The racing is limited by choppy graphics and horrible controls. [Feb 2005, p.90]

There are audio glitches galore, with sound effects either missing or repeating themselves over and over for no good reason. [Feb 2005, p.93]

To be fair, the backgrounds look pretty. [Jan 2005, p.90]

Like its real-life counterpart, the events here are over almost as soon as they begin, which, in essence, doesn't make for very compelling nore satisfying action. [Feb 2005, p.90]

This whole package would have been at home on the Commodore 64 20 years ago. [Feb 2005, p.91]

The game offers 27 different types of games, including slot machines and all types of poker, but does it so poorly you'll cringe at the thought of playing more than one or two. [Feb 2005, p.94]

Game design - in any sense of the phrase - is essentially nonexistent here. Each of the turtles has different attributes - but they're hardly compelling. [Nov 2004, p.91]

The game reheats the same scenario again and again, with Rayne forced to toss shmoe after shmoe into a killing device until any hint of fun is sucked bone dry. [Dec 2004, p.96]

The enemy A.I. goons perform as if they're all deaf, running directly into your line of fire (or the walls), and the character animation is on par with the old "Mr. Bill" claymation shorts. [Jan 2005, p.93]

A mangle of ugly graphics, repetitive combat, blah bosses, and just plain awkward moments, Robotech: Invasion fails to fire up protoculture-guffing fans of the late-'80s cult cartoon on which the game is based. [Nov 2004, p.100]

Besides its fine-tuned sense of the absurd, this is an undisciplined mess. [Dec 2004, p.86]

That bane of the 3D platformer, a bad camera, constantly hides fallen-away floors until you're standing where you thought there was solid ground. [Nov 2004, p.90]

You rarely get a sense of speed or weight while driving, and the controls are so awkward, the slightest steering overcorrection results in a spinout. [Dec 2004, p.83]

There's no sense of achievement in clearing one of the game's "elite" missions without the faintest effort. [Dec 2004, p.90]

This is the 21st century. No game should ever make a player fetch a valve handle again. [Nov 2004, p.94]

The A.I. of your teammates is simply horrendous. [Dec 2004, p.95]

Simply uninspired - and repetitious to boot. [Oct 2004, p.97]

Smith and Lawrence have nothing to do with Bad Boys: Miami Takedown. And neither should your hard-earned 20 bucks. [Dec 2004, p.90]

Sadly, unlike the game Bandai tried so hard to copy ("SSBM"), 2 has no depth whatsoever. [Nov 2004, p.100]

For casual players, Challenge provides all of the tedium of fishing with little of the pleasure, such as napping in the boat. Napping in front of the Xbox doesn't have the same appeal. [Oct 2004, p.95]

It's virtually the same as last year's "2004 Season," and that wasn't very good either. [Oct 2004, p.95]

Pack up this game's troubles in your old kit bag and head for the glorious Live-enabled "Crimson Skies" instead. [Nov 2004, p.96]

There's absolutely nothing appealing about any of it. Nor does the game possess any redeeming qualities, save for the fact that it won't immediately afflict you with cancer. [Oct 2004, p.97]

The problem is, driving crappy cars around dirt tracks as low speeds isn't very much fun at all. [Nov 2004, p.97]

Well-designed platforming bits and clever puzzles remind you of what people saw in the original "Tomb Raider," but the game's dismal controls muck up these potentially enjoyable levels. [Oct 2004, p.98]

When all the bullets are spent and the smoke clears, you're left asking, "Sarge's War, what is it good for?" The answer is, well, you already know. [Oct 2004, p.97]

This fetid package comes ribbon-wrapped with a horrible, barely adjustable camera that sees to it that Catwoman must guess where her enemies are and where the next in an endless series of platforms sits. [Sept 2004, p.94]

Given the uninspired play and mechanics, it might be more advisable to drive the cars right into the bowl and flush. [Oct 2004, p.98]

Consider this a horrible trip down memory lane and use whatever means necessary to repress it. [Sept 2004, p.89]

Sadly, Powerdrome is one time trial after another, and even with a real opponent via Xbox Live, there's not much more to it. [Sept 2004, p.89]

There's no solidity to the knight's movement, and the camera is usually twitching around like a plague rat on crank. [Aug 2004, p.87]

This wonky A.I., coupled with an online component that falls flat on its face, makes Mercury hard to recommend for shooter fans. Just like Hollywood, rote imitation works for a short time only.

The game suffers from a handful of setbacks, the least of which is its surprising brevity. [Aug 2004, p.82]

Sadly, simplistic landscapes, tacky colors, dorky characters, and an utter lack of polish justify the bargain-bin pricing. The poor graphics even leech the thrill of deformable terrain. [June 2004, p.93]

The realization that the game looks like crap is essentially an afterthought...This would pass as a minigame mode in "FIFA" or "Winning Eleven," but no way is it ready to stand on its own. [Mar 2004, p.80]

Lacks polish, underwhelms, pales in comparison to the board game that inspired it. [June 2004, p.88]

Playing 2005 with its jerky, disorienting fielder cam is akin to slicing up your head on a cheese grater, then taking a vinegar bath.

Your $40 buys you nothing but a video version of the standard, real-life trading card game.

Just another example of blown potential. [June 2004, p.87]

Buggy and unfinished - a shameful, full-priced add-on pack tarnishing the original Battalion's golden legacy. [May 2004, p.87]

The bare-bones graphics and simplistic gameplay render this disc a painful walk down memory lane. [Apr 2004, p.83]

An omelette of a game whose eggs are a bit too runny. [May 2004, p.80]

It's quirky...it's garish...it's horribly annoying...The control is so utterly broken that one has to wonder what the developers were thinking. [Apr 2004, p.87]

It's just a bad game with crappy cinemas and more than enough frustrating moments to make you weep into your Romulan Ale. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.89]

Anything resembling compelling level design or effective camera control was left on the cutting-room floor. [Mar 2004, p.101]

Isis strives to be "Resident Evil," but instead ends up as its less-palatable ward, "Resident Unpleasant." [Mar 2004, p.101]

On of the game's most unforgivable design flaws is that there is simply nothing to gain or strive for when playing. [Apr 2004, p.91]

Beyond the lame characters and infantile gameplay, Whiskers' trapping aren't half bad. [Mar 2004, p.95]

A video coprolite. [Mar 2004, p.86]

A horrid single-player quest mode offers frustrating, ill-designed scenarios. [Mar 2004, p.91]

More glaring than the minigames' poor quality is their length, as each one takes several minutes to complete, and repeats ad nauseum. [Mar 2004, p.98]

The list of omissions is epic: decent A.I., car damage, real-life car parts, an in-dash view, analog gas and break buttons - and, well, you get the point. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.84]

Go easy on yourself here, and watch the only FMV worth watching: the DVD of the film this mercury-like pile of T-1000 excrement is based on. [Mar 2004, p.79]

You'd have to be very sick of "Halo" and "Counter-Strike" to even consider this one. [Mar 2004, p.95]

You can, in practically one extended sitting, blow through the entirety of this dumbed-down, bloodless, sanitized version of America's hard-fought victory. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.88]

One begins to wonder where the company found the nerve to release a game that plays as if it were coded by the ultimate beach personality, Jeff Spiccoli. [Mar 2004, p.80]

This giant cat that wants to pinch mommy's ass is one ripe for the highway and an oncoming truck.[Mar 2004, p.79]

Sadly, Vengeance's extreme difficulty and arbitrary save system bleed off any entertainment value. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.89]

The camera alone is enough to condemn Drake to the eigth circle of gaming hell. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.90]

Ghoulies goes whole hog on its graphics and half-asses everything else. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.90]

The "Howard the Duck" of videogames. [Mar 2004, p.95]

This one comes straight from the backyard. It should return there, preferably buried deep by the family dog. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.95]

The title makes no bones about the unfinished state of the wrasslin' found within. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.95]

Goals are alternately too easy because the bike's brute speed makes gaps and jumps so simple, or too hard because twitchy steering and excess velocity make delicate maneuvering impossible. [Aug 2003, p.87]

The in-game graphics are acceptable at best, with the cut-scenes barely making the grade. [Dec/Jan 2004, p.92]

It may be realistic to have a fishing game where the fish are all in hiding or killed off by man-made pollutants, but it's certainly not much fun. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.91]

Everything works as it should, but the sum of these parts is booring with as many extra "O"s as you please. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.93]

Embarrassing show tunes notwithstanding, it's the game's artificial difficulty that puts this bird in a nose-dive a third of the way through. [Aug 2003, p.81]

This is action at its most basic (see the enemy, press A, repeat) and adventure at its most boring (fetch widget and return to random townsperson). [Oct/Nov 2003, p.85]

A subpar effort marred by weak graphics and terribly repetitive gameplay. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.87]

A very uninspired shooter... The game is painfully generic. [June-July 2003, p.91]

In what appears to be a rush job, the game is riddled with inexcusable bugs such as persistent crashing and invisible walls that prohibit movement. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.91]

Pirates is a kick - swift and painful - to the gonads for all who've claimed the Xbox is no PC... This is a junky PC game waiting to be patched. It should be made to walk the plank. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.90]

With no map to guide you, these missions are as much fun as trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the dark. [Aug 2003, p.86]

There's not a lot to Big Mutha Truckers, and what exists is forgettable.[Aug 2003, p.81]

This is as stock and uninteresting as it gets, nothing more than the staple prescripted key/switch hunt you've already seen 100 times. [Aug 2003, p.77]

This is a fistful of something, all right. And it's not to be stepped in, taken internally, or flung at humans. [Aug 2003, p.81]

IP 2003 is not the worst Xbox game ever developed, but it is certainly the worst Xbox baseball game. [June-July 2003, p.93]

Fails dramatically... Severe, fundamental flaws permeate the experience, ranging from wince-inducing run-cycle animations to sloppy, unrefined controls. [Aug 2003, p.78]

Metro3D should invest in one more stake, but it should be one of the wooden variety and plunged directly into the heart of this monstrosity. [Aug 2003, p.89]

The thrill of driving classic Lotus cars is obliterated by its unresponsive handling. [April/May 2003, p.93]

This is so far from fun it might be made of an entirely new substance: antifun. [Apr/May 2003, p.92]

With little here to massage the mind or engage the heart, Red Faction II becomes nothing more than a linear on-rails twitch-fest. [June-July 2003, p.92]

A stale and astoundingly pixelated port of a two-year-old Dreamcast game. [Fall 2002, p.121]

At a very basic level, this is a competent racer in desperate need of a better interface and better A.I. [June-July 2003, p.94]

Seems to have sprung up from the sharp minds of bored high school students who probably spent too much time playing "Gauntlet." [Winter 2002, p.109]

Dark Tomorrow is, in a word, abigheapingpileoffeces. It's sloppy, scattered, and illustrates the word "janky" better than any dictionary definition ever could. [June-July 2003, p.91]

Trite and laughably cliched in screenshots, Tao Feng simply falls apart in motion. [Apr/May 2003, p.82]

It's baseball done for the mindless MTV generation, and it smells like a turd polished to a high gloss. [Aug 2003, p.88]

Give Acclaim credit: One year after releasing the crappy "All-Star Baseball 2003," the company has come back strong with an even crappier All-Star Baseball 2004. [Apr/May 2003, p.90]

Pulse's worst crime isn't even that it looks hideous (both technically and artistically); the real sin here is its lack of feel. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.88]

At best, Pop is "Bust-A-Move" in 3D, but with useless power-ups and poor visibility on the moving 3D board. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.89]

"Diablo" without the story, characters to converse or interact with, variety in graphics or, well, fun. It's just a tired, slow trudge through 10 levels of a dungeon you really have no motivation to enter in the first place. [Winter 2002, p.108]

Does a decent job dealing with odd 3D camera angles for its 2D-styled gameplay. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.89]

Stupid A.I. ensures that computer-controlled fighters will ignore the grapplers they've supposedly developed a hate for, and stand idly by while pins are being made. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.89]

Let's just say that the only way to ruin a party quicker than loading up Shrek Super Party is to load up "Nickelodeon Party Blast." Stay away!

Any person who has not played it is, in some subtle way, morally superior to anyone who has. Now, a solemn pact: Let us never speak of SeaBlade again. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.87]

Superfly's physics are unpredictable and frustrating. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.88]