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]

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

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

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

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

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]

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]

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

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

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

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]

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

"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]

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]

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]

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

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

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

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

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]

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

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]

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

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

The game is riddled with more holes than poor Loose Lips Larry. [Feb 2005, p.89]

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]

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.

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