The needs system may very well be the make-or-break point for several players.

The replay value is where Cold War suffers the biggest blow.

This episode seems to be lacking quite a bit as far as the storyline and length are concerned. It should supposedly last about three hours, but it seemed even shorter than that to me; much too short, actually.

My greatest issue with the expansion: there’s very little added in the way of quests and dungeons, and not that much effort was put into making them distinctive.

Overture is very short at 5-6 hours. The benefit of that is that the middle stretch isn't terribly long by any means, so in a way, Overture benefits from its short runtime.

As MMO launches go, this one was pretty smooth. Yes, there are bugs and crashes and little twitchy things that can be annoying, but for the most part everything runs well enough to enjoy.

The Sims 3 has immense potential as upcoming expansions start rolling into high gear. And that’s what you’re really buying: A game of potential.

A fairly satisfying game for the genre, and the solo campaign wraps up in an afternoon or two of play – really about all an arcade game of this type needs.

The interplay between mounted and dismounted soldiers, archers, knights, and the wide array of possible troops and equipment means that Mount & Blade has some of the coolest, most engrossing combat of any RPG ever.

A perfect example of a game I would recommend only to adventure fans. It is not polished enough, and it’s too formulaic to take someone away from their favorite genre to spend some time in the abbey looking for a murderer. However the likable characters, the great voice work and the unique atmosphere will no doubt be sufficient reasons for many to pick this one up.

In some grand, twisted irony, the multiplayer integrates itself into the fiction in a much better way than the singleplayer does.

3D is very helpful for squeezing metro stops in between buildings and examining your spaghetti mess of underground metro tunnels.

Bulletstorm is a real looker through and through.

Rift is a good game but also a perfect example of this problem – and here's to hoping that it either grows into an answer to that plight or a marker for the end of an era.

It's an interesting game. It lacks deeper mechanics and intricacies that could've given the game more layers, but it'd sap much of what makes Fate of the World such a unique product. You don't have that kind of control, because in reality, you wouldn't have it. It's hard to really knock it down for that, but at least know that this the best 7.5 game ever.

Overall, Brink is a game which could have been a genre favourite at launch, but due to some developer oversights, such as the lack of an extensive beta, the unfinished nature of the initial release have turned many potential fans away.

If you're a Tropico nut, then the idea of a few new buildings and a lengthy, engrossing campaign probably has you interested already. The only ones who might want to stay back are those who felt like they'd had enough one, or two, or three Tropicos ago.

Serious Sam 3 might not be for everyone, but it's the type of game that made first-person shooters a genre all their own, and serious – at the risk of abusing the word – gamers should absolutely give this game, if not the whole series, a serious look.

Overall, Agatha Christie: Evil under the Sun is definitely an improvement over the previous title in the series, albeit a slight one.

Everything seemed a bit too familiar.

Despite the repetitiveness and other issues I think the game is probably well suited for its younger target audience. If you’re planning on purchasing this game, though, I would highly recommend either using a gamepad or simply buying the console version instead.

Gameplay is pedestrian, ultimately annoying and not as replayable as a Sims title should be.

Psychonauts may be an excellent concept and creatively realized, but it is translated into an average game.

The game can be fun and the game can be maddening.

Unfortunately, while the game has heart, it just doesn't have the goods.

The bottom line is that Gun could have, and probably should have, been great. It's got some very good ideas, a good storyline, and excellent voice acting and characterizations. The gameplay and level design is miserable.

Another reason I like this game is because there is a number of ways to go about playing it. You can be aggressive and pick the soldiers for that, or you can be stealthy and snipe through your missions.

Graphics could be better.

The skirmishes usually don’t last very long, making this an excellent game to play for a quick fix.

The major weakness of the game is the fact that you can only save at checkpoints.

An average game, but I really like the film footage.

A snipers best dream and worst nightmare. You can be walking through the forest and all of a sudden a shot rings out and you get hit. I found a couple of times where I could not see the sniper because he was hiding behind a tree.

This game frustrates where it should rejuvenate.

I was really disappointed with this game because it has good potential and includes certain qualities that makes a great game, but fails to deliver.

Technically splendid, but lacks the soul and the focus that made its previous games such powerful experiences.

I would only recommend this game to adventure fans that are into the Agatha Christie series of novels. However, they should prepare to be faced with repetitive and secretarial tasks.

When I first started playing, I was impressed with the game, as it seemed the first real advancement since the "Diablo" genre was created years ago. After one play-through, though, I’m done with it.

An addicting strategy game that I enjoyed playing once I found the cheat codes.

Queen's Gambit is a mixed bag. The new campaigns are solid and well-worth the effort despite their obvious flaws, but the vanishingly small number of new features, weapons, and vehicles make it difficult to recommend.

It’s fun, addicting, and satisfying, but nothing about 2008 Edition makes it a substantial update or upgrade.

Guerrilla is fun, until you make a terrible discovery: it’s pretty easy.

It doesn’t have that cardboard feeling you get in certain games.

The series is greater than the sum of its parts. So, consider Requiem as not a full-fledged Penumbra game but rather a small add-on that should keep you busy and humbled for a weekend.

Fallout 3 is just mediocre. It’s bogged down by too many problems, engine issues, and poor writing to really wrestle its way into classic status.

Overall, I’m simply disappointed with Rockstar when it comes to Grand Theft Auto IV. PC gamers already get shafted with the slow GTA releases compared to the consoles. To have all the bugs at launch that it did makes me wonder what happened during the testing period. It’s also missing a lot of great features that were included in San Andreas.

The move to vibrant, fully-realized 3D hasn’t altered the formula at all.

Quotation forthcoming.

The total effect of the expansion pack is still positive (multiplayer is still fun; even the single-player has its uses) but there are a few worrying signs – the introduction of hero units and special abilities and the inward-looking nature of the entire game (SP as preparation for MP).

For ten dollars, I had enough content to enjoy myself and certainly liked it more than some of the other Fallout related DLC I have completed in the past.

Even factoring in the (token) multiplayer, Rage is a brief game in a small world, with two small towns and not much else. Despite my criticisms, the fact that I really want more says that ultimately this is a pretty good game, just with much unrealized potential.

It's a fun game that takes too long to get going anywhere, but its combat is so slick and refined that everything else around needs to step up to that level of quality. The universe of Diablo is most certainly destroyed, but the game is far from it.

I would only recommend it to the most dedicated of adventure game fans, particularly those familiar with the previous games in the series.

The soundtrack for Halo 2 is absolutely a work of art.

While no particular portion of the game stands out as truly spectacular, everything is sufficiently put-together to provide good entertainment. It’s simple fun.

Situation Comedy seems to suffer from the "more of the same" syndrome.

I don’t need to play the same game three times.

Puzzles slay the sense of urgency and tension as quickly as the killer does people.

Much of the game will simply be roaming the entire island, area by area, until you trigger some new event which will move the plot along.

If an enthralling story with atmosphere is what excites you give your local library a visit.

I think Keepsake can be appreciated by a small percentage of adventure genre lovers if players pace themselves.

My only issue with it, honestly, is that DICE hasn’t really made an effort to change anything substantial about the game in five years.

It was a fairly fun game for about the first three to four missions.

The game is really little more than a glorified browser game for which you have to shell out $6.

It isn’t a complete waste of money, although it may be a complete waste of time. The Punisher feels very old in gameplay and in graphics, and it definitely won’t find a permanent place on anyone’s hard drive.

A great game idea and an interesting story and scenario are not all that is required to make a fun game, yet that’s mostly what Bad Day LA has going for it. While McGee is absolutely worthy of the praise people heap upon him, he has allowed a game which fails to impress on nearly all levels to be released with his name on it.

The contrast between the good times and the bad works well.

I want to recommend CrimeCraft, I really do. However, with the frustrating gameplay, graphics that seem overly dated, and the game trying to do too much without doing anything well, I seriously wonder if I wouldn't have had more fun lighting cigars with the same two twenty-dollar bills I used to pay for this game.

The big problem is the dark and sparsely populated environment. The feel is more akin to running through a Shadowrun RPG than the Matrix.

It has morphed from a wide-open, somewhat abstract tactical simulation to a linear action game with squad elements tacked on. It's a sad symptom of a franchise that used to be focused on providing entertaining white-knuckle tactical shooters and is now focused on providing whatever sells best.

With a high overhead view, it is accurate to say that playing No Surrender is like playing with toy soldiers because the scale of your fighting units is small and toy-like. True enough, only this time and in this game your opponent is not some 6-year-old and the battlefield is not the bare terrain of your family room floor.

The bottom line is Rome loses its fun sometime around the ten-hour mark of the campaign.

The problem with Sins isn't that it begs, borrows and steals; it's that it combines everything improperly and streamlines it so much that it whittles away its own soul.

It’s all slick and runs flawlessly, and fans of the series will love the improvements. On the other hand, if you don’t like slow, turn-based strategy games, there’s nothing here that will change your mind.

For the most part, I’d say that the weak points overpower the few positives in Alpha Prime and because there isn’t anything that’s really new or unique and the sound ruins the intensity, I find it fairly boring. You shoot enemies, watch a cut scene, shoot some more, interact with something, repeat.

The game merits a very qualified recommendation, at least for those gamers that have the patience to deal with the growing pains one often sees with an MMO. These pains are exponentially worse here, due to it being an MMO in two relatively new genres, RTS and collectible.

You really need a lot of practice in order to be good at it (multiplayer).

So what you are left with is a harder (more grindy) retread of something you may have played twice already before.

If you're looking for the one expansion pack to play for Majesty 2, then this is it. But if you're tired of Majesty 2 already, picking this up isn't going to make you love it again.

I concede I played more than I should, enjoying the guilty pleasure.

It left me feeling frustrated and many times I found myself ranting away after quitting. The major things in need of improvement are the means by which you earn money, the levels of food consumption and production (which run low very easily), the dated graphics, and, probably the biggest thing, your people’s satisfaction.

The story might have a flicker of potential but everything else causes the game to fall flat on its face.

This game has many serious design flaws that prevent this reviewer, in good conscious, from recommending its purchase by others.

This is a weak game, and that’s all there is to it. Anyone looking to create their own Diablo-clone should take a peek just to see how to do things wrong, but most everyone else can safely pursue their hobby of being a gamer and still avoid this forgettable toy.

Despite the many warts, Eschalon is not without charm, as this game would have been an award-winning achievement in 1986 or so. Everything is done well, for that era, but, much like steam locomotives, I’m just not convinced this style really works nowadays.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, I used the word “boring” 7 times throughout this review.

The biggest problem with this game is that there is simply way too much crap in it.

Effects lacked much of a punch, and a lot of the creature designs had a really generic, evil look to them. There was no personality here, and I think the direction of a serious aesthetic didn't do it any favors.

The graphics are nice, a well-built dungeon is a sight to behold, and there's a little bit of fun here, but ultimately you'll master everything you need to know in short order and be done with this game soon afterward.

A few years ago, Empire Earth II might have made the cut for fresh and innovative gameplay. Sadly, today it's simply a retread--and a poorly executed, tedious one at that.

The driving physics are pulled from "Carmageddon 2," the on-foot control is pulled from "Ultima Underworld," the driving was pulled from the Sega Genesis version of "OutRun." There is a reason why all the games I’ve listed are five, ten, fifteen years old. . .because Driv3r plays like a game from a past generation.

Why degrade the virtual Eastern Front of WW II into less than a mediocre experience?

The bottom line is that if this game is parody, then it's a great concept executed in a somewhat middling way, and if it's intended to be fun on its own merits then it's just a bad game. A terrible one actually.

Bottom line is that on paper, this is an incredibly deep and varied game, but time and again, the reach of the programmers vastly exceeds their grasp. Even months after release, there's so little in this game that's working as intended, that only the most desperate die-hard fan of the genre should even consider this game.

Sadly Dungeon Lords was neither bug free nor addictive, which makes it a total failure and a waste of time for everyone associated with it.

First off the Solo Missions, suck. There is no suspense like in the first, and just jumps into BORING action.