As is so often the case in this genre, the minigames miss as many pitches as they hit. We'd actually recommend the Xbox predecessor over this one, if it didn't suffer horrible performance problems when running on the 360.

It's a rap-flavored karaoke program with a minor gameplay element and nowhere near enough songs. It's a missed opportunity... and that's whack, yo.

The game's controls and user-interface are clean and intuitive: the analog stick and four face buttons are all that's needed to play, and the unobtrusive onscreen icons give you necessary information when you need it.

An enjoyable diversion at a reasonable price.

Is it playable and engaging? Yes, up to a point. But as a pure game it trips over its own feet more than once...For hardcore movie-lovers only.

It's an ugly, boring and vastly unoriginal RTS.

An intriguing idea, but it deserves a better game than this.

There's no motivation for the player to keep going, no tension that builds, no interest in the new weapons, no in-depth strategies, in fact it's just a generally vacuous experience.

It’s dull, looks bad, gets boring very quickly and is thoroughly overshadowed by its competition.

If you're a big fan of The Weakest Link and have posters of Anne Robinson on your wall, then I guess it's fair to say you should seek psychiatric help – er, sorry I meant you should definitely consider buying The Weakest Link.

The hell of the game is that the environmental puzzle setups look pretty good -- climb the wall, lash onto the nearest outcropping, swing to clamber chainlink fences, etc. It's just a shame the game actively fights your ability to navigate them.

It's like a melted snowman -- something that could've been good, but instead turned out to be a goopy pile of mush.

So-so graphics and pretty dull gameplay, but it does have a fairly decent physics model that makes it fun to play...at least for a short time.

You shouldn’t be buying Combat Zone for its graphics, or the sound. You should really be getting this one for its gameplay. Thankfully, it does not disappoint in this respect, nor in the sharpness of the AI exhibited therein.

It's like a melted snowman -- something that could've been good, but instead turned out to be a goopy pile of mush.

A short-lived single-player mode combined with repetitive multiplayer gameplay make this game a title destined for the bargain bin, rather than greatness.

Too dull and repetitive for the hardcore gamer, and yet too hard and unrewarding for young children.

As generic and forgettable as the game's name.

The hell of the game is that the environmental puzzle setups look pretty good -- climb the wall, lash onto the nearest outcropping, swing to clamber chainlink fences, etc. It's just a shame the game actively fights your ability to navigate them.

More like somebody's high-school programming project than an actual commercial game. And even then, it's only worth a D.

Painfully thin.

The hell of the game is that the environmental puzzle setups look pretty good -- climb the wall, lash onto the nearest outcropping, swing to clamber chainlink fences, etc. It's just a shame the game actively fights your ability to navigate them.

Because of its shallow combat and poor presentation, the game loses its thrill very quickly for anyone not a devotee of the subject matter.

Not only is this title sorely lacking for those kinds of innovative features, but it just doesn't compete with even the original "Midtown Madness" for gameplay and graphical variety.

The hell of the game is that the environmental puzzle setups look pretty good -- climb the wall, lash onto the nearest outcropping, swing to clamber chainlink fences, etc. It's just a shame the game actively fights your ability to navigate them.

The ridiculous frustration in the early levels will deplete most gamers' patience.

Talking of light, there are several periods playing as Rick that you'll be inching forward down rocky tunnels with virtually no illumination to help you and the 3D map that you can cut to when you're feeling lost is worse than useless.

An absolute must for fans of the series - it's as engrossing and complex as the best of Anne McCaffrey's novels, and as a stand-alone story, it's fun and well worth it.

And even if the training mode was more fun and well thought out, it still all boils down to how good the main game is...and frankly, the main game isn't very good anyway.

The most frustrating aspect of the game is the annoyance of not being able to save it until the end of each level.

Does one thing and one thing only: it adds one more RPG to the Xbox line-up, and whether or not that's a good thing depends on how desperate you are for a dungeon crawl.

The game is a mess of great touches and attention to detail that's hopelessly mired in critical flaws. One example immediately springs to mind: expect to download and install a patch before you can even begin playing online.

But take away the shocking aspects and anti-culture roster of fighters and what's left is still just a mediocre fighting game.

It's almost as if they settled on the simplest, most derivative game design possible instead of trying to do the show some justice.

Were the character control tighter, level designs a bit more varied and the sound a bit less repetitive it could have been a great way to waste some time with old favorites.

Although there are some enjoyable aspects here, there are too many disappointments weighing down the whole endeavour.

It's one of the few Trek games to nail the scale and speed, it has gorgeously straightforward graphics and a good sense of scope and pace. This, however, is combined with an insulting flight scheme, and the game rewards in-the-know Trek fans with one hand while it sissy-slaps them with the other.

The lack of a mid-game save aside, PoA is great fun to play - not only does it have the necessary hook to keep you interested in what happens next, but it manages to perfectly reproduce the atmosphere of the Apes films.

The robot construction is simplistic in the extreme, the arenas are forgettable, and the actual combat is the epitome of boredom.

The quick races, time trails, and drift challenges aren't much incentive to pull your nose out of the career mode. And the multiplayer is hardly worth booting up. You can only play splitscreen, and without AI cars.

Street Supremacy may be pretty cool for its strategic twist, but when actually getting behind the wheel is so ponderous and unengaging, then for all you care, those other gangs can just have Tokyo.

Vintage 1994 graphics and laughable gameplay make this one the first games of 2002 to snatch a deserved one-star rating.

It's one of the few Trek games to nail the scale and speed, it has gorgeously straightforward graphics and a good sense of scope and pace. This, however, is combined with an insulting flight scheme, and the game rewards in-the-know Trek fans with one hand while it sissy-slaps them with the other.

Flops in every possible way.

For the price you'll pay for both these games -- which is what you'll need to do if you want a half-decent selection of activities -- you could buy the far superior "Brain Age." Or, for that matter, you could buy just about any of the other genuinely good games on the DS, and pass over this cash-in altogether.

With the bugs fixed and the gameplay tweaked and polished, Superpower could be pretty decent. At the moment, it's disappointing.

It's probably too much to ask that a single game capture all the nuances of a huge event like the Winter Olympics. But there isn't even the fun and spirit of gameplay that imbued the original "Track and Field," and that was on the Atari-bloody-2600! When a modern game is getting lapped by an 8-bit wonder, something is really rotten in... well, Torino isn't in Denmark, but you get the point

For the price you'll pay for both these games -- which is what you'll need to do if you want a half-decent selection of activities -- you could buy the far superior "Brain Age." Or, for that matter, you could buy just about any of the other genuinely good games on the DS, and pass over this cash-in altogether.

It's only January, but we already have an early favorite for 2006's Worst Game of the Year award. In terms of graphics, gameplay, sound, and most other categories, 25 to Life is so low on the totem it's underground.

If you want to go high on adrenaline and never mind the pain, then this might be the right prescription - so long a s you can get to grips with the controls.

Vampire Rain fails at almost everything it tries. Despite the undeniably appealing setting, there's nothing here that justifies even a reserved recommendation. Depressing, derivative, and controller-throwingly frustrating, here's one occasion when you should let the rain stop you from playing.

A few fighting scenes and some great cinema sequences don't do much to jazz up this tired shooter.

Delving more than an hour or two into the game becomes painful.

Since the game is rooted so strictly in reality, you'll see no special moves and very few cool combos. What is here is overly difficult to control for how simple it is.

Playing this game is as tedious and as painful as your morning workout on the stairmaster, without the pain-for-gain benefit of developing six-pack abs.

The worst-case scenario is that you pick a fight with the game store clerk who let you buy this title, and get your face punched in. Then you'll be stuck with both a black eye and a crummy game.

A few fighting scenes and some great cinema sequences don't do much to jazz up this tired shooter.

Unless you're a glutton for computer game punishment, you will want to avoid this ghoulish disaster of a game like the black plague.

Single-player won't occupy you for long -- the daft AI and total lack of variety will see to that. Live play will keep you smiling for a little while, but the sad truth is that Act Zero is totally inadequate. Treat it like it's one of the bombs getting flung around the map and run the other way.

Dull, depressing, and monotonous. Although the combat system is reasonably interesting, the game doesn't come close to making the most of it.

It's not all bad, just needlessly frustrating. Once you get your head around the controls and deal with some of the flawed game mechanics, Mike Tyson Heavyweight Boxing becomes mildly enjoyable.

A slapdash and deeply disappointing GBA makeover that will do nothing to win over new Mortal Kombat fans and will enrage hardened aficionados hoping for handheld heaven.

Only the most blinkered Mobile Suit fetishist could love this clunky battle sim, which trades speed, finesse, and depth for...well, nothing, really.

A mediocre game at best. Graphically and sonically, it stinks but with a better framerate, these issues and enemy AI problems could have been forgiven.

A mess of a game. It's not even a game, more like a slow, rotting death. No matter how great your love for George Romero, no matter how overpowering your curiosity, there is no reason to look twice at Land of the Dead. Do not walk away. Run.

Most egregiously, this game costs $60. That’s about $50 too much. A better choice? Go crank Goldfinger’s “Superman,” fire up your old PlayStation or Dreamcast, dig up a copy of the original game, and relive the glory days the right way.

There's only one or two releases per year which manage to get just nearly every element in a game completely and utterly wrong.

A poor excuse for a Tenchu-style fighter, thinly veiled as a story-driven stealth action game a la Metal Gear that's so laughably bad it actually makes "Batman: Vengeance" look like the best superhero action game ever created.

Abysmal in every way. The only possible reason there could be for purchasing it is to give as a present to a particularly hated relative - but that might be considered a little harsh.

It takes about five minutes with the game to realize it's a nightmare for everyone else, with ugly visuals, sloppy controls, a horrible camera and some of the most foolish storytelling we've seen. This one's a mess, folks.