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.