The New York Times Crosswords for the NDS is made for the puzzle freak and crossword enthusiast, but it's also enjoyable for anyone who has a penchant for simple-playing games with a good deal of challenge.

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.

The movement controls are very slippery and awkward, you spend most of your time in mundane conversation trees and playing the same mini-games relentlessly, and the reward at the end of the year isn't particularly satisfying.

A decent game marred by glitches and rushes.

It's reasonably good-looking, intelligent and fun, but with a lot of flaws.

In short, Naruto: Ninja Council 3 shows little to no improvement over its predecessors, with equally brain-dead play and a genre switch that sets it in competition with far better games in its own series, to say nothing of other games on the system using the same characters.

Rarely have games floored me with their animations and graphics as much as Odin Sphere did, but that is almost all that is worth recommending.

It is perhaps the very definition of mediocre. Combat is repetitive and boring, but not particularly flawed in any way, except perhaps for the weak AI.

But when all the parts are added up, this is just another on a long list of licensed games that fail to actually get past the low standards set for the genre.

An enjoyable, if slightly simple, way to spend a few hours. It's as addictive as side-scrollers come but is overly reliant on its film inspiration to fill in the gaps of the story and create a pre-existing bond with characters.

Overall, Art of Fighting Anthology certainly did not stand the test of time, and the titles definitely don't have anything on current 2D fighters.

The controls are exceptionally tight, the translations from the original arcade titles are splendidly recreated in a fashion that suggests to me that great care was taken to ensure that each game would be faithful to the original and the interface is both simple and useful.

Etrian Odyssey is old school. There is no other way to describe it. It's slow, difficult, sparse with the hints and unforgiving to those who try to speed through it. If this doesn't sound like fun to you, then it's best to move along, because you won't enjoy Etrian Odyssey. However, if you're one of those gamers who has fond memories of Wizardry and Ultima, then this might just be what you're looking for.

Shrek the Third isn't a terrible game, but it's not a terribly fun — or long — one, either. It suffers from boring, repetitive combat with extremely frustrating platform jumping, and while the story and dialogue are hilarious, the voice actors providing poor impersonations tend to detract more than enhance from the entire experience.

Shrek the Third is a funny beat-'em-up perfect for kids that liked the movie, but it suffers from simple controls and repetitive fighting.

I enjoyed playing Shrek the Third because it is a fun, uncomplicated title that is accessible to action fans of all ages. It's a linear adventure, though, so don't expect a whole lot of replay value.

Better suited as an arcade shooter than anything else. Nothing about the game particularly stands out, the level design is simple, the storyline is generic, the graphics are of the current generation, and the gameplay is mediocre at best.

If you still have a sneaking suspicion that the Xbox 360 version suffers from the inferior control scheme of a controller, think again. After a few minutes of adjusting, you'll find that it's just as easy to perform at your peak on the Xbox 360's controller as it is on a keyboard and mouse setup on a PC.

CellFactor is best thought of as an intriguing tech demo. It is interesting to watch your screen become cluttered with dozens of boxes, pipes, and miscellaneous junk, and know that your PhysX card is making the spectacle possible, but is it fun to play? Let's just say that you will love it … if your video game collection consists solely of free games.

If you're a really big fan of the storyline of .hack//GU, then that is the only reason to keep playing this franchise. Even then, the plot is both incredibly predictable and filled to the brim of clichéd characters and logic holes that make it very difficult to take seriously.

Unfortunately, I never felt that Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam was much fun to play. The switch in style from city exploration to racer doesn't work that well, and it never seemed like I had the time to pull off impressive tricks or combos.

There are so many things going for Armed Assault: Combat Operations (ArmA) in terms of presentation, concept and effort. Unfortunately, it slips up in so many ways that affect the gameplay to a serious degree that it turns what could have been a great military combat simulator into a test of patience.

The game is just plain fun and has a terrific timeless appeal to it. This is the sort of title you could play through once or twice right away (even though it might take you three months), and then reinstall it again a year, two years, even five years later, and still have just as much fun.

I enjoyed swinging through Spider-man 3 even though I felt that game tasks were becoming more and more repetitive as I progressed.

If you're a huge Spider-Man fan, this game may be for you. Anyone else will be content renting it and amusing themselves for a few hours exploring the Big Apple and returning it before the dullness sets in.

Between Spider Sense and the web slinging, Spider-Man 3 offers a fairly comprehensive Spidey experience, but there's as much frustration as fun here.

Just seems like a huge step back from what was achieved in "Spider-man 2."

The game barely clocks in at five hours, and there's not much to do after that.