If you thought shooters needed more Stetson hats and Winchester rifles, you can't go wrong with this one. [May 2004, p.96]

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]

Heartily mediocre. [Mar 2004, p.90]

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]

Gorgeously cel shaded, sharp, and smart, but ultimately too difficult for the game's intended audience and certainly a little too generous in its repetition of sound samples. [Fall 2002, p.121]

The camera never quite gets it together during combat, and the animations are stilted and choppy. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.99]

No matter how many coats of polish they put on it, this is still the same game that's been around since Mikhail Gorbachev ruled the Soviet Union. [Oct/Nov 2003, p.87]

Bottom line, the game is solid - it's very challenging, great to look at, and very different from its peers. [Winter 2002, p.97]

A mediocre-looking strategy game with amazing depth and gameplay value - a decent enough ride to be sure, and maybe even worth the $30 price of admission. [Aug 2003, p.89]

It's all so well written, acted, and directed that such seemingly unfunny lines as "Are those my Funyuns?" will make you laugh as hard as any comedy you've seen this year could. [Dec 2004, p.96]

A general sense of hack-and-slash ennui making Arthur just as nonstirring as the film was to a post-"Rings" audience. [Dec 2004, p.93]

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]

There's very little rhyme or reason to any of the proceedings, but Roar is still king of fun. [Aug 2003, p.81]

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]

You realize that Bilbo Baggins' dash maneuver (a sort of pole-vault jump) is faster than running, so you go through the whole game pole-vaulting like a ninny. [Mar 2004, p.98]

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]

Hell, you can't even choose which side to be on in team games. On the PS2, this is disappointing, but on the Xbox - where most games figured this stuff out over a year ago - it's inexcusable. [Jan 2005, p.100]

While fans will appreciate the faithful renditions of classic Euro circuits such as Silverstone, Hockenheim, and Monza, having more to choose from, as always, would have been better. [Winter 2002, p.109]

Once again, it's the series' fun two-to-four-player splitscreen mode that sets it apart from other fog-of-war games. [Nov 2004, p.92]

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

Very little about the game stands out. The graphics are relatively bland, and there's no real sense of speed while driving. [Fall 2002, p.120]

A passable motorcycle racer with decent track design, a solid framerate and a healthy sense of speed. But it's hard to recommend when it coexists with the superior-in-every-way "MotoGP 2." [Aug 2003, p.85]

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]