Choppy movements, mediocre graphics, and limited control options. [Summer 2002, p.90]

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

Go play "Calfornia Games" on your Lynx. [Jan 2002, p.90]

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

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]

Superfly's physics are unpredictable and frustrating. [Feb/Mar 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]

Uneven graphics, hollow gameplay contrivances, and a wholesale lack of compelling drama mar the enormous effort which was clearly put into the game. [Fall 2002, p.104]

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

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

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]

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

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]

An oppressive auto-aim system, weak enemy AI, and simplistic puzzles keep gameplay straightforward and repetitive. [Summer 2002, p.93]

It's a curse-at-the-controller-how-can-this-be-so-effin'-hard? Game. [Spring 2002, p.92]

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

Gross-out style low brow comedy is all it can bank on when you take all of this game's design flaws into consideration. [Winter 2002, p.107]

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]

Unfortunately, the game is virtually unplayable. [Summer 2002, p.92]

The real trouble with Ty, however, lies in its camera. Ty dashes at a frenetic pace while the camera does a poor job of keeping up. [Winter 2002, p.103]

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

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

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]

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]

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]

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

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

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

Dismal. [Jan 2002, p.90]

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]

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

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

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]

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

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

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]

The game is just boring. [Jan 2002, p.90]

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]

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]

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]

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.

Crappy cutscenes and first generation PS2 visuals are not so cool. [Jan 2002, p.94]

Lacks any sort of range whatsoever. It also lacks fun. [Jan 2002, p.96]

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]

Does little, if anything, to elevate itself past mediocrity. [Spring 2002, p.93]

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

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

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]

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

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

We’ve simply seen this game too many times on too many systems to really be psyched anymore. [Jan 2002, p.96]

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

If there was any truth in advertising, Universal would hawk this game as "Lord of the Pointless Fetch Quest" and recommend that potential buyers seek the Fellowship of Many Beers to dull the pain. [Winter 2002, p.103]

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

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]

Take it please, and understand there are absolutely, positively, no returns. [Winter 2002, p.109]

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

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]

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

Hitting shots is a random affair rather than a sweet science, and the impressive array of street-ball moves (the highlight of the game) are rendered superfluous due to faulty A.I. and crude, if easily accessible, controls. [Winter 2002, p. 99]

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

Here's some of the stuff you will not laugh at: dogs fornicating, bird poop, aliens anally impaled. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.81]

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

It borrows so heavily from significantly better racing games (especially "SSX: Tricky"), and will probably just remind you you should be playing them instead. [Apr/May 2003, p.92]

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]

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]

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

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

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

Camera angles are absolutely dizzying, and controls are clumsy and unresponsive. [Spring 2002, p.91]

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

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]

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

The game's mutants are ugly and lifeless. [Feb/Mar 2003, p.88]

The multiplayer games are banal, and while Zapper offers cartoony kid-graphics, it's nothing that can't be done on inferior systems. Yawn. [Winter 2002, p.102]

An exercise in sheer frustration. [Fall 2002, p.121]

The same-old, same-old: the same static screens, decrepit point-and-click interface, crushingly slow pace, and confusing layout. [Winter 2002, p.105]

The game isn't even remotely balanced. [Winter 2002, p.102]

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]

Although Hero's high concept borders on the brilliant, the game itself is poorly executed and seems as out of place on Xbox as a rump roast at a vegan restaurant. [Aug 2003, p.89]

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

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]

Playing the game simply feels too much like work. [Winter 2002, p.104]

Inexcusably awful. [Fall 2002, p.115]

The biggest disappointment is the game's multiplayer mode; there's now way to send blocks or any manner of taunts to your opponent. For shame. [Fall 2002, p.121]

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]

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

Sports one of the most mind-numbingly frustrating camera systems in recent memory. [Spring 2002, p.92]

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

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]

We're pretty sure that in the very near future, we'll be using Toxic Grind to torture terrorists into revealing their most closely guarded secrets. Such is the game's badness. [Winter 2002, p.106]

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]

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]

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

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]

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]

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]