Dawn of Mana looks the part, but fails in most other aspects. If you're hankering for some role-playing on your aging PlayStation 2, pick up "Odin Sphere" -- which released the same day. It's even more beautiful, captures the essence of old-school, and you'll be having too much fun to feel the need to convince yourself that you're having fun.

Its simple, entertaining mix of humour and management is addictive in the short-term, and it'll make a perfect impulse buy for those looking for something a little bit different.

Gameplay is probably the most unremarkable aspect to Kingdom Hearts. The real-time combat consists of mashing the X button repeatedly as your one and only attack move, and also using magic once and a while.

Merely another bike sim that does not quite make the grade. Lacking intrinsic excitement, its appeal will not last beyond the time it takes to complete.

Amped 2's thick, slow riding and terrible controls are simply unforgettable, whether the aim is arcade speed or serious realism.

It plays fine in very brief bursts if you’re accustomed to the arcade, but for anyone else it’ll prove to be source of much anger.

By modern standards, it's decidedly lacking, but it's still a classic.

For a game without a particularly compelling plot, pretty addictive and fun to play.

The missions seem more like replicants from other games, including the original Galactic Battlegrounds, Age of Empires, and just about every other RTS clone on the market.

Unfortunately, there's no true career mode where you can create a player and take him through multiple seasons.

Despite the many little changes, improvements, and false steps, this year's game is still as disappointing as last year's, albeit in different ways, and with more obvious flaws that take less time to annoy the player.

It plays conservatively and never hits the jackpot.

While the game's nod to realism (and somewhat stiff control) are less friendly to racing gamers overall, car-caressers will find much to amuse themselves.

This isn't the sort of add-on that improves the original, or even changes the core gameplay very much, although it is a nice added chapter that fans will certainly appreciate.

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.

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

While this game has some glimpses of the past greatness of the Tomb Raider franchise, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is so full of glitches and other frustrations that it's hard to enjoy.

A trip down memory lane for anyone pining for the original, but without strategic and gameplay enhancements, it's just a poor game by 2003 standards.

It is ironic that Vampire Night should be both toothless and bloodless.

XXX isn't without its charms, although they might best be appreciated in a quick two-day’s borrow from a cash happy friend.

As many improvements as the game's developers have made over its predecessors, I only wish they had gone the extra mile and made this game into the top-notch title it could have been.

Chaos Overlords is good for maybe a couple of days play, especially with the novelty of the whole 'gang war' thing, but after that's worn off, it gets boring fairly quickly. It's not as interesting or fun to play as "Syndicate" or "Civilization"; it's just too limited.

A fast moving, initially addictive action game that soon becomes too repetitive and limiting to sustain a long involvement.

Okay for a quick blast with its pick-up-and-play controls and simplistic physics, but just as you start getting into it, you begin to realise there isn't really an awful lot more.

The ominous industrial-soundtracked wanderings change from tense to boring and finally kind of infuriating, as you find yourself being forced to visit and visit and re-visit again areas you've already cleaned out.

The game is very pretty, yes, but it's far from pretty enough to warrant punishing yourself with this one-two blow of poor controls and terrible targeting.

There really is just too much here to form one coherent game.

It turns out that pinball controls don't make for a very good platform game.