My issues are that this game is so damn generic, shallow, and content with being nothing special, it surprises me that it asks you to pay full price at the door.

My issues are that this game is so damn generic, shallow, and content with being nothing special, it surprises me that it asks you to pay full price at the door.

Sometimes, stereotypes exist for very good reasons. Korean role-playing games have a reputation as low-rent incarnations of their more polished Japanese counterparts, and Magna Carta 2 does nothing to combat that perception -- instead, it embraces it wholeheartedly.

It's a disappointment that a franchise so (ostensibly) devoted to endless creativity could produce a game so limited in its meaningfully creative options. In the end, Spore Hero never becomes anything more than a lighthearted but uninspired platformer -- and a waste of the brand's creative potential.

The greatest problem with Elite Squadron is that it feels like a step back from its predecessor, Renegade Squadron.

Dragging the game out with endless fetch quests and terrible combat makes getting to the end more of a chore than anything.

I'm just not convinced that this grab bag of half-baked ideas and gratuitous filler makes for a great videogame. And I learned something about myself, as well: It takes a lot more than sassy books and hermaphrodites to keep my interest these days.

I'm just not convinced that this grab bag of half-baked ideas and gratuitous filler makes for a great videogame. And I learned something about myself, as well: It takes a lot more than sassy books and hermaphrodites to keep my interest these days.

Saw's derivative gameplay -- which even includes sliding around crates (or racks of frozen pig carcasses) and searching dressers for hidden valves to shut down nearby pipes spewing hot gas (did that happen this often in the movies?) -- has all been done before, and done better by titles like Silent Hill and Condemned.

Saw's derivative gameplay -- which even includes sliding around crates (or racks of frozen pig carcasses) and searching dressers for hidden valves to shut down nearby pipes spewing hot gas (did that happen this often in the movies?) -- has all been done before, and done better by titles like Silent Hill and Condemned.

Its biggest flaw is feeling old hat in an already overcrowded marketplace, and it is unlikely to pull any FPS devotees from their game of choice. No Mercy -- despite being a competent shooter set at a value price -- simply doesn't stand out like its title character.

It's a terrible system and it's sure to alienate all but the hardcore C&C nerds. But those of you who stick around, those of you who are willing to put up with the ugly graphics, the pointless online-only requirement, and the mandatory grinding are liable to end up as the small dedicated player base for yet another one of Electronic Arts' disastrous attempts at online gaming.

As a stand-alone download, it's a short rendition of the Watchmen brawler experience that features more low points than high points -- but with an admittedly awesome moment of Rorschach punching a fat pervert.

As a stand-alone download, it's a short rendition of the Watchmen brawler experience that features more low points than high points -- but with an admittedly awesome moment of Rorschach punching a fat pervert.

As a stand-alone download, it's a short rendition of the Watchmen brawler experience that features more low points than high points -- but with an admittedly awesome moment of Rorschach punching a fat pervert.

Despite those nice touches, BBB could have been more fun had it adopted a few modern touches and included online multiplayer (co-op is limited to local play only). Instead, it feels like more effort was spent on ensuring that the Team Fortress 2 section looked exactly like the Dustbowl level than on making sure the game played as well as possible. At $15 BBB is just $5 too expensive to justify picking up.

Despite those nice touches, BBB could have been more fun had it adopted a few modern touches and included online multiplayer (co-op is limited to local play only). Instead, it feels like more effort was spent on ensuring that the Team Fortress 2 section looked exactly like the Dustbowl level than on making sure the game played as well as possible. At $15 BBB is just $5 too expensive to justify picking up.

When I'm in the market for an RPG, it's for a select few reasons: I'm looking for an epic story, rad loot, combat that stimulates the tactical chunks of my brain, and beautiful environments. White Knight Chronicles does none of these things well. To top it all off, the game inexplicably ends after less than 30 hours with most of the major plot points left wholly unresolved.

As a basic XBLA port at half the price, RayStorm might have made for a fun novelty. But it's frankly bewildering that Taito is charging $15 for an extremely marginal upgrade to a game that we played some 13 years ago.

But it's frankly bewildering that Taito is charging $15 for an extremely marginal upgrade to a game that we played some 13 years ago.

The game is like Manhunt, except with adorable teddy bears. Wait -- can you compel your victims to kill themselves in Manhunt? No? OK, maybe Naughty Bear's actions are slightly worse.

The game is like Manhunt, except with adorable teddy bears. Wait -- can you compel your victims to kill themselves in Manhunt? No? OK, maybe Naughty Bear's actions are slightly worse.

But sadly, the strength of the game's characters doesn't lead to a positive, or memorable, gaming experience.

I realize that they're going for a snow and ice motif, but the color is really just a lifeless, ashy grey. Given how colorless the rest of the experience is though, perhaps it's appropriate.

Double Helix obviously had good intentions, but, as a whole, Front Mission Evolved is completely unnecessary.

Double Helix obviously had good intentions, but, as a whole, Front Mission Evolved is completely unnecessary.

Much like Wii Play before it, Wii Party has about a night's worth of uneven entertainment in it before it's ready to take up a life of farming dust on your shelf.

There's a great idea lurking around in Rock Of The Dead's dumb-fun concept, but instead the game winds up being dumb even when it isn't trying to be.

There's a great idea lurking around in Rock Of The Dead's dumb-fun concept, but instead the game winds up being dumb even when it isn't trying to be.

While the game does a solid job of recreating the console tracks and maintaining a steady frame rate, the scaled-down visuals don't always depict how your competitors are wrecked, which sucks away a lot of the appeal of the experience.

It just doesn't have enough substance to stand out on it's own.

It just doesn't have enough substance to stand out on it's own.

Unless you fancy yourself a hardcore DC comics fan, you'll find little to hold your interest in DCUO in its current state after the first several hours of gameplay.

If you're masochistic and don't mind awkwardly paced gameplay, you may actually enjoy Uprising. For everyone else, playing this game feels like paying someone $15 to punch you in the face over and over again.

I can certainly think of worse ways to spend your time, but that list would pale in comparison to the staggeringly long catalogue of better ways.

I can certainly think of worse ways to spend your time, but that list would pale in comparison to the staggeringly long catalogue of better ways.

Superhero games should make you feel what it's like to step into the shoes of someone special. They should let you experience what it's like to wear the cape, strap on the belt, and feel power flowing through your veins. In short, the best superhero games make us feel extraordinary...Captain America: Super Soldier is anything but.

Superhero games should make you feel what it's like to step into the shoes of someone special. They should let you experience what it's like to wear the cape, strap on the belt, and feel power flowing through your veins. In short, the best superhero games make us feel extraordinary...Captain America: Super Soldier is anything but.

Feels like that blatantly annoying contemporary relative -- a sort of unironic Ali G.

Feels like that blatantly annoying contemporary relative -- a sort of unironic Ali G.

It's shame that this port has been borked so badly; I don't think No More Heroes found the audience it needed on the Wii, and Heroes' paradise isn't going to do this franchise any favors.

Average at best, and a shining example of a control scheme struggling to find its strengths in a full game.

Just a bad shooter in its bones. Whether the cops or the robbers win a matchup is still mostly dependent on who gets there first and camps out with line-of-sight to the objective. Lack of locational damage means hitting someone with a sniper shot is going to make them half dead whether the bullet hits someone in the face or the ankle. Other than the tweaks mentioned earlier the vast litany of complaints we had about the game the first time around still stands.

Most importantly, though (especially for fans of the PC Fallout), you've got an RPG without any sort of enticing story.

This could have been the best Virtual-On ever, and instead it's easily the worst.

This game attempts to combine the best aspects of serious tactical shooters like Flashpoint with the run-and-gun action of the Battlefield series, but does neither very well. [40 = original score]

The selection of missions is a little sparse, and the game demands a near-perfect performance to unlock extra content, but that's far less of a problem compared to a control scheme that just isn't any fun.

Edited down to a tight package this could probably make a pretty good machinima feature (or Sci-Fi original motion picture for that matter). But as a game, it fails.

A tired, sluggish, and uninspired action adventure that would have barely cut the mustard six years ago on PS1.

It quickly degenerates into as absurd a mess as four turtles that are supposed to be ninjas with a rat for a sensei sounds like on paper. As Michelangelo might say, "cowabunga dudes, this is one gnarly game wreck."

It quickly degenerates into as absurd a mess as four turtles that are supposed to be ninjas with a rat for a sensei sounds like on paper. As Michelangelo might say, "cowabunga dudes, this is one gnarly game wreck."

The derivative nature of the plot goes hand-in-hand with the completely unimaginative gameplay. Nothing here is original -- the RPG-in-a-computer gimmick is straight up .hack, and the action feels like martial arts-oriented Mega Man Legends.

The game's multiplayer and arcade modes are both valiant attempts at providing replayability, but neither are varied or deep enough to keep anyone but the most frantically bored or underexposed gamer entertained for longer than five minutes.

Now what are you waiting for, a medal? You'll only get that if you survive, marauder -- if you can survive the tedium of never-ending waves of bugs and repetitive missions.

Lockdown got rid of everything that made its predecessors stand out and kept the bad A.I. and even worse backstories. Even without the burden of living up to its predecessors, Lockdown is -- at best -- a generic shooter with pretensions at realism.

The back of the box declares that it's "fast action fun!" Believe us, and believe our young friend Ethan -- Pokemon Dash is not.

The venerability of these selections combined with the substandard interface (exiting out of a given game is performed inconsistently and tends to be very confusing) and paltry selection of titles makes this one you can skip over without losing any sleep.

Ultimately, you'll be much more satisfied playing "2K6" instead or even EA's "NCAA March Madness 2006" for basketball purism.

Underneath the frustrating instability, behind the graceless chat window, and beyond the procession of NPC dialog boxes, you tickled that deep primordial need to gather more stuff and get stronger. Loot and leveling are the essence of any RPG, and you're equipped to satisfy that jones.

It's quickly clear that Dark Messiah is a "Half-Life 2"-style rail ride, but with "Deus Ex"-style character development.

Paradise in a word? Dull. Paradise in two words? Paradise lost. Paradise in a sentence? Paradise is comparatively like anywhere you aren't when playing this game. For old-school pointy-clicky-adventure fanatics only.

As a budget release, Renegade Paintball is a bit more robust than you would imagine, but the buggy gameplay, along with several more oddities will be quick to remind you that yes, this is yet another half-baked budgetware title to forget about.

Besides some nice CG work in the occasional cinematic, this is just a tepid return to mediocre series filled with potential never realized.

Genki's seeming inability or unwillingness to fix the slidey physics even a little bit keeps each game from greatness. Hardcore TXR fans will likely cry foul at that remark, but anyone who wants their virtual racing to at least slightly resemble the feel of real driving will feel the same way.

The extremely limited multiplayer system, the frustrating and ill-conceived "follow the blue dots" gameplay, and the hackneyed control scheme make playing through From Russia With Love like going toe-to-toe with a giant blond boxer as your country's fate is on the line -- stressful, with a likelihood of receiving brain damage.

There are some really cool ideas here that belong in a better game: the tech tree, the random encounters, command ratings, and the shipbuilding, for instance.

Ubisoft's work here leaves Astonishia as little more than another could-have-been, doomed to mere mediocrity. PSP fans have been waiting a year for a great RPG...sorry, guys, this ain't it.

It's a shame that Metal Saga's high points -- the humor, the music, and its relative freedom -- are mired in disappointing production values and a concept that hasn't improved since the series' 8- and 16-bit days. It's droll and "different" -- but it's so different, it's the same.

Other than the exclusive ArchLord gimmick, we're left with a dated-looking game with limited classes and a lot of grind, and a miniscule chance of something cool at the end if you really throw yourself into it. Not exactly our cup of mead.

What's worse is that even if game design and locations fail to excite, then a good combat system could salvage the whole package. But again, Dirge fails to capitalize.

The only thing that makes RF Online stand out is its unique art and setting, and that doesn't count for a lot when the game world and background story has the depth of a kiddie pool.

To be fair, Dark Kingdom doesn't have any single game-destroying flaw, except perhaps for that murderous bastard camera. It's an average, if occasionally very frustrating example of a genre that's abundantly represented on other platforms.

It has a few fun moments, but for the most part Winback 2 is an utterly unremarkable game, except perhaps in that despite all the gunplay, it's completely bloodless.

The real problem with Brooktown, though, is that your progress seems totally scripted, requiring no actual effort or skill.

While the uninspiring adventure mode is excusable, the camera and the framerate problems are not; those two factors break the game.

A triumph of botched execution, with almost every element it introduces to the game serving to undercut it.

The majority of the environments are quite sparse, with few buildings yet plenty of fog to help hide the fact that the draw distance here isn't that spectacular. The lack of vision also doesn't help when you're traversing the grassy plains and trying to get a read on your enemy's position.

There's a thin line between awful and pointless, and Night Watch manages to wobble like a poorly spun top right in the middle, sporadically teetering too far into awful before righting itself, then drifting over to pointless territory. Again and again and again.

As neat as the touch-screen controls are, they don't take attention away from the rest of Freedom Wings' faults. The whole thing feels like a 1990's shareware PC game; it loves to dole out its action in small chunks.

If only half of the verve present in the swooping camera zooms and snazzy editing of the cut-scenes had managed to jump to the five hours or so of actual playtime, this might have been a pretty cool game.

If this were a $20 budget title, then it'd be worth a purchase. But at the Xbox 360 standard $60 at the register, there's no way you should bother with Import Tuner Challenge. Wait for "Need For Speed Carbon," instead.

Unfortunately, all these mild enjoyments delineated above are ruined by the bugs that crawl throughout this game. One bug wipes out all the cargo on your ship every time you set sail. Another prevents merchants from buying or selling anything. A third cuts off a minor side quest.

If your fetish for black gold is such that none of these problems dissuade you from getting one of the few games ever made on the oil business, you'll find a decent selection of scenarios, a free play mode, and even multiplayer. The rest of us should simply avoid the title and use the savings for gas money.

It's kind of a cakewalk. You won't feel pressed to utilize just the right combos for a given situation, and health boosts are generously doled out. Even the highest difficulty is pretty forgiving.

AC4 feels like a house that's been added onto so often that it's a maze of twisting passages, oddly shaped rooms, and doors that go nowhere. There may be something worthwhile hidden within, but it's not worth the effort to find it. Time to tear it all down and start over.

AC4 feels like a house that's been added onto so often that it's a maze of twisting passages, oddly shaped rooms, and doors that go nowhere. There may be something worthwhile hidden within, but it's not worth the effort to find it. Time to tear it all down and start over.

Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2 is what happens when you tinker too much with a perfect formula -- and not in the name of improvement. This is the Dead or Alive that, quite frankly, critics of Team Ninja have been hoping for -- a soulless, poorly executed title slathered in truly shameless fan service that not even those who would use it for dirty deeds could force themselves to sit through. It's as ridiculous as the individual breast physics that it entails.

Yep, if it's in this Medal of Honor, it's been in one before. Only this time out it feels more like leafing through a series of postcards sent from someone playing through a real Medal of Honor game.

Speaking of being taken seriously, the AFL needs more help in the future from EA. This could eventually become a great series, a mix between Madden and Blitz -- but right now it's just $30 you shouldn't spend.

Poorly made platformers were a big part of the 8- and 16-bit eras, too, so maybe things are just coming full circle. Fortunately, most of us still remember how not to spend our money on crap like this.

While it has few specific flaws, I can only recommend Loki to lovers of endless reward-based level grinding to the exclusion of all other play...and that market just ain't what it used to be.

Sadly, "younger players" are exactly the audience that will get the most frustrated, and with the overabundance of minigame driven experiences on the Wii, there are plenty of more enjoyable options.

The majority of the environments are quite sparse, with few buildings yet plenty of fog to help hide the fact that the draw distance here isn't that spectacular. The lack of vision also doesn't help when you're traversing the grassy plains and trying to get a read on your enemy's position.

Only a revisit after about six months will reveal whether or not Sword of the New World manages to reach its potential...if anyone's willing to wait that long.

Nintendo's portable system is the popular girl in school these days, which makes Cookie & Cream an embarrassing photo from back in junior high. Back when she had acne, braces and Coke-bottle glasses and hung out with the kids who weren't cool enough to be on the chess team. Let's put those dark days behind us, shall we?

Heatseeker manages to nail the whole "pointing the Wii Remote at the screen" thing, rather than introducing flight-combat gameplay, and as such fails to grasp the idea that you're in a damn fighter jet.

But whether you're playing online or off, you just can't shake the feeling that the PC version of Blazing Angels 2 is a messy afterthought, made all the more disappointing for wasted potential.

It's technically playable and, despite its best efforts, probably won't plunge the industry into a period of navel-gazing and political sanction. Everything else about it is largely forgettable.