nothing really horrifying about what you're up against. The ideas are sound, but unless you have to play every single horror game out there, you can safely skip In Nightmare and not miss a thing.

A forgettable relic that is just another in a long list of DS shovelware and a pretty bad example of it at that.

May be a wee improvement over "Battle Nexus," but it's still a pretty bad game. It's unfortunate.

All in all, Deadfall Adventures doesn't have a lot of positives.

The terrible video quality coupled with the simplistic and cheesy 3D world as well as the overdubbed voices really ruined the game for me.

The concept behind Redneck Ed: Astro Monsters Show is fine. Going through battle after battle in a galactic game show is a workable premise, and it's only been done a few times before. However, from the dated references and the half-baked presentation to the cheap deaths and lackluster combat, it is difficult to stick with the game after a few levels, since it game does its best to drain any semblance of fun from the experience. Unless you have the patience and willingness to deal with the lack of polish, pass on this one.

Honestly, X-Men: The Official Game for the GBA does one thing and does it poorly. It's the same platformer/brawler that seems to be the generic genre for licensed games and resembles most every X-Men game from the 16-bit era.

What could have been a very neat idea is ruined by a bad camera, buggy gameplay, and totally ridiculous mission objectives.

I don’t often enjoy using scrap paper and making my own charts for a RTS game. These kinds of things should be already built-in. I can’t see anyone but extremely diehard Roman Empire gamers with a lot of time and patience on their hands enjoying this game.

The whole nostalgia thing was nostalgic a few years ago. That’s a sad state of affairs, folks. Are we so void of new material, or can we spread our creative wings a little more than this?